Missouri Fossils from the Ordovician Period

I'm so glad I joined a Missouri fossil hunting group! A few weeks ago, we took a field trip to a highway crosscut near House Springs, Missouri, where we found lots of fossils from the Ordovician Period (400-450 million years ago). Finding real fossils really brings home our humble place in the much much larger scheme of things. On these photos, you'll see lots of brachiopods (they look like sea shells), crinoids (they look like plant stalks, but they were animals), bryozoans & coral.

These animals existed twice as long ago as the earliest dinosaurs. Back then, Missouri was almost entirely covered by ocean. These fossil creatures lived LONG before the existence of Pangea, the time (200-300 MYA) when the continent we now know as North America was contiguous with Africa, South America, and Europe all existed as a single continent. During the Ordivician, most of the world's land was collected in the southern hemisphere as a supercontinent scientists now refer to as Gondwana. Most creatures from this era were not fossilized, but occasionally they were suddenly covered by a mud slide under the ocean, preserving the fossils. In selected highway crosscuts, these fossils can be found.

Hint: click on the photos and then enlarge them to see a lot more detail.

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Andrew Sullivan’s Prescription for Curing our Bad Case of DEI

We've got an enormous problem with DEI. It goes completely against what all of us seek when we need the best surgeon to operate on us, the best engineer to design a new bridge or the best pilot to safely fly us home. Even though we all know this, many of us have been afraid to say this lately. It is entirely rational and humane to seek out the best qualified people to fill jobs. Full stop. Although it is often a challenge to decide who is the best qualified person for the job, there is no close competitor to basing our decisions on merit.

Andrew Sullivan succinctly articulated the way forward:

End DEI in its entirety. Fire all the administrators whose only job is to enforce its toxic orthodoxy. Admit students on academic merit alone. Save standardized testing — which in fact helps minorities, and it’s “the best way to distinguish smart poor kids from stupid rich kids,” as Steven Pinker said this week. Restore grading so that it actually means something again. Expel students who shut or shout down speech or deplatform speakers. Pay no attention to the race or sex or orientation or gender identity of your students, and see them as free human beings with open minds. Treat them equally as individuals seeking to learn, if you can remember such a concept.

I've promoted this idea throughout the Great Awokening, hearing mostly crickets or criticism from intelligent people. Countless people I know have been sitting on their hands--refusing to say what they really think. They worry, often justifiably, that saying out loud what they really think will cost them their jobs and/or their reputations.

Speaking out in favor of merit as the only basis for hiring isn't just a platitude or an emotion. Consider, finally, this excellent article setting for the many reasons for hiring solely on the basis of merit: "In Defense of Merit in Science." Here is the abstract:

Merit is a central pillar of liberal epistemology, humanism, and democracy. The scientific enterprise, built on merit, has proven effective in generating scientific and technological advances, reducing suffering, narrowing social gaps, and improving the quality of life globally. This perspective documents the ongoing attempts to undermine the core principles of liberal epistemology and to replace merit with non­scientific, politically motivated criteria. We explain the philosophical origins of this conflict, document the intrusion of ideology into our scientific institutions, discuss the perils of abandoning merit, and offer an alternative, human­centered approach to address existing social inequalities.

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No Qualified Applicants for the Job of Censor

Christopher Hitchens:

To whom do you award the right to decide which speech is harmful or who is the harmful speaker? Or determine in advance what are the harmful consequences going to be, that we know enough about in advance to prevent? To whom would you give this job? To whom are you going to award the job of being the censor?

[...]

To whom you would give the job of deciding for you, relieve you of the responsibility of hearing what you might have to hear?

Do you know anyone — hands up — do you know anyone to whom you’d give this job? Does anyone have a nominee? You mean there’s no one ... good enough to decide what I can read? Or hear?

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Vivek Ramaswamy Pulls Back the Curtain to Expose Nikki Haley’s Warmongering and Corruption

Vivek Ramaswamy harpooned Neocon Nikki Haley who, along with fellow neocon Joe Biden, now wants to spill American blood in the Ukraine, where we blew up an early peace settlement, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians. I could not hold either of them in lower respect as a result of their warmongering and war-machine corruption.

Continue ReadingVivek Ramaswamy Pulls Back the Curtain to Expose Nikki Haley’s Warmongering and Corruption