* One of the several things that has kept me busy recently is putting together my teaching evaluation portfolio for the year. I didn't like the old statement of teaching philosophy that I had on file, so I re-wrote it more to my taste. There's actually a lot more I wanted to say, but I had to keep it brief, which turned out to be the difficult and time-consuming part. I thought some readers might be interested in my view of teaching, so I put it online. I'm always interested in refining it, so comments are welcome.
* Under the Lateran treaties for the past 80 years, Vatican City essentially operated under Italian law: laws passed by the Italian parliament automatically went into effect in Vatican City. No more.
* Sir Peter Stothard, who actually writes good literary review pieces, discusses Chesterton's Father Brown stories.
* Father John Neuhaus died on January 8. "The Public Square" was always an interesting example of a relatively rare genre these days, the philosophical miscellany.
* Rebecca had an excellent post recently on that remarkable late nineteenth-century genius, Beatrix Potter. Potter, of course, is best known for her Peter Rabbit tales, but she was remarkable in other ways. For instance, as part of being something of a virtuoso amateur naturalist, she did a considerable amount of research into mycology. Potter quickly became convinced of the view that lichens were not a single organism but a double one, in which algae and fungi interacted symbiotically. Something like this idea had been suggested on the Continent, but it was usually thought that the relationship was parasitic, and in England it was not given much credence. She did some testing of the idea, and managed to get her paper on it read before the Linnaean Society. But it came to nothing, and she eventually withdrew it. Part of the reason seems to have been sexism (Potter herself was very convinced that some figures with whom she had to interact were misogynists, and it was still a time when Potter could not read her own paper before the Linnaean Society because women weren't allowed to be members or participants in the Society). From what I understand she also had difficulty with contamination of samples, and she seems to have concluded that more research needed to be done. And it was also a time where the role of the amateur scientist was passing; the enthusiasm in the days of John Herschel for the idea that science is something done, or capable of being done, by the whole of society had begun to pass, and amateur naturalists were no longer seen as having much to contribute to the discussion of professional scientists. The fact that she was a shy person, and like many shy people not especially adept in being either tactful or persuasive when she felt forced to state her opinion, may not have helped. The exact details, however, are unknown; we do not have Potter's paper, only some research notes and mentions in correspondence. In any case, that was that; Potter went on to other things, to the loss of mycology and the benefit of literature. Roy Watling has a paper discussing her mycological adventures (PDF) with a focus on her scientific practice. In the course of her mycological research she seems to have come across a great many things; for instance, there is some evidence that she independently discovered the antibacterial properties of penicillin.
* I think I linked to it before, but I still need to get around to reading it more closely: Mark Granovetter, The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited (PDF)
