About Me

Hey everyone, my name is David Clancy. I go to Duke University, where I’ll be graduating with my degree in spring 2016. I’m majoring in Statistics with minors in Mathematics and Environmental Science & Policy. When I first started up the blog, I did a four-part series where I expounded on each aspect of my tagline. Here is all of those posts, enjoy! 🙂

Academics

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ~Aristotle

Welcome to the first of four getting to know me posts. As I briefly stated in my welcome post, during my first four posts, I’ll be expounding on each of the four elements of my tagline. The first one is “College” and really it has to do with academics, education, and college life.

Here’s a bit about my educational background. I’ve gone to public schools from kindergarten through high school. In elementary school though I was at an International Baccalaureate (IBPYP) magnet school, Farmington Woods Elementary School. This school really helped me with asking questions. The teachers I had there were stellar and by far the most important think I learned was how to ask questions and look at the big picture. I also learned how to think critically and think for myself. Learning wasn’t all about rout memorization. For all this, I am extremely grateful.

Middle and high school honestly weren’t anything special. I did not continue in the IB programme for a number of reasons, but mainly because of the distance to the schools. I was lucky in the fact that I was able to enter a faster track for mathematics. This meant that I was in a special class surrounded by other people who liked math and (perhaps more importantly) was placed with teachers who had the opportunity to push us all and explain more advanced topics. I think being in this special situation gave me an edge in learning to love mathematics. Or rather, show me the beauty and usefulness of mathematics.

Finally, we come to University. I’m a student at Duke University (graduating in 2016) and I’m majoring in Statistics with minors in Mathematics and Environmental Science and Policy.  Going to Duke has been truly life-changing for me. One of the best parts is simply being surrounded by people who are highly intelligent and excited about learning. Many of my favorite memories so far have to do with sitting around (often late at night and often drinking tea) discussing philosophy, politics, religion, and life in general. I have had almost all of my views (respectfully) challenged by my friends and peers. As a result of all of this, I ended up having to put many of my views under rather scrupulous review and over the past year or so, I’ve changed and refined my worldview quite a bit.

Posts about academics will probably follow a few general themes. One thing you can definitely expect is  criticisms of the US educational system. I’ll also give my insights into STEM education as well as the issue of trying to get more women involved with the STEM fields. Another general area addressed would be scientific literacy in the US and abroad as well as why these topics are important. In addition to providing my commentary, I’ll also be posting videos from some of the most respected scientists and education experts in the world.

Environment

“Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the ‘environmentalist’ view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view.” ~E.O. Wilson

As I talked about yesterday in my post on academics, one of my minors at Duke is in Environmental Science and Policy. Of course that probably reveals a decent amount of my feelings and outlook about the environment and the world as a whole.

I’ll be blunt, I think climate change is the largest issue we face as a species today. Notice the wording there… I said as a species. Above all, I am a denizen of this earth. An earthling, if you will. That identification overrides all others be based on ethnicity, residence, religion, ideology, etc. Because of the global threat climate change poses (rising seas, desertification, etc.), I am very much committed to trying to raise as much public awareness as I possibly can. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not an alarmist. I also do not rely on public media outlets to inform my views of climate change (or any scientific matter). One of the most valuable resources which I have at Duke is the ability to access a very large quantity of academic journal databases. In addition, I am also a subscriber to the journal Nature, one of the leading peer-review publications in the United States. For anyone who seriously wants to keep up with the scientific community and learn about current research, this journal is my first recommendation. You may find it dense at first, but it is completely worth it.

Posts relating to the environment will fall under two broad categories. The first category will be “State of the Environment” posts. As you can probably guess, these posts will be about research about current environmental issues. They may include models based on new measurements, record breaking events, and significant research findings. The second category will be sustainability. Around Duke’s campus, almost everyone knows what sustainability is, but I sometimes forget that it’s sometimes an unfamiliar term. So as a baseline here’s my definition of sustainability, “able to be maintained at a constant rate indefinitely without hindering the quality of life for posterity.” Seems fairly basic, right? Don’t use more than your fair share and don’t do things that will hurt your grandchildren and great grandchildren. Amazingly, so many people are opposed to this idea.

So there you have it, call me what you will… a greenie, a hippie, whatever. Of course, if you are more skeptical of global climate change (or it’s anthropogenic sources), you are more than welcome to follow along and post your views. I’ll do my best to respond to any well thought out dissent with evidence that supports my claims.

I’ll end with a question. You now know my definition of sustainability, what’s yours? Many people have very different definitions and I love hearing from everyone.

English: The “three pillars” of sustainability bounded by the environment (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Skepticism

Ah skepticism. Actually, I’d love to hear what you think of when you hear skepticism before I explain my take on it through this post.

Okay, now let’s go to my definition. My definition of skepticism is “An attitude in which all claims are viewed in light of evidence both for and against the claim; a claim will be accepted if the evidence for it is adequate.” There’s a key underlying principle here as well, any belief held is subject to change due to new evidence. There’s another important distinction here… in the words of Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” For instance, if you tell me that you believe unicorns live at the North Pole, you better have some pretty amazing evidence for it. It’s not my responsibility to give you evidence for the non-existence of unicorns; I’m not making a claim, only you are. The burden of proof is always on the one making the claim.

To some degree, everyone is a skeptic. It’s also important to point out that there are skeptics that believe ghosts exist. There are deeply religious skeptics. You can’t tell what someone believes just based on the fact that they are a skeptic.

Alright, now what exactly are these posts going to be about? I’m not entirely sure yet because they’ll cover a wide range of topics. Probably the most common topic will be pseudoscience. Pseudo-science, as you can probably guess (or as you already know) is the presentation of claims that seem scientific and appear to be supported by evidence when, in fact, the evidence has been manipulated or overstated or there is some other flaw. This is one of my favorite topics because as a major is statistics, one of the most practical parts of our curriculum is experimental design and interpretation of results. In almost all cases pseudoscience fails on one of these aspects… or both.

Of course, if you’re interested in becoming more of a skeptic yourself, the best resource (in my opinion) to start with is the podcast, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. It’ll also be referred to on this blog as simply the SGU. It’s a weekly podcast with each episode lasting about 80 minutes. It’s quite entertaining and I’ve found it to be a great resource for keeping up to date with the scientific community as well as keeping a check on what I hear from the popular media.

The SGU is a great podcast to listen to!

I’ll end here with the YouTube clip where that first meme came from.

Style

“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.” ~ Mark Twain

Well, this will be the final post in my initial My Life series. The last part of my tagline is style. I’ll be the first to admit that I am by no means an expert on this topic (at least not yet 😉 ) In fact, I’ve come a very long way in a very short time on this topic. Just to drive this point home, let’s take a look at my history in this area.

Typical baseball jersey top and cargo shorts bottom. Taken from the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in HS. Note… I don’t wear the hat basically at all anymore.

As background, I am the youngest of 3 children and my two older siblings are both sisters. While you might think that would be helpful for style… it wasn’t. Because the only clothes role model I had in our house was my father and while he has taught me a lot, style is not his strong suit. As a fairly serious baseball player, I always had jerseys from previous years. Up until about 10^th grade, these jerseys were just about all I wore to school. If it was cold, I’d often wear an Under Armour long-sleeved shirt underneath a jersey. Keeping with the athletic theme, my pants up until about 8^th grade consisted of gym shorts and track pants. I kid you not; I did not wear (or possibly even own) jeans or cargo shorts until I was a teenager.

Even in my first year of college, almost my entire wardrobe consisted of jeans, cargo shorts, and t-shirts. I don’t think I had ever worn a button up shirt casually until this past summer (2013).

However, perhaps the biggest mistake I made in all of this, was getting clothes that fit me absolutely terrible. As a runner and cyclist, I’m not exactly a stick (especially in my legs) but I’m most definitely not fat. And yet as I look through my old t-shirts, they’re almost all larges. I haven’t really changed in body size or type for 3 or 4 years, but I now wear smalls.  Almost all the jeans I owned had a very relaxed fit and were a light wash (aka dad jeans). I actually didn’t like anything that fit, it felt weird if clothing contoured my body at all.

It’s only been in the past 6 months or so that I’ve been starting to change my wardrobe to be more fitted, professional, and flattering. Some of the main changes I’ve made are that I’m currently working on building up a decent amount of button up shirts that can be worn casually, I’ve raided the Bonobos (referral link, you get $25 off with it) recent sales for a decent arsenal of chinos, and I’ve gotten some layering pieces (mainly sweaters). I’ve also gotten a couple pairs of nice shoes on sale (Walk Over grey suede desert boots and brown Wolverine wingtip derby), which have made actually made a huge difference in how people have looked at me.

I’ve gone from buying and wearing things which are cheap and mass produced to focusing on quality items which I expect to last for years to come. In fact, I try to buy most of my clothes from triple-bottom line companies now. And I’m willing to pay more for US made pieces (Gustin jeans and shirts, Walk Over shoes, Flint and Tinder underwear, etc.). Of course, this shift isn’t only about style, but it ties in heavily with my environmental views as well.

As a final note, I’d also like to point out my use of the word style instead of fashion. I will most definitely not be keeping up with what’s “in” right now. Instead, I’ll be tracking my own journey to find my personal style. In the process, I’ll post any tips I find helpful, reviews of items that I own, and effects style has on my life.