Tag Archives: Science

Little Flower, If I Could Understand

By Robin Bates | Published: April 23, 2017

In celebration of Earth Day and as scientists protest anti-science measures in Washington, Tennyson’s “Flower in the Crannied Wall” is a good poem to revisit. Tennyson holds the tiny flower as a scientist might but then honors its immense complexity.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Flower in the Crannied Wall", Alfred Lord Tennyson, religion and science | Comments closed

Rakunks & Wolvogs & Pigoons, Oh My!

By Robin Bates | Published: April 13, 2017

As gene splicing becomes more common, we need novels like Margaret Atwood’s “Oryx and Crake” to point out the dangers. By making connections, good dystopian fiction serves to wakes us up.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged disease, genetic splicing, genetics, Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake | Comments closed

Gulliver, Recommended for Scientists

By Robin Bates | Published: March 31, 2017

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s favorite book to recommend is not a book of science but Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels.” This shows him to be a very wise man.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Gulliver's Travels, immortality, Jonathan Swift, living forever, scientists | Comments closed

Using Lit to Discover Purpose in Science

By Robin Bates | Published: May 22, 2016

My Intro to Literature students, few of whom are English majors, are often startled to discover that literature understands them better than they understand themselves. Today’s post describes the encounters between two science majors and, respectively, Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality” and Kingsolver’s “Flight Behavior.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Tables Turned", Barbara Kingsolver, climate change, Flight Behavior, Humanities, Intimations of Immortality, William Wordsworth | Comments closed

Donne’s Lovers, Spooky at a Distance

By Robin Bates | Published: December 1, 2015

Tuesday Adam Gopnik makes some nice literary allusions in a recent New Yorker essay-review of George Musser’s Spooky at a Distance, which is about the history of quantum entanglement theory. Entanglement, also known as non-locality and described by Einstein as “spooky at a distance,” claims that two particles of a single wave function can influence each other, even […]