Ren,
I have no idea what career grjeremy wants now at age 23. My guess is that grjeremy is confused concerning a career choice at this time. Confusion needs a starting point from which to start the unraveling process.
What do we know? Quotes:
1. "At 10 years old I wanted to be a paleontologist and enthusiastically dragged my grand parents to UC Berkely to hear Jack Horner's theorems on endothermic and exothermic quadrupedal dinosaurs, though personally I found Robert Bakkers' theories more to my liking."
2. "I also attended classes for gifted youth at UC Irvine, and junior classes in law at DC."
3. "I want to educate myself, and I know that I need to go back to school, Yet I am also broke and am afraid that the only schools that will except me will not be challenging; thus was the case with the proprietary Art school I previously received my associates from."
We also know:
1. "I was in the top 97% percentile in verbal/linguistics and history comprehension in comparison to 12 year-olds nationwide who took the STAR standardized tests."
2. "At 13 I scored higher on the SAT than most college bound seniors."
3. "I also went through a Holden Caulfield-esque rebellious period stemming from my indoctrination into the public school system and the idiocy I faced at the hands of my teachers, and peers, (not to mention the bush administration!) which led to complete disillusionment and academic failure on my part. I graduated high school with a GPA of 1.9"
Ren, it is called Crash-and-Burn. Shall we guess on the number of tattoos and body piercings grjeremy might have, and whether he has any clothes that are not black? grjeremy would sooner get back on track by joining the military than by going straightaway to a university, but the "bush administration" mention rules that out.
Remember, grjeremy self-described as:
1. "I have struggled with depression, a bipolar mother, a father who killed himself in 2008, and poverty"
2. "I am crippled by the thought of being the center of attention"
3. "I am clearly an eccentric"
4. "I am currently 23 years old, with no car, no life, no friends, and no intellectual stimulation, essentially I am withdrawn"
5. "I am also broke and am afraid that the only schools that will except me will not be challenging."
Ren, grjeremy needs some fire in his belly, and right now he is being consumed by self-loathing and self-pity, and � worst of all � by fear.
Why should grjeremy connect with Robert Bakker? Because my bet is that Robert Bakker can connect with grjeremy. Bakker is academically brilliant, but he is also eccentric and artistic � and he is willing to stand alone against The Machine that is The Science Establishment in the world today.
Ren, did you read the interview with Robert Bakker that I linked? The following is an excerpt:
http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2008/04/paleontological_profiles_rober.php * [Switek] Finally, as someone who works with the "bones of contention" and the fossil record, what do you think about the current controversy surrounding evolution in the United States? How can we do a better job of communicating science to the public?
[Bakker] We dino-scientists have a great responsibility: our subject matter attracts kids better than any other, except rocket-science. What's the greatest enemy of science education in the U.S.?
Militant Creationism?
No way. It's the loud, strident, elitist anti-creationists. The likes of Richard Dawkins and his colleagues.
These shrill uber-Darwinists come across as insultingly dismissive of any and all religious traditions. If you're not an atheist, then you must be illiterate or stupid and, possibly, a danger to yourself and others.
As many commentators have noted, in televised debates, these Darwinists seem devoid of joy or humor, except a haughty delight in looking down their noses. Dawkinsian screeds are sermons to the choir; the message pleases only those already convinced. Dawkins wins no converts from the majority of U.S. parents who still honor a Biblical tradition. Hitchcock is a far better model. He had his battles with skepticism. He did worry that the discovery of Deep Time would upset the good people of his congregation. But Hitchcock could view three thousand years of scriptural tradition and see much of value - and much concordance with Jurassic geology.
Read his "Religion of Geology". It's a lovely contemplation of how Old Testament and New deal with the beauty in Nature. And the horror. Why is there pain and death among deer and lions? Why is there pain among humans? These questions are of little interest for the Dawkinsians, but trouble most Americans. Hitchcock found no easy answers. But he saw a Plan nevertheless. Millions of years of geological time, with waves after waves of predator and prey, punctuated by extinctions, were recorded in the sedimentary annals.
Careful study of fossil history gave Hitchcock a sense of awe - and privilege. He was a human being during the scientific revolution, fortunate to live at a time when society was awakening to the possibilities of understanding past ecosystems. Petrified jaws and teeth did prove that Nature was always regulated by attack and defense, pain and death. But the net result was extraordinary beauty that could be made intelligible by the human mind.
* * *
Ren, in my opinion, grjeremy needs to see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears the very presence of someone whom he genuinely admires, and that someone needs to be a person of distinguished accomplishment like Robert Bakker.
I am the son of a distinguished world-renowned professor. There are people who hold my father in the highest esteem, and who consider him to be a noteworthy pioneer in his field. When my father was still speaking around the world, people traveled great distances and paid significant amounts of money to hear what he had to say. Many years ago, a university graduate student told me very excitedly that he and several of his graduate student friends had just returned from a 1,000+ miles round-trip drive to San Francisco where they had gone to hear my father speak. I just shook my head and said in reply that they all could have just driven across town to my parents' house where my father would have happily talked with them for free.
Many famous people are not out of reach, and they are not one-dimensional. My grandfather founded a college in 1905 that has since grown to be a university. My grandfather was the president of the college for 40 years, and he remained active at the college until three months before he died at age 91. He was forever the professor, and in his late 80s he could be observed mowing his lawn while properly attired in white dress shirt, suspenders, and tie. He knew seven languages, and was expert in many subjects. The book he always read again and again and again was The Holy Bible. I was a teenager during his last years, and, whenever he and I were alone together, he always lectured me on the proper care of tools, the need to have an orderly work bench, and the glory of his garden and flowerbeds soil. Yes, his pride and joy was his dirt � and it was the blackest, fluffiest dirt I have ever seen! You could pick up my grandfather's dirt in your hands without the need of a shovel; simply, it was his masterpiece. One of my most cherished memories as a child was watching my father get sternly scolded by his father because my father had put bark-o-mulch on top of the plantings areas in our yard. My grandfather went on and on about the need to compost and to properly nourish and work the soil. Why? Well, my grandfather had grown up as a Minnesota farm boy, and the old professor was still a farm boy at heart.
Ren, of course, you are correct in everything you wrote. But my take is this: grjeremy needs to have a personal conversation with someone he admires. You and a thousand others can tell him to buck up and go to school, but that good advice will not touch him � it is not enough. However, if Robert Bakker told grjeremy to go to school in a face-to-face one-on-one conversation, I think grjeremy would then go to school with all the resolve and vigor he needs to get through to the other side � and that is the key � that is what Robert Bakker can give to grjeremy that we cannot.
Ren, I hope grjeremy reports back to this thread if he actually has a conversation with Robert Bakker. My guess is that Bakker would steer the conversation down a very interesting road that might have little or nothing to do with dinosaurs. He might talk about God, or the extinction/rebirth cycle of planet Earth, or his own youthful wanderings, or the process of digging a field latrine at a dig site, or who knows what. I trust that Bakker is a wise man, and that he would read the situation correctly.
I had a burning question about Robert Bakker just answered by a Google search. Read the entirety of this linked article:
http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Biographies/MainBiographies/B/Bakker/1.htmlExcerpt:
"Some attribute Bakker�s blunt and outspoken manner to the fact that he has no academic appointments. Working with an assortment of ad hoc support, he has been excavating the rich Como Bluff dinosaur quarry near Medicine Bow, Wyoming, for the past 30 years."
Yes! Yes! Yes! Robert Bakker "has no academic appointments." A whole lot of everything now makes sense.
grjeremy, go have your conversation with Robert Bakker. Just do it!
Steven A. Sylwester
