Links for 2010-04-11

"The problem is, Lucas made [Star Wars] so immersive that nobody noticed the allegory, and the effects so beautiful that everyone judged all subsequent films by the standards he set. From now on, an important aspect of all science-fiction movies would be, "Are the effects realistic?" The cinema of ideas was replaced, in that instant, by the cinema of visceral experience. Sci-fi became all about making you feel as if you were there, recreating the documentary feel of Star Wars instead of the philosophy of it. A post-Star Wars movie was one you lived, not thought about. "

"This is the first post in a brief, non-technical, series on the language of science. When I say language, I don't mean technical jargon here, I mean regular words that we, as scientists (not just in physics) use differently than the general public. There is a language, commonly understood by English speaking physicists, that we forget, every now and then, and we must translate, if we want to communicate effectively."

"The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Cliché, sure, but it's also more true than at any time since the Gilded Age.

The poor are getting poorer, wages are falling behind inflation, and social mobility is at an all-time low. "

"There may be no sitting justice who better exemplified the difference between diversity and empathy than Justice Stevens. He grew up white, male, heterosexual, Protestant, and wealthy. At no point in time was he a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay or a frightened teenage girl. And yet, over the decades, his rulings and written opinions repeatedly showed us that he could see the world through the eyes of those with very different life experiences from his own. In other words, he tapped his inner "wise Latina woman" when the case called for it, and we are all better for it. Stevens used empathy not to skew or manipulate his jurisprudence, but to consider the effects of his decisions on real people and to accept that the law can look quite different depending on where you're standing. That's part of what made him such a great justice, and it's a quality the president should bear in mind in selecting his replacement."