Bee Tree

Last weekend I was helping a friend cut up some trees which fell during hurricane Irene and came across this one...

I cut right through a bee's nest with my chainsaw.  Yes, the bees were still in the nest and using it.  Yes, the bees were angry.  Turns out I can run pretty damn fast - even holding a running chainsaw.

Take two quartz crystals and call me in the morning...

Well I'm obviously a geologist (at least that's what the degrees on my wall say).  I'm also a professor of Earth sciences (and chair of the math/sciences department) at a mid-Hudson Valley community college.  I'm always coy about mentioning the name of the college because I don't want anyone to think my opinions here have anything whatsoever to do with the college where I work - believe me, the administration would not want me to be an "official" spokesman for anything (you may not have noticed, but I have strong opinions about a number of things!).

Our college, like many others, has regular credit-bearing courses (like the ones I teach) as well as offering what are called "continuing and professional education" courses.  These are non-credit, non-transferable, and are taken for personal and professional enrichment (there are even some programs that lead to certificates).  There are hundreds of courses where you can learn a foreign language (or ESL), yoga, Microsoft Office, or even how to fly a helicopter among many, many other things.  The Continuing and Professional Education courses are a good thing, they offer a service to the community and bring money into the college.  I've taken a few of those courses myself.

There are, however, sometimes conflicts between the non-credit and credit-bearing sectors of the college.  Credit courses have been adversely affected by non-credit course scheduling (there are cases of credit-bearing classes being bumped out of a classroom for a non-credit course), there are concerns that non-credit courses may siphon potential students away from credit-bearing classes (AutoCAD is offered in both credit and non-credit areas, for example), and some faculty have concerns about the types of courses being offered.

What do I mean by that last point?  Let me provide a current example...

This fall, there's a new course being offered on Crystals.  That caught my eye since I teach about crystals too.  This fall, I'm teaching Physical Geology - a four-credit laboratory course on, obviously, physical geology.  Physical geology is basically the study of Earth materials and processes.  Earth materials include minerals and minerals are crystalline.

When I teach about crystals, it's in the context of lectures on atomic bonding, the geologic definition of a mineral, the different classes of non-silicate and silicate minerals, the physical properties used to identify minerals, Steno's law of the constancy of interfacial angles, different crystal habits, etc.  In other words - what centuries of scientific investigation have revealed about minerals and their crystalline forms.

There are many amateur organizations interested in mineral crystals I whole-heartedly endorse as well.  The Mid-Hudson Gem & Mineral Society is a good group of people in the mid-Hudson Valley who like nothing better than to get down and dirty searching for beautiful crystalline minerals.

So, you might be wondering, what is this Crystal course being offered by a local institution of higher education?  The entire "course" description is as follows (or you can read it here on page 64):

Learn about crystals and how they affect your chakras as well as how to use a crystals grid for healing, a crystal pendulum for scrying, and programming crystals as gifts.  Your instructor is ###.

The instructor, who goes by the title "Rev.",  is a self-proclaimed psychic who also teaches Reiki (in those classes, you "see auras, track the chakras, [and] feel blocks in the auric field") and Tarot.

So, what's the problem Steve?

Well, I should start out by saying that I love minerals.  I have many decorating my home, office, and even an agate slice hanging from the rear view mirror of my car.  Crystals are a thing of beauty and there are a few I am especially attached to and which have meaning for me.  Of course, when I'm not feeling well, I'll visit a doctor and take any prescription drugs he thinks would help.  I don't place some hematite on a string around my neck magically hoping it will make my blood pressure go down (although I believe the placebo effect is much more powerful than most people give it credit for).

I also don't really have a problem with what people believe.  I have many beliefs of my own which are not supported by science.  I do, however, have a problem when such beliefs affect others - examples include people who don't vaccinate their children endangering the public health or religious cranks who insist on teaching,  in public school classrooms, that our ancestors played with dinosaurs before the great flood of Noah.

I also don't think beliefs completely unsupported by evidence (crystal healing, for example), should be given stature by being offered as a course on our campus and listed in a catalog with the college's name and logo.  It's one thing to say "I took a course in Italian cooking at SUNY ## County Community College" or "I took a course in Pilates at SUNY ## County Community College".  It's a bit different, in my opinion, than saying "I took a course in crystal healing at SUNY ## County Community College".  Community colleges already have image problems (some people believe we have lower academic standards and are where the dumb kids go - I don't agree with this assessment but let's acknowledge it's prevalent).  We don't need to further hurt our image by offering courses, even non-credit ones, like this.  There's plenty of other stuff we can teach people that isn't nonsense.

Although, since teaching at a community college means I'm significantly lower-paid than our local local high school teachers (by far), and can always use some extra money, maybe I should offer to teach a non-credit course (the old, "if you can't beat them, join them" strategy).  Dowsing or Water Witching.  I know where there are some nice witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) trees.  I could take students there to cut a few forked branches and we can go dowse for water.  Don't tell anyone, but here in New York (especially after this summer), you can drill anywhere and hit water!

Learn the ancient art of dowsing with geology professor Steven Schimmrich.  Participants will make their own dowsing rods, charge them with psychic energy, and practice dowsing for water and mineral deposits at selected locations in Ulster County.  Saturday, October 1, 8, and 15 from 9:00 am - 12:00 pm.  $120.

Any interest?

Wait, wait, I have a better idea.  Maybe I can do crystal healing too.  I can have my clients lay down on a bed (maybe I can teach in the nursing lab) and then place crystals on them (judging by the picture below, I don't even have to pay much attention to where they're placed as long as it's symmetrical).

I won't use those New Age tumbled stones either, I'll be using real mineral crystals. Unmodified and powerful with Earth energy.  Not too hard to make up stories - "I will place this magnetite crystal, which I collected from a sacred vortex in the Adirondacks, over your third eye chakra.  Its magnetic energy will reinforce your psychic energy by clearing blockages in the flow of your chi."  A little burning sage and a nature sounds CD will set the mood.  Attractive women may need to fully undress to obtain the best benefit from crystal placement ("What, you've never heard of the yoni chakra?  It's very important to clear the flow of your prana there with this tourmaline crystal...").

Sounds a hell of a lot easier than trying teaching a room full of young adults about the difference between amphiboles and pyroxenes, doing program reviews for SUNY, and writing assessment plans for the Dean of Academic Affairs' Office.

Sometimes I really wish I didn't have ethical standards.

The Fossil Hunter

Recently read The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World by Shelley Emling (2009, Palgrave Macmillan).

It's the story of Mary Anning (1799-1847), a famous woman fossil collector from Lyme Regis, England.  Lyme Regis, a small coastal town in West Dorset, is world famous for its Jurassic Period (~145 to 200 million years ago) fossils - especially ammonites and and large marine reptiles like ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs.

I have to confess to not knowing much about Mary Anning prior to reading this book.  As a matter of fact, I had always assumed she was simply of woman who collected and sold fossils and only mentioned in textbooks because she was a woman doing something geological at a time when all geologists were men.  In other words, not very important in the history of geology.

I was wrong.

Turns out Mary Anning was quite the woman and has not been given her due in many respects.  She could have been much more too - if she wasn't living at a time when women were treated as 2nd class citizens and in a country where inbred, wealthy twits kept "lower-class" people away from educational opportunities.  She was obviously much more intelligent than many of the male scientists she worked with at the time.

Mary was born poor, of low social class, and received virtually no formal education.  Despite this, she taught herself paleontology and became one of the foremost experts on Jurassic fossils which she extensively collected outside her doorstep.

Fossil ichthyosaur collected by Mary Anning at Lyme Regis

Male geologists and paleontologist came from all over to go with Mary on local collecting trips, pick her brains and learn from her, buy her fossils, and then typically either resell them at much higher prices in London or publish what they learned without giving her any credit.

It's a great biography of an interesting, but tragic in many ways (she died relatively young of painful breast cancer), woman who lived during a fascinating time in the history of geology and who has not been given her due.

Screaming Tree

Went for a hike recently and I could almost hear this tree with upraised arms screaming at me.

Probably pissed off about the hurricane.  Then again, maybe I'm just strange.