Astrophotography Session

 My instrument was an Astro-Tech 115 mm apochromatic triplet (extremely low disperson glass) on a Celestron AVX mount and tripod. The ocular was a Tele Vue 32mm Ploessl 52-degree field of view for 25X. The camera was my iPhone 15 (iOS 18.11) mounted on a Celestron NexYX carrier. I was out from 1:05 to 2:30 AM. I shot 19 stills and movies.

Messier 42: the Orion Nebula

Mintaka: double star with companion

Messier 41 in Canis Major

The Pleiades: Messier 45

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Observing with NASA: an open forum for citizen science

Astrophotography and Me

Astrophotography is a Lot Like Love

Lunar Eclipse 8 November 2022

Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction 2020

Solar Imaging

 We are approaching a sunspot maximum for 2024/2025 and already are above statistically likely events.

 Images with Explore Scientific 102mm achromatic refractor,  TeleVue 32mm Ploessl, iPhone 15 iOS18.11.  Explore Scientifc SunCatcher filter mounted on the objective. These are two of the best six of 13.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Viewing Mars 

From Texas to the Moon with John Leonard Riddell 

Questions about A Brief History of Time 

Measuring Your Universe: Alan Hirshfeld's Astronomy Activity Manual 

The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science

It is difficult to know when to accept history on its own terms. We tend to not condemn the ancient Greeks, Romans, or Jews for having slaves, though we hold the ante-bellum South culpable. I was not surprised by Seb Falk’s story about Brother John Westwyk’s productive labors in mathematical astronomy and the consequential instrumentation of measurement for those works. But I was enlightened by the search for and discovery of the man who wrote an astronomy text commonly credited to Geoffrey Chaucer. 

Chaucer did author A Treatise on the Astrolabe. It was Dompnus Johannes de Westwyke (Brother John of Westwick) who created Equatorie of the Planetis, a book that had been credited to Chaucer. So, Seb Falk interleaves two stories here: the life of Brother John as best it can be built from scant records; and the development of astronomy (and, generally, science) in the Middle Ages. 

Reading this book the first time through, I knew that I would annotate post-its to bookmark passages. The second time through the book, it soon became clear that I should just copy the whole thing here—which, of course, is not allowed.

“Far from the stereotype of a stagnant scientific environment which did no more than preserve the ideas of the ancients, computists in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries continued to refine their astronomical models, with ever more accurate estimates of the solar and lunar cycles. Scholars became more outspoken in their criticism of the increasingly unrealistic ecclesiastical calendar. In the 1260s Franciscan friar and proponent of empirical science Roger Bacon wrote, at the Pope’s request, a series of tracts on educational reform.” (page 74) 

To compute, you must have a computer. God gave you ten fingers, each with two knuckles. Supported and enhanced with recipes for rapid mental arithmetic, you could calculate the rising and setting of the Sun for your locale—and you could measure musical harmonies, also. If you were enrolled at a university in 1325, to complete a bachelor’s degree required completing the Trivium of Logic, Rhetoric, and Grammar; the master’s degree required the Quadrivium of Geometry, Arithmetic, Music, and Astronomy. But attending one of the newly founded universities was expensive. So, monasteries most often paid for a limited education after which the motivated monk studied (and wrote) on his own—and sometimes her own (page 73). 

 

One result of that was that no two books are exactly the same. Copyists used the intentionally available spaces to add their own amendments and emendations, expanding, explaining, and correcting. Books lived. (ref. esp. pages 77 and 124). Knowing this, and expecting that copies will be carried to other places, Brother John Westwick cautioned the next one building an equatorie from his plans: “Nota I conseile the ne write no names of signes til that thow hast proved this commune centre defferent is trewli and justli set.” (Illustration 7.9).

The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science by Seb Falk; W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2020. (Published in the UK as The Light Ages: A Medieval Journey of Discovery; W. W. Norton & Company, London, 2019.) W. W. Norton's webpage mentions the Best Book awards from The Times, The Telegraph, and BBC History Magazine. I learned of it because it garnered the AAS Historical Astronomy Division Osterbrock Book Award for 2024.

One thread not followed here, which I considered important, is that the manuscript under discussion was first rediscovered by Derek Price deSolla. Price deSolla is also credited with the first rigorous examination of the Antikythera Mechanism (NecessaryFacts here.) No mention of that appears in this book.

 

Previously on Necessary Facts

Science in the Middle Ages 

Astronomical Symbols on Ancient and Medieval Coins 

Galileo’s Two Sciences 

Rescuing Aristotle and the Church 

Copernicus On the Revolution of Heavenly Bodies 

 

 

Christmas 2024

In our neighbood, Steeplechase II, in Kyle, Texas, the Christmas lights started sprouting right after Halloween. The best graveyard changed the headstone to Ebenezzer Scrooge and added reindeer and very much more. 

Our House is a Very, Very Fine House

When we moved here at the end of 2020, I had lights up at two homes. This year, I changed one string of Thanksgiving colors and I used as many Christmas lights as our home would carry. 

A modest neighbor.

We missed the Santa parade this year. Our first year, it took us by surprise as we were out walking. 

The City of Kyle exceeds a thousand words at the old city hall park across the street from the new city hall. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Halloween 2022 

Merry Newtonmas 2021

Created Works and the Public Domain

Public Domain Day 2025 came up as a Google News item. I have given some thought to the traditions and laws about intellectual property and I have only questions. In other blog posts I commented on the contradictions, but I have no integrated proposal. 

Common assumptions about property are rooted in the physical reality of land: it is impossible for two objects to be in the same place at the same time. Thus, land is rival and exclusionary: if an entity (person, family, etc.) possess it, then another cannot. Copyrights and patents attempt to include “ideas” into “lands.” However, intellectual property is metaphysically different from physical property. 

 Based on the definition that property ownership is rival and exclusionary, collectivist thinkers built a truth table to show Common Resources (excludable but non-rival) and Club Goods (rival but non-excludable). That is nonsense. 

Define Human as “rational animal” and the non-rational animal and rational non-animal remain not-human. So, too, are common resources and club goods not property. Non-A cannot be A. Nothing is not a different kind of something.

Contrary to the collectivist claims, freshwater, fish, timber, and pasture are all exclusionary and rival. You can’t have your fish and let your neighbor eat it, too.

 

What they call “club goods” are defined and limited by technology, not by metaphysics. Discussing radio broadcasting in her essay, “Property Status of the Airwaves” Rand correctly pointed that two broadcasters cannot share same frequency. But they can. Just not at the same time. And time-slicing allows two (or more) broadcasters to occupy the same wavelength. However, that does not change the fundamental principle that these timely-sliced increments are property. 

From Diabolo Valley College Econ101 linking from PennState,
College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.
"EBF 200 Introduction to Energy and Earth Sciences Economics:
Public Goods and Common Pools."
Also found in Investopedia and Quickonomics.

Common resources – non-excludable but rival (freshwater, fish, timber, pasture)

Common resources are defined as products or resources that are non-excludable but rival. That means virtually anyone can use them. However, if one individual consumes them, their availability to other consumers is reduced. The combination of those two characteristics often results in an overuse of these resources because demand exceeds the available quantity (see also the tragedy of the commons). Examples of common resources include freshwater, fish, timber, pasture, etc. -- https://quickonomics.com/different-types-of-goods/

 Club goods – excludable but non-rival (cable television, cinemas, wireless internet, toll roads)

Club goods are products that are excludable but non-rival. Thus, individuals can be prevented from consuming them (i.e., access can be restricted), but their consumption does not reduce their availability to other individuals (at least not until a point of overuse or congestion is reached). Club goods are sometimes also referred to as artificially scarce resources. They are often provided by natural monopolies. Examples of this type of goods include cable television, cinemas, wireless internet, toll roads, etc. -- 

https://quickonomics.com/different-types-of-goods/

 

It is true that you and I can both watch the same program on cable-TV. The hidden error was identified by Ayn Rand as “the blank out” and Rand identified its logical expression as the fallacy of the stolen concept. You and I can both watch the same cable-TV show – up to a point: we all know what happens when too many users overload a website. More deeply and cogently, for anyone to access television or the internet, physical goods must be produced. The perception of social largess as a “club good” blanks out on the previous non-existence of roads and theaters.  

We [the American Historical Association] encountered a similar experience in 2001, when the AHA decided to create a freely available online collection of Civil War newspaper editorials, utilizing two volumes originally published by the AHA in 1931 and 1942. AHA staff quickly discovered that no copyright renewal was ever filed for the second volume, edited by Harold C. Perkins, and it subsequently had entered the public domain. However, the editor of the first volume, Dwight L. Dumond, had renewed the copyright in his own name in 1959. Orphan Works Notice of Inquiry – 70 Federal Register 3739 (Jan. 26, 2005)

http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/OW0676-AHA.pdf

To me, the error was the granting of the copyright to Dwight L. Dumond. As the editor, he was a hireling. His work rightfully belonged to those who paid him for it. The concept of a collective entity in law –what we call a “corporation”-- has roots in the Roman republic. Under Roman law, a flock of sheep was a collective entity: lose a lamb or gain a lamb, it is the same flock. On that basis, cities were taxed: the city was an entity that owed tribute to Rome, itself a collective entity. No one owned a city. Under American law, the American Historical Association as an entity can certainly be protected from theft by its employees. 

 

On or about the same day as the link about Public Domain Day, Google News offered a link to a story from GameRant.com about the Star Trek canon. Star Trek is owned by Paramount Global. (The July 2024 merger with Skydance may be challenged now through the FCC but that does not affect what follows.) Since 1966 many details of the continuing, expanding, and extending myth have been changed. Others remain constant. In this case, the legal owners changed an element of the canon - the physiognomy of the Klingons was altered in Star Trek: Discovery and the fans objected. (Klingons had changed once already but that was accepted.) Using a new storyline in Star Trek: Lower Decks, the owners offered some technical explanations for the change. 

 

To me, that is all good because myths change in the retelling. Mythology allows that: characters can merge or split; new characters can be entered while established characters leave. Star Wars: A New Hope is just the Wizard of Oz: Luke is Dorothy; R2D2 is Toto, … But in Star Wars, one aspect of the Wicked Witch (Darth Vader) is saved while the other aspect of the character (the Emperor) perishes. That begs the basic question: Who owns Star Wars or Star Trek or Harry Potter?  At what point does the creation of intellectual private property enter the public domain? Is there such a point? 

Back in the early 2000s, before the Atlas Shrugged movies were released, a Rand Fan created some Atlas Shrugged swag, a Rearden Steel trucker's cap, etc. The Ayn Rand Institute sent her a lawyer letter reminding her that the artifacts were based on the copyrighted works of Ayn Rand. So, as an Objectivist herself, she ceased and desisted. But we cannot imagine Paramount chasing down every "Beam me up, Scotty" bumper sticker. And personally, I think that the ARI should have just shrugged it off by labelling their gear "Official" the way that Major League Baseball does. 

 

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/

I have donated to the Internet Archive and the Wayback Machine. (Similar archives include the Hathi Trust and the Linda Hall Library.) Like the promoters of Public Domain Day, my comrades at the Internet Archive claim a moral high ground because they are offering the works for free and have no commercial interest in the use. To me, that argument is irrelevant. And it is falsified by several considerations. They do accept donations, and it is easy to assume that donors are users. Absent donors, the entity would not exist. So, they are in business. And in business for a profit because not-for-profit is only a matter of bookkeeping: owner's equity is called "net assets."

Long ago, writing in The Libertarian Connection, Skye d’ Aureus and Natalie Hall argued against Ludwig von Mises’s assertion that truth and beauty are not economic goods. Skye and Natalie pointed out that truth and beauty must be produced by human action.  

As collectivism grows in popularity, and as the nonproductive consider themselves increasingly entitled to the wealth created by the productive, Rand’s arguments in favor of intellectual property rights merit reinforcing not diminishing. -- "Ayn Rand's 'Patents and Copyrights'" by Marilyn Moore, posted May 28, 2019.  https://www.atlassociety.org/post/ayn-rands-patents-and-copyrights

Writing for the Atlas Society, Marilyn Moore (Director of Student Programs) parsed the difference between copyrights and patents and argued contrary to Rand that literary works should be patented while inventions should be copyrighted.  Moreover, Moore asserted, as a metaphysical fact, a discovery cannot be patented or copyrighted. First, the discoverer did not create the fact; and, second, once announced to the public, the discoverer cannot prevent other people from now knowing what they know. Third--and most consequentially--it is immoral to deny independent discovery and therefore independent invention. It is unlikely that two people will write the same book. It is well known that two people can create the same solution to a technical problem based on a shared (though independent) understanding of the facts of reality.

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Copy Rights and Wrongs 

Objective Intellectual Property Law 

U.S. Patent Law Does Not Add Up 

Patent Nonsense: Intellectual Property Rights and Non-Objective Law 

Biohackers 

 

LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF ATLAS SHRUGGED

 In the opening scenes of Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand sets the conflict of values between the heirs of the Taggart Transcontinental railroad. James invested corporation rolling stock and his own money in a copper mining venture in Mexico. He relied on inside information from his friends in Washington and other corporate collaborators. Dagny has been withdrawing the engines and cars. Earlier this month, Caltrain sold 19 locomotives and 90 galley cars to the government of Peru for $6 million. The justifications for the sale are almost verbatim from James Taggart. 

“This agreement will help Peru embrace a more sustainable future while also bringing millions of dollars to help us keep Caltrain running,” stated Caltrain Executive Director Michelle Bouchard in a press release. “Our former Caltrain passenger cars and locomotives will enable the start of new commuter rail service in greater Lima, cleaner air for commuters and community members and the access to opportunity that great public transportation provides.”

As part of the state funding for the electrification, the F40 locomotives were supposed to be rendered unusable, per California state law. However, Caltrain was able to obtain a waiver from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District because of the environmental benefits of establishing a new commuter rail service in Peru. The deal was brokered with the Government of Lima, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Department of Commerce." https://railfan.com/caltrain-f40s-gallery-cars-sold-to-peru/

Previously on Necessary Facts

Greg Browne’s Necessary Factual Truths

That Goddam Ayn Rand Book 

The Influence of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism 

Longevity

In 1973, I was reading and writing for The Libertarian Connection and, as it happened, my wife at the time got her hair caught in a printing press. She was OK but the ER doctor recommended that she take a course of multiple vitamins. And that tied in with the Life Extension themes in the LC. (See Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw in Wikipedia.) A few years later and with the new, current, and present wife, everything was natural, organic, locally sourced, and good for both you and the planet. We belonged to food co-ops in every town we moved to and even served on a board. You can live well by choice though living long may not be amenable to human action.

I always like the aphorism attributed wrongly to Thomas Edison: “All I ask of my body is that it carry my brain around.” I quoted that to a colleague and she replied by asking me how long it would do that if I do not exercise. 

Social Security Administration

I have always been a walker, but not much more. Then, I joined the Texas State Guard and ramped up my physical fitness. Being assigned to the National Guard put me above a gym and we were paid to use it. So, that helped. When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in July of 2022, the oncologist gave me 80 pages of background from Wolters Kluwer. I thought that I had six months to two years to live. (How do you make God laugh?) But I responded well. (Stem Cell Collection.) And here I am. The oncologist said that I could live to be 80 or beyond. So, there was no gain there, just holding the line.

Long before that, maybe 15 years ago, I found an actuarial table that gave me an expiration date of June 18, 2032. Fifteen years ago, that seemed far away. This week, I ran the numbers again. The government is still betting on an early out for me. 

However, Northwest Mutual gave me better odds, assuming I do not take up smoking, drinking, illegal drugs, and driving without a seatbelt—and that I continue to walk at least 30 minutes a day. 

Yesterday, it being cold and rainy, I drove most of the day, patrolling garages but this week, walking became a new kind of bank account. 

I always liked science; I just was never exceptional at the practice; I had to take Physics 1 and Calculus 1 three times each to get A grades in them. To edit for the American Astronomical Society Historical Astronomy Division, I took an online class in astrophysics. It was not required but I thought that it was important to understand the content that I was reading. Most of my practice in astronomy is mere stargazing with 4-inch refractors from city and suburban skies. 

On the other hand, my microscopes never get even that much use, athough I bought a new one after my diagnosis. Biology just never grabbed me. I had microscopes as a kid and enjoyed the views. However, in college, I took physics three times and biology never. 

Today, I have textbooks on microbiology and histology, sadly underused and not marked up and dog-eared. That being as it was, a new year brings new resolutions. From the UT library, I checked out two books on genetics and bought two more from Half Price Books, including “For Dummies.” It is not that I expect to gain any special understanding of aging but rather the value in mental exercise associated with a new body of knowledge.

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Biohackers 

Epigenetics 

Epigenetics and Evolution 

Austin Biobash 2013 

 

 

Aging

The doctor said, “You have normal, age-related degeneration.” I said, “I do not believe that it is normal.” She replied, “People like you never do.” 

Widely attributed to Thomas Edison (without good support) is the sentiment: “All I ask of my body is that it carry my brain around.” I repeated that to a friend and she cautioned me: “How long is it going to do that if you don’t exercise?” That was just before I joined the Texas State Guard which put my body in pretty good condition, granted that the standards were lower than for the federal army. Having aged out of the TXSG, I fell out of the daily push-ups and sit-ups, but my current job in parking enforcement at the University of Texas has me walking, and a couple of times a week, I get down on the ground and wrestle 10 kg of iron around a tire to disable a scofflaw. So, despite some serious problems, I am not too concerned about my body. Diet, exercise, and vitamins take care of that.

Over the last four years, I have had four neurological assessments. The doctors agree with each other, but I believe that they are all limited by their education and experience to accept their expectations for normal aging. Exercises for the mind are outside of their knowledge bases. 

First, the mind is not synonymous with the brain or even with the nervous system of brain, spinal cord, and neurons. Back in the 20^th century, I kept on my office wall a quote of my own devising:

At ArmadilloCon 46 I served on a panel to discuss the future of artificial intelligence in science fiction. After my prepared remarks, in the têt-a-têt with the other three panelists, I agreed with Stina Leicht that, historically, we model the human spirit (whatever that is) according to our technology of the moment, from “faculties” to “mechanisms” to “wiring” to a “computer” or “software.”* I said that it is limiting to believe that an electro-encephalogram (EEG) can make the pens of a machine move on a strip of paper but that we cannot communicate directly with another person. (The EEG is more delicate today than it was back in the 1960s but the fact remains.) 

Keeping your spirit in good working order—another model of the moment—can be enhanced with new “book learning.” In 2021, I completed an online class in astrophysics. For other people, crosswords, Sudoku, etc. would also be new exercising.

I know that I am not alone in this.

Robert Leighton for The New Yorker.
25 June 2024.

In the meantime, it takes a few seconds longer to cross the kitchen—a dozen times a day, every day… And I do not always remember why this chicken crossed this road. We say that time is money, but right now, I believe that I have more money than time. One fun fact is that some years ago, I looked up my life expectancy on a life insurance website. My expiration date is 18 June 2032. As I have been treated for multiple myeloma, my oncologist assures me that I could live to be 80 or 82. There are many levels of meaning in “No pain; no gain.” and “No praise; no blame.”

* Stina Leicht mentioned Edgar Allan Poe’s exposé of the mechanical “Turk” in “Maelzel’s Chess Player” (1836). See, also Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer by John C. Lilly (1968).

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

Aging in America: Alternatives to Government Policy

Biohackers 

Disruptive Diagnostics and the Business of Science 

Innovation and Discovery 

 

Digital Literacy and Artificial Intelligence

Ahead of the submission of their doctoral dissertation, a friend asked me to participate in a focus group to discuss digital intelligence and artificial intelligence. I prepared my answers in advance.

Focus Group Questions

The focus group questions are:

Grand tour question:

1. Please introduce yourself to the group and describe your educational background and career in your current position. CRQ

Most of my work has been as a technical writer for information systems serving government agencies and private enterprises. It happens that my degrees are in criminology and social science but I edit for the American Astronomical Society’s Historical Astronomy Division. Back in the 20^th century, for five years, I taught technical writing at my local community college. [Added here: I completed a certificate in introductory use of ChatGPT via LinkedIn Learning as an assignment from my current employer, the University of Texas.]

Questions about Teaching and Education:

2. How do you perceive the role of data intelligence and AI education in preparing students for the future? CRQ

I understand education in data intelligence and artificial intelligence as aspects of good citizenship, along with literacy in mathematics and general science, as well as geography and politics, art and music, etc. 

Gathering data from a wide range of sources and then evaluating each pool against a criterion places a special burden on the active citizen that exceeds the similar moral mandates for good citizenship from previous generations. 

Before the 21^st century, even in urban areas with more than one newspaper, most households chose just one based on political preferences. In that sense, there existed two assumptions: that the news was factual; its interpretation meshed with the values of the household. Given that most students K-12 follow the culture of the home, the descriptions of the world which were accepted by students aligned with that model. However, it is traditional in America that young people question those values when they matriculate to university education. While the specifics might change from nominally “conservative” to ostensibly “liberal” the mode of opinion formation was the same: the student found their facts and the meanings of those facts from established sources. All of that has changed.

Now, students must assume a special burden to first seek out valid (or least validatable) facts and then to give (or find) meaning in those empirical claims. Deeper still, the student must assume responsibility for the choices of original sources and tools of evaluation. In the previous generation, very few people used statistical methods (mean-mode-median; standard deviation; Xi-squared; p-values) to test the data they read about an effectively endless list of current events topics:  inflation, unemployment, imports and exports, medical therapies, endangered species, etc. 

Gathering basic information of events and dates is one task. Evaluating the economic, ecological, and moral contexts of those significant items is far more complicated and impactful. Whatever the worldview of the student among their family of origin, a large flow of unanticipated data and interpretation can have a life-altering impact. 

Everyone has heard about ChatGPT. There are others from Microsoft (GPT-3), Google, (Bard LaMDA), Facebook (RoBERTa), and IBM (Watson), and many more competitors. How do you evaluate an AI? The choice must be made and becomes the responsibility of the student. First, however, the burden lies with the educator.

·       “But with the sheer volume of data being collected, it became necessary to attach a value rating to the data itself, which led to a forensic approach to qualifying data assets by asking where they came from, when were they collected, and why were they collected in the first place.” 

·       “… data intelligence is specifically the collection of disparate pieces of data and using AI to determine what happened in the past and why, whereas data analytics is the use of that information to create actionable predictions of what may happen in the future.” -- 

·       “… data intelligence first emerged as a means of gathering accurate background content for the purpose of more accurate and granular reporting. But with the sheer volume of data being collected, it became necessary to attach a value rating to the data itself, which led to a forensic approach to qualifying data assets by asking where they came from, when were they collected, and why were they collected in the first place. -- Hewlett Packard Enterprise. https://www.hpe.com/us/en/what-is/data-intelligence.html

3. How do you envision the future of digital literacy education in the ever-evolving landscape of AI and technology? SQ1

Educators at all grades and levels in every area are going to adopt AI tools the same as we gave up blackboards and wooden pointers to accept digital projectors and laser pointers—and, of course, computers. The only way to do that is to actively use an array of competing products to discover which are better or not-so-good depending on the needs of class, classroom, goals, and metrics. Microsoft Office and Adobe Suite have become common applications. However, we all learn to use an array of cooperation and team management tools, such as Teams, Slack, Confluence, Jira, Wrike, etc. 

(In 2010, I had a professor whose handwriting was sometimes a challenge to decipher on the overhead. Caught short by the AV department, he had to write on the blackboard and his lettering was clear, distinct, artful. I asked him why he did not use the blackboard all the time. He showed us the dust on his hands and said that he was happy to be free of it.)

At an astronomical conference in 2021, one professor told us, “If they are not programming in Python, you are not teaching them astronomy.” That statement would have been unintelligible 100 years ago. Fifty years ago, it would have been rejected on the assumption that while computers may be useful for number crunching, serious astronomy is always [an] active engagement with a spectroscope or radio telescope. Now, we have so much data that we know only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Professionals seek out and train adept amateurs, even people with no understanding of classical astronomy, who can mine the data. 

Fifty years ago, few police officers had any education beyond high school. Today, 50% have associate’s degrees and 30% have bachelor’s degrees. (Data from 2017. Article from 2010: https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/504075-college-for-cops-studies-show-it-helps-their-behavior-stress-levels/ ) Those college programs include requirements in geographic information systems or symbolic logic or other classes previously considered far removed from walking a beat or driving a district. The new trends in data literacy and engagement with AI are just as strong and will impact just as many paid employments and lifestyle choices.

We know that you can lie with statistics, lie with numbers. The recent case of Prof. Francesca Gino is telling because it was a student who finally identified the fact that the data presented did not support the assertions in the narrative. These were peer-reviewed journal articles from a scientist who was considered a leader in the field of social science research. It means that everyone is responsible and capable of data literacy. 

Questions about Digital Literacy:

4. How would you define digital literacy in the context of today’s AI-driven world? SQ1

See the quotes from Hewlett Packard Enterprise above (https://www.hpe.com/us/en/what-is/data-intelligence.html).Basic digital literacy is necessary to understand the past. With AI, digital literacy is the means of predicting futures. 

Those are almost always statistical predictions: which are the likely outcomes; which ones are improbable? Digital literacy with AI requires knowing and understanding the tool sets as clearly as we know how to read the traffic signs when driving in a different city. AI does not yet have that common language. 

That said, however, neither is this all as new as tomorrow. Right now, I am working on a short biography of Carl Sagan. I found an interview with NPR’s Talk of the Nation: Science Friday with Ira Flatow. Sagan explained the value in robots for exploring planets by pointing the technology of virtual reality. That was 1994, thirty years ago. The first chatbot was Joseph Weizenbaum’s Eliza program, which he warned against in his collection, Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation (W. H. Freeman; 1967). So, we have 60 years, a lifetime or two generations, of this incremental development. Considering the evolution of printing, steam power, electrical power, aircraft, automobiles, or computers themselves, it is easy to see that this springtime of roots and shoots is going to become a full autumn harvest—whether we are ready for it or not. 

Digital literacy will require knowing how to “read the signs” of products and processes, and navigate the landscapes of data without getting lost.

5. What are the key digital literacy skills and competencies that you believe are essential for students in the age of AI? SQ1

See the quote above: “If they are not programming in Python, you are not teaching them astronomy.” We all use computers and we do [not] think of navigating through Instagram, Reddit, or Facebook as programming but it is. Those other modes—Python, Java, etc.—are the digital literacy skills of the decision makers. Similarly, millions of people pour out billions of words via social media without knowing how to write a short story, a sonnet, or a limerick. It is an easy claim at that some level here and now, we are all digitally literate even though we do not have the same levels of competency. 

The key skills and competencies for students in the age of AI remain what they have always been:

• Critical thinking 
• A concerned and committed engagement with empirical evidence and logically consistent theory. 
• Questioning 
• Knowing when to accept the limits 

Questions about Ethics and Ethical Considerations:

6. In your opinion, what ethical considerations should educators consider when teaching digital literacy in an AI world? SQ2

Technologies come and go. Ethics can change. Morality is constant. The invention of the cotton gin made slavery profitable and it was unethical to mistreat a slave but neither of those addressed the deeper problem. In order to make the best decisions about how to use AI tools, pupils and students must learn to ask the most important questions of themselves. 

Questions about Student Engagement and Success:

7. How do you assess or measure students’ digital literacy skills, especially as they relate to AI? SQ3

You cannot write a meaningful examination for a subject unless you know the substantive material. With AI it might be possible to write an examination for any subject, accepting the warnings about the two basic limitations of AI: plagiarism [and] hallucination. So, any educator seeking to measure the work of their students must possess a deep understanding of the technology and its engagement.

8. In your experience, what are the main misconceptions or myths about AI that students often have, and how do you address them? SQ3

1. The AI must be right.  
2. Hallucinations are easy to identify. 
3. Copying is permitted. 

1. We learn to trust authorities but we do not learn how to validate them. At some level, you begin pitting authorities against each other with no over-arching standards for judgment. How do you validate an AI. It is easy to find stories on the Internet about AI hallucinations and other failures but it is harder to find anything equivalent to the scientific method for substantiating the reliability of any AI product.  
2. AI hallucinations are claims that are obviously false, false by inspection. An article was never published; a person does not exist; an event did not occur. But those stories are easy to publish when everyone agrees on common facts. Students, in particular, are at an extreme disadvantage because they lack the life experience of academic learning. They have little choice but to believe what they are taught. The alternative is extreme skepticism, which is ultimately fruitless. 
3. One technique for learning how to write for publication is to get a journal notebook. Start with the works you like and copy passages by hand. You will work beyond this to find your own style. (Or so it is claimed.) The fact is that writers begin as readers. Educators properly require that their students read and then rephrase what they have read in their own words but the standards for that are not objective. “President Wilson was adamant that the United States must support the United Kingdom in its war against Germany.” Does changing the word “adamant” to “insistent” prevent a charge of plagiarism? 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

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Knowledge Maps