Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

On behalf of Inkwell, I'm happy to welcome amateur-slash-citizen
scientist and author Forrest Mims to The WELL. 

From May 21 to June 3, Forrest will be here to discuss his diverse
and successful science career — which he has achieved without
academic training in science. 

In the maker world, Forrest is legendary for his dozens of books and
hundreds of articles featuring DIY electronics, technology and
science projects, which he has been writing since 1972. I am not
sure how many copies of these books have sold over the decades, but
it must be in the multiple millions.

He is also an a lifelong and award-winning inventor; an amateur
environmental scientist with dozens of papers published in
peer-reviewed scientific journals, based on data gathered with his
own handmade devices; a consultant to NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center; and more.

Forrest's latest book, "Maverick Scientist: My Adventures as an
Amateur Scientist," was published in March by Make: Books. 

In this "intimate portrait of a self-made scientist," Forrest
"shares a revelatory look inside the scientific community, and tells
the story of a lifelong learner who stood by his convictions even
when pressured by the establishment to get in line with conventional
wisdom. With dozens of personal photos and illustrations, Maverick
Scientist serves as proof that to be a scientist, you simply need to
do science."
  

    

For folks new to Inkwell:

I'm a longtime WELL member and co-host of Inkwell.

I've been an environmental journalist for about two decades. For the
past four years my main beat has been climate accountability: In
2020 I was senior editor at Drilled News, a special project/spinoff
of Amy Westervelt's Drilled podcast, and currently I'm a
contributing editor at DeSmog.

In 2011-2012, MAKE published two DIY electronics project books,
"Environmental Monitoring With Arduino" and "Atmospheric Monitoring
With Arduino," that I co-authored with Patrick Di Justo (the WELL's
<justpat>, who was my life partner for 16 years before he died in
2021). 

In addition to my modest DIY electronics skills, I'm very into
textile crafts. I've been knitting since 2008. I also sew sometimes
(hand and machine), mend, and needle-felt (stabby stabby!). 

My thanks to MAKE: Books editor Kevin Toyama and publicist Gillian
Mutti for their enthusiasm and assistance with putting this event
together.
  

    

Welcome, Forrest.

After decades of DIY project books, how did "Maverick Scientist"
come about? 
  

    
"Maverick Scientist" is my second memoir. The first,
"Siliconnections," ended in 1985 a few years before Scientific
American cancelled me. That's when my science career really began.
In short, my science led to a few dozen formal papers in leading
journals. After 30+ years doing serious science, it was time for a
new memoir.    
  

    

Some readers may not be familiar with the controversy around your
Scientific American column back in the 1980s. What happened, from
your perspective (I have read a little of the contemporaneous press
coverage), and how does it look to you decades later?
  

    
In 1989, Scientific American accepted my proposal to take over "The
Amateur Scientist," the oldest column in America's oldest magazine.
During my first meeting with editor Jonathan Piel, he and his staff
were fascinated by the various projects I brought to show them,
including my first LED sun photometer and my radio-controlled kite
camera. But later Piel became concerned when he learned I reject
Darwinian evolution. They published only three of my columns because
Piel was concerned my rejection of evolution would damage the
magazine's credibility. My dismissal became an international news
story in which I was interviewed by Voice of America and gave a talk
at the National Press Club. I was also interviewed by Armed Forces
Radio and many radio stations. I told my wife Minnie I would take
off a year of writing to prove an amateur scientist (my degree is a
BA in government) can make discoveries and publish papers in major
scientific journals. That year has yet to end, for Scientific
American inadvertently triggered my career as an atmospheric
scientist. Details are in "Maverick Scientist," my new memoir.  
  

    
Where DID I put that lawnchair and popcorn? {rustling about} Oh,
here it is! Carry on.
  

    
Just checking in to say hi ... I have a copy of your book but
haven't got beyond the intro yet.
  

    
A few administrative notes:

-- Forrest Mims will be here May 21-June 3. 
-- This discussion is publicly-viewable: Non-members of The WELL can
read it as well as members.
-- If you're not a WELL member and would like to add comments or
questions to the conversation, please email them inkwell at
well.com.
-- To participate directly (and join other, members-only
conversations), you can join The WELL here:
https://www.well.com/join/


Here's a direct link to this Inkwell topic for WELL members:
https://tinyurl.com/forrestmims

Here's a direct link for the public-readable topic - please share
with friends and colleagues:
https://tinyurl.com/forrestmims2
  

    
Welcome, Forrest!  I loved your books when I was a kid trying to learn
electronics and science in general.  My school was very focused on the
basics, we didn't even have classes in art, only music.  My parents
tried to make up for it by buying pretty much any book they could find
at Radio Shack or Waldenbooks.

Reading your autobiography now.
  

    
The public readable link does not appear to work. It resolves to
this
<https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/545/Forrest-Mims-Maverick-Scie
ntist.html> and currently returns a 404 not found. 
  

    
This link seems to work
https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/545/Forrest-Mims-Maverick-Scie
ntist-page01.html
  

    
Glad to see that some of you are reading "Maverick Scientist." Many
of the adventures had to be compressed due to the available page
length, and we had to entirely cut three chapters. The editors cited
in the book did a great job. Looking forward to questions and
comments.   
  

    

Sorry about the bad link! Thanks for catching that.
The issue with the TinyURL appears to have been a misplaced space. 
Here's the long version of the public URL, again:

<https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/545/Forrest-Mims-Maverick-Scie
ntist-page01.html>

Here's the shortened version:

<https://tinyurl.com/forrestmims4>
  

    
Forrest, until I read the chapter about your Scientific American
experience, I knew nothing about the magazine's founder, Rufus
Porter, who as you recount held strong Christian views. 

Among "men of science" in the mid-19th century, when Porter founded
SciAm, his  devout Christianity and scientific pursuits weren't
considered in opposition to each other. Obviously things were very
different by the 1980s, but it's still breathtaking that then-editor
Jonathan Piel said to you, "You've got certain attitudes and beliefs
that are in conflict with editorial positions and trends and
traditions in this magazine," and then got incensed when you pointed
out that it was discriminatory.

In the 1980s, when I was in my 20s, I know I would have seen it the
way Piel did. Over the past two decades as a journalist, though,
even as I've bootstrapped myself into reporting on diverse sciences,
from astrophysics to wildlife biology, some scientists have
broadened my perspective on holding devout religious beliefs while
doing top-notch science. Katharine Hayhoe, in particular, made a big
and lasting impression on me.
  

    
I think Gary Starkweather, Xerox PARC scientist who invented
the laser printer, was a creationist. It's not incompatible.
  

    
I think what I really liked as a grade school kid was that your books
explained the scientific method of testing and experimenting in ways a
kid could understand.  I ended up studying journalism and computer
science in college but these days I teach physical computing and
interaction design part-time.  I try to push my students to develop
their projects this way, step-by-step, only change one thing at a time
and see what happens.
  

    
Emily and Jef, your comments are certainly refreshing. Some of the
greatest scientists of years past were believers, including Isaac
Newton, Galileo Galilei, and, of course, Michael Faraday, the
greatest amateur scientist of his day. Doing science does not
require a religious faith, nor does it require adherence to widely
accepted views, including evolution. When I debated dozens of
callers to the many radio talk shows on which I was interviewed
after losing the Scientific American assignment, I never quoted the
Bible. I simply read passages from Darwin himself. 

Evidently very few people have read Darwin's books, which is why
they do not realize Darwin was very concerned about gaps in the
fossil record that contradicted his theory of evolution. I've
updated my concerns about the dominance of evolutionary theory by
collecting amber with encapsulated insects that closely resemble
their modern descendants. I am also totally impressed by molecular
motors, especially kinesin molecules, that perform amazing tasks in
each of our cells with no known instructions.    
  

    
Emily, I am glad to see your mention of Katherine Hayhoe. While she
is a first-class scientist, I differ with some of her views on
climate change. I will explain why if anyone would like to discuss
that highly controversial topic. 
  

    

Sure, I'll bite. I'm curious which differences you see.
  

    
>>we had to entirely cut three chapters

I'm curious about what you had to leave out and how you chose those
chapters.
  

    
Responding to nanlev in #19 of 20: You can learn about the climate
change views of others by simply Googling their names. As for me,
UAH satellite data indicate a warming of the lower atmosphere over
the planet since 1979. My concern is the poor performance of models
that supposedly predict significant increases in warming decades
from now. I was an "expert reviewer" for the IPCC Assessment Reports
5 and 6. I learned from this experience that the IPCC does not
always wish to cite even peer-reviewed studies that cast doubt on
global warming models. Water vapor is the chief greenhouse gas, and
the NASA-funded NVAP study showed no significant increase or
decrease in global column water vapor. Yet the IPCC declined to cite
this study. I found that decision out of order, for I had found no
significant change in total column water vapor in my own
measurements of column water vapor beginning on 4 Feb 1990. When I
submitted a formal paper on my 30-years of measurements of total
ozone, total column water vapor, and aerosol optical depth of the
atmosphere, to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
(BAMS), the three reviewers were puzzled by the 30-year trend I had
measured--which was simply no trend. They requested I provide
evidence from other measurement sites, so I contacted AERONET (I am
an AERONET site) and was referred to the Cimel robotic sun
photometer at the Oklahoma ARM site. This site is the closest of
long-term AERONET sites with some 20+ years of data. It showed a
slightly negative trend in column water vapor trend. This finding
and satellite data I added to the paper were accepted by the
reviewers, and the paper was published in BAMS. The problem for
climate scientists is that their models presume an increase in total
column water vapor. You can find more on this topic in "Maverick
Scientist." to find my BAMS paper. Google: Mims 30-year climatology.
  

    
In permalink #20 of 21: Linda Castellani (castle) wrote:
    
>>we had to entirely cut three chapters

I'm curious about what you had to leave out and how you chose those
chapters.

A chapter entitled "A visit with Martin Gardner" was about my
encounters and eventual friendship with the famous writer of the
Mathematical Recreations column in "Scientific American." I hope to
publish this elsewhere.

A chapter entitled "Government Science" discussed some of the good
and bad experiences I've had with Texas and Federal government
agencies. I was able to move some of this to other chapters.

A chapter entitled "Doomsday Science" covered some of the highly
controversial experiences I've had with extreme environmentalists,
some of whom advocate culling Earth's population to reduce
environmental damage. The chapter about my second NASA assignment to
Brazil discusses some of this.

I approved these deletions, since the book had become excessively
long. Also, I was able to move some content elsewhere in the book. 
  

    

I don't know of any disagreement that water vapor is the chief
greenhouse gas. The climate models could be off in regards to water
vapor, and that would be interesting - but water vapor isn't what's
causing climate change. Increased anthropogenic carbon emissions are
causing/have caused climate change.

Water vapor is very different from carbon pollutants in that it
doesn't stay a gas. It turns back into water. There's an equilibrium
of water turning to vapor that turns back into water (or snow or
ice) and falling to earth.

I think the models anticipate more water vapor because atmospheric
temperature affects the upper limit of water vapor. Warmer
temperatures raise that upper limit. 

So as temperatures continue to rise, could that equilibrium shift
towards higher upper limits as the norm, which means more water
vapor trapping more heat?

Re: internal workings of the IPCC, you have been there and I
haven't, Forrest. The first question that springs to mind is: What
percentage of peer-reviewed papers cast significant doubt on climate
models at that time, compared to the percentage that validated the
models? 

My understanding is that climate change is worsening decades earlier
than the models forecast, but the effects are in line with the
models. 
  

    
Emily wrote:
"I think the models anticipate more water vapor because atmospheric
temperature affects the upper limit of water vapor. Warmer
temperatures raise that upper limit. 

"So as temperatures continue to rise, could that equilibrium shift
towards higher upper limits as the norm, which means more water
vapor trapping more heat?"

The fundamental issue is that total column water vapor has not
changed over my site in 34 years. This is not new. The Astrophysical
Observatory of the Smithsonian Institution measured column water
vapor from Table Mountain, California, from 1926 to 1957, nearly as
long as I have. Their trend? Their data show no trend. I have not
noticed their data in any IPCC report. Other stations report long
measurements of column water vapor with no trend. NASA's global NVAP
study (which is the process of being updated) shows no trend in
column water vapor globally. I am unaware of any IPCC citation of
the NVAP and/or Smithsonian APO findings. Will they cite my 30-year
record in BAMS?
  

    
Regarding climate change, recently there has been much more
attention to the urban heat island effect on global temperatures.
This impacts both people and the instruments that record
temperature, most of which are located in or near urban areas. Some
years ago, NASA appointed me to be on an education committee. Our
first meeting was at the Baltimore Museum of Science, where an
official NWS weather station is located. I was surprised to see a
large black metal plate lying on the ground directly under the
temperature sensors. 

I published a classic heat island study in which I drove across San
Antonio at night with a temperature sensor attached to a pole
mounted above the bed of my pickup. As expected, there was a
significant increase in temperature while driving across the San
Antonio portion of the transect. My daughter Sarah did two heat
island studies when she was in middle school. She also found
significant increases when I drove her through towns. 

BTW, Sarah was the first investigator to discover viable bacteria
and mold spores in biomass smoke arriving over our field from
Yucatan. She flew her homemade particle detector from a kite to
avoid ground contamination. This became the lead paper in the
journal Atmospheric Environment following the fastest peer review I
have experienced in my science career. (She was in the 11th grade,
and I was her co-author.) Sarah's discovery has been named
pyroaerobiology.