science

Why We Need Science Bloggers

Dana Hunter

Two exhibits shall suffice, methinks.

Exhibit A: The Strange Case of the Oldest Homo Sapiens That Weren’t

The world went haywire last week with breathless reports that ZOMG ALL UR HOOMIN EVOLUSHUNS HAZ CHANGED!!1!11!!  Back in the bad old days when all I had access to was the MSM, I might have gotten sucked in by the hype.  After years of reading science blogs, though, I just sat back and waited.

And, sure enough, on December 28th, there was Brian Switek on Twitter, on the case:

Scientists claim 400,000 year old Homo sapiens teeth found in Israel cave, older than African H. sapiens http://bit.ly/gblFEl BUT… [1/2]
… paper abstract http://bit.ly/fgZQKz draws closer comparison to Neanderthals and indeterminate types like the Skhul/Qafzeh hominins [2/2]

Then:

Haven’t read full paper – no access – but I have to wonder if the popular presentation is hyped beyond paper’s conclusions #notthe1sttime

Scicurious took care of the “no access” problem.   And, within hours, Brian had taken a gargantuan pin to a very over-inflated balloon:

A handful of fossil teeth found in Israel’s Qesem Cave, described in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and attributed to 400,000 year old members of our own species in multiple news reports, are said to rewrite the story of human evolution. This discovery doubles the antiquity of Homo sapiens, the articles say, and identify a new point of origin for our species. “Find in Israeli cave may change evolution story” proclaims The Australian, while the Daily Mail asks and answers “Did first humans come out of Middle East and not Africa? Israeli discovery forces scientists to re-examine evolution of modern man.” (The Jerusalem Post, by comparison, went with the tamer “Homo sapiens lived in Eretz Yisrael 400,000 years ago.”) As is often the case, though, the hype surrounding this find far outstrips its actual significance.


Then, for good measure, Carl Zimmer piled on.  I’m sure plenty of others leaped into the fray, but those were the first two I read, and suffice to prove my point.  We bloody well need science bloggers.  Why?  Because science journalists, the supposed professionals, are so fucking busy misreading, misleading, and giving science repeated black eyes by taking carefully-hedged papers filled with cautions and bet-hedging and warnings against jumping to conclusions and hyping them out of all proportion.  Carl called it “journalistic vaporware,” which rings true.  It’s disgusting is what it is.

And it used to be a person had three choices: accept, discount, or pay out the nose to access the original scientific papers and then try to wrangle sense from things not written in layman’s language.


Now we have science bloggers, who know science, love science, speak its lingo, and have the access and the tools to investigate and report back to the rest of us.  Because of them, I’ve learned not to believe the hype, and to refrain from hyperventilating until one of them weighs in.

Which brings me to Exhibit B:  The “Placebo Effect” Effect



Twitter absolutely blew up with links to various and sundry about some paper claiming the placebo effect worked even when people knew they were taking a placebo.  I can’t report on how some of the sources Bora linked were reporting it, because I was busy getting me arse kicked by other links (I’ve been busy, damn it).  But I saw other babble floating around that seemed to take it at face value.  Meh.  It was either a solid study or it wasn’t, I wasn’t too fussed about it, and knew that if it either had merit or sucked leper donkey dick, it would eventually land on one of the medical sites that are part of my regular reading schedule.


I love it when I’m right:

Placebo effects without deception? Well, not exactly…

Dr. Gorski eviscerates both study and breathless hype.  Yes, the study showed some interesting things.  No, it didn’t prove that placebo works sans deception.  Rather a fatal flaw:

No, the reason I say this is because, all their claims otherwise notwithstanding, this study doesn’t really tell us anything new about placebo effects. The reason is that, even though they did tell their subjects that the sugar pills they were being given were inert, the investigators also used suggestion to convince their subjects that these pills could nonetheless induce powerful “mind-body” effects. In other words, the investigators did the very thing they claimed they weren’t doing; they deceived their subjects to induce placebo effects by exaggerating the strength of the evidence for placebo effects and using rather woo-ish terminology (“self-healing,” for instance). Here’s how the investigators describe what they told their patients:

Patients who gave informed consent and fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria were randomized into two groups: 1) placebo pill twice daily or 2) no-treatment. Before randomization and during the screening, the placebo pills were truthfully described as inert or inactive pills, like sugar pills, without any medication in it. Additionally, patients were told that “placebo pills, something like sugar pills, have been shown in rigorous clinical testing to produce significant mind-body self-healing processes.” The patient-provider relationship and contact time was similar in both groups. Study visits occurred at baseline (Day 1), midpoint (Day 11) and completion (Day 21). Assessment questionnaires were completed by patients with the assistance of a blinded assessor at study visits.

This is a description of the script that practitioners were to use when discussing these pills with subjects recruited to the study:

Patients were randomly assigned either to open-label placebo treatment or to the no-treatment control. Prior to randomization, patients from both groups met either a physician (AJL) or nurse-practitioner (EF) and were asked whether they had heard of the “placebo effect.” Assignment was determined by practitioner availability. The provider clearly explained that the placebo pill was an inactive (i.e., “inert”) substance like a sugar pill that contained no medication and then explained in an approximately fifteen minute a priori script the following “four discussion points:” 1) the placebo effect is powerful, 2) the body can automatically respond to taking placebo pills like Pavlov’s dogs who salivated when they heard a bell, 3) a positive attitude helps but is not necessary, and 4) taking the pills faithfully is critical. Patients were told that half would be assigned to an open-label placebo group and the other half to a no-treatment control group. Our rationale had a positive framing with the aim of optimizing placebo response.

How is this any different from what is known about placebo responses? I, for one, couldn’t find anything different. It’s right there in the Methods section: The authors might well have told subjects that they were receiving a sugar pill, but they also told them that this sugar pill would do wonderful things through the power of “mind-body” effects, as though it was entirely scientifically clear-cut that it would.

That, my darlings, is deception.  That’s telling folks the sugar pill is magic.  And we all know that when you hand people a pill and tell them it’s magic, a subset will believe, and heal themselves.  The only real difference was that in this study, the bottles of sugar pills actually said “PLACEBO” on them.

POP goes another overinflated response to a study that didn’t merit the hype.  Thing is, without science bloggers, us regular joes wouldn’t know any better.  And without science bloggers, us regular joes would be pissed next week or next month or next year when future studies are breathlessly hyped as saying these studies were completely fucking wrong.  Science bloggers bring us back down to earth.  They help us understand what the science was really saying, analyze the studies for flaws that might cast doubt on sensational conclusions, and show us how good science (and good science reporting!) is actually done.


That, my darlings, is why we so desperately need science bloggers.  And to all of you science bloggers in the audience: thank you, thank you, a million times, thank you.

Why We Need Science Bloggers
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Not So Much An Explosion…

Dana Hunter2 Comments

…as a long, slow-burning fuse.

Dr. Joe Meert and colleagues may have discovered evidence of Ediacaran fauna stretching back a lot longer than previously thought.  And it’s all because their driver had a mild stroke in the field, leaving them stranded a bit and with nothing to do but nose around the rocks of Maly Karatau looking for fossils.  They found some.
Our work in the lab is what provided the first surprise. The general consensus is that the Ediacara fauna reached their zenith around 565 Ma following the last of the severe glacial epochs. In fact, many argue that the so-called Snowball Earth episodes provided the stress necessary for the evolution of complex life during the Ediacaran-Cambrian interval. But the age of the rocks came back as 766 Ma. This is more than 100 million years older than the previously reported occurrences of Nimbia and was a bit of a shock. Furthermore, our study of stable isotopes on the glacial deposits indicated that they are most likely of Marinoan age (~650 Ma). Since the fossils were found stratigraphically well below these glacial rocks, our age estimate made even more sense. 
[snip]
Meert, J.G., Gibsher, A.S., Levashova, N.M., Grice, W.C. and Kamenov, G.D., Glaciation and ~770 Ma Ediacara (?) Fossils from the Lesser Karatau Microcontinent, Kazakhstan, Gondwana Research (large pdf). doi10.1016/j.gr2010.11.008. 

More at the Panda’s Thumb, including more about the geology of the area.  Or, for the full stratigraphic goodness, you could go read the whole paper, which includes some mouth-watering photos of ancient tillites and one very attractive rock that looks like a glacier scratched it up just last Ice Age.

Now, if this paper gains any traction, you’ll probably see headlines shrieking that the Ediacaran fauna have positively without doubt been pushed back another 100 million years ZOMG.  That could be the case.  But the authors of the paper are careful not to jump all the way overboard.  This could prove multicellular animals were tooling around the oceans long before we suspected.  Or… not so much.  They may be determined not to have been multicellular at all, in fact.  Lots of research still needs to be done, and you can tell from the photos that these soft-bodied little critters are subtle and hard to suss.

But that’s ultimately not so important as the fact that life on Earth spent a long, long time evolving its way toward complexity.  It got there gradually, not all at once in some huge, instantaneous explosion.  It’s not like critters went to bed single-celled and got up on the first morning of the Cambrian as multicellular armored beasties.  That is just not how it went.  If you still want to think in terms of an “explosion,” you’ll have to envision a blowup that lasted up to hundreds of millions of years – longer, in fact, than it took us to evolve from shrew-like mammals shivering in the shadows of dinosaurs to nekkid apes shivering in a stiff winter breeze.

As far as we can tell, life spent a long time futzing around with single cells, lounging together as microbial mats, before venturing out in a desultory sort of way to become wee little multicellular things that eventually discovered the joys of predator-prey relationships and the importance of armor.  Evolution can happen quickly, and sometimes does -once a threshold is reached, it’s not implausible that innovation can take off in all kinds of directions.  But it’s not precisely an explosion.  And it’s certainly not the kind of nearly-overnight sensation the IDiots and cretinists lust for.  It may look fast, but that’s only if you don’t understand geologic time.  This paper, should it prove that the authors’ conclusions are right and the Ediacaran fauna spent an additional hundred million or so years lurking around in soft-bodied multicellular glory, is merely an additional slap in the face to those who cling with grim determination to a figure of speech.  We already knew the “explosion” took at the very least tens of millions of years to go boom – far more than enough time for plain ol’ unsupernatural evolution to do its thing.  No gods need apply.

Still, it’s exciting to think that life on Earth consisted of more than just microbial mats as early as three-quarters of a billion years ago. 

Incidentally, Dr. Meert has his own blog, Science, AntiScience and Geology, where you can read one of the greatest Blogger profiles ever written:
I have a Ph.D. from By Bayou University where I am employed as a Professor of Hydrocephalic Earth Studies and Structure. My research is aimed at demonstrating the utter lunacy of young earth creationism. Oh, I am not 549 years old, I don’t endorse astrology and I found it interesting that 1457 was the year of the rat, but I have no idea why this blogger puts such information into a bio.
I think I just fell a little bit in love just then…
Not So Much An Explosion…

Two Must-Reads You May Not Have Read

Dana Hunter

Whelp, Christmas is over.  We’ve got a bit o’ breathing room before New Year’s.  Time now to catch up on some of that great stuff you put off.

Brian Switek’s got 6 Strange Fossils That Enlightened Evolutionary Scientists.  It’s Brian, so I don’t have to tell you how awesome it is.  Just get yer arse over there and read it if you haven’t already.

And Bora’s got an epic-length (by blogging standards) exploration of science and journalism that will probably tell you quite a lot you didn’t already know.  And you’ll be surprised by just how much the 19th and 21st Centuries have in common:

Apart from technology (software instead of talking/handwriting/printing), speed (microseconds instead of days and weeks by stagecoach, railroad or Pony Express, see image above) and the number of people reached (potentially – but rarely – millions simultaneously instead of one person or small group at a time), blogging, social networking and other forms of online writing are nothing new – this is how people have always communicated. Like Montaigne. And the Republic of Letters in the 18th century. And Charles Darwin in the 19th century.

The whole thing’s well worth your time.  So I won’t detain you here any longer.  Go.  Read.  Enlighten!

Two Must-Reads You May Not Have Read

The Quote Detective

Dana Hunter

I love language, and what can be done with a well-turned phrase: metaphor, simile, analogy, a quip and a quote.  I love how language can evoke and expand.  And when something so good comes along that people feel compelled to pass it along, I love finding out where it came from.

That’s not always easy to do. Things change in the retelling.  Origins get misty.  That was the case with the widely quoted and misquoted description of the Basin and Range as “an army of caterpillars marching northward toward out of Mexico.”  It’s been repeated in a variety of ways in a plethora of sources.  But who said it first?  Who looked at those wriggling mountain ranges and thought, “Hmmm, caterpillars!”?

Thanks to Silver Fox and her fellow investigators, now we know.  But this isn’t just the story of a quote, but how the combined power of Google, Twitter, and a determined social network can uncover the 124 year-old truth in a day.

Go.  Read.  Delight!

The Quote Detective

Christmas Rocks

Dana Hunter2 Comments

In more ways than one.  For instance, I’m not at work.  Woot!

By the time you read this, it’ll be Boxing Day, so Happy Boxing Day!  That holiday always confused me as a kid.  I had no idea why there would be a special holiday for beating people up.  Then I found out it was an extra holiday lucky people in Britain and other such countries celebrated that had nothing to do with boxing, and I think this is where my anglophile tendencies began, because who wouldn’t want an extra holiday right after Christmas?  Even if it did have a funny name.

In fact, it seems no one’s quite sure why it’s actually called Boxing Day.  Who cares?  There’s sales on – reason enough to celebrate!

We have rather more luck with Christmas, where the name is obvious and the seasonal celebrations easily traceable.  Hudson Valley Geologist Steve Schimmrich has a good primer up on all that.  And Doctor Science points out that no, in fact, Christ is not the “reason for the season,” as so many fundies like to pretend (h/t).  And it wasn’t a foundational holiday for early Americans, either.  Our own national hero George Washington saw it as a prime time to launch a sneak attack, as the colonists who would become Americans didn’t celebrate Christmas but Germans did.  Isn’t there something in Sun Tzu about taking advantage of enemies’ hangovers?  I’m sure there must be.

Retailers would have us believe it’s all about buying shit, and giving and receiving gifties is awesome, but Doctor Science has some of the other reasons us secular types enjoy a good midwinter celebration:

To have a green tree in the house, filled with light, in the darkest and coldest time of year, as we feel the year turn from old to new — how can that not be numinous? When we decorate with green branches and red berries, this isn’t from Christian iconography —

“I remember hearing,” said Susan distantly, “that the idea of the Hogfather wearing a red and white outfit was invented quite recently.” NO. IT WAS REMEMBERED.

(from Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett). The rising of the sun and the running of the deer, seeing our families and having enough to eat: all of these things are worth celebrating. Such celebrations don’t have to be either secular or religious, in the usual sense: they are pagan in the sense of “rustic, countrified, what the common people do”. Human, in other words. 

Good reasons all.  And I’m not fussed about what our midwinter celebrations are called.  “Christmas” is a decent enough shorthand for all those midwinter celebrations.  But next year, I might start popping off with “Happy Boxing Day!” just to see how many Americans have no idea what I’m talking about.

But all of that’s just a long lead-up to what we’re really here for: the presents!  And thanks to our geobloggers, Christmas this year rocks!

Follow me after the jump for ye delights.

Let’s start with a sing-song, shall we?  Chris Rowan at Highly Allochthonous was kind enough not to actually sing the 12 Geological Days of Christmas, but he’s got the lyrics and we can carry the tune:

The words below are sung to the obvious tune, and (mostly) just about scans – although my festive gift to you is not to post anything resembling audio of me trying to sing it myself.

On the 1st day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
an APWP

On the 2nd day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
2 concordant zircons
…and an APWP.

Enjoy all twelve!

And here’s another traditional carol, courtesy of Lockwood: “Deck Us All With Boston Charlie:”



Now we’ve got the music going, we can haz gifties!

Silver Fox sends us Xmas Greetings from Nevada:



Many more pretty pitchoors where that came from, o’ course!

Garry Hayes sends us a postcard from the edge!  The Christmas Gift: Storm Passes in the Grand Canyon.


 
Mmmm, home!  Love the stormlight in Arizona.  Love love love!

Erik Klemetti gave us his gift early.  Dr. Adam Kent answers your questions about Mt. Hood (and more):

Afters months of waiting, I have finally been able to get my act together enough to post the answers to questions you posed to Dr. Adam Kent. If you remember back to the beginning of the fall, Dr. Kent and his colleagues published a paper in Nature Geosciences about the nature of magma mixing and eruptions at Mt. Hood in Oregon. You sent in questions and now you get some answers. Enjoy!

Suvrat Kher has Recommended Holiday Reading:

A passage from Simon Winchester’s Krakatoa, The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 –

(And yes, I’m gonna be mean and make you go to the link for your giftie!  Those of you who haven’t read the book yet may want to reconsider after reading it – I had no idea Krakatoa had so much to offer, and I’ve been eyeballing it for years now!  Might be getting meself a little Boxing Day giftie, in fact…)

Finally, we come to the huge package that’s been looming under the tree.  You know, the one that screams ZOMG OPEN MEEE!!! but everybody’s made you save for last because it’s that freakin’ awesome.  Callan Bentley went out and got us a fantastic Serpentite and Melange!

That is an AMAZING thing to see — tectonically-rounded blocks of serpentinite, surrounded by a sheared-out, foliated paste of crushed serpentinite. That is a serpentinite mélange. Look at the way the foliation wraps around these lone survivors, like native prairie grasses swishing around the last two bison in South Dakota:



There are so many drop-dead gorgeous photos in there, so much astounding geology, I didn’t even know what to filch.  Twas the bison simile that did it!  ZOMG, Callan, thankyouthankyouTHANKYOU!

And thank all of you: my wonderful geobloggers, my science and political and melange bloggers, my Tweeps, my friends, family, and cat, and you, my dear, my cherished, my raison d’etre readers!  I love you all to pieces.  Happy hollydaze to you!

Christmas Rocks

The World Is Weird

Dana Hunter2 Comments

Check out what I came across whilst pulling images off of Google for the valley I’m working on:
Blood Falls

So at first, I was like, “Is that some sort of dye experiment gone horribly awry?”  But no.  It turns out to be something quite different and altogether natural, no matter how unnatural it looks:

The Taylor Glacier is unique among the Dry Valley glaciers in that the presence of subglacial brine near its terminus results in geomorphic behavior more like that of a temperate or polythermal glacier. Ice-penetrating-radar data indicate water or slush below the glacier corresponding to an 80-m depression in the bedrock topology at ~4km up-glacier from the terminus. This depression is below sea level and forms what is believed to have been a third lobe of Lake Bonney. When the chemically reduced subglacial brine flows from below the glacier and is exposed to the atmosphere, it becomes oxidized and a red salt cone, known as Blood Falls, precipitates at the northern end of the glacier terminus.

Sometimes, I get the impression that no matter what weird, wacky shit I attempt to invent, the world’s gonna clear it’s throat at every turn and say, “Been there, done that.”  At least I’m not ashamed to admit that the vast majority of “unique” stuff I’m writing about will have been filched from the real, live, complex and delightfully bizarre universe around us.

The World Is Weird

Totality!

Dana Hunter2 Comments

Long-time readers may recall that in my deep past, I wanted to be an astronomer.  I’ve still got an abiding fondness for such things, but I don’t get to feed my inner amateur astronomer much up here.

So when Twitter started buzzing with word of a total lunar eclipse for the night of December 20-21, I looked out the window, saw clouds, and said, “Bah, humbug.”  But that didn’t stop me from heading outside at a little after 11pm to have a hopeful look.

The clouds had parted!

Stayed out there for almost an hour in flip-flops, too intent on watching the moon vanish to run back inside for sensible shoes.  This was the event of a lifetime, wasn’t it?  I mean, seriously, people, those of us who got to see it either outside or streaming live online were witnessing something extraordinarily rare:

This lunar eclipse falls on the date of the northern winter solstice. How rare is that? Total lunar eclipses in northern winter are fairly common. There have been three of them in the past ten years alone. A lunar eclipse smack-dab on the date of the solstice, however, is unusual. Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory inspected a list of eclipses going back 2000 years. “Since Year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is 1638 DEC 21,” says Chester. “Fortunately we won’t have to wait 372 years for the next one…that will be on 2094 DEC 21.” 

Soooo lucky Seattle’s cranky winter weather chose tonight to have a lengthy cloud break at just the right time.  So lucky I follow Phil Plait on Twitter, and that he kept us all up-to-the-minute caught up on what we should see and when.   He also had a super-spiffy blog post up with about all you’d need to know.

If I’m still alive in December of 2094, I shall have to make sure I’m ready with a camera that can record the event.  By then, we should have much better.  But mine did remarkably good for a little pocket model, and would’ve done far better if I’d have binocs.  Still, got some fun stuff!
First Look, through thin clouds

That’s what made me dash back inside and snatch up the camera.  Over the next 40 minutes or so, I watched the bright bits of the moon get smaller:



And the clouds cleared away near totality, and the last sliver of moon gleamed:



You can just barely see it.  And then, boom: totality.  Which was about the time my camera said, “Sod this for a bloody lark, I can’t see a damned thing,” and packed it in for the night.  Luckily, Phil was able to catch some good images:
Totality! Moon is deep Orange. Gorgeous!

Last one. Deep into totality.

Awesome!  I’ll never forget the moon, nearly invisible, glowing a faint pale orange in the sky, deep in our shadow.  Love love love this universe!

How many of you guys got to see it?

Update:  You, my darlings, must click here to see my friend Michael Smith-Sardior’s outstandingly beautiful photo of the eclipse!

Totality!

The Allure of the Orcas Chert and How to Keep Undergarments Fresh in the Field

Dana Hunter1 Comment

I can always count on Dan McShane to provide me some local yum, and he had me drooling over the Orcas Chert the other day.  I’ll let him ‘splain and filch one of his pictures:

The Orcas Chert is part of a suite of rocks belonging to the Northwest Cascades System (NWCS). The NWCS is not a simple assemblage and taking a walk along the the Orcas Chert exposed on the west side of San Juan Island is a good reminder.  Lappen (2000) assembled the Geologic Map of the Bellingham 1:100,000 Quadrangle that includes much of the San Juan Islands. The accompanying report provides only a brief description of the geologic setting but I think it sums up the NWCS rather well as “This structural system is a thrust stack of mainly oceanic lithologic packages (terranes) of varying age, structure and metamorphic history.” I would emphasize “varying” as an understatement. When I get asked about these rocks or other assemblages of metamorphic rocks in the San Juans or Northwest Cascades I often say these rocks have had a long hard life. 



There’s schist in that thar chert!  How does he know I’m a sucker for schist?  Argh, now I want to go to the Islands, mon!

And thanks to Anne, who tweeted the following, I’ll always have clean underwear out in the field.  I am not giving away the secret here.  You will have to click this link.  Do not do so with your mouth full of food or beverage, because I refuse to be responsible for what happens if you do.

The Allure of the Orcas Chert and How to Keep Undergarments Fresh in the Field

Hey! I Practice Alt Med, Too!

Dana Hunter

Kimball Atwood’s been kicking the arses of all those who like to babble that because alt med’s popular, even the most implausible, most wootastic woo should be studied.  We’re talking folks who think that homeopathy should be studied, despite the fact the basic science isn’t behind it at all – you’d have to overturn pretty much all of physics and chemistry for it to qualify as anything remotely possible to actually work as more than a placebo mixed with willful idiocy.  The people who back randomized, double-blind, clinical trial after clinical trial for the wooiest of woo despite assloads of evidence already available showing it doesn’t, can’t, and will never work are the same ones who would probably demand said trials for butt reflexology if enough dumbfucks fall for a hoax.

But I digress.  I was about to tell you about the fact that I, too, practice complimentary and alternative medicine (CAM).  I found this out while reading Kimball’s lovely smackdown.  Here’s the passage that revealed all to me:

In addition to the ethical fallacy just discussed, there is another fallacy having to do with popularity: the methods in question aren’t very popular. In the medical literature, the typical article about an implausible health claim begins with the irrelevant and erroneous assertion that “34%” or “40%” or even “62%” (if you count prayer!) of Americans use ‘CAM’ each year. This is irrelevant because at issue is the claim in question, not ‘CAM’ in general. It is erroneous because ‘CAM’ in general is so vaguely defined that its imputed popularity has been inflated to the point of absurdity, as exemplified by the NCCAM’s attempt, in 2002, to include prayer (which it quietly dropped from the subsequent, 2007 survey results).

By these standards, I so totally do practice CAM!  Yep, it’s that slippery of a definition.  Y’see, sometimes, when I feel like I might be coming down with a cold, but it might just be allergies or too much smoking instead, I run this little litany through my head: “I hope I’m not getting sick!  I hope I’m not getting sick!  I hope I’m not getting sick!”  And sometimes, when I wish really hard I won’t get sick, sometimes I don’t get sick!!!

So imagine me getting surveyed:

Survey Person: Do you pray for wellness or healing?

Me [sarcastically]: Well, I’m an atheist, but I sometimes hope really hard.
SP: Great!  We’ve got you down for prayer, then, you alt-med lover you!
Me: Wait, what?  Hey!  Come back here and erase that right now, you fucking bastard!
SP: [vanishes into the distance at a brisk run]

And that, my darlings, is one of the great many reasons why you should always treat the argumentum ad populum with grave suspicion.

Just like you should butt reflexology.  Or is that butt-print astrology (ass-trology!)?  It’s so hard to keep all this butt-related woo straight!

Hey! I Practice Alt Med, Too!

Putting the "Awe" Back in Awesome

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Apologies to whomever posted this on Twitter, because it was last week and I cannot for the life of me remember who.  One day, I’ll remember to jot these things down.  But it’s definitely too good not to share for lack of being able to credit.

Every science blogger needs to read “Rehabilitating Awesome” by John Pavlus.  So should everyone who loves science and wants other to love it, too.  If you haven’t yet, here’s why:

My humble opinion is that engagement should start from first principles–and I don’t mean elementary physics. Take the beginner’s mind, not the post-doc’s or the cynical reporter’s. Why did we as science writers get into this business? I can’t speak for you, but in my case it wasn’t because I loved how the word “chromodynamics” looked next to a forbidding table of statistics. It was because at some formative point in my life I felt awe and associated it with science. As in,”Wowwww”–then “why?”–then “ohhhh.” I would hazard that many scientists had a similar experiences that sent them on their professional paths.
Awe is our first principle. If we weren’t all using science to chase it in some way or another, why be in this business at all?
So there’s our answer about engagement. Every damn person who’s ever breathed air has once wondered why the sky is blue. So, whatever your scientific subject, just go back in time, dig out that tiny neutron-dense core of wonderment that you felt, and you’ll be well on your way to bringing someone else along for the ride. Easier said than done, of course — but perhaps not as difficult as many of us have learned to believe.

All right, then?  Think you can do that?  Of course you can.  Science makes it easy.  Science is amazingly awesome, frequently dramatic, beautiful even when it’s ugly, and has the power to make even the mundane look like the most extraordinary thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life.

It inspires awe.  All you have to do is add the “some,” then kick it up a notch or two.  Dead easy, right?  Yes, it is – take a trot down my blogroll and you’ll see science bloggers doing it every single day.

Putting the "Awe" Back in Awesome