A New Story for America

Some stories that we tell about ourselves are constructive. Of course, we should want to be “the land of the free and home of the brave.” On the other hand, ideas such as defending “the American way of life” may be destructive. Huh? What was that?

This old American way of life has involved the belief that “we’re the best.” Although it is a practical impossibility, you can still hear it at every team rally. It involved the belief that everyone is special so that every child in a group had to receive an award for something. It involved the belief that “we deserve the best” just because we are us. We spent decades being urged to put anything we wanted on credit; America was going to spend its way into prosperity. And then the bubble burst.

The Science of Meditation

"In modern science, achieving wide repeatability is taken as proof. Curiously, following prescribed meditations will also produce repeatable results. Just wait until "traditional" scientists awaken to that!"
~David Satterlee

Is Social Psychology Best Left Unstudied?

Is love fair game for science? Or, is it a sacred mystery that we should not try too hard to understand?

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Is Social Psychology Best Left Unstudied?

The late U.S. Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin criticized the work of two prominent social psychologists when he stated that, "Americans want to leave some things in life a mystery, and right at the top of things we don’t want to know is why a man and a woman fall in love." Are there some things in life best left unstudied?

Proxmire, pork, and passionate prudishness

With all due respect, Senator Proxmire was a windy old curmudgeon who bragged that he was fired from his first job for impertinence and was fondly eulogized as being a maverick. His personal integrity, however, was reflected by a record 10,252 consecutive roll call votes across twenty-two years of public service. Proxmire took pride in lampooning wasteful “pork barrel” government spending and was notorious for giving “Golden Fleece” awards to many pork appropriations (with the notable exception of dairy supports in his home state of Wisconsin). The quotation, above, refers to his very first Golden Fleece, which went for $84,000 given to the National Science Foundation in 1975 for the study of “Why a man and a woman fall in love.” He should be forgiven a little hyperbole.

Under the circumstances,

Essay: Religion, science, and our quest for truth

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Religion, science, and our quest for truth

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Religion, science, and our quest for truth

Both religion and science build theoretical models to explain observations. Sometimes the models work, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes sacrificing infants to Baal brings productive crops, sometimes bleeding a patient breaks a fever. Most cultures have rejected both of these models (religious and scientific, respectively). Even having a thoroughly-consistent theory does not establish truth. Traditional Chinese Medicine successfully treats "spleen deficiency" for problems totally unrelated to our anatomical spleen's function. Both religious and secular authorities have found themselves needing to adjust their accepted doctrine.

Sometimes religious ideas lead secular as in the Genesis record of the sequence of life’s appearance on earth, or the sanitary laws of the Israelites coming out of Egypt. Also, science is seriously beginning to explore the efficacy of some types of prayer. Sometimes secular ideas lead religion. In 2000, The Catholic Church apologized

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Analysis of the Creative Process

from the book: Life Will Get You in the End:
Short stories by David Satterlee

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Life Will Get You in the End:
Short Stories by David Satterlee

A retired engineer comes to terms with typing his literary criticism papers himself. A creative student of literary analysis takes a break from writing yet another lame-ass paper to throw a private hissy-fit. 

Analysis of the Creative Process

I had a pen.

I learned my subject thoroughly across many years. I knew it well and could recite details and essential relationships at will; and often did so at salons with my peers. I ordered my thoughts and wrote cleanly, revising my first draft at least once.

My assistant had a typewriter.

I was knowledgeable in my field. After my first draft, she typed it up double spaced. I marked it up, inserting, deleting, drawing arrows, and making notes in the margin. She continued retyping drafts until I was satisfied with the result.

I had a word processor.

I knew my subject well enough. I launched in, doing additional research as I went. I inserted, deleted, and moved anything anytime until it was “right.” Each “draft” morphed continuously into the next. I nipped and tucked and, when it was done, I read it out loud to catch the final dumb stuff.

I had a turtle.

 He was a strange and wonderful creature. I took him apart to see how he was built. He was still strange but not so wonderful. I glued him back together but I did not like him anymore.

I have examined the great music.

Analysis shows that great music conforms to certain forms and obeys certain rules. I wrote some music. I conformed to the forms and obeyed the rules. It was not very good. I think that maybe the great composers broke rules.