Memory Lane

I'm doing some unpacking & organizing today--almost 18 months after moving into this house we still have so many boxes to sort through--and came across some boxes of pictures, which is not good because it slows down the unpacking as I pause to look at pictures. :-)

But it got me thinking about how it's been years since I have had any pictures printed--photos are almost all digital now. My two oldest regularly used to look through family photo albums; my youngest has experienced that less, because I don't put pictures in albums anymore. Looking through photo albums leads to telling stories about the people in the pictures and fosters one's ability to remember family events. I'm sorry my youngest hasn't experienced that as much as his siblings. One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to go through the family photo albums. I'm convinced that there are memories I have of my childhood that I have held on to because I had pictures of them.

Then there's the cultural impact of the digitization of photography--20, 50 or 100 years from now, it is much less likely that people will stumble on old boxes of pictures sitting in their grandparents' attics. That's kind of sad.

On the other hand, I guess digital photos are forever, impervious to damage from light or spills and more accessible/less likely to get forgotten in a box somewhere. And they're probably more likely to be tagged with dates and names and places, so I guess that's a good thing. I have so many photos from my parents that have no names or dates, and I have no idea who the people are. Even among my own photos, I sometimes have trouble remembering exactly when the picture was taken or who all the people in the photo are.

As usual, change and progress are a mixed bag, with good points and bad. Photos are so much easier to take and share and preserve these days, but if, like my 15-year-old, you don't have a smartphone and aren't on social media, you may not see many pictures at all, including of your own family.

(Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash)

Pleasing Mr. Bisbee

"My play time was cut short because Mr. Bisbee, one of the boarders, took a notion to teach me to sing and I had to waste some time every day practicing the scales up and down and mixed. I would rather play but Mr. Bisbee was one of the richest men in Burr Oak and our best paying, steady boarder. He must be pleased if possible and so I patiently learned to sing 'do ra me fa sol la see do.'"

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, p. 102, Laura Ingalls Wilder, ed. Pamela Smith Hill

Teaching History to the HSC

When you're rearing an HSC (highly sensitive child), it can sometimes be hard to judge the extent to which you should shield him from things you know will upset him. On the one hand, you want to protect him from undue stress. If he doesn't like Halloween decorations, what is there to be gained by making him go places where he's going to encounter them? At the same time, you don't want to coddle him. The older he gets, the more he's going to find himself in situations where he has to handle things on his own, without Mom or Dad going ahead to make sure it's safe. So as a parent, you look for opportunities to "gently" toughen him up (assuming that's not a total oxymoron).

Yesterday in Evan's history book* we read about the Lewis and Clark expedition. The author recounted how, when the explorers ran out of food, they were forced to kill one of the horses for meat. As I heard the words coming out of my mouth, I looked at Evan. So far, so good. He was frowning, but handling it. But then we read the next paragraph:

"The horsemeat kept them from starving. But if they killed too many horses, they wouldn't be able to move fast enough to survive. So they ate some of the hunting dogs as well. . . . "

Uh-oh. There was more about how Clark disliked the dog meat while Lewis liked it, but we didn't get that far. Instead we stopped reading and I explained to my crying son that as terrible as it sounds to us as dog lovers, the humans had to come first. Not only is a human's life more valuable than an animal's, but if the humans had died of starvation, the rest of the animals would have perished as well because there would have been no one to take care of them. Evan absorbed all of this while lying on the floor trying to comfort our own dog, who he was certain was traumatized by the history lesson.

Eventually, with the passage in question behind us and the tears stemmed, we read on. But moments later, I saw this one coming: "In all that time, only one of the party had died--from appendicitis."

Sigh. Evan has long had a fear of getting appendicitis. Did his mom do an on-the-fly edit? What do you think?

*The Story of the World, Vol. 3, Susan Wise Bauer

Repeating History

Right now in history Evan and I are studying the seventeenth century. Our text is Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child. Several days ago we read about Oliver Cromwell and the Puritan Revolution. One passage left us laughing so robustly that Evan demanded it be read again and again:

Now that Parliament had been dissolved by force, Cromwell and his army generals appointed a new Parliament, made up of 139 men "fearing God and of approved fidelity and honesty." This Parliament became known as the Barebones Parliament, after one of its members, a Puritan minister named Praise-God Barebones."

Sounds like something out of Spongebob Squarepants, doesn't it? No wonder Evan loved it.

The experience of reading alongside my child, laughing and learning with him, is one of the best things about homeschooling. I knew about Oliver Cromwell. But reading about him again with Evan, I learned some things (such as the fact above) that I never knew before. More important, as I revisited that period of history, I was struck by how familiar it all sounded. Consider this passage, just a few paragraphs after the one quoted above:

Cromwell still called England a commonwealth, but now it was being ruled by his own hand-picked men, not by the people of England. Six months later, this Nominated Assembly of men loyal to Cromwell passed a new bill. This bill announced, "Parliament now gives all of its powers to Oliver Cromwell, to act on behalf of the people of England!" 

Oliver Cromwell had become the new king of England.

He was never called "king." Instead, he was given the title Lord Protector of England. And he was supposed to call Parliament every two years and listen to what the members of Parliament advised him to do.

But Cromwell certainly seemed like a king. He moved his family into the royal palace. The ceremony to make him Lord Protector looked an awful lot like a coronation ceremony. His advisors often called him "Your Highness." And when Parliament refused to do exactly what he said, he scolded its members, telling them that he spoke for God and that they were opposing God Himself when they opposed the Lord Protector. "I undertook this government in the simplicity of my heart and as before God . . . to do the part of an honest man," he explained. "I speak for God and not for men." When Parliament continued to oppose Cromwell, he announced, "I think . . . that it is not for the profit of [England], nor for [the] common and public good, for you to continue here any longer. And therefore I do declare unto you, that I do dissolve this Parliament." 

No doubt you have heard the Santayana quote that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. More and more, I think that even those who do know history are doomed to repeat it. The older I get the more it seems that there are a few basic storylines that repeatedly play themselves out on the human stage, whether on the world level or in our little, everyday lives. Still, I think it's important to study history. But maybe the point of doing so is not because we realistically have much hope of affecting it, but so that we can better understand our place in it. And what is that place? I am beginning to think it is nothing more than to hold on for dear life as God tries, time and again, to show us the hopelessness of trusting in rulers, or institutions, or learning, or money, or even dear loved ones, more than in Him and His love for us. We have to function within the framework of all of those things. But our nature is to make each of them into little gods that we turn to as sources of meaning and progress for our lives. I know I keep doing that and I don't know how to stop myself. But reading stories from history that remind me of the futility of such misplaced faith tends to put the brakes on, at least for a time. 

History Repeating Itself?

A few days ago at supper Caitlin and I were talking about Obamacare, the government spending battle, and the looming government shutdown. A little while into the conversation Evan asked, "Is that kind of like the Stamp Act?" He ran to get the the book about Benjamin Franklin that he has lately been reading and turned to the middle of the book:

Most Americans did not want to pay the new taxes. They wrote angry letters to the English government.

I told him that yes, it appeared there were some similarities. A king, or in our case a President, imposes an unpopular measure on the populace, resulting in great unrest and resistance. But further reading revealed that the similarities extend only so far:

Franklin agreed with the letters. He felt Americans should be free to make their own taxes. He worked hard against the Stamp Act.

The English decided they would have to listen to the Americans. They called a meeting. And they asked Benjamin Franklin to tell the American side of the story.

Franklin told the English that the Americans would never pay the new tax. He told them that the Americans would fight before they would pay it.

The English believed him. A few days later the government stopped the hated Stamp Act.

When the news got to America, there was great excitement. People cheered. Church bells rang out. Everyone knew what Franklin had done. He was a hero.

If only. 

Luther and the Two Aunties

Today in Evan's history book we read about Martin Luther. It was overall a very good treatment. To teach Luther's understanding of Law and Gospel the author contrasts two aunts. Aunt #1 is described as having a perfect, orderly home. When you visit that aunt's home, she first checks you all over to make sure you're clean enough to enter. Then she invites you in and offers you hot chocolate, but it is hard to enjoy her company because you are so worried about spilling the hot chocolate on her white velvet sofa. Aunt #2, on the other hand, also has a beautiful home, but she makes it clear that her love for you goes far beyond her interest in having a clean house. In spite of the fact that you are covered in mud and she is wearing a white apron, she hugs you big and hard. When you spill your hot chocolate on her table, she wipes it up. The passage concludes by asking, "Which aunt would you rather visit?"

Of course Evan answered, "Aunt #2." But before we moved on from the story of the two aunts, a little editorializing was in order. I asked him, since Aunt #2 is so loving and forgiving, whether it would be okay to go tramping around her house in muddy feet, being sloppy with the hot chocolate, and generally not caring about trying to keep her house clean. He said no, and we talked about how Aunt #2's generosity and forbearance would result in our wanting to behave well in her house due to our love for and sincere desire to please her. He agreed, then replied, "Yeah, but if I went to Aunt #1's house I would like to throw a big ball of mud at her!"

I think he gets it.

I wonder

Lately I have been thinking about the average German citizen during WWII. It is often asked how people could stand by while their government did the things it did. How could they not take a stand against the evil that was occurring? How could they look the other way? As I see what is happening to my country I wonder if the answer, for some, might be that they did try. They did their best. They voted. They talked to their friends. They taught their children. They prayed. But no matter what they did it seemed it didn't matter. No one listened. No one understood, or if they did, they also had no power  to change things. And so eventually they gave up. They quit paying attention to the news. They quit hoping for change. They resigned themselves to a world out of control and turned their focus to doing what they could for the people in their immediate sphere of influence, hoping that at least there they might make a difference.

Anyway, that's what I wonder.

Memory Lane, Part 2

Speaking of memorabilia, the most unexpected thing I came across in my sorting today was a piece of mail addressed not to us but to someone in Prescott, Arizona. The return address is that of our former next door neighbors in Peoria. The letter was returned to them with an "address unknown" stamp. I can only assume that the mailman accidentally put it in our mailbox. The postmark is January 3, 2000, which would have been within a few days of our move from Peoria to Chicago. I found the letter in a group of farewell notes written to us by our church family in Peoria. Probably I meant to take it to our neighbor but failed to do so, and it has been sitting in a box in our closet ever since. Oops!

Proud But Sad Moment

My daughter sings in a community youth choir. It is a top flight group directed by an internationally acclaimed children's choir conductor. She had her first rehearsal this week and was pleased to see that one of the pieces the choir will be singing is a setting of the Magnificat. When the piece was passed out Caitlin immediately knew from the title what the text would be because she knows what the Magnificat is, having sung it for years in church. As the choir perused the text the director asked if anyone knew who sang the words in the Bible. Caitlin was apparently alone in raising her hand. I'm glad she knew the answer, but so sad hardly anyone else did. This choir is a secular group so obviously I would not expect everyone to know about the Magnificat. But I am surprised that in a 60-voice children's choir there were not a few more. Maybe they did know and were just too shy to raise their hands. Still, I am sad for what has obviously been lost, is continuing to be lost, as our culture becomes less Christian and our churches less liturgical.

History Lesson

Evan's birthday was in October and his baptismal birthday in November. To mark both occasions, his godparents gave him several gifts. One was this floor puzzle of the presidents from Melissa & Doug Toys :

It has totally captured Evan's imagination. He is at that stage of development where he loves lists and sequences. For the first few days after he got the puzzle he enjoyed showing it to whoever happened to be around. But soon it became clear that the question "Can I show you my president puzzle?" was an invitation not merely to see the box but to be treated to a catalogue of the presidents in order as he pointed to each and pronounced his name: "That's our first president. His name was George Washington. That's our second president. His name was John Adams." And so on, through all forty-four.

The fascination with the presidents has led to some history lessons. The lessons are brief, just a descriptive sentence or two so that Evan has something simple to latch on to: "George Washington was a general in the American Revolution." "Woodrow Wilson was president during World War I." (Evan is particularly interested in World War I these days since that's when that great Flying Ace, Snoopy, imagines himself fighting the Red Baron.)

Tonight at dinner the subject of President Obama came up. Evan is growing up in a strongly conservative Republican household and he long ago learned the bottom line about Mr. Obama. If asked about our President, he will unhesitatingly and definitively state: "Barack Obama is a socialist. He's ruining the country!"

And that's what happened tonight as we were getting dinner on the table. The name "Obama" came up (as it frequently does because we discuss politics a lot in our house), and my husband called across the kitchen to our son: "Evan, tell us about Barack Obama." Evan's reply came immediately:

"Barack Obama is a socialist! He's ruining the country!"

But that wasn't all. Tonight there was more.

"And so is William Jefferson Clinton. And James Earl 'Jimmy' Carter, Jr. They wanted to ruin the country, too!"

Oh, dear, how we laughed. I think I laughed, as much as anything, at my first grader's knowing and being able to pronounce without a hitch the presidents' full names, including first, middle, last, nicknames, and suffixes. I asked my husband if he taught Evan to say those things and he said no. At least, not in so many words. I think we are seeing some rather advanced thought on the part of our 7-year-old. Dad has said enough that Evan was able to put Clinton and Carter in the same category as Obama, which to him means they must have been country-ruining socialists, too. If the shoe fits . . . .

And to think Evan hasn't even put that puzzle together yet.

To Read

I'm adding this one to my reading list. Here's the Amazon link and here's the publisher's link. Has anyone out there already read it?

If the Name Fits . . .

For the last few months Evan has been learning the Ten Commandments. Today we studied the 8th Commandment: "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor." Big words for a 6-year-old. So we talked about the meanings of "false" and "testimony" and "neighbor" as well as "honesty." Then we read the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree as an example of telling the truth even when it's hard to do so.

Evan does not take well to having his stories picked for him. He likes to pick his own. So I typically make a "deal" with him: I'll pick one and then you can pick one. Today after we read about George Washington he picked another story from the same book (the Children's Book of Virtues, edited by Bill Bennett). This one was the tale of St. George and the Dragon.

Tonight, wanting to show off what we had done in "school" today I asked Evan to tell his dad what he had learned and he quickly answered "the 8th commandment" and with a little help recited the same. Then I asked him to tell his dad what story we had read. He couldn't quite remember, so I prompted him: "It was about our first president. Remember? What was his name?"

His eyes lighting up, Evan turned to his dad with a smile and announced, "We read about Saint George Washington!"

Today . . .

. . . is the 20th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. The city will host an enormous, all day celebration to mark the event. Attending will be German Chancellor Angela Merkel, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Hillary Clinton will also be there. Barack Obama will not.

Science and Christianity

Think back to your school days for a moment. Do you remember when you first learned about Christopher Columbus? If so, do you remember what you were taught? If you're like a lot of people, you heard that those of Columbus' day, particularly Christians, believed that the world was flat and that if Columbus sailed far enough he would fall off the edge of the earth. As Bruce Walker points out in an article for American Thinker, the story feeds the narrative that Christianity and science are inherently antagonistic to one another, since Christianity hinges on faith and science supposedly hinges on reason. It is a narrative that is still actively promulgated today among proponents of evolutionary theory.

Problem is, that supposed antagonism, as well as the idea that Renaissance and Medieval-era Christians believed in a flat earth, is a myth. An objective study of evolutionary theory reveals that it relies much less on empirical science than on extraordinary leaps of faith. And unlike creationism, it has no explanation for how the universe came into being.

Likewise, a study of the historical record reveals that the idea that people of the Middle Ages thought the earth was flat dates only to the 19th century. Before that time the truth was widely known: that educated people, including Christians, have for 2000 years known that the earth is round.

So what happened in the 19th century that started the myth of Christians believing in a flat earth? And why has it had such staying power?

You can read more about the first question here. As for the second question, I think part of it is just the storybook element. Human beings are suckers for irony and surprise endings. So the thought of an intrepid sailor heading off into the unknown while a world watches and waits in fear for him to fall off the edge of the horizon is an image we can't resist. The word "history" has "story" in it, and the best history, the kind that stays with us, is made up of larger-than-life stories. But when those stories are mythical rather than factual in nature, we end up with a false historical record. Because once a story is introduced and embraced, it takes on a life of its own, and the truth or lack thereof matters little.

But in this case there is something more going on than a riveting story. In this case the story was an intentional deception by someone with an agenda. Others with the same agenda latched on to it and are still latching on to it today. The stereotype of Christians as vacant-eyed, stupid, unthinking automatons is still with us, perhaps now more than ever before. Never mind that one of the foundations of Christianity is a belief in an orderly and understandable universe rather than one that is random and filled with mutations and "mistakes." If you ask me, the former sounds a lot friendlier to science than the latter.

Angel at the Fence

Have you heard the story "Angel at the Fence"? I received it via email this past year.

It was recently revealed to be a hoax. The subjects/propagators of the story have said their motivation was not to deceive or personally profit but to touch hearts with an inspirational tale relating to the Holocaust.

Here's one writer's thoughts on the whole episode. He says it is just an example of a trend towards "candy-coating the Holocaust" by focusing on peripheral stories that pull at the heartstrings rather than looking the horror of the Holocaust squarely in the face.

I'm not sure what I think of his thesis. It seems to me that one thing kids are learning in history classes these days is Holocaust history.

On the other hand, perhaps the writer has a point. Maybe it's just too painful for us to face the evil of that time head on, and so we deal with it by coming at it from less shocking angles.

Or maybe the world is already starting to forget. As I look at the news of the day, it seems to me that anti-Semitism is alive and well. Here's one perspective from a respected source that provocatively says it is even worse today than in Hitler's Germany.

What do you think?

Kingdoms Transient and Eternal

Last night in family devotion we sang LSB (Lutheran Service Book) 886, "The Day Thou Gavest." I love this hymn and have written about it here in the past. In light of our current situation (vacationing on the island of Grenada), the third stanza seemed particularly fitting:

As o'er each continent and island

The dawn leads on another day,

The voice of prayer is never silent,

Nor dies the strain of praise away.

But even more resonant was the fifth stanza:

So be it, Lord! Thy throne shall never,

Like earth's proud empires, pass away,

Thy kingdom stands and grows forever,

Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway.

After we sang, my husband related the story of how this hymn was sung upon the occasion of Great Britain's relinquishing control of Hong Kong to Communist China. There was a time when it was said "the sun never sets on the British empire"; that time has passed. Now I fear that the time is coming that the country I love will have to acknowledge its greatest days are behind. I pray that's not the case and that when my children are adults they will be able to thank their parents' generation for preserving and handing down the ideals and freedoms so many Americans have fought and died for in the short life of this nation.

In the words of VP candidate Sarah Palin:

It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don't pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free.

Yet I take comfort from the certainty that even if the United States as I have come to know it passes away, the kingdom of our Lord won through the sacrifice of His Son on the Cross will always stand, and that He will preserve, extend and protect it into eternity, long after this world and its nations have ceased to exist.

Ronald Wilson Reagan

My husband sent this to me with the following words: "Didn't realize just how much he's missed, until I read and remembered some of the stuff he said . . . and stood for."

Take a few moments and remember the wisdom of Ronald Reagan. We sure could use him now.

Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.

I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.

The taxpayer: that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.

Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.

No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.

If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

More Anagrams

My children and I have had no end of laughs this morning since discovering the anagram site mentioned in the last few posts (thanks again, Susan). My son did a little more exploring of the site and discovered the "Anagram Hall of Fame." Here are just a few of the treasures you will find there:

dormitory = dirty room

Clint Eastwood = Old West action

Madame Curie = Radium came

The Morse Code = Here come dots

Conversation = Voices rant on

Mother-in-law = Woman Hitler

The United States of America = Attaineth its cause, freedom

Statue of Liberty = Built to Stay Free

Eleven plus two = Twelve plus one

William Jefferson Clinton = Jail Mrs Clinton: felon wife
(by Ward Hardman)

George Bush = He bugs Gore
(by Mike Morton)

Ronald Wilson Reagan = No, darlings, no ERA law
(by Mike Morton)

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea = Huge water tale stuns. End had you tense.
(by E.L. Benfer)

To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. = In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten.
(by Cory Calhoun)

Wondering What It All Means

George Orwell's brilliant and classic work 1984 depicted a futuristic society so mind-numbed and devoid of the ability to think for itself that the government was able to rewrite history on a daily basis while promoting slogans such as "Ignorance is Strength," "Slavery is Freedom" and "War is Peace." Many elements of Orwell's vision have not come to pass, but when he perceived that the key to controlling people is controlling their language, and by extension their thoughts, he got it exactly right.

Now we have a presidential candidate who, in spite of having the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate, has managed through sheer rhetoric to convince his followers that he alone has the ability to unite the various factions in the country and who in spite of promoting tired policies that have long since been revealed as ineffective has managed to position himself as the candidate of "hope" and "change."

Moreover, one of his most vocal supporters--and perhaps the most influential woman in the country--is currently promoting a year-long course which acknowledges its goal as being one of "mind control" and "thought reversal" and which, although it cloaks itself in the language of historic Christianity, is designed to convince its students that in recent years Christ has issued a new revelation that claims, among other things, that there is no such thing as sin and that a "slain Christ has no meaning." (Source--please read this.)

Meanwhile, in our institutions of higher learning young people are taught that one cannot read a text and decide what it means because words in fact have no objective meaning but instead are these slippery things that "deconstruct" before our very eyes. And since nothing really means anything, we are left with nothing to cling to, no standard of right or wrong, but instead only perception, all of which logically leads to an apotheosis of tolerance and inclusion as the highest ideals.

When Hamlet contemplates murdering his uncle in Shakespeare's tragic play, one of the arguments he uses to try to convince himself that the act would be justified is that "nothing is either right or wrong but thinking makes it so." We call it postmodernism, but the same relativism that envelops us today has been tripping people up for eons.

I am more worried about this country than I have ever been.

Civics/History Quiz

Feeling brave? Ready to test your knowledge of American history and government? If so, take this 60-question quiz from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. The quiz is the same one given in the fall of 2005 to approximately 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 American colleges and universities (aside to my Lutheran friends--one of the schools tested was Concordia University-Nebraska). The results were profoundly disappointing, with seniors averaging 53.2% overall (54.2% when the same test was given the following year). Last time I checked, those are both failing grades.

Here is some background on the study, and here are the major findings, including the rankings of the 50 institutions where the test was given. The test was administered to both freshmen and seniors in order to study the effect of the four years of intervening instruction at the institution in question (across the board, that effect was decidedly disappointing). Be sure to click on the tabs at the top of the page to see all the findings, the third of which shows that CU-Nebraska is doing the best job among those schools surveyed of improving students' knowledge between their freshman and senior years.

By the way, my score was 54/60 (90%), and I am hardly a history or political science buff (just ask my husband, who is one). So that gives you an idea of the level of difficulty of the test as well as the magnitude by which this country is failing to properly educate its youngest citizens.

Hmmm, would those be the same young citizens who are currently lining up in droves to vote for Barack Obama? No wonder he is so successfully selling rhetoric without substance.

(HT: The Renaissance Biologist)