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Sins Against Science – A Chat with Judi Nath | TAPP 110

Sins Against Science – A Chat with Judi Nath

TAPP Radio Episode 110

Episode

Episode | Quick Take

Author Judi Nath stops by for a chat about her new book Sins Against Science: How Misinformation Affects Our Lives and Laws. We discuss the origins of the book, its central message, and how we can use the book’s content to become better teachers of human anatomy & physiology.

  • 00:00 | Introduction
  • 00:42 | Introducing Judi Nath
  • 03:56 | Sponsored by AAA
  • 04:47 | Sins Against Science
  • 14:13 | Sponsored by HAPI
  • 15:01 | Stories About Science
  • 25:17 | Sponsored by HAPS
  • 26:24 | Hard Topics
  • 35:40 | Staying Connected

survey

Episode | Listen Now

Episode | Show Notes

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as much as you please. (Mark Twain)

 

Introducing Judi Nath

3 minutes

Before we begin our chat, Kevin introduces his friend Judi Nath. There is nothing in this segment about Olympic bobsledding—but a lot about the accomplishments of a real hero of A&P teaching.

photo of world with two human hands around it and text: Sins Against Science - A Chat with Judi Nath

 

Sponsored by AAA

1 minute

A searchable transcript for this episode, as well as the captioned audiogram of this episode, are sponsored by the American Association for Anatomy (AAA) at anatomy.org.

Searchable transcript

Captioned audiogram 

Don’t forget—HAPS members get a deep discount on AAA membership!

AAA logo

 

Sins Against Science

9.5 minutes

Judi tells us how she came to write this book and explains its goals. She also discusses how she wants to meet her readers where they are—much like we do with our A&P students.

  • Judi’s website judinath.com/
  • McFarland (publisher of Sins Against Science: How Misinformation Affects Our Lives and Laws by Judi Nath) mcfarlandbooks.com
  • Sins Against Science: How Misinformation Affects Our Lives and Laws (the book by Judi Nath discussed in this episode) geni.us/1s1VF
  • Read Kevin’s review of Sins Against Science: How Misinformation Affects Our Lives and Laws in The A&P Professor Book Club
  • Earn a digital credential in professional development by reading this book

photo of Judi Nath with book cover of Sins Against Science: How Misinformation Affects Our Lives and Laws

 

Sponsored by HAPI Online Graduate Program

1 minute

The Master of Science in Human Anatomy & Physiology Instruction—the MS-HAPI—is a graduate program for A&P teachers, especially for those who already have a graduate/professional degree. A combination of science courses (enough to qualify you to teach at the college level) and courses in contemporary instructional practice, this program helps you be your best in both on-campus and remote teaching. Kevin Patton is a faculty member in this program at Northeast College of Health Sciences. Check it out!

northeastcollege.edu/hapi

Logo of Northeast College of Health Sciences, Human Anatomy & Physiology Instruction

 

Stories About Science

10 minutes

Judi explains that she’s happy for us to use her stories of science and how it works and what we know so far in our teaching of A&P.  She also discusses why she begins each chapter with a landmark court case.

 

Sponsored by HAPS

1 minute

The Human Anatomy & Physiology Society (HAPS) is a sponsor of this podcast.  You can help appreciate their support by clicking the link below and checking out the many resources and benefits found there. Watch for virtual town hall meetings and upcoming regional meetings!

Anatomy & Physiology Society

theAPprofessor.org/haps

HAPS logo

 

Hard Topics

9 minutes

What was the hardest topic for Judi to research and write about? It turns out that was a topic that was both the most interesting to learn about …and the most heartbreaking.  She also dives into the process of writing and how the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) got her on the right track to getting her book developed and published.

  • Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) (an organization that has helped Judi, Kevin, and countless others, in their writing and publishing journeys) taaonline.net
  • Abstract (the TAA blog mentioned by Judi) blog.taaonline.net/
  • McFarland (publisher of Sins Against Science: How Misinformation Affects Our Lives and Laws by Judi Nath) mcfarlandbooks.com

Need help accessing resources locked behind a paywall?
Check out this advice from Episode 32 to get what you need!

Episode | Captioned Audiogram

Episode | Transcript

The A&P Professor podcast (TAPP radio) episodes are made for listening, not reading. This transcript is provided for your convenience, but hey, it’s just not possible to capture the emphasis and dramatic delivery of the audio version. Or the cool theme music.  Or laughs and snorts. And because it’s generated by a combo of machine and human transcription, it may not be exactly right. So I strongly recommend listening by clicking the audio player provided.

AAA logoThis searchable transcript is supported by the
American Association for Anatomy.
I'm a member—maybe you should be one, too!

PDF icon

Introduction

Kevin Patton (00:00):
The humorist, Mark Twain, once said, “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as much as you please.”

Aileen (00:11):
Welcome to The A&P Professor, a few minutes to focus on teaching Human Anatomy & Physiology with a veteran educator and teaching mentor, your host, Kevin Patton.

Kevin Patton (00:26):
In this episode, I chat with Dr. Judi Nath about her new book on science misinformation.

Introducing Judi Nath

Kevin Patton (00:43):
Hey, I’m really looking forward to chatting with my friend, Dr. Judi Nath, in this episode. I always enjoy visiting with Judi, but this will be the first time that we’ll have you listening in. She just wrote a new book that we’ll be talking about shortly, but first I want you to know a few things about Judi. Well, okay, if you’re active in the A&P teaching community, you may already know her, or at least know about her. For one thing, she’s a longtime active member of HAPS, having served as president of HAPS and in, well, just a whole bunch of other capacities. I mentioned her recently on this podcast. I think it was Episode 94 when I recognized her being bestowed the prestigious HAPS President’s Medal. Yay, Judi.

Kevin Patton (01:37):
But if you don’t know her from HAPS, then maybe you’re familiar with Judi as an author of several excellent textbooks at A&P and textbooks in medical terminology and textbooks in pathophysiology and, soon, a textbook in bobsledding. Okay, I bet you didn’t know that Judi and I first met when we were on the same Olympic bobsledding team. It didn’t really work out, though. It turns out that you can’t just show up on your own at the Olympics and expect to compete on the bobsled or compete on anything else. Who knew? So we gave the sled back to Bob and refocused on teaching A&P.

Kevin Patton (02:21):
Speaking of which, many, many students over the years have appreciated as a Biology professor at Lourdes University and at Penn State University. She’s taught a variety of courses, including Human Anatomy & Physiology, and something I just found out, but I’m not at all surprised at, is that she has even taught German language courses. Just so you know, our chat today will be conducted entirely in American English.

Kevin Patton (02:54):
Those are all interesting facts about an interesting woman, and they give you some idea that she’s had no small success in communicating science to beginners. There’s a lot more facts about Judi and I’ve linked to her website in the show notes at the episode page at theAPprofessor.org/110. But what you really need to know about Judi, you’ll find out in a moment, when you realize that she’s a thoughtful and compassionate person who gives freely of her time and talent to make the world a better place. I’m so happy I get to visit with her again and discuss one of her new books. In just a moment, we’ll join Judi for our chat, but because we’re going to be talking about misinformation during that chat, I better clarify that … well, none of that bobsledding stuff is true.

Sponsored by AAA

Kevin Patton (03:57):
A searchable transcript and a caption audiogram of this episode are funded by AAA, the American Association for Anatomy. I bet you didn’t know, simply by going to anatomy.org, you can find all kinds of resources. I mean, some really cool stuff like a virtual dissection database of images, and a virtual microscopy database, and anatomy ethics resources, and a journal about teaching A&P, and a bunch of webinars and, well, the list is so long it’s just too long to go through it right now. But next time you have a few minutes, check it all out at anatomy.org. You’ll be glad you did.

Sins Against Science

Kevin Patton (04:48):
I’m here with Judi Nath and it’s always such a pleasure to chat with you, Judi. I get to see you at least once a year at the HAPS conferences, although recently virtually, and it seems like we’re always running into each other in different A&P-related venues, like the HAPS Book Club, and we’re serving on a committee right now together. And, this evening, we have a meeting don’t we? And so-

Judi Nath (05:13):
We do. We do. Important one.

Kevin Patton (05:16):
Yes, a very important meeting. And so Judi and I have known each other for a long, long time and we’ve both been very involved in A&P teaching for a very long time, as I mentioned in the previous segment that introduced her. And one of the things that she has recently done, in addition to all the many things she does to support Anatomy & Physiology teaching not only at the institution that she works at but broadcast through her textbooks and all the work she’s done in HAPS to support A&P teaching, now she has produced two, what are sometimes called, trade books. They’re not textbooks in that they’re not necessarily used in a course, although I think either or both of these could be used easily in a course, but they’re not really designed as textbooks. They are books about science and we’re going to talk about Sins Against Science. That’s one of her two books. The other book, Digesting Foods and Fads, we’re going to talk about in a later episode.

Kevin Patton (06:26):
So Judi is coming back to talk about her other book because each of these books is worth its own conversation. So this book, Sins Against Science, is a book that is written in a very conversational style, and so it’s not really meant as a scholarly monograph although she’s got lots of references and so on so it might as well be a monograph, but it’s not written like a monograph. It’s written like … Well, each chapter is like a longish magazine article in a way, and it’s very engaging, brings you right in, and touches you right where you’re at.

Kevin Patton (07:10):
And so this one, Sins Against Science, that subtitle is How Misinformation Affects Our Lives and Laws. So what is that about? Explain that title.

Judi Nath (07:22):
So the title stems from the fact that for several years now, we’ve just had a deluge of misinformation and disinformation across social media, other media platforms, and it was getting on my nerves the amount of misinformation that’s out there and the number of people that actually believe it. And as I started reading it more with the critical eye, I could see that so much of it revolved around topics of Anatomy & Physiology, and what better place to educate people is in my field of Anatomy & Physiology.

Judi Nath (08:12):
As I did so much doom scrolling over the past five years, I realized lots of our laws, in fact, were based on misinformation or politicians would have these tropes that they just repeated over and over, and if you repeat something often enough people come to believe it, whether it’s true or not. In my classes, I tell students that, “Well, if you say it loud enough and with conviction, everyone will believe you.” And so I stand up and I do that. At any rate back to Sins Against Science-

Kevin Patton (08:48):
Don’t we all?

Judi Nath (08:49):
We do.

Kevin Patton (08:50):
In the classroom?

Judi Nath (08:51):
I know. There’s my platform.

Judi Nath (08:55):
So I just started keeping track of things that revolved around Anatomy & Physiology and laws that were currently passed somewhere within the United States, many of them in my own home state of Ohio. That led me down this journey of feeling the need to just educate the world. So when you spoke of this being in a conversational tone, I’ve tried really hard to make it a conversational tone and the person I always had in mind was a family friend who was in her nineties and I thought, “Well, if Bonnie okays this, and if Bonnie can understand this and Bonnie wants to read it, then I can go ahead and write it.”

Judi Nath (09:47):
So I was super sensitive to not offending people because some of the topics I discuss are controversial, but I firmly believe in education and the power of education that if you just took a step back and assessed the words and what was written, and you had a modicum of scientific literacy, you’d say, “That’s just bonk,” and maybe some of this controversy would go away and you could contact your legislators and say, “That’s just wrong.”

Judi Nath (10:21):
That was probably a very long-winded answer, too. Because I felt like I wanted to educate the world, not just my A&P students.

Kevin Patton (10:30):
Well, that’s a great motive, right? I mean, I think that’s what any of us in A&P teaching do, right? I mean, that’s not probably the thought we have as we walk into the classroom.

Judi Nath (10:42):
Right, right.

Kevin Patton (10:42):
Because I’m going to educate the world. But in a way we are, because we know that our students are going to go into careers in which they’re doing a lot of patient teaching and educating their patients about their own bodies and their various challenges.

Kevin Patton (10:58):
I just want to circle back to this A&P teaching thing and what you’re doing there, because we do, do that. What you’re doing with Bonnie, we’re doing with our students and we also don’t want to offend them, but we want to educate them.

Judi Nath (11:17):
Right.

Kevin Patton (11:17):
We want them to walk out with the scientific basis or the scientific ideas behind whatever that question or controversy is. As I went through it, I saw there are like some big ideas-

Judi Nath (11:34):
Big ideas. Controversial ideas.

Kevin Patton (11:34):
… that you’re tackling.

Judi Nath (11:34):
Yeah.

Kevin Patton (11:37):
Like science and religion, how do they work together? Or, do they? I’m like, “Oh, well, that’s a very small little question to tackle,” but you do and then you move on to another big one over and over. One thing that I really like about what you do in the book is … I mean, you are covering different kinds of issues throughout the book. It’s not just one kind of issue, and they all have a scientific aspect to them, and they all have an aspect where a lot of people have made big mistakes in interpreting the science or applying the science. So you tease that apart, and I think for me as an A&P teacher, I want to see somebody do that. I want to see what their thoughts are on it, because I’m not sure if the way I’m looking at it really is sound. Am I making some of these mistakes and pitfalls? Because we’re all prone to those things.

Judi Nath (12:30):
We are, and we walk in thinking that our students already come with some knowledge base or they have their own assumptions. Sometimes, what they’re thinking just blows me out of the water. I think, “How in the world could … Where did you get that?” But I mean I can’t say that and I don’t say that. Those are just the little wheels in my head turning and most times they don’t get to my lips, which is always a good thing. But you get to know the person and you realize that they’re ingrained and unseating that can be difficult, but oftentimes, because we are in the classroom, we can do just that. I’m always amazed at the number of students who come to my class every semester. It’s usually at least one who still thinks that women have a different number count of rib than men do, and I think, “Well, where did they learn that?” I don’t know. Why hasn’t that gone away? I don’t have the answer to that, but it persists.

Judi Nath (13:41):
So I think of those moments anytime I’m even trying to teach something quite complicated. That you have to meet the student where they are and, in the same way, that’s what I’ve tried to achieve with these books. We have to meet the general audience where they are because I can’t get to know them very well like my students.

Kevin Patton (14:06):
Right, right. Yeah.

Judi Nath (14:06):
Yeah, so.

Kevin Patton (14:06):
We’ll be back with more of our chat with Judi Nath in just a moment.

Sponsored by HAPI

Kevin Patton (14:13):
You’re listening to this podcast now at no cost because all the distribution fees are sponsored by the Master of Science in Human Anatomy & Physiology Instruction, the HAPI degree. This program at Northeast College of Health Sciences is designed to help those who already have an advanced degree get caught up in evidence-based teaching strategies as they refresh and review all the major topics in the typical Anatomy & Physiology course. Check out this online graduate program at northeastcollege.edu/hapi, that’s H-A-P-I, or click the link in the show notes or episode page.

Stories About Science

Kevin Patton (15:02):
Now, one thing that really popped out at me in this book is that you are really applying A&P principles frequently here, and how many times do we really want to do that with a family member, a friend, an acquaintance, a co-worker, whatever, but they’re not going to stick around for the length of an A&P class-

Judi Nath (15:27):
They are not.

Kevin Patton (15:27):
… For us to completely … But a way around that is to write a book where if they want to know what your thoughts are on it as a person who has done a lot of work making sure that your thoughts are well-founded, then, yeah, this is the way to do that. What’s really … Just being selfish here. For me, as an A&P teacher, when I read that, I want to read how you explain that. Like at the beginning or, at least, near the beginning, you’re explaining what do we mean by the scientific method? How does science work? How do we know something from a scientific angle? How is a theory developed and what does that really mean? And how is that different from, “Well, I have a theory as to why my neighbor always cuts his grass on Sunday morning.” That’s not a scientific theory.

Judi Nath (16:18):
Right.

Kevin Patton (16:18):
That’s what I think you call an everyday theory.

Judi Nath (16:21):
Yeah.

Kevin Patton (16:21):
So you distinguish those things, and I think we all begin our A&P course … I hope we all begin our A&P course … with at least a few minutes of discussion of the fact that this is science, here’s what science is, here’s what science isn’t, and we’re going to be doing science in this course, and hopefully that’s woven all the way through the course. And I want to see how you did it. I want to see how you told that story of science, which is a little bit different than the way I teach it and probably a little bit different the way everybody teaches it. Everybody has their own stories to tell.

Kevin Patton (16:51):
So that’s one of the things I love about this book is that I get to see Judi telling these stories that she has really spent a lot of time researching and so on. So thank you for all that work that you’ve done.

Judi Nath (17:05):
You’re welcome.

Kevin Patton (17:05):
That I get to just steal, basically.

Judi Nath (17:09):
Of course, you can.

Kevin Patton (17:09):
Not steal. I paid for it.

Judi Nath (17:11):
I want people to use it if it were works for them. That’s what’s been the beauty of HAPS, the Human Anatomy & Physiology Society, is that we share ideas and we don’t have a commodity on our intellectual stuff, and that’s a biological term, stuff. We don’t have a commodity on that. We’re willing to share. And if you said something that clicks with me and makes sense, of course, I’m going to use that. As professors, we’re continuously learning. So we didn’t stop learning once we got the doctorate or got that piece of paper. We’re continuously learning and trying to think of new ways to present because people are different. Students are different. We all change. And we just want to be able to get the information to people in the best way we know how, so that they’ll remember it and can apply it.

Judi Nath (18:08):
As I often tell my students, there are these big ideas that I teach in A&P and I’ll tell them, “This is the stuff that you need to know five years out regardless of your chosen profession. If you’re even going to be an underwater sandpiler, this is the stuff I want you to remember forever.” It’s true.

Kevin Patton (18:29):
There’s something else I can use.

Judi Nath (18:30):
Exactly.

Kevin Patton (18:33):
Thank you. Just one after the other.

Judi Nath (18:35):
Yeah, I’m just full of it today.

Kevin Patton (18:38):
You are. Now, one thing in this book that surprised me a little bit-

Judi Nath (18:43):
Uh-oh.

Kevin Patton (18:44):
Is that … No, no, no, no, it’s not … it’s a good surprise.

Judi Nath (18:48):
Okay.

Kevin Patton (18:48):
And it’s not … I mean, it’s just something it just didn’t occur to me. It’s not like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe she did that.” It’s more like, “Oh, that’s an interesting approach,” and that is at the beginning of each chapter, you summarize very briefly a Supreme Court case, a landmark Supreme Court case, and then that relates to the topic of that chapter and then you use that as your pushing-off point and go forward. So what brought you to that style of introducing your chapters?

Judi Nath (19:25):
Like I said earlier, I saw laws changing and the forward of this book is written by my longtime friend, Jim Obergefell. Jim Obergefell had the landmark Supreme Court case in 2015 of Obergefell v. Hodges, which made gay marriage equality the law of the land in the United States. That was a Supreme Court landmark case.

Judi Nath (19:56):
I was with him through every step of this process, and because I’m constantly thinking, my brain won’t shut down, I just kept saying to him, “If people only knew the science, why … This wouldn’t be an issue, if they only knew the science.” And then I just started thinking about all the different Supreme Court cases that I knew of and, of course, everyone knows a Roe v. Wade. And for years, I’ve been preaching if you knew the science, maybe you could have a different dialogue about this.

Judi Nath (20:32):
So I started compiling a list of topics in A&P for which there was a Supreme Court landmark case and you could see overlap after overlap. And I’m very careful to stay in my lane. Many people had asked me, “Well, do you have climate change in there? Or do you have the space race?” No, because I don’t know anything about the space race and, yeah, I know climate change, but I’m staying in my lane, something that I can articulate and argue intelligently. That’s how the major topics got chosen, and a Supreme Court case or a landmark decision introduces each of those topics to show that, “Well, you may not necessarily think that science is part of your everyday life. I think you got to stop and pause and see for yourself that, yes, it is.” So that’s how the Supreme Court cases started.

Kevin Patton (21:42):
All right. Well, that … Yeah, like I said, I would have never thought to do it that way, but that makes perfect sense the way that evolved, and it really works well. I’m enjoying it.

Judi Nath (21:54):
Thank you.

Kevin Patton (21:55):
And it’s not like reading an encyclopedia. Now, we’re going to talk about this topic. Now, we’re going to talk about that topic. You lead us in, in a very engaging way. And like you just said, I mean, just emphasize that point, these are the laws of the land. They affect all of us.

Judi Nath (22:13):
Right.

Kevin Patton (22:13):
Another aspect of what you just shared with us about your viewpoint on writing this, I think anyone who’s listening, who is in the midst of teaching A&P, has had that feeling. Every time you watch the news, or read a news article, or a news item on social media, or run across anything like that … I know my wife and I yell at the TV all the time when we watch the medical news like-

Judi Nath (22:42):
Yes.

Kevin Patton (22:42):
… “No, that’s not right.”

Judi Nath (22:45):
Yes.

Kevin Patton (22:46):
So in reading this book, I caught myself smiling to myself a number of times, for a variety of reasons, but one of them was that I’m like, “Okay, yeah, Judi is on the couch here with us. She’s yelling at the TV, too.” Only you’re yelling in a much more measured way in this book. You’re not yelling at all in this book. You’re just rationally explaining in a kind of fun way. I mean, not only is it informal, but it’s somewhat lighthearted when you can be. I mean, not all the topics are lighthearted, but you’re not taking yourself too seriously, I guess is what I’m trying to say, and I love that about out it too. Because it really … it pulls me in even deeper, and I think someone who might be resistant to hearing some of these things, that would be a very powerful tool to hold them there for a little while as you share some of that information.

Judi Nath (23:45):
I greatly appreciate that because it took rewrites in order to get that to come through, because I was writing that yelling at the TV, all caps, “Can you believe this? People, pay attention.” Like, okay, let’s just scratch that, and, “Good people. Now, on the news last night…” and I just took it from there, but that’s the same thing we do with our students.

Kevin Patton (24:16):
Right.

Judi Nath (24:17):
We bring in what’s currently happening, and even sometimes you can introduce a topic. You might be talking about the lymphatic system today, but something really important happened the day before, it’s our job to talk about that if it relates to Anatomy & Physiology, because at that time, you have a teachable moment and it’s those teachable moments that are going to transcend anything I might say about the lymphatics or also called lymphatic vessels.

Judi Nath (24:49):
So I want to make sure that students see us as real people, but see themselves as players within this society, and we can do that simply by bringing that into the classroom. And, again, I bring that into the book.

Kevin Patton (25:06):
That’s not all. We’ll be right back with more.

Sponsored by HAPS

Kevin Patton (25:17):
Marketing support for this podcast is provided by HAPS, the Human Anatomy & Physiology Society. Listen, I know, I talk about at HAPS all the time. It’s one of my primary resources for learning new things as an A&P professor and it’s one of my go-to places to connect with other A&P faculty from all over. Some of my closest and most helpful colleagues ever, I met in HAPS. Some I met at annual regional conferences, some at virtual town halls, others through various committees I’ve served on.

Kevin Patton (25:57):
By the way, those HAPS committees, they’re the kind of committees where you really do meet interesting people and have interesting and meaningful discussions and do work that really means something. See what HAPS can do for you by visiting theAPprofessor.org/haps. That’s H-A-P-S.

Hard Topics

Kevin Patton (26:18):
One of the things I wanted to ask you about, and I promised you I would, and that is the enzymes in the Krebs cycle.

Speaker 4 (26:31):
Oh, no. No.

Judi Nath (26:31):
The Krebs cycle, yeah. See, so I took that out.

Kevin Patton (26:39):
No. No, no, that makes sense. Yeah, I don’t see a chapter on the Krebs-

Judi Nath (26:41):
No.

Kevin Patton (26:41):
… cycle here, and I was wondering about that. No-

Judi Nath (26:44):
It was earlier traps, like Krebs cycle.

Kevin Patton (26:48):
Yeah, let’s not going to-

Judi Nath (26:49):
Three classes in grad school, I finally figured it out.

Kevin Patton (26:53):
I have a feeling that’s not going to engage the average citizen.

Judi Nath (26:56):
No, no.

Kevin Patton (26:58):
So good choice.

Judi Nath (26:59):
Thank you.

Kevin Patton (27:00):
Pulling that out. But something I do want to ask you that’s not about the content of the book speci … Well, I guess, it is about the content of the book, and that is, was there anything in there that was particularly difficult for you to kind of grab a hold of and find a way to present it?

Judi Nath (27:18):
It’s a difficult question because it wasn’t just written in one fell swoop. It was written over many years and I had lots of notebooks filled with ideas and a file on my computer. Anytime I read something, I just tossed it into a digital file so I could come back to it. Some of the topics that were hardest though were those that hit closest to home. Like the very last chapter was on death and dying. I wrote that while my brother was dying, so that was difficult to write.

Judi Nath (28:00):
But at the same time, he played a role in what I should include in it, because he was very interested in this book, particularly because he was a news junkie, and the politics, he talked a lot about politics and he is like, “Judi, you got to put this in your book. Judi, you got to put this in your book.” And so I just kept making all of these notes.

Judi Nath (28:28):
Sometimes, maybe in a couple of instances, it was difficult to find a Supreme Court case that could be relatable today. A couple of them, I think, date back quite a long time. Like, they predate you and me so they’ve been around a while.

Kevin Patton (28:45):
Yeah, that’s whoa.

Judi Nath (28:47):
Yeah.

Kevin Patton (28:47):
That was a long time ago.

Judi Nath (28:50):
Like the Stone Age, maybe?

Kevin Patton (28:52):
Yeah, I don’t know.

Judi Nath (28:54):
So that part was a little difficult. However, as an intellectual exercise, I was learning a lot about what you can find out about Supreme Court cases and this was an intellectual pursuit as much as anything for myself. Just things I didn’t know, I didn’t know.

Kevin Patton (29:11):
Yeah. Well, I tell you that I appreciate that about it too. That you’ve done all that work over all those many years and gathered all that information in your files because now you can present it in a way that makes sense to me without having to spend years looking at this, looking at that, looking at the other. And I love the way that you put it all together, and now this leads to another question.

Judi Nath (29:33):
Okay.

Kevin Patton (29:34):
Are there things still in the file or is the file being added to?

Judi Nath (29:38):
The file is being added to simply because I have some talks lined up and I want to make them relevant to recent memory. Given the state of affairs in our country right now, that file is just filling up.

Kevin Patton (29:57):
I bet.

Judi Nath (29:57):
So I have to pick and choose what topics to include.

Kevin Patton (30:03):
Yeah.

Judi Nath (30:03):
The other thing that listeners might not be aware of is that you can write a book and you can send it off to agents and publishers, but that whole process oftentimes can take a year or more. And I was booeyed by the fact that JK Rowling even got rejected. I don’t like being rejected. But I checked some file that she had written. She had some rejection letter from somebody. I don’t remember who it was, but she said she kept it not to be angered but to prove that it can be done and to serve as an inspiration to other writers.

Judi Nath (30:54):
So circling back to the question, do I keep the file? Yeah, I keep a file because once I finally found a publisher, and shout out to the Textbook & Academic Authors Association. I’ve been a member of TAA for years and I know you’re the president this year. It was through that organization that I found the publisher.

Judi Nath (31:20):
So then once they accept it, it might take another year before it actually gets into publication. In my case, it was about 11 months. So three months before we were going to press, they had sent me the formatted book, but then I had to go through it yet again and update it all. And it’s challenging because, of course, I had that folder full of a whole bunch of things that needed to be updated and that was just the state of affairs for writing a book with a publisher.

Judi Nath (31:58):
It made me really appreciate people who self-publish because you have total control over what you want to say and how many pages you want to say it in and what gets printed and how quickly. So there’s a whole other talk right there on the differences-

Kevin Patton (32:18):
That’s right.

Judi Nath (32:18):
… between self-publishing and not.

Kevin Patton (32:23):
Yeah, and if anybody listening wants to learn and more, just check out TAA.

Judi Nath (32:27):
Yes.

Kevin Patton (32:27):
Textbook & Academic Authors Association. We have a lot of veteran authors. We have a lot of people that are early in their career authoring, and we have a whole lot of people who are just trying to get their feet wet and learn about authoring and what those different choices are. So I appreciate you bringing that up and I know you and I both have gotten a lot out of that organization-

Judi Nath (32:49):
We have.

Kevin Patton (32:50):
… as textbook authors, and I didn’t realize that it played a role in these new books that you wrote too. So that’s really heartwarming.

Judi Nath (32:59):
It did. Somebody had written a blog about it.

Kevin Patton (33:03):
Oh, okay.

Judi Nath (33:04):
Yeah. I don’t know how I stumbled upon it. It must have been one of those days when I was at the computer because I had already gone through TA’s resources and trying to tease out any nuggets, and, finally, I saw this blog. I went, “Ha-ha.”

Kevin Patton (33:18):
That’s what I need.

Judi Nath (33:25):
Yeah. Yeah. And it was TAA’s blog on it, so.

Kevin Patton (33:27):
Right, right.

Judi Nath (33:28):
Yep.

Kevin Patton (33:29):
All right. Well, I tell you, Judi, I really appreciate you spending some time with us. I don’t want to get too far into this book because then nobody want to read it because we have covered it all in. Well, okay, that’s not possible. But, really, this is a great book and if you want some… I don’t want to call it light reading, we’ll call it medium reading. I mean, it’s easy to read, but it’s got a lot of information in it, and I found myself underlining things. I’m not someone who underlies things in books easily. I hear those-

Judi Nath (34:07):
Those pages are crisp.

Kevin Patton (34:08):
… those voices behind me of the librarians in that, “No, don’t do that.” But I … sometimes you got to do it if you want to go back to it.

Judi Nath (34:18):
Sometimes you got to, yeah.

Kevin Patton (34:20):
And so I find myself doing that and writing myself little notes on the side and so on, and this is the kind of book that any A&P teacher I think is going to do that with. I can’t recommend it highly enough and I’ll have a link at the episode page and in the show notes, so if you want to go buy Judi’s book or just even take a look at it, you can do that through those links. I’ll have a to Judi’s website as well.

Judi Nath (34:42):
Fabulous.

Kevin Patton (34:42):
Where you can find out more about Judi, and I guess you can purchase the books through your website as well, or there’s links on there?

Judi Nath (34:48):
You can. You can buy them wherever books are sold. There’s also a contact button on my website if you’d need to get in touch with me for any reason. Just to be kind to me though.

Kevin Patton (35:03):
Yeah. Any complaints, you can send those to me and I’ll file them. I have a file.

Judi Nath (35:09):
You have a file?

Kevin Patton (35:09):
That I’m building.

Judi Nath (35:10):
I got one of those, too.

Kevin Patton (35:16):
So, again, thank you, Judi, and I’m really looking forward to our next little chat where we can talk about your other book because there’s another whole book that, again, addresses exactly what we’re doing in the A&P course. So thank you, Judi.

Judi Nath (35:32):
Thank you, Kevin.

Kevin Patton (35:32):
And we’ll see you next time.

Judi Nath (35:34):
Yes.

Kevin Patton (35:35):
Okay.

Judi Nath (35:35):
Alrighty.

Kevin Patton (35:36):
Bye-bye.

Judi Nath (35:36):
Bye-bye.

Staying Connected

Kevin Patton (35:40):
Want a colleague of yours to listen to this chat with Judi Nath? Well, just go straight to theAPprofessor.org/refer to get a personalized share link that will get your friend directly to this episode. And if you want to check out Judi’s book or visit her website, go to the show notes at the episode page at theAPprofessor.org/110. And while you’re there, you can claim your digital credential for listening to this episode. And after you’ve read Judi’s book, you can go to theAPprofessor.org/bookclub to claim your credential for reading that book.

Kevin Patton (36:21):
And you’re always encouraged to call in with your questions, comments, and ideas to the podcast hotline. That’s 1-833-LION-DEN or 1-833-5466-336. Or, send a recording or written message to podcast@theAPprofessor.org. I’ll see you down the road.

Aileen (36:49):
The A&P Professor is hosted by Dr. Kevin Patton, an award-winning professor and textbook author in human anatomy & physiology.

Kevin Patton (37:02):
Please drink responsibly when listening to this podcast.

Kevin Patton (37:19):
We’re living in strange times, aren’t we? There’s a lot of health misinformation and disinformation coming at us from all directions. As science faculty, we have an obligation to promote only evidence-based information and critical analysis. Let’s all help each other keep everyone safe and healthy.

Kevin Patton (37:44):
Sins Against Science: How Misinformation Affects Our Lives and Laws by Judi Nath is published by McFarland. Learn more about writing opportunities with McFarland at mcfarlandbooks.com

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Last updated: August 27, 2023 at 14:29 pm

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