February 2022 – The Afterclap

As I continue with the “A Nation STILL At Risk” series, terms and phrases containing specific definitions and implications will be added to the published work.

Glossary, by Bruce Kendall, Founder of The Afterclap

While Jurassic Park books and movies are common culture entertainment, they are also an afterclap. Between the 1993 Jurassic Park Movie and the 1990 book, we have defined Jurassic Parked as the following maxim:

When Mathematicians and Scientists use the knowledge, they did not earn for themselves or use the discipline necessary to attain it but stood on the shoulders of giants and took a step without taking any responsibility for it or asking if they should have taken it then created a belief that it was a magic wand of understanding and then it was turned into Venerated Legalized Extortion without considering the collateral damage.

We have drawn heavily from the book and movie. See the excerpts below:

MOVIE:

Dr. Ian Malcolm: Gee, the lack of humility before nature that’s being displayed here, uh… staggers me.

Donald Gennaro: Well thank you, Dr. Malcolm, but I think things are a little bit different then you and I had feared…

Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, I know. They’re a lot worse.

Donald Gennaro: Now, wait a second now, we haven’t even seen the park…

John Hammond: No, no, Donald, Donald, Donald… let him talk. There’s no reason… I want to hear every viewpoint, I really do.

Dr. Ian Malcolm: Don’t you see the danger, John, inherent in what you’re doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet’s ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun.

Donald Gennaro: It’s hardly appropriate to start hurling generalizations…

Dr. Ian Malcolm: If I may… Um, I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here, it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now

[bangs on the table]

Dr. Ian Malcolm: you’re selling it, you wanna sell it. Well…

John Hammond: I don’t think you’re giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody’s ever done before…

Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.

John Hammond: Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction…

Dr. Ian Malcolm: [shaking his head] No…

John Hammond: If I was to create a flock of condors on this island, you wouldn’t have anything to say.

Dr. Ian Malcolm: No, hold on. This isn’t some species that was obliterated by deforestation, or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs had their shot, and nature selected them for extinction.

John Hammond: I simply don’t understand this Luddite attitude, especially from a scientist. I mean, how can we stand in the light of discovery, and not act?

Dr. Ian Malcolm: What’s so great about discovery? It’s a violent, penetrative act that scars what it explores. What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world.

Dr. Ellie Sattler: Well, the question is, how can you know anything about an extinct ecosystem? And therefore, how could you ever assume that you can control it? I mean, you have plants in this building that are poisonous, you picked them because they look good, but these are aggressive living things that have no idea what century they’re in, and they’ll defend themselves, violently if necessary.

John Hammond: Dr. Grant, if there’s one person here who could appreciate what I’m trying to do…

Dr. Alan Grant: The world has just changed so radically, and we’re all running to catch up. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but look… Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?

John Hammond: [laughing] I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it! You’re meant to come down here and defend me against these characters, and the only one I’ve got on my side is the blood-sucking lawyer!

Donald Gennaro: Thank you.

BOOK:

“…we haven’t had any accidents for months now…Everything on that island is perfectly fine.” ― Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

BOOK:

“They’re both technicians. They have what I call ‘thintelligence’. They see the immediate situation. They think narrowly and they call it ‘being focused’. They don’t see the surround. They don’t see the consequences.” ― Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

MOVIE:

John Hammond: [as they gather around a baby dinosaur hatching from its egg] I’ve been present for the birth of every little creature on this island.

Dr. Ian Malcolm: Surely not the ones that are bred in the wild?

Henry Wu: Actually they can’t breed in the wild. Population control is one of our security precautions. There’s no unauthorized breeding in Jurassic Park.

Dr. Ian Malcolm: How do you know they can’t breed?

Henry Wu: Well, because all the animals in Jurassic Park are female. We’ve engineered them that way.

[they take the baby dinosaur out of its egg. A robot arm picks up the shell out of Grant’s hand and puts it back down]

Dr. Ian Malcolm: But again, how do you know they’re all female? Does somebody go out into the park and pull up the dinosaurs’ skirts?

Henry Wu: We control their chromosomes. It’s really not that difficult. All vertebrate embryos are inherently female anyway, they just require an extra hormone given at the right developmental stage to make them male. We simply deny them that.

Dr. Ellie Sattler: Deny them that?

Dr. Ian Malcolm: John, the kind of control you’re attempting simply is… it’s not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh… well, there it is.

John Hammond: [sardonically] There it is.

Henry Wu: You’re implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will… breed?

Dr. Ian Malcolm: No. I’m, I’m simply saying that life, uh… finds a way.

MOVIE:

Dr. Ian Malcolm: [as they escape the T-Rex chasing after them in the Jeep] You think they’ll have that on the tour?

Respectfully

Bruce Kendall

CONTACT:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Afterclap-107153424017370

Twitter: https://twitter.com/@TAfterclap

Email: theafterclap@mail.com

LINKS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_(film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_(novel)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/quotes/qt1744888

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/jurassic-park

The first entry of, “A Nation STILL At Risk,” series by Bruce Kendall, Founder of The Afterclap

I believe that to understand a subject; its history is as important and sometimes more important than its immediate description. And the origin of the word Psychometry and its use in published literature tells part of its history.

Psychometryis pronounced as [ sahy-kom-i-tree ] and defined as; “the alleged art or faculty of divining facts concerning an object or a person associated with it, by contact with or proximity to the object.” [1]

And first recorded 1850-55 by combining the words psycho- + -metry, from the Greek meaning (breath, spirit, soul, mind) plus (action or process of measuring).

The earliest use listed was by the author, Swami Panchadasi in the book, Clairvoyance and Occult Powers Circa 1916, and included the five following quotes:

1. “In Psychometry some object is used in order to bring the occulist “en rapport” with the person or thing associated with it.”

2. “In this phase of psychometry, all that is needed is a piece of the coal, mineral or metal which has come from the mine.”

3. “Psychometry develops the occultist for still higher clairvoyant powers.”

4. “The above incident is typical of this class of psychometry, and many persons have had at least flashes of this phase of the power.”

5. “The following examples will give a good idea of the Denton experiments, which are typical of this class of psychometry.”

The other definition was “Psychology. psychometrics” [2]

Psychometrics, pronounced [ sahy-kuh-me-triks ], is defined as “the measurement of mental traits, abilities, and processes.” [2]

Also first recorded circa 1850–55; by combining psycho- and -metrics “the science of measuring” [3]

It is also defined as psychometry.

Which circles back to where we started. The word psychometrician is tied into education learning assessments, pronounced [sahy-kom-i-trish-uhn], derived from psychometry. [1]

Psychometricians use “Psychometrics…a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement…concerned with the objective measurement of latent constructs that cannot be directly observed. Examples of latent constructs include intelligence, introversion, mental disorders, and educational achievement.” [4]

According to Wikipedia [4], The Historical foundation for Psychological testing comes from two streams of thought: Victorian and German. Standardized testing comes from the German stream of thought.

And how did early literature use the word psychometric:

1. “Then there is the psychometric doctor, who cures by spirits.” From As A Chinaman Saw Us: Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home by Anonymous circa 1916 Copyright, 1904, by D. Appleton and Company

2. “I make use of a material which, at first glance, may be confused with psychometric material.” From The Montessori Method Scientific Pedagogy as Applied to Child Education in ‘The Children’s Houses’ with Additions and Revisions by the Author by Maria Montessori, Translated from The Italian by Anne E. George, With An Introduction by Professor Henry W. Holmes of Harvard University. Copyright, 1912, by Frederick A. Stokes Company Page 168.

3. “These are not psychometric forecasts, but rational inferences, from our increasing rate of progress.” Buchanan’s Journal of Man, January 1888 Volume 1, Number 12 Various in “Twentieth Century Science, Dawning at the end of the Nineteenth.”

4. “The letter is a very good connecting medium in psychometric experiments.” From Clairvoyance and Occult Powers by Swami Panchadasi circa 1916

5. “Nothing had occurred to her father, and the appearance may be adequately accounted for on psychometric grounds.” From Studies in the Out-Lying Fields of Psychic Science by Hudson Tuttle, Copyright by Hudson Tuttle, 1889.

Until and just past the turn of the 19^th century, the science that developed into standardized learning measurements at least partially focused on Psychic Science, Clairvoyance, and Occult powers, when I return to this again in the early 20th century, we will discover the changes in science leading into the 21st century.

Dear reader, I hope you will consider making positive suggestions to help. The Afterclap’s goal for 2022 is to flesh out, A Nation “STILL” At Risk. And the work we do is not about me. It is about all of us.

Respectfully

Bruce Kendall

Contact:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Afterclap-107153424017370

Twitter: https://twitter.com/@TAfterclap

Email: theafterclap @bkendall527

REFERENCED LINKS:

[1] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/psychometry

[2] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/psychometrics

[3] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/metrics

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychometrics 2022 0214

[5] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/psychometric