Daily Archives: February 22, 2006

Meritocracy

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I’ve never been a Boy Scout in the literal sense of the word (though I have been referred to as a Boy Scout in the derogative, goody-goody sense). But I clicked through to this article on Wikipedia about discontinued merit badges.

The most amusing, to my mind:

* Stalker 1910-1911 (replaced by Stalking)
* Stalking 1911-1952 (replaced Stalker)

I’m sure that means something else, but it looks funny. Plus, I’ve noticed that the quality of stalkers has fallen off since 1952. And this despite the technology has only gotten better!

And why are the following no longer badges, anyway?

* Blacksmithing 1911-1952
* Carpentry 1911-1952
* Civics 1911-1946
* Consumer Buying 1975-1995
* Interpreting 1911-1952
* Invention 1911-1917
* Masonry 1911-1995
* Master-At-Arms 1910-1911
* Pigeon Raising 1933-1980
* Printing/Communication 1982-1987
* Rabbit Raising 1943-1993
* Wood Turning 1930-1952

Pigeon and Rabbit raising was probably discontinued because they learned the animals got on quite well by themselves, thank you very much.

And they cancelled the Consumer Buying in 1995? No wonder the stock market ran out of steam just a few years later.

It seems 1952 was a dark year for merit badges.

Book Log – The Borderlands of Science

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The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense by Michael
Shermer

I was kind of nonplussed by this book. He sets off to try and define the
difference between solid science, pseudoscience, and the gray area in
between. And near as I can tell, he doesn’t really come to any firm
conclusion.

Sure, he can rule out some pseudoscience fairly easily (Creationism is not
falsifiable, and therefore decidedly not science), but in the borderlands
(like SETI) he just says “Gray area, whatareyagonnado?”.

Plus, there was a lot of rehashing (or perhaps prehashing… I’m not sure
of the order) of the other books I’ve read by him.