Cargo Cult Science

Many conservatives these days appear to view science in ideological terms. When science conflicts with their own beliefs, they feel it’s totally appropriate to disregard the science and stick with their beliefs.

When it comes to science, it appears these people haven’t got a clue.

I started thinking about this recently when I came across an item about relativity in Conservapedia. Apparently, Conservapedia was created under the assumption that Wikipedia had some sort of liberal bias. This isn’t my interpretation; they actually claim it.

Anyway, it appears Conservapedia – “The Trustworthy Encyclopedia” – doesn’t care much for the Theory of Relativity. According to them, “Relativity has been met with much resistance in the scientific world.” One proof of this is that “To date, a Nobel Prize has never been awarded for relativity.” Except, that is, for – “Professors Joseph Taylor and Russell Hulse, who …were awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physics, which is the only award ever given by the Nobel committee for the Theory of Relativity.”

Apparently, in Conservapedian Math, “never” and “once” are equivalent.

Conservapedia dislikes relativity so much that if you land on their page for Theory of Relativity, you’re redirected to their page Theory of relativity. How dare someone capitalize that R!

They claim that the reason we haven’t heard about this resistance is because of academic bias: “Despite censorship of dissent about relativity, evidence contrary to the theory is discussed outside of liberal universities.”

I looked for some examples of this resistance in various scientific web sites. When I learned New Scientist had a cover story titled “Why Einstein Was Wrong About Relativity,” I thought this might be an example. But this article was basically about how the speed of light is irrelevant to the Theory of Relativity, which continues to be valid:

“Einstein, the ultimate physics revolutionary, probably would have afforded himself a wry smile at the picture that is now emerging. The startling edifice of the new physics he built remains undisturbed, even as its logical foundations are being greatly strengthened.”

With no luck there, I tried the Christian Science Monitor. Given the name, I figured they’d be able to give me the Christian perspective on Science. However, it turns out they recently ran an article about the confirmation of one part of Einstein’s theory that even he thought he’d gotten wrong.

One place I did find a discussion about this so-called controversy was The American Catholic. However, the discussion was in an article titled “Are the GOP and/or Conservatives Anti-Science?” The author’s conclusions didn’t sound very supportive of the Conservapedia point of view:

The common thread behind each of the above would seem to be the view that experts aren’t to be trusted combined with the idea that the best way to determine the validity of a scientific theory is by reading a couple of articles about it in conservative magazines. I’m sure you could find examples of scientific literacy or anti-science sentiment among progressives too, but as someone with conservative sympathies I find the right-wing examples more disheartening.

The problem with conservative arguments against so-called “liberal” science is that they don’t reflect an understanding of science. Instead, they engage in what the great physicist Richard P. Feynman called “cargo cult science”:

In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas — he’s the controller — and they wait for the airplanes to land. They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land.

Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they’re missing. … It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty — a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid — not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked — to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

… In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.   –  Richard P. Feynman, 1974 Caltech commencement address

There are many things in this world that are uncertain. Instead of talking about certainties, it’s wiser to talk about things in terms of probability. For example, while it’s currently winter in upstate New York, it’s not certain that we will have cold weather. (In fact, it got up to 55 degrees today around here.) But we can say it is very likely that we will have wintry weather on any given day in January.

From that perspective, I’d suggest that any “scientific” argument that starts from the premise that science is or can be liberal or conservative is highly likely to be a prime example of cargo cult science.

And anyone who believes in such science should be prepared for the high likelihood that he or she will look as ridiculous as a guy sitting in a hut with two wooden pieces on his head for headphones, expecting a planeload of cargo to miraculously arrive out of the sky.

“Pants” on the Web

Over the past week a guy no one had ever heard of burst onto the scene, becoming a national – if not international – celebrity. He vowed to change things, and through his sudden fame he may be doing just that.

I’m talking of course about “General” Larry Platt, who appeared a week ago on American Idol and belted out his song “Pants on the Ground.”

As sometimes happens in today’s hyper-linked world, before you could say “Simon Cowell” Larry’s song became a world-wide phenomenon. People as diverse as Malaysian teenagers and Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings were soon singing “Pants on the Ground.”

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly and easily a performance like Larry’s can become such a big deal in so many different places. It reminded me of that guy Matt and his video Dancing 2008, which became a huge sensation a couple years ago.

These things are clearly a phenomenon of today’s world, and can teach us a couple of things:

1 – People from different walks of life and in different places can quickly find a common bond based on something they see and like, and

2 – This kind of thing often doesn’t last all that long. After all, whatever happened to Matt? And how many people regularly go back and look at that music video? (It’s still pretty cool though; I re-watched it while writing this post.)

So when we see some new phenomenon burst on the scene and become the talk of the nation, we need to maintain some perspective. Something that may seem like a big deal today – like, say, the results of a Massachusetts Senate race – may not be such a big deal tomorrow.

It certainly wouldn’t be wise to overreact to it.

Politics As Sport

A coworker approached me this morning clutching his copy of the NY Post. He was beaming, gloating about Republican Scott Brown beating Democrat Martha Coakley in Massachusetts’ special election for the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy’s death. While he’d never said a word when McCain and the Republicans were trounced in the 2008 elections, he was happy to talk about how the Republican Party was “coming back strong now.”

Interestingly, his manner and way of speaking were identical to office conversations about sports teams. While I’m not a baseball fan, I did enjoy it when the Red Sox beat the Yankees in 2004. Office Yankees fans didn’t have much to say back then, but after that there were times when Yankees successes were followed by similar office trash talk.

I’ve had the feeling for some time now that for at least some people the rivalry between Democrats and Republicans is very much like a sports rivalry – like that between Red Sox fans and Yankees fans. Instead of reasoned debate about important issues, we get mindless comments about teams and opponents. Check out these comments on today’s NY Post web site:

Regarding recent Yankees free agent signings -

HEY SON
01/19/2010 9:31 PM
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAA THE BEST TEAM IN BASEBALL GOT BETTER !
THAT HAS GOT TO KILL YOU SON !
28 IN 20-10 !

Regarding the Massachusetts Senate race -

LEGION57
01/20/2010 5:00 PM
Hey osama obama- prex ZERO, YOU LOSE- ahhhhaaaahahahahahahahaaaaa

Yeah, I’m sure that’s the kind of debate the founding fathers envisioned back in 1776.

It’s not surprising that politics has been imbued with the same emotional fervor – and lack of reason – as sports. After all, that is how politics is now presented by the media. But as Jay Rosen said in his piece back in 2004:

I hope other journalists confronting the political puzzles of 2004 will read James, read Adam Nagourney and Jim VandeHei and hear their defiant cry: Horse Race Now! Horse Race Tomorrow! Horse Race Forever! And I hope other journalists will ask themselves: must this go on indefinitely?

Let’s hope not. Meanwhile, I think it would help if the Democrats actually developed some new Big Ideas that would guide them in governing and help voters understand their agenda. And it might be useful to view the events in Massachusetts with some perspective and humor. (As usual, Jon Stewart has been great.)

The Value of a Liberal Arts Degree

The New York Times recently ran a story about a shift in attitudes regarding the purpose of a college education. Quoting a survey by the University of California, Los Angeles, they note:

In 1971, 37 percent responded that it was essential or very important to be “very well-off financially,” while 73 percent said the same about “developing a meaningful philosophy of life.” In 2009, the values were nearly reversed: 78 percent identified wealth as a goal, while 48 percent were after a meaningful philosophy.

I’ll admit that I was one of those in college in 1971, and “developing a meaningful philosophy of life” was my #1 interest at the time. So I have something of a bias in this matter.

I’ve also seen something of the current career orientation in person; a couple years ago I was on an alumni panel that addressed current students at my alma mater regarding what one could do with a political science degree. I was struck at the time by the way many students were focused on their career choice. They seemed to approach it with the sense that this was an extremely important question for which there were right and wrong answers, and making a wrong choice might irreparably harm their future.

This was not the way I’d felt when I was in college, and I was not alone. My class graduated in the mid-1970s, when the economy was in recession and jobs were scarce. After we graduated many of us took whatever jobs we could; my first job after college was as a photographer for Olan Mills for a year and a half. But far from damaging me, that job gave me an education in life in the real world as opposed to that of academia. It also had some lighter moments, much like this.

I’d like to say I shared my worldly experience and wisdom while on that panel, but I had a spirit of the stairs moment and didn’t have an insight until the session was over and I was on my way to my car. If I had it to do over, I would have pointed out to the attendees that in my work I generally work on a PC, design and maintain web sites, design and maintain databases, and communicate with others via email. Pretty much none of those things existed when I graduated from college; if I’d focused on learning whatever it was that preceded that technology, I would have been faced with having to unlearn it and learn the new stuff when it came along.

My college likes to say that a liberal arts degree teaches you how to think and learn. It’s not focused on getting you your first job; it’s focused on enabling you to succeed in life. This is a point that was made by the New York Times:

…Dr. Neuhauser finds the careerism troubling. “I think people change a great deal between 18 and 22,” he says. “The intimate environment small liberal arts colleges provide is a great place to grow up. But there’s no question that smacks of some measure of elitism now.”

There’s evidence, though, that employers also don’t want students specializing too soon. The Association of American Colleges and Universities recently asked employers who hire at least 25 percent of their workforce from two- or four-year colleges what they want institutions to teach. The answers did not suggest a narrow focus. Instead, 89 percent said they wanted more emphasis on “the ability to effectively communicate orally and in writing,” 81 percent asked for better “critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills” and 70 percent were looking for “the ability to innovate and be creative.”

As in so many other parts of life, people get spooked by uncertainty when looking forward to their careers. Many react by seeking out a solid, career-oriented major that will get them their first job. But the problem with such an education is that it doesn’t help you much after you get that job and the world starts changing. Then you realize that uncertainty has never gone away, but you still aren’t equiped to deal with it.

Looking back from the twilight years of my regular career life, I’m very grateful for my liberal arts education. Not only have I found it useful in my job; it has helped me develop interests (like this blog) that I can continue to pursue when I retire.

After the formal Q&A part of our panel discussion about political science and careers, a young woman came up to me with a question. She was intrigued by the Obama for President campaign and was thinking about doing some volunteer work for it. She seemed to be asking me if that would be ok career-wise. I found the question surprising, as well as a bit ironic. The surprise was that the question was asked; back in my day we just volunteered for such work, without thinking about its career ramifications. The irony was that I had volunteered for the Carter-Mondale campaign in 1976 just because I wanted them to win, but that had led to my making contacts that led to my first job with New York State.

My recommendation to her, as well as to any other college students who might come across this post? Follow your passion and what brings the best out in you, and the future will tend to work things out for the best. You may not become rich, but then there are lots of unhappy rich people around. Following what truly interests you is the best way to find personal fulfillment.

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Steve Jobs made a similar point in his Stanford commencement speech.

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The New York Times recently ran another article, this one about the value of liberal arts training in business school. They note:

…even before the financial upheaval last year, business executives operating in a fast-changing, global market were beginning to realize the value of managers who could think more nimbly across multiple frameworks, cultures and disciplines. The financial crisis underscored those concerns — at business schools and in the business world itself.

As a result, a number of prominent business schools have re-evaluated and, in some cases, redesigned their M.B.A. programs in the last few years. And while few talk explicitly about taking a liberal arts approach to business, many of the changes are moving business schools into territory more traditionally associated with the liberal arts: multidisciplinary approaches, an understanding of global and historical context and perspectives, a greater focus on leadership and social responsibility and, yes, learning how to think critically.

Fighting the System

It’s all well and good to take a systems approach to fixing systems. But it’s important to realize that the biggest obstacle to repairing a system is often ingrained in the system itself. The bigger and the more widely it’s used, the more its users are likely to resist change – even if they are the ones who demanded it in the first place.

I’ve recently been involved in coming up with improvements to the Policy System at where I work. One of the complaints we’ve heard from system users is that the current system is too complicated: among other things, it’s not clear what you have to do for internal policies as opposed to those that affect the public. (It appears that some of this confusion has come from people not reading the policy that spells out the Policy System, but that’s a whole other matter.)

My boss had an idea for simplifying the system that would have been simple and straightforward: external policies would be of one type; internal policies would be of another. The only problem was this change would have left many current policies out of synch with the new framework. When he presented this idea to the Department’s leadership, they objected to this disruption to their part of the system. Apparently, they wanted things simplified without making any major changes to the system.

This kind of reaction is not uncommon in changing systems. People have problems with parts of a system and think “there has to be a better way.” They may very well be right. But the thing about systems is that they tend to have many users who have different perspectives on what the system is supposed to accomplish.

To take the current debate over reforming the American health care system as an example, different groups of users expect different things from the current system, as well as from any new system that might eventually replace it. Patients expect it to help them stay or get healthy; doctors expect it to provide sufficient payment for their services; insurers expect to take in enough money to cover their costs and risks and still make a profit.

Swirling around this system is something else that influences the nature of the system: a cloud of beliefs, ideologies and expectations about how the world is and should be, and how the health care system should fit into that world. Some people feel a moral obligation to help those in need; others feel each person is responsible for his or her own well-being, and let the chips fall where they may. Some may feel that it’s immoral for anyone to profit off the health problems of those in need of care; others may feel that the Market is the fairest arbiter of morality, rewarding the deserving and punishing the lazy.

And under all of this is an understanding of how the system is supposed to work that’s grounded in past experience: if we get sick we should go to a doctor; if we need them we should get drugs that will make us better; and if we are seriously injured or sick we should go to a hospital. Most of us don’t question our understanding – whether we really need all the drugs we take, for example.

The end result is that even when we can see that the current system is not sustainable – that it’s overly expensive and inefficient, if not immoral – any proposed changes have to run through the gamut of our expectations, beliefs, and set prejudices for the current system.

Resistance to change in a system is natural and to be expected. The question is how do we get past this resistance?

In her book “Leadership and the New Science,” Margaret Wheatley turned to quantum physics for an answer. She drew on the fact that in the quantum world things go from a state of potentiality to one of actuality through the act of observation: an electron is both a particle and a wave until it’s measured. The act of measurement – observation – finds it as either one or the other. With this in mind, Wheatley argued that the only way to successfully create change was to get those who will have to act on a plan involved in its creation:

This is where the observation phenomenon of quantum physics has something to teach us. In quantum logic, it is impossible to expect any plan or idea to be real to employees if they do not have the opportunity to personally interact with it. Reality emerges from our process of observation, from decisions we the observers make about what we will see. It does not exist independent of those activities. Therefore, we cannot talk people into reality because there truly is no reality to describe if they haven’t been there. People can only become aware of the reality of the plan by interacting with it, by creating different possibilities through their personal processes of observation.

Wheatley went on to say “…it is the participation process that generates the reality to which they then make their commitment.”

One of the major points of debate over the past year is about President Obama “letting” Congress take the initiative in writing the health care reform bills. There have been those who have criticized the President for not just creating the legislation and then dumping it on Congress, much the way the Clinton Administration did with their health care reform bill.

But Norman Ornstein praised President Obama’s approach in a Washington Post op-ed piece, describing it in terms similar to Wheatley’s description of participative change:

How to prevail under these difficult circumstances? The only realistic way was to avoid a bill of particulars, to stay flexible, and to rely on congressional party and committee leaders in both houses to find the sweet spots to get bills through individual House and Senate obstacle courses. Under these circumstances, the best intervention from the White House is to help break impasses when they arise and, toward the end, the presidential bully pulpit and the president’s political capital can help to seal the deal.

Politicians have talked for many years about the need to reform the American health care system. Perhaps the reason why we finally have health care reform bills that passed in both the House and the Senate is that a former community organizer was familiar with the idea of getting buy-in through participation.

To successfully fix a system, you have to know how to fight it.

Fixing the System

Many of the problems confronting the US today involve systems that aren’t working properly. Examples that come to mind include financial services (the banks), the economy in general, American healthcare, the governments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and global climate change.

In the recent past the solutions offered for such problems were simple and straightforward: deregulate, cut taxes, create healthcare savings accounts, change regimes, and…well, the Bush administration didn’t really talk much about climate change. Unfortunately, these solutions didn’t solve these problems. In fact, in many cases the problems only got worse. (A prime example would be Wall Street, in which deregulation enabled the buildup of some of the problems that led to last year’s financial meltdown.)

In today’s world we need to understand that problems with systems cannot be solved by simple-minded solutions that ignore the dynamics of the system. To adequately address such problems, we need to address the system as a system.

I don’t often agree with the NY Times’ David Brooks; I’ve found he can be perceptive in identifying an issue, but then his ideology often steers him away from what I consider to be reasonable solutions. But I was intrigued by an observation he made in today’s Times:

…there are several things the government can do to improve the economic ecology.

I wasn’t intrigued by a conservative columnist actually saying the government can do something – though that can be a bit of a shocker. What I found interesting was his term “economic ecology.” I don’t think he was talking in terms of ecological economics, which focuses on the interrelationship of economics with societies and the environment. I think he was just talking in terms of the economy as a living system.

It’s not clear in Brooks’ column if the solutions he lists are from a report from President Obama’s National Economic Council that he mentioned in the column, or if they are from Brooks himself. But they do appear to be focused on ways to enhance the economy as a system, much the way a farmer might improve his fields to increase the chances of a better harvest. Rather than having to choose between government control and market chaos, the solutions Brooks lists are aimed at letting progress emerge naturally:

This sort of agenda doesn’t rely on politicians who think they can predict the next new thing. Nor does it mean merely letting the market go its own way. (The market seems to have a preference for useless financial instruments and insane compensation packages.)

Instead, it’s an agenda that would steer and spark innovation without controlling it, which is what government has done since the days of Alexander Hamilton. It’s the sort of thing the country does periodically, each time we need to recover from one of our binges of national stupidity.

In a similar vein, the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein takes a systems-based look at one aspect of America’s healthcare system: employer-provided health insurance. Specifically, Klein looks at the relationship between this insurance benefit and employee wages, and how people’s perception of that relationship can shape how they feel about controlling healthcare costs:

But health-care coverage is not a benefit. It’s a wage deduction. When premium costs go up, wages go down. When premium costs go down, wages go up. Yet workers don’t know that. In fact, the information is hidden from them. That means that cost control seems like all pain and no gain, which makes it virtually impossible for Congress to pass. It’s like asking someone to diet when they don’t realize it will help them lose weight.

Like Brooks, Klein presents a possible solution that doesn’t seek direct control of anyone’s behavior, but instead strives to increase people’s understanding of the system:

Perhaps the easiest way to dramatize the issue for workers would be to attach health-care costs to each paycheck. If employers listed the cost of health care alongside the bite taken by payroll taxes, it would be much clearer to workers that health-care coverage was coming out of their wages, not out of their employer’s largess. That, at least, could help them see the costs of the system more clearly, which is, unfortunately, something that all the congressional debate isn’t helping anyone do.

The expectation inherent in Klein’s solution is that an increased understanding of the system would lead people to see their own interest in increasing the system’s efficiency and sustainability.

With so many systems in crisis in our world today, it’s heartening to see that at least some of the solutions being discussed reflect at least some awareness of system dynamics.

The Linkage Is Blowing In The Wind

We had a beautiful November evening here today, so after work I took a walk through some area neighborhoods. After the weekend’s wind and cold, most of the leaves are now off the trees.

As I walked along I saw numerous people out raking and bagging leaves. It was interesting to notice the varying states of peoples’ yards. Some were immaculate – not a leaf was left on the grass. Others had leaves strewn about, but you could tell the yard had been raked at some point over the weekend. And then there were some yards that were covered by every leaf that had grown all season on the overhead branches.

I noticed that the borders between different yards were generally clearly defined: it was like there were lines drawn, with neat and cleared grass on one side and leaves in various states of decay on the other. These borders seemed to be a clear example of an American sense of responsibility that is inherently individualistic: “I’m responsible for mine; you’re responsible for yours.”

I understand this perspective, because that’s generally the way I’ve cleared my yard. (I’m lazy though: I use a lawn mower with a bag attachment to pick up the leaves.) The one problem with this perspective is it’s arbitrary; it doesn’t fit with the way nature does things.

And so, on days like this past Saturday, the wind picks up dramatically and gusts blow the uncollected leaves to and fro, down the street and into everyone else’s yard. And then the owners of the neat yards start thinking dark thoughts about the owners of the leafy yards: those lazy bums whose leaves have now blown onto those (until recently) neat yards.

Remember the anger expressed in those August town hall meetings on health care reform? The message was clearly “I am not my brother’s keeper.” And that would go double for people “too lazy” to pick up their leaves. And so the anger builds…

But as I walked this evening I realized those windy days serve another purpose: they  remind us that in spite of our arbitrary boundaries we are all linked together in this natural world. While we may get angry at our neighbors for not conforming to our sense of orderliness, they’re not the ones who created the leaves and dictated that they will turn and drop in November. That’s just the way nature does things. Why don’t we get mad at nature? Could it be because that sounds silly – like getting mad at the tide for coming in?

Maybe we need to realize that into each of our lives some leaves will fall…and then maybe blow around for a while. Being linked together, both as neighbors and as humans trying to live in a shared natural world, we might try being considerate of those around us and do something about our leaves. But if for whatever reason some people won’t or can’t, maybe we should just try to find the positive in the situation.

After all, the physical activity associated with leaf collection is probably good for us – especially at a dark and cold time of year when many of us are getting less exercise. And I suspect that wind is really nature’s way of tucking trees and shrubs in for the winter, with a leafy blanket around their roots to hold in moisture and warmth. (Though this blanket can cause other problems.)

So I’ll try to keep all this in mind the next time the winds blow and the uncollected leaves from the house three doors down my street come bounding into my yard. And we’ll see if that changes my perspective on those lazy bums – er, unenlightened individuals.

You Can’t Believe Your Eyes

CNN’s web site recently had a piece called “Don’t believe your lying eyes” by R. Beau Lotto. Lotto, the founder of a hybrid art studio and science lab in London called Lottolab, says that what we see is not necessarily what we are actually looking at:

Seeing lightness and color are the simplest sensations the brain has. And yet even at this most basic level we never see the light that falls onto our eyes (called the retinal image) or even the real-world source of that image.

Rather, neuroscience research tells us that we only ever see what proved useful to see in the past. Illusions are a simple but powerful example of this point. Like all our perceptions, we see illusions because the brain evolved not to see the retinal image, but to resolve the inherent “meaninglessness” of that image by continually redefining normality, a normality that is necessarily grounded in relationships, history and ecology.

He argues that this fact is a key to understanding ourselves and the world around us:

Understanding this point is I believe critical to personal and social well-being, since the typical barrier to a deeper insight into oneself and others is the overriding, but necessarily false impression that what “I” see, what “I” hear and what “I” know is the world as it really is.

While Lotto’s work appears to be just one more example of the uncertainty that seems to ripple through so much of life today, it may help us actually deal with it:

Resolving uncertainty is essential to our survival. Hence our fear of ambiguous situations is palpable — e.g., the inability to resolve sensory conflict between the eyes and ears can result in nausea (like seasickness). And yet it is only by embracing the unknown within education, science, art and most importantly within our own private lives that we will find new routes to more enlightened ways of seeing and being.

They’rrr baaack!

Back in May I had a post about the visit to Albany by the film crew for the Angelina Jolie movie Salt. Apparently Albany is a prime place these days for shooting chase scenes, because now we have a crew in town to shoot scenes for the Will Ferrel/Mark Wahlberg movie The Other Guys. While the movie is a buddy cop flick set in New York City, apparently some of Albany’s streets can serve as stand-ins in a pinch.

This movie’s different from Salt in that there’s much more shooting and crashing of cars – and buses – involved. (The only crashing I saw on the Salt set was when the driver of an SUV absentmindedly backed into a guardrail after a take.) On the first day of shooting for The Other Guys, a parking lot next to my building was filled with shiny multiple copies of different cars and SUVs, as well as a healthy supply of NYC yellow cabs and NYPD squad cars. As time goes on, the lot seems to be gradually morphing into a junkyard, with a growing variety of banged up cars and buses.

Various prop vehicles, including a tour bus that's been speared by a Chevy Malibu

Today’s shooting was right outside my office windows, so the day was occasionally punctuated by the sounds of squealing tires and the curiously roaring engine of a Toyota Prius. (I have NEVER heard a Prius sound like this one…and what’s with having a Prius in a chase scene?) Intentionally of not, it appeared the Prius made it through the day unscathed, even if it came close at times to either spinning into a curb or sideswiping some other car or truck. But that’s OK – they have three more identical red Priuses, all with primer gray right rear doors. Something tells me bad things are going to happen to at least a couple of those cars…

Lots of people gathered around the star Prius, getting it ready for the day's shooting. Note the suited dummy in the background - it's probably not going to be a good day for him either.

Much of what I said back in May still holds true – the altered reality of a Hollywood production tends to alter your perspective on everyday sights. It also can raise questions about what is “real” versus what’s just part of the movie set. A recently installed sculpture in a nearby park raised the question “was it part of the movie, or was it a new part of the park?

However this time I seem to have a new perspective on all the goings-on: a sense of deja vu. Having seen similar activities only 4 months ago, there’s not as much novelty this time around. In spite of the occasional sounds of squealing tires and automatic weapons fire, I find myself feeling a growing ennui about the whole enterprise. I feel kind of like a New Yorker trying to wade through a crowd of tourists gawking at the towering skyscrapers looming overhead; I’ve seen this all before and just want to get on with my daily routine.

It’s almost like I’m adopting a New York mindset to this pseudo-New York film shoot. Talk about movies altering our reality…

As We Are Now

This post is now also part of my new blog Dave Higgins Photography.

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From my early childhood, I remember numerous family visits to cemeteries. It wasn’t that we were abnormally morbid, or a large family with many relatives who had already “passed on.” In fact, we didn’t know any of the people whose markers we examined.

(Well, mostly. There are interesting gravestones of some family ancestors who were “murdered in a most brutal and cold-blooded manner” in New Jersey on May 1, 1843 – a story still talked about today. Miraculously, two children survived that massacre.)

Anyway, my family was doing something that’s not uncommon in New England: checking out old gravestones. Since my father had been a history major in college and his parents lived in New England, it seemed natural that we should find ourselves exploring old cemeteries, looking for memorable epitaphs and designs.

Beyond the consideration of their aesthetics, gravestones and monuments offer us windows into the lives and cultures of other people from other times. In summing up individual lives, cemetery art tells us something about what people of a certain time and place collectively valued and how they defined their lives.

Around 1980 I discovered that some modern gravestones featured something of a revival in gravestone art. Since about the start of the Industrial Revolution, gravestones mostly offered the basic facts: name, date of birth and date of death. But in the 1970s gravestones began to feature art work that told us something more about the person or persons they marked. This included images of worldly possessions or pastimes, representations of work occupations, and notes either from or to the deceased.

I took a lot of photographs of these gravestones in the early 80s, but then dropped the project as my attentions focused on other aspects of my life. Last fall, equipped with a new digital camera and visiting my sister in Texas, we explored some local cemeteries and found that modern gravestone art has flourished. I have been taking photographs of these gravestones ever since.

What are today’s gravestones telling future generations about us? And what does that tell us about ourselves? That’s what I’m exploring with these photographs.

The title of the project – “As We Are Now” – comes from part of a popular epitaph on old New England gravestones:

“Stranger pause, as you pass by. As you are now so once was I. As I am now so you must be. Prepare for death and follow me.”

My approach of photographing these gravestones in color on sunny days was inspired by a more recent observation of modern life, taken from the Beatles:

“Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes, here beneath the blue suburban skies.”

Here’s an initial sampling of photos.

Rabbits - Pittstown, NY 7/6/2009

“In every tear, there is a river of sorrow and memory. In every tear, there are oceans of love and loss.”

Enterprise - Delmar, NY 8/17/2009

Shopping Cart - Albany, NY 5/23/2009

House - Colonie, NY 5/13/2009

Fishing - Schodack, NY 5/22/2009

Cowboy & Indian - Joshua, TX 10/16/2008

Tweety as Angel - Delmar, NY 8/7/2009

The last gravestone, featuring the cartoon Tweety Bird as an angel, is an interesting contrast to early New England gravestone imagery.

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All photographs are copyrighted by Dave Higgins; all rights reserved.