Thursday, April 9, 2026

A Dozen Quotes to Mull Over on a Dreary Day

The weather outside is dreary and grey. As for me, I draw my strength from the weather within. Right now it's blue skies and, yes, here comes the sun.

When I lived in Mexico I bought a notebook in which I began recording quotes from my readings. It was nice having them all in one place, like a personally curated Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, which every serious writer was encouraged to acquire before the Internet em
erged.

Wikiquote is a website that arranges quotes by both author and by theme. If you are a writer and unfamiliar with it, I believe you'd find it worth your while to explore. 

The quotes on this page are arranged neither by author nor by theme. Their common denominator is that I found them interesting because they give you something to ponder and mull over. It's a bite-sized list to be savored slowly, not gobbled up in a rush to get on with your day.

Recently I discovered an extremely interesting page of quotes about Mathematics that you might want to explore. Harvested and assembled by mathematician James Nickel it's titled Quotable Quotes in Mathematics. James is a longtime friend, and an author of numerous books pertaining to math from a Biblical Christian worldview perspective. This past week I interviewed him about his 30-page collection of math quotes. You can read the interview here.

Without further ado, here my dozen quotes to mull over. Read them all, pick one and roll it around in your mind till it yields fruit.

"Don't you ever wonder sometimes what might have happened if you tried?”

—Kazuo Ishiguro 


“The greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.” 

—Steve Jobs


“In science, there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting.”
--Lord Kelvin


“Don't pay any attention to the critics—don't even ignore them.” 
Samuel Goldwyn


“More law, less justice.” 
— Marcus Tullius Cicero


"Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten."
—Aldo Gucci


"Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been."
—John Greenleaf Whittier


"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

Albert Einstein


"A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

—Paul Simon


"Behaviorism is a flat earth view of the mind."

—Marvin Minsky


"Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none."

—William Shakespeare


"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

—C.S. Lewis


Let the sunshine in!

Another Example of Misinformation from Experts and How Mainstream Media Journalists Fail to Do Their Job

Blue Light Special
On Wednesday I wrote about a pattern that makes my skin crawl: "agenda driven narratives based on misinformation, a pattern that keeps repeating itself more and more the longer I live." The day before I wrote about how the Eugenics movement was spawned by "experts" who bought into Social Darwinism, pushing it to the degree that more han 30 states legalized sterilization of those these experts deemed to be misfits. 

Countless examples can be found, but when this one here came to my attention I felt obligated to bring it to yours.  

A research paper published in February in the journal Nature Communications claimed that people living in U.S. counties near nuclear power plants have higher cancer death rates. The authors — a Harvard doctoral student and his professor — estimated that about 115,000 extra cancer deaths occurred over a 19-year period because of proximity to these plants. When the study came out, many news outlets ran big headlines about it. But there’s a major problem with the study: the researchers never actually measured any radiation from the nuclear plants. 


Eric Meyer, Founder and Executive Director of Generation Atomic, didn't just roll his eyes at this absurd assertion. Meyer assembled three real experts to dissect the study in order to see whether there was even a shred of merit in it. The investigators were Philip Hult, a nuclear engineer at Generation Atomic; DJ LeClear, a health physicist with nearly two decades of field experience; and Jim Smith, a professor of environmental science who has studied Chernobyl since 1990.


The article Meyer wrote includes the link to a YouTube video in which he interviews Hult, LeClear and Smith.


Writes Meyer, "The study uses geographic distance as a stand-in for radiation exposure. Closer to a plant means more radiation, the authors assume. Talk to anyone who actually measures this stuff for a living and the premise falls apart. DJ LeClear has spent years taking readings outside nuclear facilities, and he put it plainly: the doses are so low they’re barely detectable. The NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) puts the dose of living within 50 miles of a plant at about 0.01 millirem a year. You get the same dose from eating a banana." [EdNote: Link to U.S. NRC FAQ page.]


Here's a summary of the rest of Meyer's article in The Kernel:

Every time a scary headline about nuclear power plants and cancer pops up, the same panic happens: people hear the word “radiation” and immediately assume danger. In this faulty Harvard study the researchers never actually measured any radiation at all. They just looked at how far counties were from plants and compared cancer statistics.


That’s not a radiation study — it’s a geography study pretending to be science.

Nuclear plants are usually built near rivers, coasts, and cities for practical reasons. Those same areas also tend to have more factories, traffic, and urban stress — all things that can affect health. The study tried to account for other factors, but the experts Meyer spoke with said it’s nearly impossible to do cleanly.


Real-world evidence tells a very different story. Large, rigorous studies that actually tracked radiation doses on hundreds of thousands of nuclear workers show that the tiny amounts of radiation the public gets from normal plant operations cause virtually zero extra cancer risk.


The real danger here isn’t radiation — it’s fear itself. Scary, poorly done studies like this fuel “radiophobia,” which can hurt communities, shut down clean energy, and push us toward dirtier power sources that actually do kill people through air pollution.


Bottom line: Bad science isn’t harmless. When it attacks one of our cleanest sources of electricity without solid evidence, it becomes a public health problem in itself.


* * * * *

Today I am adding radiophobia (fear of radiation) to the list of phobias I've recently written about including yesterday's story on Trypophobia.


For what it's worth, I'm wondering if we can coin a word for another phobia that seems prevalent in our time: Fear of Common Sense. If you have a suggestion, leave it in the comments. Thanks for reading.


Related Links

The Banana Stand: How a Piece of Fruit Became a Symbol for Nuclear Advocacy

Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Trypophobia: When Patterns Make Your Skin Crawl

I learned a new word recently: Trypophobia.

Trypophobia is a strong aversion, disgust, or discomfort triggered by seeing clusters of small holes, bumps, or repetitive circular patterns. It is not officially recognized as a distinct mental disorder, but according to Google many researchers classify it as a form of specific phobia when it causes significant distress or impairment.

I once saw a fellow transformed from "tough guy" to terrified child by seeing a spider in his water glass. (Arachnophobia) And my mom's uncle went hysterical when Dad drove into the Lincoln Tunnel years ago.* (Claustrophobia) But I can't say I've ever seen this particular dread. In fact, I've known a number of people who find patterns as fascinating. 


The term comes from the Greek words trýpa (meaning "hole") and phobos (meaning "fear"). It was purportedly coined around 2005 on an online forum and gained popularity through the internet.

It's a strong aversion or disgust towards repetitive patterns like those in honeycombs, lotus seed pods, or sponges, often triggering anxiety, nausea, or panic attacks, though it's not yet a formally recognized mental disorder. 

I myself love patterns. I recall times when I've seen patterns when there were no apparent patterns at all. Patterns fascinate us. We usually find them beautiful or pleasing, even mesmerizing. Fractals, hexagons, tessallations, logarithmic spirals in shells, hurricanes, the Milky Way; cloud formations, branching--all of creation appears to point to a cosmic order.

So why is it that those same patterns can make some people uneasy? It's a question I don't feel prepared to answer.

Many fears are easy to understand. People have phobias about many things like spiders, mice, heights, or tight spaces. But trypophobia is different. It’s not really about an object—it’s about certain patterns, especially clusters of small holes or tightly packed shapes like honeycombs, lotus seed pods, sponges or coral. Even certain skin images can trigger it. People usually don’t feel fear so much as strong disgust.  

The reaction can be immediate. People report feeling nauseous, itchy, anxious, or just deeply uncomfortable. What’s strange is that this happens before they even have time to think about it. They know the image isn’t dangerous—but their body reacts anyway.

Trypophobia is a reminder that not all reactions are logical. Some come from deeper instincts—old wiring in the brain that still shows up in surprising ways.

I will admit that there is one pattern that does make my skin crawl. It's agenda driven narratives based on misinformation, a pattern that seems to keep repeating itself more and more the longer I live. When journalists cite studies by so-caled experts and fail to question the data or the motivations, it's utterly galling. 

If able, I will share an example here on Ennyman's Territory by the end of the week.

* * * * * 

* If you know the Lincoln Tunnel, you'll recall that there are several lanes of traffic inching their way forward in a huge arc so that it make take half an hour to pass the pay booth and reach the tunnel entrance. When my mom's uncle saw that they were entering a tunnel, his claustrophobia kicked in and he began going berserk. Dad stopped the car, but this only antagonized the cars behind him. He couldn't go forward or back until the police stepped in, helped direct traffic so he could turn around and escape. It could have been worse. Alas, there is a lesson here.

Tuesday, April 7, 2026

America’s Real Problem Isn’t Failure. It’s No Consequences

I was listening to a talk by Thomas Sowell yesterday. He noted that when businesses make poor quality or useless products that no one wants, they lose money and either learn something or go out of business. But when a government program fails, no lessons get learned. It isn't their money, it's the taxpayers. Instead, they ask for more money and do more of the same. 

One of the saddest failures today is our American education system. For years we've seen articles about the decline of education, including not only outcomes but expectations and standards as well.  

Here's just one example of how far we've fallen, a 2024 article in The Atlantic titled "The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books," by Rose Horowitch. The subtitle sinks home her message: "To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school."

Horowitch examines how many students at elite colleges (e.g., Columbia, UVA) arrive unprepared to read full books—often due to high school practices favoring short excerpts, standardized testing, smartphones, and shorter attention spans. Professors note students struggling with long-form reading, getting overwhelmed by novels or multiple books per semester, and sometimes shutting down when facing unfamiliar or challenging ideas.

This feels shocking to me. I remember reading Dickens freshman year (A Tale of Two Cities) and having an "Aha!" moment my sophomore year while reading Cyrano de Bergerac. I have a hard time imagining an education without reading being a fundmental practice. 

Over the past decade, according to Idress Kahloon, staff writer for The Atlantic, American students’ academic skills have sharply declined, regressing to levels not seen in 25 years. Test scores have fallen to record lows, while the percentage of students reading at a “below basic” level has reached record highs. As staff writer Rose Horowitch has reported, a shocking number of American college students say they didn’t read an entire book in middle or high school. What exactly went wrong?

Some believe Covid is partly to blame, along with smartphones. But Kahloon believes there is aother factor a play: low expectations.“Schools have demanded less and less from students,” he writes, “who have responded, predictably, by giving less and less.”


When I read this I wondered if this is one of a primary issue is our country today: low expectations. When people fail to find a job, or simply make poor decisions, we


When I read this I wondered if this is one of the primary issues in our country today: low expectations. When people fail to find a job, or simply make poor decisions, we look for someone or something else to blame. The system. The economy. The curriculum.  


But rarely do we ask: What was expected? And was it enough?


Expectations shape behavior. When standards are high, people stretch. When standards fall, people settle. That’s not cruelty—it’s human nature. 


In my case it was expected that I would get good grades and I got them. My parents also expected me to go to college. In short, they set me on a trajectory. (There was also an incentive when I was in grade school. I'd get a dime for every A and yes, incentives matter.


Somewhere along the way, society began confusing compassion with the removal of standards. We didn’t want students to feel discouraged, so we made the work easier. We didn’t want failure to sting, so we softened the consequences. We didn’t want anyone left behind, so we lowered the bar.


But lowering the bar doesn’t lift people up. It simply changes what “success” means.

And over time, that redefinition spreads. If a student can graduate without reading a book, what else can be bypassed? If effort is optional, what happens to discipline? If discomfort is avoided, what happens to growth? Failure is painful, but it's also a prod that goads us to figure out the why. 


I once knew a publisher who had previously been a high school football coach in Texas. If you know Texas, football was a big deal for small towns there. He was recruited to coach a team in another town that had never won a game in several years, and frequently they were spanked quite badly. When he arrived, he quickly saw the problem. There were kids with talent, and heart, who loved playing foorball. But they were in the wrong division. It would be like college kids playing the Seattle Seahawks. By spearheading the division change, his team was suddenly competitive.  


The point here: failure is an opportunity to learn. And sometimes the solution involves thinking outside the box.


This is not just an education problem. It’s a cultural one. Thomas Sowell’s point lingers here. In the private sector, failure teaches. In public systems, failure can be absorbed, explained away, or funded again. The feedback loop breaks. And when that happens, decline can continue for a long time before anyone is forced to reckon with it.


The irony is that most people—especially young people—are capable of far more than we ask of them. The question is whether we still believe that. Because if we don’t expect much, we shouldn’t be surprised when we don’t get much.


Monday, April 6, 2026

Experts Gone Awry: Eugenics Movement Revisited

Yesterday I shared how an expert, with major funding, built what was expected to be the first airplane. Instead, it crashed, and the New York Times declared that it would be a million years before we'd witness a manned flying machine. This was 1903, yet before the year's end the Wright Brothers made aviation history. The point being that experts don't always know what they're talking about.

Looking back on a century ago, one might be surprised at how many bad ideas were germinated by so-called experts, especially when you consider the ideas spawned by Social Darwinism. Because of its utopian belief in human perfectibility -- that is, the perfectibility of the human race -- and confidence in it experts, the movement went off the rails by embracing the eugenics movement.

I don't know your thoughts about Woodrow Wilson as a president, but the more I learn the further he falls down the ranks in my book. Woodrow Wilson was a supporter of the eugenics movement and the broader "racial science" prevalent during the Progressive Era. He viewed it as a rational, scientific approach to improving human heredity and social organization. His endorsement of eugenic principles was intertwined with his advocacy for white supremacy, and his policies on segregation.

I never knew that as Governor of New Jersey, Wilson signed a bill in 1911 that authorized the compulsory sterilization of criminals and those considered mentally disabled. It was described as "An act to authorize and provide for the sterilization of feeble-minded, epileptics, rapists, certain criminals, and other defectives". This aligned with similar measures he campaigned for in Indiana in 1907 with the end result that Indiana passed the first eugenics-based compulsory sterilization law in the world. [EdNote: The law was overturned in 1921. However, in 1927 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924, allowing for the compulsory sterilization of patients of state mental institutions. Go figure.]

How could this happen? Well, because educated "experts" persuaded the public this was good and right.

Wilson used the theories of eugenics to justify his belief in the inherent superiority of white individuals, particularly those of Nordic descent. He frequently expressed racist views and viewed Black people as inferior.


On March 9, 1919, the Legislature of North Carolina passed a similar law with the fancy title "An act to benefit the moral, mental, or physical condition of the inmates of penal and charitable institutions." The purpose of this legislation, as the name suggests, was to "improve" the condition of individuals living in state institution by allowing them to be sterilized.


Actually there were a lot of liberal ad ssocialist intellectuals who supported eugenics during the early-to-mid 20th century, including H.G. Wells and the founder of Planned Parenthood Margaret Sanger, as well as Bertrand Russell. Regarding Russell, I remember hearing Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes fame going on a rant against Christianity on the radio and citing Bertand Russell, "the smartest man of the las 100 years," as proof that there was no God because Russell was an atheist. Which again proves my point: experts don't always know what they're talking about.


[EdNote: This occurred around late February 2004, right after The Passion of the Christ opened in theaters. Contemporary accounts describe Rooney delivering a “mean-spirited diatribe” against the film and Gibson, essentially arguing that a brilliant thinker like Russell (a well-known atheist and philosopher) rejected Christianity, so the movie’s religious premise was suspect or unworthy of serious regard.]

 

The scary part of this story is not what we've done in the past. Rather, how pervasive, influential and damaging they can be when pushed by so-called experts and their media mouthpieces. It takes work to stay informed. When advocates trot out their troves of experts, it does not mean they are right.


Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have bad consequences.


Second International Eugenics Conference

https://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/timeline/517228a6eed5c60000000017
includes timeline


September 25-28, 1921. The Second International Eugenics Congress at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, one of three held between 1912 and 1932. Fifty-three scientific papers were presented, most by Americans, and Alexander Graham Bell served as honorary president. The conference was originally scheduled for 1915 but due to the outbreak of the First World War, was re-scheduled.


America's Hidden History: The Eugenics Movement

https://www.nature.com/scitable/forums/genetics-generation/america-s-hidden-history-the-eugenics-movement-123919444/#:~:text=The%20eugenics%20movement%20took%20root,and%20principal%20interested%20in%20breeding.&text=Movies%20and%20books%20promoting%20eugenic%20principles%20were%20popular.


The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States. Beginning around 1930, there was a steady increase in the percentage of women sterilized, and in a few states only young women were sterilized


A 1937 Fortune magazine poll found that 2/3 of respondents supported eugenic sterilization of "mental defectives", 63% supported sterilization of criminals, and only 15% opposed both.


No one knows for certain how many compulsory sterilizations occurred between the late 1960s to 1970s, though it is estimated that at least 80,000 may have been conducted


Harry Laughlin 

https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/eugenical-sterilization-united-states-1922-harry-h-laughlin 

Eugenical Sterilization in the United States (1922), by Harry H. Laughlin

A 1922 book in which author Harry H. Laughlin argues for the necessity of compulsory sterilization in the United States based on the principles of eugenics. 

Eugenical Sterilization in the United States is 502 pages long and has seventeen chapters. Harry Olson, the Chief Justice of Chicago's Municipal Court, introduces the book, followed by a preface written by Laughlin

 the book reports Laughlin's analysis of how states could benefit from sterilizing their mentally disabled residents, and it reprinted his model sterilization law, which he encouraged state governments to adopt. Laughlin's model sterilization law stressed the need for the sterilization of populations that Laughlin deemed inadequate for reasons ranging from physical appearance to socioeconomic status. The document influenced twentieth century legislation in the US about reproduction and compulsory sterilization. Although Laughlin suffered from epilepsy, he advocated for breeding out specific populations from the general population, including epileptics, the physically disabled, the mentally disabled, alcoholics, the blind, and the deaf. 


Related Links

Bad Ideas: The Eugenics Movement In America

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2012/01/bad-ideas-eugenics-movement.html

Shedding More Light on the History of Eugenics: Are These Ideas Still With Us Today?

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2021/02/shedding-more-light-on-history-of.html

Eugenics, Revisited

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2010/02/eugenics-revisited.html

Sunday, April 5, 2026

When the New York Times Said Manned Flight Was a Million Years Away, How Quickly It Was Proved Wrong

One of my favorite themes over the years has been the unreliability of experts. You can read a batch of examples here in my 2007 blog post "Experts don't always know what they are talking about." Most of these examples are quite amusing. Would that all proclamations were  harmless and amusing.


Da Vinci's design for a flying machine.
Nevertheless, I just learned a new one about human flight, and I think you'll find this entertaining. 

In October 1903, the
New York Times published one of the most famously wrong editorials in journalistic history. Titled “Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly,” it confidently
declared that a practical flying machine would require “the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years.”

No doubt many people were thinking about manned flight in those days, in part stimulated by Jules Verne's fanciful 1886 sci-fi novel Robur the Conqueror (a.k.a. The Clipper of the Clouds)
 which featured a massive, propeller-driven heavier-than-air machine named the Albatross


Four centuries earlier Leonardo Da Vinci contemplated the possibilities of manned flight, so this was not an entirely new idea. What was new were the advances in technology that had been emerging over time.


So back to our story.

At the time, the most respected scientific authority on aviation in America was Samuel Pierpont Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Langley had conducted promising experiments with unmanned, steam-powered models. Impressed, the U.S. War Department gave him roughly $50,000 — a huge sum in 1903 — plus institutional backing from the Smithsonian to build a manned “Aerodrome.”


With Langley's prestige, funding, and the full weight of America’s scientific establishment behind it, the Aerodome was launched from a houseboat on the Potomac River. It promptly plunged into the water like a “handful of mortar,” as one observer put it. 


The pilot, Charles Manly, survived thanks in part to a cork jacket. (You can see one of these at Corktown here in Duluth, I believe.)


The New York Times jumped on the fiasco just two days later with its October 9 editorial. Langley’s very public failure was proof that powered human flight was essentially impossible in any reasonable timeframe. If the best-funded, most credentialed expert in the country couldn’t do it, the editorial implied, then who could?


Langley may have been humiliated, but to his credit he didn'quit. On December 8, 1903 Langley tried again. This time the Aerodrome collapsed during launch, its wings crumpling as it tumbled back into the river. Another high-profile disaster.


Kitty Hawk, December 17, 1903
Nine days later, on December 17, 1903, if you remember your history, at a windswept beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, two brothers from Dayton, Ohio, achieved what the experts had declared would take millions of years. Orville and Wilbur Wrightself-taught bicycle mechanics with no formal scientific training, no government grants, and only a few hundred dollars of their own money — flew the first powered, controlled, sustained flight of a heavier-than-air machine.

They completed four flights that day. The longest lasted 59 seconds and covered 852 feet. They built their own wind tunnel, designed a lightweight gasoline engine, and solved critical problems of control through relentless experimentation and iteration. They didn't have elite credentials or massive institutional funding. Just a "can do" persistence and practical ingenuity.


At its core, it’s a story about how elites and credentialed “experts” can mistake their own failures — or the limits of their approach — for the permanent boundaries of human possibility.


Langley had resources and prestige. The Wrights had grit and a willingness to question conventional wisdom. One approach crashed (literally). The other soared. Or sort of soared. For sure, they got off the ground and that was a start. As I write these words Artemis II is two-thirds of the way to the moon with four astronauts sharing the adventure of a lifetime. [Trivia: Did you know that Artemis, in Greek mythology, was the twin sister of Apollo?]


I'm surprised at how quickly the NYTimes rushed to declare the death of the dream (of manned flight) after the establishment’s golden boy failed, then had to watch these two nobodies from Ohio prove them wrong.


Lesson: Whenever you hear confident pronouncements from prestigious institutions that something is “impossible,” “decades away,” or “requires massive top-down funding and expertise,” remember the Wright brothers.


My main point remains: experts, even when earnest, don't always know what they are talking about. Add to this the reality that there are a lot of people with agendas who use the media to parade their "experts" in the service of those agendas. Don't be suckered. Learn to discern.

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