The Saunterer

Gabriel Popkin on: Should the categories for Nobel Prizes be increased?

    Gabriel Popkin wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times (October 3, 2016):

    As wonderful as it is to advance physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, it’s at least as wonderful to tackle environmental problems, predict natural disasters, demystify how species interact, and educate a population to grapple with complex and important scientific topics. The Nobel organization should take a bold leap into the present and shine its bright light more widely—and unshackle itself from a 19th-century vision of what makes good science.

    For a brief biography of Gabriel Popkin, click here. For images of or relating to Gabriel Popkin, click here.

Samuel Johnson on the risk in projects

    If you insist on doing only sure-thing projects, you will never do projects. Samuel Johnson:

    Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome.

    (Quoted from page 221 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of Samuel Johnson, click here. For images of or relating to Samuel Johnson, click here.

Ayelet Rose Gottlieb on the curative powers of art and music

    As Ayelet Rose Gottlieb explains,

    I think art and music have a healing quality. Through art you can detangle politics and just look at the essence of a person or an experience and consider our shared and universal experiences. That’s important to me.

    (Quoted from page 63 of Freedom of Expression: Interviews with Women in Jazz, by Chris Becker. Beckeresque Press, 2015.)
    To hear Ayelet Rose Gottlieb singing, click here.
    For information about Ayelet Rose Gottlieb, click here. For images of or relating to Ayelet Rose Gottlieb, click here.

Wallace Stevens on the ingredients of a proper life

    The ingredients should have the following properties, he says:

    What does not have a kinship, a sympathy, a relation, an inspiration and an indissolubility with our lives ought not, and under healthy conditions could not have a place in them.

    (Quoted from page 297 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of Wallace Stevens, click here. For images of or relating to Wallace Stevens, click here.

Charles Horton Cooley on loving the responsible cause

    What he says goes for art too:

    We should not care for the cathedral if we did not sense the quarry behind it.

    (Quoted from page 196 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of Charles Horton Cooley, click here. For images of or relating to Charles Horton Cooley, click here.

John Muir on the music of Nature

    What did John Muir hold dearest? The opposite of what Donald Trump and his Cabinet appointments hold dearest. Trump could not have said the following:

    Music is one of the attributes of matter, into whatever forms it may be organized. Drops and sprays of air are specialized, and made to plash and churn in the bosom of a lark, as infinitesimal portions of air plash and sing about the angles and hollows of sand-grains, as perfectly composed and predestined as the rejoicing anthems of worlds; but our senses are not fine enough to catch the tones. Fancy the waving, pulsing melody of the vast flower-congregations of the Hollow flowing from myriad voices of tuned petal and pistil, and heaps of sculptured pollen. Scarce one note is for us; nevertheless, God be thanked for this blessed instrument hid beneath the feathers of a lark.

    (Quoted from page 340 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of John Muir, click here. For images of or relating to John Muir, click here.

Thomas Henry Huxley’s precepts on education

    We were fortunate to have gone through schools with teachers that put Thomas Henry Huxley’s precepts to the test:

    Let every child be instructed in those general views of the phenomena of Nature . . . a general knowledge of the earth, and what is on it, in it, and about it. The child asks, “What is the moon, and why does it shine?” “What is this water, and where does it run?” “What is the wind?” “What makes the waves in the sea?” “Where does this animal live, and what is the use of that plant?” And if not snubbed and stunted by being told not to ask foolish questions, there is no limit to the intellectual craving of a young child; nor any bounds to the slow, but solid, accretion of knowledge and development of the thinking faculty in this way. To all such questions, answers which are necessarily incomplete, though true as far as they go, may be given by any teacher whose ideas represent real knowledge and not mere book-learning; and a panoramic view of Nature, accompanied by a strong infusion of the scientific habit of mind, may thus be placed within the reach of every child of nine or ten.

    (Quoted from page 305 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of Thomas Henry Huxley, click here. For images of or relating to Thomas Henry Huxley, click here.

Chandra Prescod-Weinstein on criteria for deciding who gets Nobel Prizes for science

    Might it be that the best science really does come from white and Asian men, for they are awarded most of the Nobels? Or does Chandra Prescod-Weinstein’s sarcastic comment contain a truth?

    Eventually, it becomes hard to take the selections seriously, because we have no idea what factors are taken into consideration, except that somehow, it ends with only white and Asian men receiving the prize.

    (Quoted from “Are the Nobel Prizes Missing Female Scientists?,” by Jesse Emspak, Live Science, October 5, 2016.)
    For a brief biography of Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, click here. For images of or relating to Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, click here.

Daniel Kahneman on how the creative process works

    Daniel Kahneman, who with Amos Tversky spent years together researching how people make decisions, came to this conclusion about the creative process of researchers:

    The way the creative process works is that you first say something and later, sometimes years later, you understand what you said. And in our case it was foreshortened. I would say something and Amos understood it. It still gives me goose bumps.

    (Quoted from the article “How Do We Choose What We Like,” by David Brooks. The New York Times, November 25, 2016, page A25.)
    For a brief biography of Daniel Kahneman, click here. For images of or relating to Daniel Kahneman, click here.

John Muir on the music of Nature

    What did John Muir most love? The opposite of what Donald Trump most loves. Trump could not have said the following:

    Music is one of the attributes of matter, into whatever forms it may be organized. Drops and sprays of air are specialized, and made to plash and churn in the bosom of a lark, as infinitesimal portions of air plash and sing about the angles and hollows of sand-grains, as perfectly composed and predestined as the rejoicing anthems of worlds; but our senses are not fine enough to catch the tones. Fancy the waving, pulsing melody of the vast flower-congregations of the Hollow flowing from myriad voices of tuned petal and pistil, and heaps of sculptured pollen. Scarce one note is for us; nevertheless, God be thanked for this blessed instrument hid beneath the feathers of a lark.

    (Quoted from page 340 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of John Muir, click here. For images of or relating to John Muir, click here.