Summer Reading Report

Back in July I posted what books I was reading this summer. Having now finished, I thought I'd write a few words about each of them--my book report, if you will.


The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality, by Brian Greene.

Relativity, quantum mechanics, entropy, the Big Bang, inflationary cosmology, string theory, and M-theory are all covered in this book. Greene does an admirable job of presenting highly mathematical concepts in a more intuitive way. Unfortunately, there just isn't a way to imagine more dimensions, and quantum mechanics is just not intuitive. Although I enjoyed the book, I gave up toward the end and failed to finish it. The problem is that Greene leads you through so many twists and turns that it is easy to lose sight of the the major concepts. And at the end when he turns to things like time travel and other stuff that ought to be exciting, well I was just tired of trying to keep concepts straight and remember what was covered ten chapters previously.

But don't let me discourage you because if you put in the effort to read most of the book, I think you will probably find your understanding of cosmology to be the best it has ever been (assuming you are not a cosmologist).


Death From The Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End . . ., by Phil Plait.

This is a fun book that uses all of the different astronomical ways that life on Earth could be destroyed as a hook for teaching about astronomy and cosmology. Asteroids, supernova, gamma ray bursts, black holes, and even alien attacks are all covered. It's an easy read and makes learning pretty painless. I don't think I'm giving anything away if I tell you that we are toast. It's just a matter of time.

I should also note that Phil Plait has a blog, Bad Astronomy, and is prominent in the skeptical movement.


The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography, by Simon Singh.

For pure enjoyment, I think this was my favorite book of the three. Cryptography is the kind of topic that could really put you to sleep, but Singh keeps it interesting by using history and personal stories while explaining advances in cryptography and cryptanalysis. Medieval intrigue, WWI, and WWII are each tied to cryptography, sometimes in multiple ways. For example, in WWII the Polish and British breaking of German codes generated with their Enigma machine played an important role in winning the battle for the Atlantic. Meanwhile, the U.S. used Navajo speakers as a means of encrypting messages that the Japanese were never able to break. Singh also covers the cracking of Egyptian hieroglyphics and the ancient script of Crete, Linear B.

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Betsy McCaughey Should Probably Never Be Believed Again

[This post is a little off-topic for this blog, but I can't help myself. I have no other outlet.]

Although she did not use the words "death panels" (a term that was introduced by Sarah Palin), the whole ruckus over the allegation that the health care overhaul would encourage euthanasia of seniors was started by Betsy McCaughey. She is a former lieutenant governor of New York and gained national attention when she helped to sink the Clinton health care plan.

As already mentioned, her latest appearance on the national scene came from saying the following on former Senator Fred Thompson's radio show.

And one of the most shocking things I found in this bill, and there were many, is on Page 425, where the Congress would make it mandatory -- absolutely require -- that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go in to hospice care. And by the way, the bill expressly says that if you get sick somewhere in that five-year period -- if you get a cancer diagnosis, for example -- you have to go through that session again. All to do what's in society's best interest or your family's best interest and cut your life short. These are such sacred issues of life and death. Government should have nothing to do with this.

I don't think I need to elaborate on how that claim has played out in the national discussion. It's an absurd claim that has consumed an inordinate amount of attention and scared a lot of people.

This week, McCaughey appeared on The Daily Show to explain herself--and she did not back down. You can read some analysis of the interview, as well as watch it in its entirety (which I have), here. At the end of the interview, McCaughey invoked her Ph.D. and experience reading legislation to bolster her authority on this issue. Either she or I have problems with reading comprehension.

There are problems from the very beginning. In part 1 starting at 1:43, she says regarding advance care planning consultations,

"The government prescribes what must be covered in detail, including foregoing nutrition, hydration, and even antibiotics. . . . But it does prescribe that the medical professional shall, not may, shall--must include all these issues."

Oh really? Well let's have a look at that. The text of the House bill is available here (pdf). The outline format of the bill is a little tough to follow; if you want to see it laid out in a more visually friendly fashion, see here.

OK, page 425 and 426 lay out what elements an advance care planning consultation covered by Medicare "shall" include. The elements are spelled out in paragraphs A-F. It's pretty straightforward stuff--what a living will and power of attorney is, what kind of resources are available for helping patients make decisions, the continuum of end-of-life services, the advantages of planning ahead, and so forth. No mention of foregoing nutrition or hydration, although of course they would fall within the continuum of end-of-life services.

Page 427 appears to be about how this section would apply to States, depending on State law. Anyway, no mention of nutrition or hydration.

Page 428 defines who can provide advance care planning consultation, states that an initial physical examination does not count as a consultation, and gives the circumstances under which such a consultation "may" occur more often than every five years.

Page 429 says that the advance care planning consultation can include the formulation of a "life sustaining treatment or a similar order." It then defines what elements must be included in such an order. It must (i) be signed by a physician or other approved health care provider and be in such a form that it can stay with the patient, (ii) communicate the individual's wishes for treatment, (iii) be uniquely identifiable and in a standard format, and (iv) may include advance directives.

Page 430 is where the scandal is. Remember on page 429 when it said that a life sustaining treatment order should communicate the wishes of the patient about treatment? Well page 430--referring back to page 429--suggests the kinds of things that an individual "may" include in their wishes.

‘(B) The level of treatment indicated under subparagraph (A)(ii) may range from an indication for full treatment to an indication to limit some or all or specified interventions. Such indicated levels of treatment may include indications respecting, among other items--

‘(i) the intensity of medical intervention if the patient is pulse less, apneic, or has serious cardiac or pulmonary problems;

‘(ii) the individual’s desire regarding transfer to a hospital or remaining at the current care setting;

‘(iii) the use of antibiotics;

‘(iv) the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration.’.

So there you go. That's it. The bill says that in expressing their treatment wishes, a person "may" include such items as where they want to be, whether they want antibiotics, and whether they want artificial nutrition and hydration.

McCaughey goes on to assert that page 432, which basically says that the government will measure "both the creation of and adherence to orders for life-sustaining treatment," means that you will be locked into your life sustaining treatment order. You see, according to her, physicians will be rated, in part, by the percentage of their patients that have treatment orders, and the percentage of those orders that are followed. It's unclear to me whether physicians would actually have a financial incentive to ensure that their patients have treatment orders, but given that its contents are decided on by the patient I don't see the big deal even if that is true--which I doubt. And would you want your doctor to ignore your wishes? I don't think so. But McCaughey envisions a bizarre scenario where lucid patients change their mind about their treatment options but physicians refuse to allow any changes because they have to report whether they followed through on the treatment order.

McCaughey has established a pattern of making false claims. Whatever one thinks of the Clinton health care plan, and whatever one thinks of the current health care plan, and whatever one thinks of McCaughey's motives, I hope we can come to a consensus on this: On matters of health care reform or interpretation of legislation, Betsy McCaughey should not be believed anymore.

[Now that I've had my turn, commenters may also vent their spleen--within reason of course.]

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Death Panels: Universal or Private?

A Daily Show panel weighs in on who should run death panels.




Oh, and since we're at it here is a twist on a classic.

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LDS Guys Talk Physics (and other stuff)

If you like physics, then you may be interested in a blog that popped onto my radar a few weeks ago. It's The Eternal Universe, and it's run by several BYU graduates who majored in physics. At least two All of them have gone on to graduate school.

One of the contributors is planning to explain black holes, quarks, and other fun things with an LDS audience in mind. My understanding of physics can always be improved; I'll be watching.

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Fallible Memories and Prophetic Succession

Our memories are surprisingly unreliable. I say surprisingly because they seem so real and concrete. Of course they are accurate enough for us to get by without major disruption, and most of the time there is no way to prove them wrong anyway. But sometimes they can be wrong in a big way.

Discover Magazine has an article titled "How Much of Your Memory Is True?" that discusses how our understanding of memory is changing. Part of it deals with false memories.

Even harrowing memories—the so-called flashbulb memories that feel as if they have been permanently seared into the brain—are not as accurate as we think. Less than a year after a cargo plane crashed into an Amsterdam apartment building in 1992, 55 percent of the Dutch population said they had watched the plane hit the building on TV. Many of them recalled specifics of the crash, such as the angle of descent, and could report whether or not the plane was on fire before it hit. But the event had not been caught on video. The “memory” shared by the majority was a hallucination, a convincing fiction pieced together out of descriptions and pictures of the event.

Reading this reminded me of the famous story in LDS history of the passing of the prophetic mantle from Joseph Smith to Brigham Young. After Joseph was killed it was unclear who should be in charge. A meeting was held on August 8, 1844 where both Sidney Rigdon (counselor in the First Presidency) and Brigham Young (president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles) addressed the congregation and explained why they were entitled to lead the Saints. Many people (including one of my own ancestors) said that while Brigham Young spoke he seemed to sound and/or look like Joseph, and this was taken as evidence of divine approval of Brigham Young. Unfortunately, there are no known contemporaneous written accounts of this manifestation. Even Wilford Woodruff failed to mention anything miraculous in his lengthy journal entry for the day.

Of special interest here are Apostle Orson Hyde and John D. Lee (of Mountain Meadows fame), both of whom left retrospective accounts of their experience. Elder Hyde's accounts are pretty detailed. For example, in 1869 he said,

We went among the congregation and President Young went on the stand. Well, he spoke, and his words went through me like electricity. "Am I mistaken?" said I, "or is it really the voice of Joseph Smith?" This is my testimony; it was not only the voice of Joseph, but there were the features, the gestures and even the stature of Joseph before us in the person of Brigham. And though it may be said that President Young is a complete mimic, and can mimic anybody, I would like to see the man who can mimic another in stature who was about four or five inches higher than himself. Every one in the congregation-every one who was inspired by the Spirit of the Lord-felt it. They knew it. They realized it.

I sat myself down in, the midst of the congregation, with my two wives, whom Joseph had given and sealed to me. When President Young began to speak, one of them said, "It is the voice of Joseph! It is Joseph Smith!" The exclamation of the other was, "I do not see him, where is he?"

The problem is that Wilford Woodruff's journal says that Orson Hyde arrived in Nauvoo on August 13 (he is also missing in History of the Church 7:231) and John D. Lee's own diary says that he arrived August 20--five and twelve days, respectively, after the meeting occurred.

If the written journals are correct, it appears that Hyde and Lee unconsciously created memories of the passing of the mantle based on the stories of others. Or giving them more benefit of the doubt, perhaps they transposed a later spiritual experience onto a false memory of attending the August 8 meeting. Whether the other accounts are of a similar nature is the kind of question historians worry about. My own opinion is that there was at least a core group of people who genuinely had the described experience. They wouldn't be the only ones; decades later several people reported a similar experience when Heber J. Grant followed Joseph F. Smith as Church president.

Nevertheless, the examples of Orson Hyde and John D. Lee (and maybe even Wilford Woodruff) raise questions about the nature of religious testimony and witness. Can we be confident, for example, that the scriptures do not contain any false memories? Whatever the case, these examples suggest that the line between truth and fiction can be blurry. That, and if you have a miraculous experience you should write it down quickly.


[Related post: A Case of First Presidency Amnesia.]


References:

Lynne W. Jorgensen and BYU Studies Staff, The Mantle of the Prophet Joseph Passes to Brother Brigham: A Collective Spiritual Witness. BYU Studies 36, no. 4. (1996-1997)

Richard Van Wagoner, The Making of a Mormon Myth: The 1844 Transfiguration of Brigham Young. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, vol. 28 no. 4. (1995)

Reid L. Harper, The Mantle of Joseph: Creation of a Mormon Miracle. Journal of Mormon History vol. 22 issue 2. (1996)

Thomas Alexander, Mormonism in Transition, p. 117

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