Synopsis: How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

By Mike Brown

2010: Spiegel & Grau 

Mike Brown discovered Eris by comparing these and other successive images of the sky and tracing its movement across those images. The circled object is Eris, moving slowly across a fixed backdrop of stars over the course of three hours.

Image courtesy of PalomarObservatory/NASA.

Most of us grew up knowing that there were nine planets in our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and distant, frigid Pluto.

But we were wrong.

Mike Brown explains how he discovered the tenth planet, Eris, and why his discovery led to an international identity crisis that ended with the kicking of Pluto out of the planetary club.

Brown says he didn’t set out to demote Pluto. In the 1990s, hundreds of small rocky objects were discovered out at the edge of the solar system. Collectively known as the KuiperBelt, they reminded astronomers that there were still major features of our own neighborhood that we hadn’t noticed.

The Kuiper Belt discoveries convinced Brown that there might be another planet lurking somewhere in the shadows of the stars. He knew that no systematic search had been conducted in over 70 years. Telescopes had grown much more precise since then; computers hadn’t even existed at the time.

“How could it be that if someone went and looked again for a new planet they wouldn’t find something that had been just beyond the reach of the telescopes in the 1930s?” Brown writes. “There had to be a tenth planet.”

Through the late 1990s and early 2000s, Brown devoted most of his time to proving himself correct. The journey he relates is one of contingency, surprise, and international intrigue.

Brown and his colleagues began a daunting survey of the sky. He quickly found that modern telescopes, most of which were designed to look at far-off stars and galaxies, were actually too precise for his task. So he took up residence with the largely unused Schmidt Telescope at Caltech in Pasadena, Calif. The machine was so underutilized that it still employed glass photographic plates to take pictures, as it had when it was constructed in the 1950s.

Yet the Schmidt Telescope’s primitive method ended up being key to the search for planets close to home. Unlike with digital cameras, the photographs wouldn’t lose resolution when taking pictures of large swaths of the sky. As Brown points out, “to see as much sky as you could see with the photographic plate you would need a five-hundred-megapixel digital camera. Even today that is a daunting number.”

Along the way, he discovered numerous bodies that changed astronomers’ understanding of the solar system. The first of these, dubbed Quaoar, was half the size of Pluto, but otherwise similar in its properties. Brown called it “a big icy nail in the coffin of Pluto.”

Soon thereafter, Brown came across another oddball that he eventually named Sedna, which was “unlike anything else in the known universe.” It never came close to any other planets; at its closest, it didn’t even touch the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt. And for most of its orbit, Sedna was so far away that “the sun would be just an extrabright star in the sky.”

Yet Sedna was clearly not a comet, because comets have complex orbits that are influenced by passing near multiple stars. Sedna only circles the Sun today. Nevertheless, its wildly divergent path suggested that during our solar system’s earliest years the Sun had been one half of a pair of twin stars.

Although discoveries like these were exciting for Brown and his colleagues, they didn’t quite reach the threshold for claiming a new planet—something that was larger than Pluto.

Then came Eris (originally nicknamed Xena). At the time of its discovery, it was almost four times the distance from the Sun as Pluto. It took 557 years to complete one circuit around the Sun. And it was nearly twice the size of Pluto.

Brown already understood by this time that discovering something bigger than Pluto would cause questions to arise about the definition of a planet. Indeed, he writes about pondering this subject since before he began his quest. At one point, he asked a friend with a degree in philosophy, “What does a word mean when you say it?”

“‘Words mean what people think they mean,’ was his smoothly philosophical reply. ‘So when you say ‘planet’ it means what you are thinking when you say it.’”

From Brown’s personal quandary about what defines a planet, he came to conclude that Eris—and therefore Pluto—could not possibly qualify unless he also chose to include hundreds of other objects in the Asteroid Belt and the Kuiper Belt.

In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union did something in response to Brown’s discovery that had never been done in a millennium of astronomy: it voted on a formal definition of the word “planet.”

Tensions ran high during the IAU’s meeting, with politics playing as much of a role as science. A pro-Pluto faction grew within the group that aimed to devise a definition that would keep the nine-planet system without seeming unscientific.

Brown, watching the proceedings from California with a bevy of reporters, kept explaining to them why he, who might become the only living discoverer of a planet if the IAU decided to vote a certain way, didn’t think Eris or Pluto belonged in the pantheon.

In the end, science won out. The eight planets were given their own formal category. Pluto was relegated to a new class of “dwarf planets,” along with Eris and a few other objects in the solar system.

Innocent Pluto, a bystander in the entire affair, was collateral damage in the crisis caused by Eris.

Since the IAU’s decision, Brown writes that he’s been accosted everywhere he goes, with people asking him, “What did Pluto ever do to you?”

Despite the harassment, and despite the fact that he will never find another thing he can call a planet, he says that he’s “thrilled that astronomers…chose to put a scientific definition behind what most people think they mean when they say the word planet. They don’t mean ‘everything the size of Pluto and larger,’ and they certainly don’t mean ‘everything round.’ Instead, when people say ‘planet,’ they mean, I believe, ‘one of a small number of large important things in our solar system.’”

New Challenges, Opportunities as UNH's International Student Population Grows

The International Services Office, adorned with objects from cultures around the world, is a reflection of the University of New Haven's growing cross-cultural student body.
Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

It took Fahad Almutairi 16 months to learn English well enough before he was ready to go to college in the United States.

Almutairi, a 20-year-old native of Saudi Arabia, wanted to earn a bachelor's degree in fire protection engineering. He looked at several colleges in the U.S. that offered the program, including the University of Maryland. He chose the University of New Haven, he said, because it was the best.

“Fire protection is popular in Saudi Arabia, but they have no schools with bachelor's [programs],” he said. “There are petroleum companies and oil companies there, so they need fire protection.”

Almutairi began at UNH in the fall 2011 semester. He said the college is perfect for international students, whether they are “African, Arabian or South American.”

Other international students apparently also feel that UNH is perfect for them. According to a report by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute of International Education, UNH had the fourth-highest number of international students in Connecticut in 2011, ranking it behind only the University of Bridgeport, Yale University, and the University of Connecticut.

The international student population at UNH reached 773 in 2011, accounting for more than 12 percent of the university's overall enrollment of 6,385 for the year. International students accounted for just over 10 percent of the total in 2010, or 602 out of 5,949 students enrolled.

The growth rate for international student populations at colleges in Connecticut was 9.4 percent for 2011, nearly double the nationwide growth rate of 5 percent, according to the IIE's report. Overall, there were 10,137 international students at colleges throughout the state.

Karima Jackson, the director of UNH's International Services Office, said that international students bring benefits that domestic students can't get any other way.

“They have something that the American students usually don't have – experience with studying abroad,” she said. “They also bring business and diversity. When we mix, it creates a more whole student.”

The IIE report also emphasizes the economic benefit that international students bring. In 2011 alone, estimated foreign student expenditures in Connecticut reached approximately $300 million. That money is not just spent in the universities. Students spend at local businesses on food, clothing, entertainment, and more.

Jackson only joined the ISO in September, but said she has noticed the increase in students from other countries over her short time there. She said it may be because of several factors, including the recruiting agencies that UNH uses and the trimester schedule that allows some students to graduate more quickly.

The most important factor, she said, are the high-quality programs that the university offers, such as electrical sciences, engineering and MBA.

The ISO's main goal is to help international students maintain the F1 visas they need to attend college in the U.S., but Jackson said they end up helping with all sorts of other issues. Students may need to get drivers licenses. They may have confusion about where to go for academic needs. They may want advice on navigating some uniquely American institution outside the university.

“The list can go on,” she said. “Every day, it's something new.”

One of the difficulties is that there are over a hundred countries for international students to come from, all with different cultural expectations and practices. For instance, Fahd Jadoon, a second-year graduate student in UNH's MBA program who works in the ISO, said that when he first moved to Minnesota from his home of Pakistan, he had trouble finding food that was kosher.

“There were not a lot of international restaurants in the area,” he said.

He later discovered that Minneapolis had a much more diverse offering of foods. He said he feels comfortable now living in the New Haven area, which has a similar wealth of diversity.

Jackson thinks that one of the biggest current challenges for the university is figuring out how to bridge gaps between the international students and their American counterparts. She said she has been working on several outreach efforts to bring different groups of students together, partly by involving other faculty and staff to encourage cultural exchange.

“They [international students] are not being acclimated to the university as well as they should be,” she said.

Jadoon, on the other hand, said that the teachers at UNH do a good job of fostering interaction between students. As an example, he pointed out that teachers will often assign groups of students to work together, rather than allowing them to choose their own groups and self-segregate.

Jackson also has high hopes. She said her office is preparing for more growth, and is looking forward to putting on the International Festival in April. The event will be a chance for groups from all over the world to share their cultures with other students.

Meanwhile, Almutarai says he is already happy to be making new friends. For him, being an international student at UNH is one of the most positive things he's done.

“It's a great experience that you can learn a new culture, learn a new language, and get a bachelor's,” he said.

People Without Cars

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

During the first week of February, reporters from the Connecticut Post wrote about their adventures as they tried to get from assignment to assignment without their cars, placing them at the mercy of the area’s disjointed public transportation system.

I sent the following letter to the editor, which the newspaper published, in response to their stories:

Hats off to the Connecticut Post reporters who spent this week attempting to get around without a car while sharing their observations.

If they had done this project last year, they would have encountered a glaring display of the preference our society gives to automobiles.

Several days after one of the heavy snowstorms, I tried walking down the Boston Post Road in Fairfield to the public library. At every juncture where the sidewalk met a parking lot or road, I encountered colossal mountains of snow, sometimes higher than myself.

These piles were not the product of lax shoveling. The snow had been piled directly into the path of pedestrians to make space for other people to drive and park.

I’m young and healthy, and managed to scale the slippery peaks with some effort. Had I been older or disabled in some fashion, however, I cannot imagine having gotten very far.

This experience wasn’t a fluke. Many bus stops and pathways all over the area are rarely cleared, even when the snow is merely ankle-deep.

It’s hard to avoid the impression that these practices send a clear message: if you’re too poor to own a car, cannot drive for some reason, or choose not to, then you don’t matter as much as the people who have vehicles.

That’s the wrong message for an age in which we need to learn the value of alternative modes of transportation – even if, as I am, you’re among those privileged enough to own a car.

Changes to Liquor Laws Unlikely to Impact UNH

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

A proposal by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to ease Connecticut's restrictions on alcohol sales would be unlikely to have much of an impact on campus life at UNH.

Currently, stores in the state cannot sell alcohol at all on Sundays or later than 9 p.m. on other days. Bars and restaurants must stop serving alcohol at 1 a.m.

If adopted by the state legislature, Malloy's proposed changes would allow stores to sell alcohol until 10 p.m. every day, including Sunday. Bars and restaurants would be allowed to continue serving alcohol until 2 a.m.

Connecticut is one of one of only two states in the U.S., along with Indiana, that does not allow off-premises sales of alcohol on Sundays. Georgia had a state ban on Sunday sales until last year.

Several UNH students are in favor of Malloy's proposed changes. “I've always found it incredibly backwards that alcohol isn't sold on a Sunday,” said UNH student Kathleen Sandin, who grew up in New Hampshire. “I don't drink personally, but to me, Sunday is just another day.”

For the people Sandin knows who do go out and drink, she didn't think much would change. “They usually are home by midnight anyways,” she said.

UNH Student Chris Griebert also favors the proposals. He referred to the current laws as “puritanical,” and said that the state should not be restricting activities that were both “safe and for adults.”

When asked if he thought the later hours at bars might lead students to drink when they should be resting or doing homework, he pointed out that “limiting access doesn't necessarily change peoples' habits.”

UNH policies allow students who are 21 or older to possess and consume alcohol in some areas of the campus. According to the student handbook, however, there are multiple restrictions. Students in residence halls and apartments cannot have alcohol if anyone else in the living space is below drinking age, unless they are assigned roommates. Open containers are not allowed in public areas. Drinking contests are prohibited, as are “common source” containers, such as kegs.

Alcohol is generally not allowed at on-campus and athletic events, though the handbook does allow exceptions at some events and provides guidelines for obtaining permission to serve alcohol.

In addition, students of any age are violating the university's conduct policy if they are found intoxicated.

UNH publishes an annual security report that includes information on alcohol violations. In 2010, the last year for which statistics are available, there were three liquor law arrests. All occurred in residential facilities. There were also 304 liquor law violations that were referred for disciplinary action. Of those violations, 275 occurred in residential facilities.

Westport Group to Hold Fourth Annual Darwin Day Dinner



A recent Darwin Day celebrant with old Charlie.
Photograph by Cary Shaw. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

 The Southern Connecticut Darwin Day Committee will hold its fourth celebration of science and humanity on Feb. 11 at the Inn at Longshore in Westport.

This year's Darwin Day Dinner will feature a talk by Rene Almeling, assistant professor of Sociology at Yale University. She will discuss her 2011 book, “Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm.”

The event will include a cocktail hour and a full course dinner. There will also be a science quiz during which each table will collaborate on the answers. The table with the highest score on the quiz will win prizes.

“I first learned about the celebration of Darwin Day when the organizers of the event called me to speak, and I think it is a wonderful way to promote science education,” Almeling said in an email interview.

Committee Treasurer John Levin said he feels quite fortunate to have Almeling speak at this year's event.

“Human reproduction has resonance with every person, and the processes are really changing,” he said.

The Darwin Day Dinner is held every year around the birthday of naturalist Charles Darwin, who is most famous for describing the process of biological evolution through natural selection. Darwin was born Feb. 12, 1809.

The first dinner was held in 2009 on what would have been his 200 birthday. Levin said he and several of his friends began organizing the dinners that year after learning that there were celebrations planned in other cities around the world, but none in Connecticut.

Since then, he said the event has grown moderately, drawing 133 people last year.

In previous years, the dinner took place on a Friday; this is the first year it will be held on a Saturday. Aside from that change, Levin said the event will be similar to the earlier ones.

“We think that we've had a winning formula, and as a consequence we have kept that same formula,” he said, adding that no one has had any major complaints or suggested any meaningful changes in past years.

Levin said that Darwin Day as an international phenomenon seems to be growing in subtle ways. He would like to see it eventually become as popular as more recognized holidays that have religious or national themes.

“There's nothing right now really devoted to enlightenment, science or rationality,” he added.

The Darwin Day Dinner is sponsored by The Congregation for Humanistic Judaism of Fairfield County; The Wilton Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers); the Unitarian Church in Westport; and the Norwalk Public Schools Science Department.

The deadline to register for the event is Feb. 3 The cost is $55 per person. Excess proceeds will be donated to the National Center for Science Education.

To learn more about the Darwin Day Dinner or to register, visit www.darwindayct.org.

Tips on Arguing: Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

The phrase “necessary and sufficient conditions” is one of those pieces of jargon that are used across a wide range of fields. It pops up in papers on science, philosophy, mathematics, and even social issues. Knowing what it means can save you a lot of undue confusion.

Although the terms “necessary and sufficient” are often used together, they are really two separate things: necessary conditions, and sufficient conditions. Each has a distinct function.

Necessary conditions are required for an effect to take place. However, they do not guarantee that the effect will occur. In logic, they can be phrased as “without x, there can be no y.”

For example, a temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit or below is a necessary condition for snow, because anything warmer will result in rain. But a cold day doesn’t always bring snow. It could just as easily be cold and sunny.

Sufficient conditions, on the other hand, do guarantee that an effect will occur. They can be phrased as “if x, then y.”

With a sufficient condition, though, the same effect can also occur for some other reason.

If, for instance, the president signs a bill given to him by Congress (a sufficient condition), it automatically becomes a law (the effect).

However, it doesn’t have to happen that way. The president could veto the bill, and Congress could vote to override his veto. In that case, the bill still becomes a law, even though it wasn’t signed.

The difference between the two types of conditions may seem subtle, but the distinction has profound implications. In the situation of the bill, the president’s signature is not a necessary condition, because it can be overturned by another branch of government. Our entire system of “checks and balances” depends on these careful divisions of necessary conditions and sufficient conditions.

If you are trying to convince someone of your position in an argument, you usually want your conditions to be both necessary and sufficient. It is the strongest indication that two events are causally linked, because this kind of condition always leads to the effect, and the effect cannot happen without it.

The application of heat is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for cooking. You can’t cook without heat, and heating food guarantees that it will cook. Cooking is, in fact, defined as what happens to food when heat is applied to it. They always occur together.

If you take a little time to learn some common academic expressions, you’ll be more prepared when you inevitably encounter the seemingly impenetrable language of many documents.

Connecticut's Religiously Intolerant History, Pt. 2

Anglican Infiltration

A sign outside Christ Episcopal Church in Stratford touts the parish’s distinction as the first permanent foothold for the Anglicans in Connecticut. Early efforts to gain followers in the state were met with discrimination from residents and officials.
Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Part 1: Fairfield’s Last Witch Trial

The rise of Puritanism in England was from the beginning an attempt to reform the Church of England and disentangle it from the whims of the monarchy. Like Martin Luther’s protest against the Catholics in the 1500s, the Puritans felt that religious practices should be based primarily on the Bible; they sought to “purify” the church of bureaucracy and human fallibility.

To some extent, keeping the church pure required keeping it separate from government. Different groups of colonists disagreed over how exactly that should be accomplished.

The Rev. Thomas Hooker sparked one of those disagreements. He arrived in the thriving Massachusetts Bay Colony from Holland in 1633 after fleeing his native England, where he had been persecuted for his Puritan theology.

Hooker set up at what is today Cambridge, but quickly found himself at odds with the influential pastor John Cotton over rules determining suffrage. The church hierarchy in Massachusetts Bay first had to approve freemen through a thorough interrogation of their religious experiences before they could vote. Hooker thought that suffrage should be extended to all freemen.

Hooker took his congregation south, founding Hartford in 1636. He gave numerous political sermons, expressing his view that “the foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people.”

Hooker’s sermons would become the basis for the Fundamental Orders, the 1639 document that established a framework for the colony’s government and has come to be recognized as one of the earliest constitutions in the world.

Just because there was an official distinction between church and state, however, did not mean that the two were separate. Indeed, the entire reason for keeping them apart was to avoid sullying the church.

The government’s role was still ultimately a religious one: to produce and enforce rules that shaped society so it best reflected Biblical dictates. Though no individual church was in charge of the colony, Congregationalism was the government-sanctioned religion, and legislation was devised to protect that purity.

Along with the rule punishing witchcraft by death, the twelve Biblically inspired laws establishing capital offenses that were put on record in Connecticut in 1642 included other punishments for religious transgressions. The first two on the list said:

- “If any man or woman shall have or worship any God, but the true God, he shall be put to death. Deut. xiii. 6. xvii. 21. Exodus xxii. 2.”

- “If any person in this colony shall blaspheme the name of God the Father, Son or Holy Ghost, with direct, express, presumptuous or high-handed blasphemy, or shall curse in like manner, he shall be put to death. Levit. xxiv. 15, 16.”

According to Benjamin Trumbull’s 1898 “Complete History of Connecticut, Civil and Ecclesiastical,” lower courts around the colony had already been punishing unmarried adults who engaged in sexual relations or “wanton behavior” by fining the convicted parties, whipping them, or forcing them to marry. Trumbull writes that the General Court approved of these practices, “and authorised them [the lower courts], in future, to punish such delinquents by fines, by committing them to the house of correction, or by corporal punishment, at the discretion of the court.”

In practice, the attempt to keep Connecticut’s religious landscape pure could never fully succeed. Quakers almost immediately began settling in the area, forcing the colony to enact a number of laws during the 1600s to prevent the sect from gaining traction.

By the turn of the century, an even more worrisome development was taking shape just over the border in Rye, N.Y. An Anglican missionary group called The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was set up in 1701 to provide English colonists with greater access to Episcopalian churches and services. Rye was chosen as a strategic entry-point to Connecticut, where the group was especially interested in breaking the stranglehold that the Puritans had on religious life.

The Rev. George Muirson, who headed the Rye mission, took a trip in 1706 along the coast to the edge of the Housatonic River in Stratford, bringing along Col. Caleb Heathcote, an ardent Anglican living in Westchester. They reportedly baptized about 24 people for the church. Muirson and Heathcote were encouraged by this journey, and reported back to England that they expected to have success establishing new parishes in the communities.

They almost immediately ran into trouble, however. Heathcote derided Connecticut’s “odd kind of laws, to prevent any from dissenting from their church, and endeavor to keep the people in as much blindness and unacquaintedness with any other religion as possible….”

A year later, Muirson was invited by some of the people of Fairfield to preach there. He wrote after the trip that the people had been threatened with imprisonment and a fine of five pounds for coming to the sermon. He also noted that the Anglicans in Fairfield had been locked out of the meetinghouse to prevent them from holding services there, despite the fact that they had paid taxes for the building.

Progress came slowly. In Stratford, there were enough Anglicans to start their own church. In 1707, they elected a vestry, thus making them the first organized Episcopalian group in the colony. They asked Muirson to settle with them in the town, but he died before being able to respond.

For the next decade, Connecticut Anglicans languished. Missionaries continued to travel through the area, winning over converts. But there were no ordained ministers residing in the colony, and no physical spaces for Anglicans to meet.

In the meantime, the Puritans saw their vision for a religiously pure society unraveling. The Anglicans’ constant complaints to England concerned Connecticut officials for political reasons. They enjoyed the most autonomous government of all the colonies, having won near-independence through the charter that King Charles II had awarded them in 1662. But they also knew independence could be reversed; it had almost happened in the 1680s, when a brief attempt by English authorities to set up a “Dominion of New England” brought an appointed governor named Edmund Andros to Hartford to take over from the colonists, resulting in the famed “Charter Oak Incident.”

To relieve tensions with the crown, the General Assembly passed the Toleration Act of 1708, which ostensibly gave citizens the right to dissent from the Congregational church, as long as they continued to pay taxes for its support.

In practice, though, the Toleration Act resulted in little tolerance. In 1721, the General Assembly passed a slew of laws to enforce the standards of the Congregational church and prevent other religious groups from gaining further ground. Citizens would be fined if they did not attend an approved church on Sundays. They would be fined if they traveled on Sunday to or from anywhere other than an approved church. They would be fined if they attended any unapproved public gatherings, including unapproved church services. They would be fined for making any kind of disturbance (including loud talking) near a place of worship.

These and related statutes essentially placed minority churches under the authority of the Congregational churches, because these churches controlled local elections, record-keeping and other aspects of law enforcement.

Nevertheless, the tide was turning. In 1722, Connecticut got its first resident Anglican minister. Rev. George Pigot came to the colony, settling in Stratford and splitting his time between that town and Fairfield. Several colonists opened their homes to fellow Anglicans for Pigot’s sermons. The congregations continued to gain clout.

Despite the Tolerance Act, Pigot faced as much discrimination as Muirson and Heathcote had. In a letter to the Secretary of The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts dated Oct. 3, 1722, Pigot wrote:

“I now inform you Sir of what obstructions I met with in my ministry, & they are several, viz.: that of Lieut. Governor Nathan Gold, who is a most inveterate slanderer of our Church, charging her with popery, apostacy, & atheism,—who makes it his business to hinder the conversion of all whom he can, by threatening them with his authority—& who as a judge of the court here, disfranchises men merely for being Churchmen…they have boldly usurped to themselves, & insultingly imposed on the necks of others, the power of taxing & disciplining all persons whatsoever, for the grandeur & support of their self-created ministers.”

In the same letter, Pigot reported on the greatest success – and controversy – his sect had seen so far. The month before, he had been invited to New Haven by the rector at Yale College, Rev. Timothy Cutler. While there, Cutler and several other clergy members at the college declared that they had begun to doubt the validity of Congregational doctrine, and wanted to learn more about joining the Episcopacy.

It was the first time that members of the Puritan clergy had dared to defect. And what a defection! Cutler was one of the most prominent pastors in the colony, in the top position at Yale, the very institution built for the training of the colony’s Congregational ministers.

Later in October, Yale’s Board of Trustees voted to dismiss Cutler and his colleagues. The defectors didn’t mind – three intended to travel to England to receive ordination.

One of those men, the Guilford-born Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, would return from his trip overseas to Stratford in 1724, taking over for Pigot, who had moved on to Providence, R.I. On Christmas day of that year, the Stratford Anglicans got the gift they had waited so many years for: a wooden church that would come to be called Christ Episcopal Church was dedicated in the town, with Johnson as its resident priest. He led the parish for the next 39 years.

It would be another 60 years before the formal diocese would be set up in Hartford, and even longer before Congregationalism would lose its legal sway as the state-sanctioned religion. But one thing was for sure: the Anglicans were in Connecticut to stay.

- Part 3 (Coming Soon)

Connecticut’s Religiously Intolerant History, Pt. 1

Fairfield’s Last Witch Trial

A woodcut illustration from Joseph Glanvill’s “Saducismus Triumphatus or, Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions,” published posthumously in 1681 in London. The book purported to provide proof of witches’ magical powers, and attacked skeptics of these abilities. Glanvill’s text would become influential during the Salem Witch Trials a decade later.Public domain image.

When the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life ranked states using data from its comprehensive 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, only 57 percent of respondents from Connecticut and Rhode Island reported that they believed in God with “absolute certainty,” placing it second-to-last in the country. The state placed similarly low in all other rankings.

Today’s religious landscape is almost the complete opposite of what it was in the 17th century, when Connecticut was the quintessentially theocratic state. The Calvinists who founded the colony steeped their everyday lives in religiosity, and saw the tools of government as extensions of their god-given duty to secure religious purity in society. The Congregationalist Church was for more than a century the state-sanctioned religious institution; all other belief systems, including other sects of Protestant Christianity, were officially disenfranchised and unofficially derided as atheistic abominations.

Life in a theocracy could be difficult for those outside of the state church’s good graces. Those who broke with the sanctioned practices of the official belief system would be ostracized by the community. They could find themselves unable to participate in civic life. They could even be prosecuted under those state and local statutes that enshrined religious intolerance.

The separation of church and state was incrementally accomplished over generations, often as a reaction to specific policies that had negatively impacted Connecticut’s own residents.

‘By the lawe of God of this colony thou deservest to dye’

The Calvinists, who were variously called “puritans” and “pilgrims” (a reference to John Bunyan’s allegorical moralist tale, “The Pilgrim’s Progress’), were products of a Europe that had been torn apart a century earlier by some of the bloodiest sectarian wars the world has ever seen. They sought to establish a society where they could practice their own brand of religious fundamentalism without interference.

They also believed in education. The most prominent among them were men versed in laws and letters. They built the earliest colleges in the colonies. They kept up with the scientific revolution in Europe and the emerging value it placed on empiricism and induction.

This led to some strange combinations of belief and skepticism. Connecticut’s citizens thought that Satan had direct influence in the world, and that witches had gained supernatural powers by creating pacts with the evil being.

Connecticut’s government was at the forefront of witch persecution. Numerous trials took place in the state during the 1600’s, including the first recorded execution for witchcraft in the U.S. in 1647.

A state law making witchcraft a capital offense that was passed in 1642 explicitly referenced passages from the Bible: “If any man or woman be a witch, that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death. Exodus xxii. 18. Levit. xx. 22. Deut. xviii. 10, n.”

By the end of the 17th century, however, colonial jurisprudential culture had shifted, placing a greater emphasis on evidence that made witch trials increasingly difficult to prosecute.

In 1692 – the same year as the famous Salem witch trials – a new wave of witchcraft accusations from threatened the lives of several Fairfield County women.

The troubles began when Katherine Branch, a servant in the Stamford home of former selectman Daniel Wescot, started having epileptic-like “fits.” Wescot suspected Branch was possessed by witchcraft, and soon Branch began naming names: Elizabeth Clawson of Stamford. Mary and Hannah Harvey, Mary Staples, and Goody Miller, all of Fairfield. Finally, Mercy Disborough of Compo, now part of Westport. Several of the accused were known to have had rocky relationships with the Wescots.

The initial investigation called for a committee of five women to examine the accused for “devil’s marks.” These were marks supposedly placed on the witch’s body by Satan so that he could drink the witch’s blood. If a birthmark was considered suspicious, a pin would be stuck through it to see if it would bleed. If it didn’t, the woman might be a witch.

Clawson passed this first examination, but Disborough did not.

A special trial was set up on Sept. 14 in Fairfield. Bills of indictment against Clawson and Disborough were presented to a grand jury, while charges against the other women were dropped. Disborough’s indictment, transcribed by Secretary John Allyn, said she had “familiarity with satan the grand enemie of God & men & thes by his instigetion & help thou hast in a preternatutal way afflicted & don Harm to the bodyes & Estates of sundry of their Ma[jesties] subjects…for which by the lawe of God of this colony thou deservest to dye.”

Clawson and Disborough had both pleaded not guilty to the crime. To determine if they were actually witches, the jury needed more evidence. The accused women agreed to be tested by having their hands bound to their legs and being tossed into the water, the theory being that water would refuse to accept a witch. If they floated, it was evidence of guilt.

On Sept. 15, the two women were given the water test. According to Allyn’s notes, several witnesses testified that they both floated.

Meanwhile, a contingent of Clawson’s friends from Stamford rallied to her defense. Seventy-six people signed a letter vouching for Clawson’s good character.

The jury deliberated, but was unable to come to a conclusion in either case, and decided to send the case to the General Court in Hartford (then the state’s highest court).

The ministers of the court, who had plenty of experience with the prosecution of witches and were aware of the hysteria sweeping through Salem, were not convinced at all by the evidence. They returned their official opinion on Oct. 17 with four findings:

1. "The endeavor of conviction of witchcraft by swimming is unlawful and sinful, and therefore it cannot afford any evidence.”

2. "Unusual excrescences found upon their bodies ought not to be advanced as evidence against them without the approbation of some able physicians.”

3. "Respecting the evidence of the afflicted maid (the witness claimed to have been bewitched)…we cannot think her a sufficient witness; yet we think that her affliction being something strange, it well deserves a further inquiry.”

4. "As to the other strange accidents—as the dying of cattle, etc., we apprehend the applying of them to these women as matters of witchcraft to be upon very slender and uncertain grounds."

The General Court did not choose to question whether witches actually existed, but they did demand a higher standard of evidence than the trial in Fairfield had produced.

The group in Fairfield reconvened, and on Oct. 28, found Clawson innocent. Disborough, however, was convicted.

In the first half of 1693, petitioners on behalf of Disborough approached the General Court, calling the decision against her illegal. The Court appointed a commission consisting of Samuel Wyllys, William Pitkin, and Nathaniel Stanley to review the documents of the case.

The commission, reaffirming the General Court’s earlier skepticism, acquitted Disborough and decided that further witch trials should be avoided altogether. They cited the horror that had occurred in Massachusetts the year before, saying that the epidemic of litigations in Salem were “warning enof, those that wit make witchcraf t of such things wit make hanging work apace.”

No witches were convicted in Connecticut after that, though a few trials continued to take place until 1697. Many citizens still believed that witches walked among them, consorting with Satan and possessing children. The law against witchcraft was never repealed; instead, it was quietly expunged from later revisions of public acts.

Disborough escaped execution. She faded into relative obscurity, popping up only occasionally in public records from the early 1700’s. She had been subjected to dangerous and humiliating tests, put in jail and sentenced to death, but had narrowly managed to gain her freedom. In this early test of state-sanctioned religion, Connecticut had taken a small step toward reform.

Part 2: Anglican Infiltration

Part 3: (Coming soon)

Relics of Industry: The Rapidayton Gas Pump

This rusting Rapidayton gas pump stands in front of an unused building at the end of my street in Fairfield.

Rapidayton pumps were once common in the East and Midwest. They were produced by the Dayton Pump & Manufacturing Co. in Dayton, Ohio.

The company was started in 1908 by Frank M. Tait, a master of utilities throughout the first half of the 20th century. Inspired by his early interaction with Thomas Edison, Tait took over what would become the Dayton Power & Light Co. in 1905. At one time or another, Tait managed public utilities all over the U.S.

Rapidayton pumps ended after the company was changed in 1955 to the Tait Manufacturing Co. The assets of the Dayton Pump & Manufacturing Co. were used to create the Frank M. Tait Foundation, which sits today on North Main Street in Dayton.

The year that this pump was installed is unclear. There are only three digits available for the total purchase price, meaning the pump was built with the assumption that a full tank of gas would never cost more than $9.99.

Photographs by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

IBM strategist advocates ‘new mindset’ for corporate communications

IBM Communications Strategist and former business journalist Steve Hamm talks to UNH gathered students in the Vlock Center for Convergent Media Dec. 7 about the new opportunities that global communications are opening for businesses and media. Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Corporations are shifting away from talking about themselves toward sharing ideas with people around the world, IBM Communications Strategist Steve Hamm on Dec. 7 told a class of University of New Haven students in the Laurel Vlock Center for Convergent Media in Maxcy Hall.

Hamm spoke to communications majors taking a copy editing course taught by adjunct Professor of Communications Mike Bazinet about his view that both journalism and public relations in the U.S. are broken at a time when a flood of disorderly information has created a great need for writers’ narrative talents. He urged the students not to be pessimistic, saying that there are also more opportunities than ever for positive change in both fields.

“The landscape has been utterly transformed in just a matter of years,” he said. It’s shocking – just shocking.

Hamm should know. He worked in journalism for decades before joining IBM two years ago. He wrote for the Bristol Press in Bristol, Conn., the San Jose Mercury News, and Businessweek. He has written several books, most recently publishing a book honoring IBM’s centennial anniversary. He also writes for IBM’s “A Smarter Planet Blog.”

Hamm witnessed the decline of Businessweek firsthand, from being the top business publication in the world in the late 1990s to when it “essentially went out of business” in 2009. He said he changed roles because he knew that journalism was struggling and he wanted to work with a large organization where his writing would have more influence.

Hamm said, though, that there are also problems emerging in corporate communications, precisely because of its relationship to journalism.

“The old model was: you strategize around finding a journalist interested in telling your story, invest time to develop a relationship with them, understand the market, build stories, pitch them, and then they’d be published,” he said.

Increasingly, Hamm said, journalism has lost its emphasis on explanation and narrative. He said that stories on business news websites like Marketwatch.com are a jumble of sometimes-contradictory snippets without any kind of depth.

“In a world of tremendous complexity, we’ve got news in tiny bits,” he said.

One of the things that Hamm and his colleagues at IBM have been working on to overcome the collapse of in-depth reporting is to recreate deep conversations about ideas through newer media, such as social networking sites. To do that, corporations are expanding their focus of constituents as shareholders and customers to include governments, universities, other companies – and employees.

That is one of the aims behind “A Smarter Planet Blog” and its related Facebook page, “People for a Smarter Planet.” Both sites include discussion with writers and researchers who work for IBM, but also bring in perspectives from all over the world.

One recent innovation was to have “Smart Fridays,” during which people studying interesting phenomena explain their research through a series of posts on the Facebook page. In one recent series, a researcher showed that the height of high-heeled shoes fluctuates with the economy. In hard times, heels tend to get higher, while in prosperous times they get lower.

The conversation, while not specific to anything that IBM does, generated about 1.4 million hits in a few hours.

Hamm sees these types of crossover conversations as a positive step for corporate communications. “One thing corporations must do is say, ‘here’s our knowledge,’ and become a hub around networks to create a feedback loop of learning and influencing. These are the most valuable things in the world, where value can be created.”

Hamm said that no one, including IBM, has quite figured out how to take full advantage of the explosion of information technologies available. That is why it is vital for people from different walks of life to share ideas with one another and try new things.

“Communication is not the frosting on the cake. It is the cake now,” he said. “It is part of the core of what societies need to advance.”

The Year of the Protest

2011 has been the stage for a resurgence of a classic tactic for political reform: the protest. Although there are rallies of varying sizes around the world each year, few have had the numbers or tenacity to wield significant influence. This year, though, they provoked the toppling of governments, the breakdown of civil society, and violent suppressions that sometimes backfired. The last time such a wave of demonstrations gripped so many countries at once was during the student movements of 1968, more than 40 years ago.

Here is a month-by-month look at key moments in some of the year’s protests:

January: Tunisia

Tunsia was the first – and perhaps the most successful – uprising in what later became known as the Arab Spring. Civil activists began protesting against government corruption, unemployment and restrictions on freedom after the self-immolation of street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi on December 17, 2010. Bouazizi had committed the act because of treatment he had received by a municipal official. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced to resign on Jan. 14, and peaceful elections were held in October.
Public domain photograph.

February: Egypt

In this Feb. 4 photograph, protesters flood the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, to call for the end of President Hosni Mubarek’s 30-year rule. Millions of protesters, many of them utilizing social media to organize their movement, held a stand-off against Mubarek’s regime for several weeks. Mubarek announced he would step down on Feb. 11, after members of Egypt’s military began refusing to crack down on demonstrators. The military, after taking over the provisional government, sparked a new wave of protests that claimed similar abuses under the new regime. Mubarek now faces trial for premeditated murder, and several rounds of contentious elections are under way.
Photograph courtesy of Al Jazeera/Jamal Elshayyal. Some rights reserved.

March: Yemen

Protesters march on the university in the capital of Sana’a in Yemen on March 1, 2011. Inspired by Tunisia, Egypt and other nearby movements, demonstrations in Yemen began over similar concerns about government corruption and unemployment. Yemenis were also upset over proposed changes to Yemen’s constitution to extend the length of terms for the president and legislators. President Ali Abdullah Saleh originally rejected demands from the protesters. But after months of crackdowns and defections, the government was left in shambles, and Saleh signed an agreement on Nov. 23 to resign within 30 days.
Photograph courtesy of Al Jazeera English. Some rights reserved.

April: India

It all started with activist Anna Havare announcing that he would undertake a “fast until death” beginning April 5 that would last until India’s government enacted substantial corruption reforms. Hazare’s supporters, undertaking the practices of nonviolent resistance first championed by Gandhi, began a series of protests in New Delhi and elsewhere that called for the passage of the Jan Lokpal bill, which, if enforced, would further many of the protesters’ goals. Hazare was arrested in August, but mass outrage ensued, and he was released again and allowed to continue his hunger strike. The bill finally passed at the end of August, and Hazare ended his fast, though he has continued to push for more reforms.
Photograph courtesy of Pranav21391. Some rights reserved.

May: Spain

High unemployment, new austerity measures, and a government that people feel is more responsive to business interests than average voters sparked major protests in May throughout Spain that have been referred to as the 15-M Movement. The largest demonstrations took place as elections neared in May. The President of the Regional Electoral Committee of Madrid declared the gatherings illegal, but that increased the discord. In this picture, tens of thousands of protesters gather in Puerta del Sol in Madrid on May 20 to camp out until after the end of the elections, in which the ruling Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party lost to the populist People’s Party.
Photograph courtesy of Fotograccion. Some rights reserved.

June: Greece

Greek debt was at the center of the Euro crisis this year. The country’s sovereign debt problems resulted in the passage of numerous austerity packages in exchange for bailouts and protections from other European nations. The collapse of the Greek economy was met with violent reactions from citizens, who began a series of strikes and protests in May. The anti-austerity demonstrations became more and more pronounced, reaching a crescendo in June, when the Greek parliament voted to accept the European Union’s plans to put the financial system back in order. In this June 6 photograph, people gather in Syntagma (Constitution) square outside the parliament building.
Photograph courtesy of Protonotarios. Some rights reserved.

July: Malaysia

The Malay people are not well-known for mass demonstrations. But there has been growing unrest in recent years to the ruling coalition in Malaysia, Barisan Nasional, which has won every federal election since 1957. Tens of thousands of sympathizers with minority and opposition groups, organized by the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (known as Bersih), marched in Kuala Lampur on July 9 to demand elections reforms. Only limited protesting is allowed in Malaysia, and there were threats of police intervention prior to the march. Water cannons and tear gas were used to disperse protesters, of whom 1,600 were arrested. In November, the lower house of Malaysia’s parliament passed a ban on street demonstrations that was roundly condemned by pro-democracy groups.
Photograph courtesy of Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved.

August: Chile

Students have been protesting Chile’s private education industry, asking for greater investment and control by the state in public education. Several waves of contention have swept the country. The first was in reaction to a proposal by then-Education Minister Joaquín Lavín’s proposal to increase funding for non-traditional universities, which have been known to exploit legal loopholes to make profits. More proposals followed, with each bringing a new wave of demonstrations. On Aug. 25, unions organized a major strike and protest that they estimated drew about 600,000 protesters throughout Chile in response to crackdowns on students and reforms that they said fell short. These marchers were in Pichilemu that day.
Photograph courtesy of Diego Grez. Some rights reserved.

September: Libya

Rebel supporters celebrate the fall of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, to anti-Gaddafi forces on Sept. 8. The country’s uprising began in February as part of the Arab Spring, then devolved into a civil war that drew the backing of NATO. Throughout the year, rebels and Gaddafi allies battled from city to city, with both sides seeing early victories. Finally, the rebels captured the remaining holdout cities. They found Gaddafi hiding in Sirte in October, and, in a controversial move, killed him without a trial.
Photograph courtesy of Ammar Abd Rabbo. Some rights reserved.

October: Occupy Wall Street

A group of protesters angered by income inequality set up camp in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, in the shadow of Wall Street’s skyscrapers. Hundreds of camps sprang up across the U.S. and the rest of the world. The occupiers were joined frequently for marches and demonstrations by others sympathetic to their causes. Their popularity spiked on Oct. 15, when coordinated protests were held in cities around the planet. A month later to the day, the encampment at Zuccotti Park was broken up by police. Camps across the U.S. and elsewhere were subject to crackdowns of varying severity, but protests and some camps continue.
Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

November: Syria

Sporadic protests inspired by the Arab Spring popped up in pockets of Syria at the beginning of the year. In March, mass demonstrations began taking place in opposition of the dictatorial rule of President Bashar al-Assad, the end of his Ba’athist Party’s control, and a lack of constitutional government. Assad's camp clamped down on protests with military force, serving only to ignite further uprisings and international concerns. In an unprecedented move, the Arab League approved near-unanimous sanctions against Syria in November. The United Nations estimates that about 5,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far.
Photograph by Syriana2011. Some rights reserved.

December: Russia

Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia, over allegations of vote-rigging and ballot fraud in parliamentary elections by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia Party, which clung to its shrinking majority despite electoral dishonesty. Putin himself is running for president in an election set for March in 2012. Protesters light flares in the chilly Moscow darkness in this Saturday, Dec. 10 photograph.
Photograph by Pavel Golovkin, courtesy of Cryptome.org.

Read more about protests:

- Occupy New Haven: an Operation in Progress

- Occupying Wall Street After Dark

- Grassroots Astroturfing and Political Terrorism

The Strands of Zen in Western Culture

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

The Japanese adaptation of Buddhism known as Zen can seem out of place in Western societies. Those who subscribe to cultural moral relativism believe that unique historical circumstances shape moral values in different cultures, and therefore there are no universally-shared values. They would suggest that the difficulty Westerners have in understanding Zen – particularly its avoidance of reason as a means of working out ethical issues - is evidence of that gulf in universal values.

To say that Zen eschews reason, however, is an oversimplification of the practice. If examined in its nuances, Zen does defy cultural relativism by appealing to numerous values that have appeared in cultures all over the world. Its elusiveness is not unique to peoples of the West – it is counterintuitive by nature.

Reason looms large in the traditions of Western philosophy. Plato and Aristotle both placed a man’s reasoning abilities in a position above other aspects of his character (1, 2). Zen appears to evade reason - to actively sabotage it.

Yet these philosophical expressions all have commonalities that become visible at a more granular level. Plato sees reason as a moderating force that promotes the best possible functioning of the other faculties; a man “will always desire so to attemper the body as to preserve the harmony of the soul (3).” The ultimate aim, to Plato (and Aristotle) is ultimately to live as fruitful a life as can be attained.

Zen’s goal, if it can be said to have one, is similar. T.D. Suzuki says that Zen moves one step beyond reason to break free of the mental constraints of abstract concepts and concentrate on “life as it is lived (4).” Zen does not deny reason a role in life. Suzuki says that practitioners have their own doctrines, but that these do not come directly from Zen, because Zen has no “sacred books or dogmatic tenets (5).”

Zen’s insistence on constantly breaking free from conceptual constructs has similarities to philosophical strains of doubt that have appeared throughout the millennia. In ancient Greece, Pyrrho of Elis first developed a form of systematic doubt that came to be known as skepticism. Pyrrho discovered that he could find vulnerabilities in every philosophical argument. According to Historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, he thought that “since we can know nothing for certain, we must behave as such…We thus stand aloof from life and thereby achieve peace of mind (6).”

Later skepticism integrated its processes into academic philosophy by introducing an important check on the assurance of any conclusion. Carneades of Cyrene made provisional belief acceptable by suggesting that, although nothing could be known, careful scrutiny could show that one conclusion was more likely than another (7).

Carneades’ caveat made it possible for academia and science to maintain their long-term intellectual flexibility. The provisional approach to knowledge admits that, far from being absolute, reason has limitations. It is a deeper concession that there are always more things we do not know than things we do know. It is also profoundly Zen, with echoes in the writings of Suzuki and others.

Other movements in Western cultures continuously strived to break free from old patterns of thinking. Freethinking, transcendentalism, and some elements of postmodernism all contain threads of doubt that, to varying degrees, challenge conceptual paradigms.

Hecht says that American’s introduction to Zen also had an impact on the development of psychotherapy as some eminent professionals, such as Mark Epstein, imported the practice of meditation (8).

Western ideas have also resonated with Eastern thinkers. The Zen story “Not Far From Buddhahood” specifically tells of a student reading a passage from the Biblical Book of Matthew to Gasan. Gasan’s response to the passage is, "That is excellent. Whoever said that is not far from Buddhahood (9)."

It is nevertheless the case that Zen is difficult to understand. Yet Suzuki points out that this is not a problem that only Westerners encounter. Zen is, by nature, “extremely elusive as far as its outward aspects are concerned; when you think you have caught a glimpse of it, it is no more there; from afar it looks so approachable, but as soon as you come near it you see it even further away from you than before (10).”

All systems of doubt can be elusive. Hecht says that there is a narrative to doubt that involves communication and integration across cultures throughout history, including in the case of Zen. However, she says, the elusiveness of these traditions has commonly been portrayed in terms of a “mere collection of shadows on the history of belief (11).” Zen’s Western counterparts may be overshadowed by other philosophical systems, but they remain a robust and vital part of those cultures. And Zen itself is engaged in a productive exchange with that milieu.

References:

1. Plato. The Republic. Translated by Sir Henry Desmond Pritchard Lee. (Plain Label Books, 1955) chap. ix
2. Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by David Ross. (Oxford University Press, 200) Book X, chap. vii, 194
3. Plato. The Republic. Translated by Sir Henry Desmond Pritchard Lee. (Plain Label Books, 1955) chap. ix, 573
4. Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. (Grove Press, 1954) Chap. ii, 45
5. Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. (Grove Press, 1954) Chap. ii, 38
6. Hecht, Jennifer Michael. Doubt: A History. (New York: HarperCollins, 2003) Chap. i, 41
7. Hecht, Jennifer Michael. Doubt: A History. (New York: HarperCollins, 2003) Chap. i, 43
8. Hecht, Jennifer Michael. Doubt: A History. (New York: HarperCollins, 2003) Chap. x, 473
9. Senzaki. “Not Far From Buddhahood.” 101 Zen Stories. (Kessinger Publishing, 2004) 16
10. Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. (Grove Press, 1954) Chap. ii, 43
11. Hecht, Jennifer Michael. Doubt: A History. (New York: HarperCollins, 2003) Introduction, ix

Tips on Arguing: Primary and Secondary Sources

When you’re conducting research for an essay, a debate, or a report, you will often come across multiple sources of information about the same event or topic. How can you tell which of these to use?

One of the most tried-and-true methods for “ranking” information is to distinguish between primary and secondary sources.

A guide to research published by the University of Maryland says that primary sources “are from the time period involved and have not been filtered through interpretation or evaluation. Primary sources are original materials on which other research is based.”

Examples of primary sources include things like eyewitness accounts, photographs, newspaper articles from the time and place you’re researching, and physical objects (bones, pottery, coins, and so forth).

Primary sources are considered the gold standard in all academic research, as well as in journalism. The reason is simple: if you get your facts second-hand, you have no way to be sure that they’re accurate.

Secondary sources do have uses, though. Encyclopedias like Wikipedia are considered secondary sources; they pull information together from primary sources to give an overview of a topic. In this way, secondary sources can help someone to learn the basics of a new subject.

These kinds of sources are also great places to get commentary and analysis, because they often draw from multiple viewpoints or discoveries and make connections between ideas.

The quality of a secondary source can be tough to judge, which is why citations are so vital. If there are references, then the reader can go back and look at the primary sources that were used to find out whether or not the secondary source is accurate.

A simple example is Wikipedia’s entryfor “primary source.” The first sentence of the entry says, “Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied.” After that, there appear two citations: one links to the University of Maryland’s definition. You can go to the original definition, and see that although Wikipedia’s wording is slightly different, the idea is accurate. You can be confident in this case that Wikipedia didn’t just make it up or leave out important information.

As the entry goes on, it offers more citations – 31 in all, plus links to other outside sources, similar entries, and so on. This robust suite of references is what makes Wikipedia a valuable tool, because you can find hundreds of primary sources collected in one place.

Teachers have probably warned you against citing Wikipedia. They’re right to do so, but not because Wikipedia is deceitful or inaccurate (it does occasionally make mistakes, but so does everyone). The reason you shouldn’t cite it is that it is academically lazy not to read the primary sources for yourself.

Sunrise on the Housatonic

The sun rises over the opposite banks of the Housatonic River from the Stratford boat launch as clouds roll across the sky, refracting the light. The reflection turns the waters a purplish hue, streaked by birds plying the river in the distance. Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.