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It’s a beautiful afternoon at the ballpark, at which you have plunked down good money to be a spectator. Then it starts heading your way. From off in the distance, other members of the crowd inexplicably sacrifice their individuality and join together to get up sequentially and then briefly raise their arms to the heavens before returning to their seats. The move rolls across sections of the stands. It draws closer and closer. And then you’re engulfed. Whether you took part or just sat there waiting for it to pass, you’ve been subsumed. You have drowned in the Wave.
But now—for the second time in one summer!—a reasonable idea has emerged from Texas. The public address announcer of the defending (as I write this in August, anyway) American League champion Texas Rangers is trying to get fans to stop the Wave. The team, though not officially endorsing a Wave ban, has taken to displaying a warning on the scoreboard that states, emphatically and uppercasedly (printed verbatim):
Surgeons have determined that doing the wave will, yes, will cause tears to the suprapinatus muscle and the infraspinatus muscle from the throwing of individual’s arms rapidly into the air. In addition, any children doing the wave will be sold to the circus. Do not do the wave in the ballpark, doing the wave is safe at pro football games and Miley Cyrus concerts.
(The other good idea to come out of the Lone Star State recently was the decision in July by the Texas Board of Education to reject antievolution supplements to high school biology textbooks. The National Center for Science Education [NCSE] reported that the supplements called “intelligent design” the scientific community’s new “default position,” which is true if by “default position” one means doubled over from Pagliacci-like paroxysms of miserable laughter. The NCSE’s Joshua Rosenau also said that the supplements “are not only laced with creationist arguments, they are also remarkably shoddy, teeming with misspellings, typographical errors, and mistaken claims of fact.” The use of such materials in a biology class would have been an insult to pedagogy and as antithetical to reason as would be, say, a governor who has advocated for secession deciding to then run for president.)
Now, I’m not against the kinds of dynamics that lead to a Wave. Some scientists have likened the Wave to the rapid and intricate movements of flocks of birds or schools of fish—the group acts as a coordinated unit without the benefit of any individual leader. Or, looked at another way, each individual becomes a leader, because its behavior informs its neighbor of the next move immediately after it gets the news from its traveling companion on the other side. Slow-motion videos conclusively show that a turn moving through a wheeling bird flock or fish school looks very much like a wave passing through a fluid, when they are not showing that an umpire has blown yet another close call.
Speaking of umpires, here’s a realization I had: they’re unnecessary. The obvious calls, for example, when a base runner is out by a mile, don’t require an umpire. And for the incredibly close calls, the so-called bang-bang plays, the standard line is: “It could have gone either way.” The hope here is that technological officiating will soon replace umpires. And any purists who argue that “human error is part of the game” can be comforted by the postgame sight of dozens of fans wandering around the parking lot trying to remember where they left their cars.
Back to the billowing, fluttering, undulating and annoying Wave. As I mentioned at the outset, when I go to a game, I pay to be a spectator. If I’m actually providing entertainment to my fellow fans, well, I want a piece of the gate. Seriously, the world’s most skilled practitioners of their craft are at work on the field, and we mere mortals should pay attention. Texas is correct: keep the Wave in schools of fish and keep creationism out of schools of humans.
This article was originally published with the title Surface Tension.
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14 Comments
Add CommentWhen did SA get into the sarcasm business!?!?!?!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease present the facts and leave the opinion out.
I have a developed sense of humor but this type of nonsense belongs somewhere else. No Science upon which to report today?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho ever said science has no sense of humor? Don't let the misanthropes get to you, very funny and informative. Anywords that reveal Gov. Ponzi's moronic inconsistencies is OK by me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWorst tragedy of the century? Texas NOT seceding.
Promytius you are a bit wrong! The greatest tragedy is that there is not a rift between Texas and the U.S. and the lone star thingymygiggy doesn't just slip in to the gulf!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo what about the Wave's effect on production of serotonin (for instance)? The positive feelings it invokes, and the physiological effects of standing up after a long period seated? Not to mention that telling children they'll be sold to a circus isn't necessarily going to discourage them from doing something.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIncluding humor in science is a lot less harmful than including religion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike the writer, I think creationism is an unfounded religious doctrine without scientific basis. I am an agnostic and have been one all of my life. However, I feel worried when I see the antagonism and fear that creationism generates in what are otherwise fairly tolerant scientific circles. I see no harm in creationism being discussed in textbooks, providing it isn't explicitly advocated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo one with a scientific mind is going to be swayed by a discussion of creationism and believers aren't going to change their minds simply because it's not mentioned in textbooks. What was initially a reasonable desire to be sure that science and the scientific method are adequately explained in textbooks has morphed into a witch hunt against anyone who has doubts or alternative explanations. This reminds me of the anti-sex crusaders of the 1950s or the old Legion of Decency and their attempts to censor and ban books in schools.
Scientific arguments can stand on their own merits and need not fear religious competition. The inclination toward religious or scientific thinking has much of its basis in personality and temperament, perhaps as much as the tendency to be straight or gay is. Banning discussion of these explanations does nothing except justify censorship as a tactic to quell doubts as well as unfairly marginalize and stigmatize religious believers. We are what we are, even when it proves inconvenient to dogmatists of various kinds.
It also hands creationism believers a tool: that they are being persecuted and dismissed by a public school system in a culture that it probably more in tune with them that their censors! Think about this. In the schools science is the dominant force, as it should be, but among the people who are being educated it is religion that dominates. The argument that there is an attempt to ridicule or mock religious students, albeit by deliberate omission of their values, is not entirely without merit.
Intolerant crusading on behalf of a point of view and stigmatizing its opponents has no place in science or in the public school system. This is also true in the global warming debates. Give students the tools to think with and reason things out and leave it to them. The fundamental idea of education is to teach people how to think rationally and not to instill dogma.
The vast majority of students who go on to college and professional schools will, by a process of selection, tend toward evidence-based reasoning or be religious in a way that doesn’t interfere with decisions where it matters. They need no thought police to protect them. In either case, let them believe what they choose. This is what a free society is all about anyway.
More Steve Mirsky, please.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ Laird Wilcox - agree (maybe) but the problem is they keep trying to sneak creationism/intelligent design in as a science. It isn't.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBest Anti Gravity – EVER!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor those of you who have obviously never read Anti Gravity—that would be those of you shocked by the exquisite sarcasm and fabulous humor (and, oh yeah, truth)—go back to reading that which has been recommended by your masters.
For those of us who do get it and thoroughly enjoy it, be you hereby advised that we have to read through your junk before we can discover you’re probably from a very strange and dark place, say maybe an allegorical cave. Then, and only then, are we able to discover how much of our time you wasted. Get thee gone from this section!
7. Laird Wilcox
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"No one with a scientific mind is going to be swayed by a discussion of creationism,,,"
First off, there's no such thing as a scientific mind. There are just people who practice the disciplines associated with the scientific method.
Secondly, it's not those folk we're concerned about. It's children who accept w/o discernment whatever those in authority over them espouse. Even mentioning creationism in a biology text book implies some validity to that nonsense.
The only place for religion is the church and home.
There is a very simple, valid way of including "creation science" in the standard curriculum. Place it in a unit that studies the various ways in which humans think, reason, and draw conclusions. People should clearly understand the differences between faith and science so that they can critically evaluate the postulates of each method. One cannot understand the inherent fallacy in the oxymoron "creation-science" unless one examines and understands the different methods of gathering information and drawing conclusions utilized in each. Ignoring a widespread belief system does not negate it nor make it irrelevant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegarding "intelligent design"; as I approach my eighth decade and find more parts wearing out I am beginning to question just how "intelligent" the "designer" really was. Still, with all the malfunctions I'm in no hurry for a recall.
I find that I remember science that is delivered with a hefty dose of humor and sarcasm far better than I remember dry facts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) is a large (seats about 100,000) and prestigious ballpark. The wave is quite common there – with a twist. A wave will start rolling around the ground until it reaches the “Members” stand. Members NEVER wave. Instead, for the time the wave would take to pass the stand (20-30 seconds) everybody else stands up and boos. The wave then resumes at the other end of the members stand. Very Australian. It helps to enliven a dull afternoon of cricket.
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