Creation, the Universe and Everything

This week the DACC Library Lines takes a look at the origin of everything, by taking a look at the what various realms of knowledge have to tell us about the creation of the universe and the origin of existence, and how those realms of knowledge co-exist with one another.

Science

Science has long investigated the way that universe came into being. For a simple straightforward explanation of the big bang theory, the widely accepted scientific theory about the origins of the universe, as well as ways in which the theory has evolved and where there are problematic elements, see NASA's WMAP Introduction to Cosmology web site. One of the best overviews of the recent discoveries and research can be found on the PBS Nova: Origins web site, which includes a timeline of the history of the universe as well as the one hour section of the program available as online video Back to the Beginning that chronicles and explains the current thinking. NASA's web site offers information on several missions and discoveries related to elements of universal history on its Universe web site. NASA to Probe the Universe's First Moments shows how the space agency is building an instrument that will enable them to investigate the origins of the universe. Although it is no longer being updated (since 9/09), the archived web site Universe Forum, hosted at Harvard University, offers lots of clear and comprehensible information about the big bang, the earth's place in the cosmos, black holes and dark energy. And to get a sense of both scope and time, check out the Digital Universe, available for both viewing and download from the Hayden Planetarium.

Creation stories

But science is not the only source people turn to for information regarding the origins of the universe. Traditionally religion has fulfilled this role by constructing stories to explain the creation of the earth and heavens. History World offers an overview of creation stories from China to the Hebrew Bible, beginning with a short discussion of common themes and motifs. View a flash animation of a wide range of creation accounts in The Big Myth video. Joseph Campbell was probably the most well known scholar of mythology, the realm of study which intertwines with religion and so has much to say about recurring thematic concerns of the type found in origins and creation accounts. You can get an insight into his thinking on these issues on the site Myths-Dreams-Symbols. Providing an interesting view into the intensity of interaction between religion and science in the area of origins is an essay on the Joseph Campbell Foundation web site by Karl E.H. Seigfried, "Stephen Hawking: The Myths and the Critics", in which he explores the furious outrage that greeted Hawking's new book The Grand Design in which the physicist dismissed the need for creator.

Genesis

Of particular interest to the majority of people in the United States is the Biblical story of Genesis. But like any textual source, Genesis is open to interpretation. A critical interpretative issue in this regard is the question of the Earth's age. Religious Tolerance provides an explanation of the various interpretations of the controversy regarding the difference between Young Earth and Old Earth creationists and scientists. Jason Lisle, who is appearing on campus this week courtesy of the Power House Christian Ministry student organization, represents the Young Earth contingent -- those that believe the earth was created by God approximately 6,000 and no more than 10,000 years ago. Connected with AnswersinGenesis.org, one of the leading Young Earth organizations, Lisle's particular area of expertise is astronomy. He is the planetarium director for the Creation Museum. He has published extensively in the creation research press, including his most recent article, Anisotropic Synchrony Convention: A Solution to the Distant Starlight Problem. The problem of light from stars so far away as to precede the Young Earth creation date is THE problem for astronomers in this field and Lisle has previously addressed it in Distant Starlight and Genesis: Conventions of Time Measurement, writing under the name of Robert Newton. (Young Earth scientists of note have felt pressured, according to AnswersinGenesis to write pseudonymously to avoid undue criticism from professional colleagues.) He responded to the PBS Origins programs in two essays, here and here. For a general view of the scientific community's response to Lisle's latest article, see the Sensuous Curmudgeon's blog entry: Jason Lisle's Instant Starlight Paper.

Despite what some on both sides of the religion/science debate would assert, there are many who comfortably inhabit both realms. Reasons.org is an example of organization that both accepts scientific discovery while also affirming the Christian faith. And several thinkers believe that Buddhism and western science are compatible to greater or lesser degrees, although there has also been criticism of this position. Hinduism's relationship to science is more complex, much like Judeo-Christianity's, but it does have a long history of embracing scientific discovery that is largely unknown in the West. Modern Islam's relationship with science is perhaps the most contested, next to Christianity's. This article from Discover Magazine explores the way that Islamic fundamentalism filters current scientific thought in much the same way Young Earth creationism preconditions the perspective of its adherents. Compare for example the latest issue of Islam & Science with Answers Research Journal. This article from Middle East Forum puts Islam in a historical context to examine the current state of the scientific/religious divide. But Islam does not have a single voice anymore than Christianity or Hinduism do. And Muslim-Science.com provides an online space in which those concerned with finding the compatible spaces between the realms can exchange ideas.

Ban A Good Book Lately?

The last week in September is the one set aside by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the Association of American Publishers to draw attention to the issue of of book censorship through Banned Books Week. The DACC library has set up a display to raise awareness of the issue in the hallway in Clock Tower. The display shows copies of each of the 10 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2009 as well as focusing on an especially current hot topic: book burning.

Burning books is the ultimate method of attempting to control history and controversial or opposing ideas -- literally scorching them from the face of the earth. When asked about people who burn books, we in the United States typically think of the Nazis and the great public bonfires of books they held prior to World War II (as documented in this University of Arizona Library online display). But book burning has happened on many occasions since then as well. Some of the more famous, or infamous, incidents are detailed in the article from the CBC.

People in the United States often like to think that we don't engage in such things, but actually there have been several popularly supported book burnings in U.S. history. The one with arguably the farthest reaching consequences was crusade against and mass burnings of comic books in 1948. The attack on comic books as degenerate literature virtually destroyed the industry, which had been robust with the success of Superman, horror and crime comics previously. It would be decades before the industry regained any real legitimacy, and it is only with the development of the "graphic novel" that adult readers have begun to recognize the form as an acceptable reading alternative. Another incidents that enjoyed significant support in certain sections of the population were the removal of works identified as "pro-Communist" by Roy Cohn and David Schine, Joseph McCarthy's primary aides, from U.S. State Department libraries. Authors and works swept under this heading included everyone from Dashiell Hammett, the creator of detective Sam Spade, to Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Some librarians went so far as to burn the suspect authors.

So just for fun to celebrate this week, test yourself with Banned and Challenged Books Quiz which asks you to guess whether particular books were merely challenged (the much more common action) or actually banned.

Lots of E-Resources to Explore

After a long hiatus, Library Lines returns to promote the new electronic content that the library has to offer DACC users. Just a reminder: in order to use any of these electronic resources from off-campus, users will need to provide their DACC user ID and password for authentication prior to accessing the database or electronic publication. If you have trouble using these while off campus, please notify the library so we can trace the source of the difficulty.

Users have several new resources available to them this fall. One of the most useful acquisitions for many will be Facts on File's World News Digest. This flagship publication provides DACC users with more than 70 years worth of national and international news, as covered in the print publication of the same name. Combined with Facts' Issues and Controversies databases, World News Digest can provide an extraordinarily rich tool for those working on speeches or hot button issues. In addition to other points of access, users can quickly locate these three databases together under the Quick Speech Topic Information Link on the Find Articles page.

Another new Facts on File database that is available to users is American Women's History Online. This resource gives users the opportunity to explore every aspect of women's experience in the United States, from Native American pre-colonial women's culture to present-day issues of work, politics, family and faith.

Like Facts on File, the ABC-CLIO social studies cluster of databases saw a significant boost in content this fall. Two additional databases make this resource collection even more useful. World at War provides outstanding content related to the history of wars across the range of human history and from around the globe. Analytical essays are combined with primary documents, overviews, and short subject specific essays on events and individuals.

The other new resource in the ABC-CLIO social studies cluster is the American Government database. This tool offers users detailed analysis of the workings of the U.S. government as well as thoughtful essays in a section entitled Idea Exchange that connect the larger context of the government's structure to current and enduring issues. Briefer sections addressing general topics of state and municipal government are also included.

Fans of EbscoHost will also notice a change in the database lineup. After some calculation and discussion with faculty, the American Psychological Association's PsycArticles, which added only 60+ journals to our online selection, and replaced it with PsychBooks, an online eBook collection of the books published by the American Psychological Association and other major publishers. The database contains more than 30,000 chapters from more than 2000 books as well as the APA/Oxford Encyclopedia of Psychology. More than 1500 classic works of psychology are also included in the database.

And finally, of special interest to DACC faculty and staff, a reminder that the Chronicle of Higher Education is now available to them online (with access to the complete archive as well), courtesy of the library.

New Hours & Journal Databases

New Hours!

The library's hours are changing. Effective March 1, 2010 the library will open at 7:30 Monday through Friday and will close at 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 5 p.m. on Friday. The library will no longer have Saturday hours. Students who need access to a computer lab on Saturdays will be able to use LH 204. As always, a significant portion of the library's resources are available to students, faculty and staff via the internet. They can select an online resource and log on using their DACC user i.d. and password.

JSTOR Available!

The library has added renowned journal archives JSTOR to the electronic resources it makes available to students. For users familiar with JSTOR, its contents are made available to libraries in "collections" based on subject matter. Its contents also exist behind a "rolling wall," meaning that the most recent years of journals are not included, but years are added as time progresses. DACC students will be able to search JSTOR for journal articles in music, the performing and cinematic arts, literature, religion and art. This collection complements other academic journal resources the library provides, which include access to a majority of the journals published by Sage and Elsevier (although we do not get the entire Elsevier backfile only the most recent 15 years of most publications). Our subscriptions to these publisher databases provide the DACC community with direct access to a significant amount of premium publisher content. Many additional journals can be accessed via the aggregated databases, such as EbscoHost, which will will also link users to those articles from the publisher databases that are merely cited in the original database with the aid of the Find It! links. But users should realize that not all of the journals in the publisher databases are indexed in any given database, so searching a publisher's database as well can often prove useful or even faster depending upon the user's needs. For help with JSTOR or any library database or tool like Find It!, contact the Reference Desk x739.

E-Resources: What's New

The library is pleased to provide access to several new online resources beginning this January. Two of these add sections to a resource to which the library previously had partial access, The American Mosaic. This resource provides users with a sense of America's multicultural diversity. Previously the library subscribed to the Latino American Experience portion of the American Mosaic, but the DACC community now also has access to the other two sections as well: the African-American Experience and the American Indian Experience. Each section can be searched separately or all three can be searched through the single Mosaic interface. This database offers users the opportunity to investigate artistic, political, historical, sociological, and pop cultural aspects to each culture as well as to the cultural overlap. The more than 600 Greenwood and Praeger e-books provide high-quality research information for users.

In addition to the American Mosaic, the Library is pleased to offer DACC users access to the Springer Medical Research e-Book Collection. This collection of more than 3,000 e-books from Springer includes more than 100 titles published in 2010 alone. The titles will be added to the library's online catalog when we get the necessary information, but in the meantime, users can go to Springer's site, click on "Medicine" on the right hand side of the screen and then "Books" on the right hand side of the screen and then put their search term in the box to look for material in the collection. This will enable them to search the full-text for all possible references. Take care to limit your search to "Within these results" to prevent searching all Springer titles, because there are a lot of things we do not subscribe to.

The library will soon be getting access to part of JSTOR's journal collection, but that has not been completely set up yet. The selected collection features titles in literature, music, art and architecture, religion, folklore, film and the performing arts. We'll let you know when the journals becomes available.

Cool Tools Holiday Edition

Just in time for Christmas and the end of the semester, when you'll have a little time to play around with new technology over break, it seems like the perfect moment for a round of Cool Tools -- nifty technology you can use to make your work and home life fun.

You may remember Wordle from the presentation at in-service. It's the online "toy" that lets you take any text and turn it into a word cloud that illustrates which words are used most frequently. Here's an example I made of Twas the Night Before Christmas done as a Wordle. (Just a note: if you browse the gallery you will necessarily observe the tendency of people to use any tool of this sort to broadcast obscenities in big letters...) If you'd like ideas of how you might incorporate Wordle into your work, take a look at this list in The Clever Sheep, or this one at Ask Dr. Kirk (which offers suggestions that reflect a workplace rather than the classroom).

Draw Anywhere is an online graphics program that you can log into from anywhere to access your flowcharts and diagrams. Rather than storing, saving and transfering files, you can share them with others over the internet and access them publicly. You can also link charts or diagrams to your web page and then change them as needed with minimal effort or enable others to make changes to them. While you can get a free account that enables full functionality but limits user access, output and security, real flexibility comes from the $30/year account.

GoogleNewsTimeline is a new Google App that lets you manipulate various elements of Google's news features to create a timeline of recent events. You can, for example, put in the name of an important individual, such as the president, and have it highlight news stories for him over time. A great way to follow how rapidly changing stories develop, or to see how particular countries appear in the news.

For something truly on the fun side, play around with Voki, an avatar generator that lets you create animated avatars that speak. You can get the code to publish an avatar to your web page to introduce yourself to your students in a fun way as an anime character or have them use them to record foreign language or vocabulary practice.

And what may be one of the most broadly useful applications, Glogster, lets users create online posters that can incorporate multimedia elements. The "glogs" can then be incorporated into blogs or wikis. The Glogster site offers several examples of the kinds of things that are possible with the tool. Students can create an online poster session, or you can create posters to attractively illustrate key concepts or ideas.

During spring in-service, the library will offer faculty and staff an opportunity to learn how to create and use wikis. This session will take place during the Faculty prep time so keep an eye out for further details. Wikis are one of the simplest and yet most powerful and effective tools available. They are perfect for creating collectively developed work of any sort, from class group projects to quick answer manuals for dealing with those questions people in your department must respond to frequently and you want to make sure everyone knows what the current information is. They are an ideal software for teams to use to develop ideas as well, as changes are recorded. Here is a good video from CommonCraft on TeacherTube that explains the concept of wikis in a fun way.

Vaccines -- Digging for Data

Many parents are concerned about the safety of vaccines these days, especially the influenza and the MMR vaccines. So it seemed like a good time to offer some solid sources of information on this timely topic.

Before examining the vaccines themselves, it's worth taking a look at the illnesses these vaccines target. Vaccine safety has become an issue because this country has not experienced any outbreak of life-threatening childhood disease since the eradication of polio. The last few polio survivors are now so elderly and the disease is so unknown that almost all physicians in this country are unfamiliar with its treatment. NPR told the story of one 73-year-old physician and polio survivor who has specialized in the disease and feels unable to retire because there is simply no one to replace him. Few people can remember the terror produced by the annual return of polio when parents would fear for their children's lives. Each year new children would add to numbers in wards those encased in iron lungs or left paraplegic by the disease. Even fewer can remember the Great Influenza Outbreak of 1918, which devastated whole families in many areas of the country. We even tend to forget that measles is not "just some childhood disease" but remains a leading cause of death in young children in areas of the world where significant populations are not immunized. We live, whether we acknowledge it or not, in a very healthy time and place. For an even greater sense of this, check out the 10 Worst Epidemics on HowStuffWorks.

Our overall health has allowed us to focus on the potential risks of vaccines rather than the diseases for which they were developed. This is the focus of Amy Wallace's article in Wired, for which she has received a lot of villification as well as support. As she discusses in the article, much of the difficulty for science in the discussion is the difficulty scientists have talking in absolutes. It operates in a world of probabilities and numbers, worlds in which people are often uncomfortable -- but which continue to support the value of vaccination. For example recent studies underscore the importance of pregnant women receiving the flu vaccine. While the World Health Organization, which tracks measles deaths around the world, which many in the U.S. might be surprised to know numbered around three quarters of a million in 2000 dropped by 74% by 2007 strictly as a result of vaccination programs. The percentages of people choosing to take vaccines in the U.S. remain low, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control. Here is the 2008 data. The reasons people give for not vaccinating vary, as do the people who make the choice, as highlighted in this NY Times article.

Autism spectrum disorders and any potential relationship they may have to vaccines have been a chief point of concern for many parents. The CDC addresses these concerns explicitly on their site. Autism Speaks, one of the foremost autism research organizations also addresses these issues, explicitly pointing out that it fully supports immunization programs as "one of our nation's most effective programs for preventing serious infectious diseases", an issue of no less concern to parents of autistic children. At the same time, it takes parents concerns about possible links between autism and vaccines seriously and continues to support research exploring possible links between specific genetic and environmental links (such as vaccines).

Another concern expressed by parents references the number of vaccines administered to infants and young children. Again, the CDC addresses this concern. The American Academy of Pediatricians provides even more detailed information regarding the vaccine schedule and the importance of immunizing children. PKIDs, Parents of Kids with Infectious Diseases provides information garnered from the CDC about what would happen if too many people start opting out of immunization programs. This organization consists of parents who deal with the reality of the effects of infectious disease on a daily basis. But perhaps the best overall information for parents or anyone concerned with vaccine safety can be found on the site of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Vaccine Education Center. This site explains how vaccines are evaluated for safety, explains why children would benefit from vaccinations from something like hepatitis B that seems like an adults' disease and answers every other question raised in this blog as well. Now, in the name of openness, I should point out that the demon of the anti-vaccine movement, Paul Offit works at CHOP and signed off on the site's answers.

This leads to the final point. The anti-vaccine movement is largely led by a group of highly vocal advocates. The most famous is GenerationRescue and its "research arm" FourteenStudies. But these sites do not meet the standards of quality met by the others referenced earlier, despite their efforts to appear to do so. For a good analysis of FourteenStudies failure to do so, read Mark Crislip's analysis of the study evaluations on FourteenStudies on the blog Science-Based Medicine. Similarly Medical Veritas, a peer-reviewed medical journal frequently cited by vaccine opponents as a source of "good" studies, must be regarded as a fringe journal, so much so that its contents are not included in PubMed, the standard tool for medical research. (An interesting discussion of the reliability of the journal can be read on this Wikipedia editorial page.) For a look at DACC's standards of web site evaluation, see this list.