The Skeptic's Leap of Faith

I’ve been reading your kind comments from the imposed seclusion my hospital bed using Nancy’s laptop computer. I first want to acknowledge how deeply moved I am at the heartfelt wishes you have so generously expressed to me; a mere fellow blogger whose face you have never seen nor voice have ever heard. I am consumed by your expressions of love and caring. For those of you who have offered me your prayers, though you know I am a non-believer; I most graciously accept your prayers as the expressions of love and compassion which I accept are offered in the spirit most meaningful to you. I thank you.

IF all goes to plan, tomorrow I will enter surgery whereby a severely damaged aortic valve will be replaced. The defective valve actually functioned longer than had been anticipated, which actually resulted in it causing more damage. Think of a bad part in your car that is still working but causing other damage as it bangs away. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, but…

After tomorrow, providing I survive, I will be in intensive care for some time. I’ll ask Kara to report my post-operative condition, or whatever outcome.

I’ve accumulated a bunch of funny “hospital stories” at this point so it would be a shame were my consciousness not to hold on long enough for me to share them in future blogs here.

Tomorrow I switch one ordeal for another, the probabilities are more in my favor than not.

Thanks to all of you who have remained in contact and shared your compassion,
~ Robert The Skeptic

I will be unable to respond to your comments for a while.

The Writer's Workshop

I've been enjoying a bit of departure from my usual blogging experience. For those of you who have left comments on my previous entry, "It was a Dark and Stormy Night", I have eschewed my usual brief retorts to your comments, composing little vignettes from my imagination in the spirit of Bulwer-Lytton, in response instead.

So if you haven't already done so, I invite you to revisit the comment section and check out my replies to yours, and other's, comments. I've had great fun trying to come up with a little story line unique for each of you.

Alas, unfortunately I fear my creative juices are quickly being squeezed to a pulp and shall soon wither and run dry. Faithful reader, KleinstMotte, seems to be pressing me to turn this into a collaborative novel. I fear she will get the best of me in the end.

In a day or two I move on to greener blogging pastures. Besides, I've gotten behind in keeping up with all your blogs and need to catch up as well.

It Was A Dark and Stomy Night...

I have a blog but I certainly don’t consider myself a “writer” in any remotely classical or professional sense. Many of the people who read my blog and comment are very good writers, in my opinion – some of them professional, many accomplished or aspiring. I’m flattered that some of these folks deem my blog worthy of reading.

As I say, a majority of those blogs I do follow I consider to be very well written; though clearly I am no expert on the craft of writing. As with art, all I know is what I like.

Some might argue that Charles Dickens remains to this day, one of the best writers of all time. Those same people might also argue that Edward Bulwer-Lytton is an example of one of the worst writers ever. To the extent that Bulwer-Lytton has been established as the standard of a poorly skilled writer, a reputation promoted in the past comic strip character, Snoopy, an actual contest has been set up in his name where people compete to submit examples of intentionally poor writing.

Recently the publishers of Skeptic Magazine were approached about publishing a scientific paper; A Scientific Evaluation of Charles Dickens. The underlying hypothesis being: is it possible for people to tell the difference between a good writer and a bad writer by reading excerpts of their work?

Mikhail Simkin, Ph.D. in physics devised a test whereby he invited people to read passages from the writings of Dickens and Bulwer-Lytton then select which selections they thought could correctly be attributed to either author. In other words, could people discern good writing from bad merely by reading excerpts of an authors writing.

I won’t keep you in suspense; the answer tabulated to be a resounding NO – roughly 50% were able to correctly attribute the writing samples to their correct author. That is: the ability to determine good writing from bad was no greater than random chance.

The overriding controversy from this experiment actually turned out not to be about determining good writing, but about the limits of what science can objectively study. How can subjective determinations about what is good versus bad art, music and literature be delineated scientifically? Still to this day, there are those who hesitate to consider Psychology and Sociology as true sciences. Yet these two academic pursuits frequently employ data gathering and statistical analysis in constructing theories. Still many see a fine distinction between art and science; areas where they intersect and overlap.

Writing skill may be indeed quite subjective; or more to the point, like in the words of a federal judge who was asked to define what he considered pornography, he said: “I know it when I see it”.

You can take the actual Scientific Evaluation of Charles Dickens test yourself here.

I am enjoying indulging a whim and responding to your comments as would the esteemed Edward Bullwer-Lytton. Enjoy.

"Penny's Word"

The list of blogs I have been following has been steadily increasing as I continue to stumble upon other interesting writers. Predictably, my time available to keep up with them all is suffering. I appreciate those of my fellow bloggers who regularly write twice a week or less – I am usually am able to keep up. The daily bloggers, well… that is a bit more difficult. I’ll catch you when I can.

Surprisingly, though, a few blogs have disappeared; yanked from the bloggosphere for reasons unknown. But recently one blog’s disappearance left me very sad.

Penny’s Word was authored by a wife and mother living outside a small town in Australia. She blogged about the everyday things happening in her life but always had a lovely and interesting way in which she revealed her life. Her photographs she took and posted of nature in her area of the world were stunning; the birds particularly. I always shared the bird pictures with my wife, an avid birder herself, and who would give anything to see such colorful species in the wild.

Penny visited my blog and commented as well; her comments were always gracious, thoughtful and welcome. She had just started to learn how to weave and had begun posting about her new skill, what she had learned and made.

Then one day recently this month her daughter posted in her behalf – Penny had been in a serious car accident. She was in the hospital in extremely critical condition having been placed in an induced coma. She was expected to recover but with serious and permanent disabilities. Her husband then posted an update on her condition, acknowledging all who had commented and wished her well. He warned that it would not be likely Penny would be blogging again anytime soon.

I was stunned. Though I’ve never seen her face nor heard her voice, the mind and spirit of this woman had touched me. Now hearing of the tragedy brought upon her left me feeling badly… and helpless.

Her blog is now gone. Clearly, with all the pressing issues her family must now deal with, maintaining a blog is of trivial importance. Still, as I read the blogs of my new followers, I cannot forget Penny, that her blog is missing from the list for very abject reasons. I understand fully why things like this happen and that they happen every day to people we don’t know. But understanding this does nothing to take away the sadness. I can only hope that she recovers and , just maybe, she will speak to us through her blog again.

I find some small semblance of comfort in the words I captured in my documentary about the remarkable Jerry Andrus:

“We’re each a unique mixture of sub-atomic particles. And so the only thing that’s left other than our remains is the effect that we might have had on other people or maybe will have on other people. "

Nothing ventured, nothing read.

I must confess, I am somewhat crestfallen. I just asked my wife if she had read my most recent blog post. "I read half of it", she says. !! Isn't that a bit like telling someone half a joke?

Apparently, it's not that she is just bored by me; she also only read half of Kara's blog. Pressing her on this she says that she's already heard all my stories so she doesn't need to rehash them by reading them (again) on my blog. But she has no clue what Kara is going to come up with next... !?

Ok, so this post is for you, my dear wife:

A man walks into a bar with a small dog under his arm and sits down at the counter, placing the dog on the stool next to him. The bartender says, "Sorry, pal. No dogs allowed." The man says, "But this is a special dog -- he talks! I'll prove it..."