Statement:

In 2005, I began ChaoticUtopia.com as a repository of art, science, and philosophy. It was a lark, a hobby... a place to put mental detritus and nothing more. As you might expect from the site's title, my interests included chaos theory and ethics. Time held my fascination as well, especially when it came to looking at the future. I had many ideas and many questions. These were thrown together in a sort of hodge-podge theory that explained how everything fit together. As wonderful (or arrogant) as that sounds, I considered it essentially worthless. Sure, there were compelling connections, but overall my ideas were too meta, lacking any apparent applications. I was doomed to become a philosophy major. 

This website saved me. Along with my usual bits of poetry, prose, and art, I practiced science writing. To my surprise, folks liked it. I moved over to ScienceBlogs.com to write to a wider audience. I decided to major in environmental science, putting philosophy on the back burner. Then a strange thing started to happen. My curiosities about the surrounding landscape led me to my most-hated subject in school: history. Strangely, this turned out to be the ideal place to use the theories I once considered worthless. Looking into the patterns of distant and recent pasts, we can find pragmatic approaches to modern environmental issues. With this in mind, I'm working to get a certificate from CU Boulder's Center of the American West. Their slogan? 

"Turning hindsight into foresight."

History, meet the future. Science, meet philosophy. The world? It's in our hands.

-Karmen Franklin

The Arrow of Time

historical patterns and predictions

• Recovering the past and missing bones

• Time and the cosmic mobius strip

• Life and Chaos: A constant update

• The Battle of the Skeptic and the Empath

At ScienceBlogs.com:

• At the Expense of the Future: Explaining the Success of Climate Science

• Climate Change: Predicting Colorado's Future

• History vs Change

• My Evolving Corner of Paradise (Values, part III)

• The Art of Time I: The Road to Rochester Creek

• The Art of Time II: Traces of Transition

• The Art of Time III: Symbolism on the Solstice

• West from Westminster Hill, Then and Now

Dynamic Landscapes

ecosystems and development

• Map Love

• The Wildlife Photographer: A New Endangered Species?

• And the lovliest of all was a Ceratophrys ornata...

• It's only climate; Adapt!

• Global Warming fuels centuries-old battle

• Conan the Bacterium: The Ancient Microscopic Hero

• Powerful birds of prey in Colorado

• A Classic Colorado Photo Essay

• Rulison update:

• If you can't wait, just blow it up...

• Weird weather and bifurcations

At ScienceBlogs.com:

• A New Black Gold Rush

• Amber Waves

• Confessions of a pint-sized ecoterrorist

• Destiny; a Manifestation

• Environmental Science: The Marvelous Toy?

• Greenland Melting: A Photo Essay

• Life and Death in a Lady Beetle Colony

• Lillybridge I: An Early 20th Century Photo Essay

• Poetry in Nature

• Science on Sunday in SoHo

• Seasons Change (Development on the Front Range, Part III)

• Stalked by a Murder of Crows

• Taming the Great American Desert (Development on the Front Range, Part II)

• There's what in the water!?

• Wandering West

• Wedding bells and wagon wheels (Development on the Front Range; Part I)

• Where the Buffalo Roamed: A Historical Photo Essay

• Wild Wild West

• You can go home again...

Chaos Theory

complexity arises from a sensitive dependence on initial conditions

• Grasping complexity

• Ride the waves--even if they glow in the dark

• Schrödinger’s Apple, Part 3: Apples and snakes

• Schrödinger’s Apple, Part 2: Perception and value

• Schrödinger’s Apple, Part 1: The dream and grayness

• wait. isn't chaos bad?

• what is chaotic utopia?

At ScienceBlogs.com:

• A Chaotic Utopia

• A Human Spiral

• A Necessary Twist (Values, part IV)

• Emergence on the Radio

• New Levels of Complexity Found in DNA and Space

• The Garden Beyond (Values, part II)

• The Value of a Sunflower

• Waterfall: A Bewitching Metaphor

Boundaries and Categorization

natural complexity and the utility of artificial distinctions

• Floral Speciation

• Human Speciation

• Unbearably Strange News

• For the love of species: Epilogue

• "Irreducible Complexity" is load of crap (er, I mean, an oxymoron)

• Leaving the waves to walk on land

• For the love of species VIII: Sorting out the little guys

• For the love of species VII: A Fossil Photo Essay

• For the love of species VI: Wolves and other stealthy creatures

• For the love of species V: Selection and gourmet cuisine

• For the love of species IV: Jurassic Mammals

• For the love of species III: Natural Selection

• For the love of species II: What is it?

• For the love of species I: Meet the finches

• For the love of species: Prologue

• Species Mania!

• Light, Liberty, and Uncertainty

• While baby chimps grow faster, humans grow smarter

At ScienceBlogs.com:

• Inevitable Complexity

• Uncharted Multiplicity

Being

the tangibility of awareness and intelligence

• Existentialism: A light look

• Robots as Mothers?

• The Indefinable

• Global Philosophy

• The pathways of the brain: a perfect analogy for life

• Frankenstein and bioethics

• More weirdness: Strangeness, change and the soul

• The Computer and the Consciousness

• I Love Robots

• Chaos and Awareness (part 2)

• Chaos and Awareness (part 1)

At ScienceBlogs.com:

• A Dangerous Knowledge

• A Delay from Reality

• The Computer and the Consciousness

To Battle or Ride the Waves

survival in the face of the unexpected

• Riding the waves of three

• battle or ride the waves?

At ScienceBlogs.com:

• Metaphorically speaking...

• Riding the waves of three

Miscellany

• Credits and Disclaimer

At ScienceBlogs.com:

• Archives