Charlie’s Playhouse is having an evolution and art contest for children — with prizes! They should draw how an animal would adapt to an environment they imagine, and for that, some will get goodies from the store. Deadline is 15 November, so get to work.
Remember that awful, terrible Templeton-funded prayer study that had no controls, was unblinded, and had nothing but subjective measurements of improvement? Now it’s being promoted on healthfinder.gov — with not a word of reservation, just a happy claim that prayer might help sight- and hearing-impaired people. It’s a beautiful example of bad science reporting, in which they’ll admit that maybe it’s just the placebo effect, but they still run out and get quotes from people saying this stuff might help.
That ridiculous article on Biblical diagnosis has been officially retracted, and the editor left a comment at Aetiology:
As Editor-in-Chief of Virology Journal I wish to apologize for the publication of the article entitled ”Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time”, which clearly does not provide the type of robust supporting data required for a case report and does not meet the high standards expected of a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Virology Journal has always operated an exceptionally high standard of thorough peer review; this article has clearly not met these thresholds for balance and supporting data and as such, the article will be retracted. I should like to apologize for any confusion or concern that this article may have caused among our readership, or more widely.
Whilst only ever intended as an opinion piece and also a bit of relief from the ‘normal’ business of the journal, the speculations contained within this article clearly would be better expressed outside the confines of a peer-reviewed journal. Biomed Central does not support any views outlined in this article.
Oh, yes. The usual “We always operate with exceptionally high standards, except this one time” defense. Anyone remember the Warda and Han paper that was even more egregiously ridiculous, claiming that mitochondria were the “missing link between body and soul”? That was also blithely retracted, with no explanation from the journal Proteomics about how the mistake was made.
This is a serious concern, to my mind. Scientists are expected to be open and communicative about their work, explaining all the details about how we achieve our results. Yet then we hand that work over to a publisher (usually a for-profit organization), where it is subjected to an arcane process cloaked in mystery that they call peer review. And every once in a while, some strange fluke exposes the inherently arbitrary and chaotic nature of that process, everyone asks “how the hell did that get published?”, and some guy in a business suit steps out to unconvincingly tell us “oops” and reassure us that all is well in the machineries of their journal.
I don’t think it’s enough. If a publisher wants to manage this profitable business of publishing science journals, there ought to be an expectation of transparency — a fuller explanation of how submissions are handled, and when mistakes are made, a more thorough explanation of exactly how it happened. Without an open explanation of how such mistakes occur, I can’t have any confidence that efforts will be made to correct the process that led to them.
And it’s not just the journals. Scientists have to have some expectation of rigor. The author of the retracted Virology Journal has also tried to explain what he was doing.
I was astonished that our article, submitted initially in the debate section of the journal, had stirred up such negative publicity. As an article for debate, there was no absolute right or wrong answer, and the article was only meant for thought provocation. Neither was it meant to be a debate on the concept of miracles. My only focus at the time of writing was “what had caused the fever and debilitation” that was cured by Jesus. I was especially astonished that so many comments were made outside the scope of the journal. In medical writing, colleagues would usually make comments in the “letter to the editors” and the authors would respond in the subsequent correspondence.
He’s astonished? I’m astonished! It was an epically bad paper, using very poor data to draw a completely unjustified conclusion. If he’s going to waffle now about there being no right or wrong answer, then he shouldn’t use the pages of a peer-reviewed journal to conjure up an unsupportable answer. Can this man even think scientifically?
I am amused at the protest that comments were made outside the traditional protected filters of the journal itself. That’s such a genteel expectation: that one can screw up royally, and then because one is a member of a formal organization, all criticisms will be processed and massaged by an editorial staff, one will have an opportunity to restrict and reply to only those bits that are properly phrased in a mannerly mannered manner, and that everything will be officially published in a way to enhance one’s standing as a respected colleague. Thus can pompous twits find perpetual reinforcement of their status.
Well, screw that.
The world has got to change for science publishing. No more ivory tower isolation, no more confinement of ideas to a narrow set of mutually reinforcing academic cronies — write something really stupid, and we have ways to drag it out into the light of day, where a hundred thousand people will laugh at it and tear it apart.
Nick Denton is one of those interesting fellows in online media: my first impression was that he runs gossipy sites and therefore must be shallow, but then you discover that he’s actually got very finely tuned antennae to what people want to read…and if it’s gossip, then so be it. But at the same time there are some real insights into what draws and keeps the attention of those fickle creatures called human beings. This routine memo from Denton summarizing the popular stories of the month is wonderfully revealing, and a good lesson for anyone writing on the web.
Kevin Purdy’s highly informative story about the effects of caffeine on the brain in Lifehacker was the breakout story of July. And the reader interest in the piece highlights — do we really need a reminder? — the draw of the explanation. There’s too much news on the web; and way too little explanation. Fully a quarter of the top stories are straight how-tos or otherwise helpful or informative.
Do we really need any reminders of the other patterns either? The stories to which people respond are the stories to which they’ve always responded, since way before the internet. Readers enjoy strong opinion, such as Charlie Jane’s attack on Night Shyamalan. They like mysteries, especially photoshop mysteries, as Gizmodo demonstrated with its coverage of BP’s photoshopped PR pic.
Apply those ideas to some of the arguments going on in the skeptical/atheist communities right now. Good, controversial, interesting articles combine strong opinion (“Joe Blow is an idiot!”) with explanation (“And here’s why!”). One thing I would agree on with some of the recent bleeding hearts of skepticism is that strong opinion doesn’t work when it stands alone, but explanation and analysis can work persuasively enough by itself — if you can get people to read it. The combo, though…that’s the big win.
(via Carl Zimmer)
JL Vernon is lobbying to have Huffpo dedicate a section of their undeservedly popular, cheesy website to science. He makes a superficially reasonable argument: to work within the belly of the beast to promote good science, in opposition to the tripe they usually publish. I’m sympathetic, really I am, but I see the Huffpo as a dead cause.
I also think Vernon fails to grasp the problem here. For instance, he complains about the refusal of anti-creationists to debate the opposition.
The most resounding message emerging from the opposition is the idea that having “real science” share a platform with “bad science” will ultimately tarnish the reputation of the legitimate scientists and science communicators who choose to participate. This is essentially the same argument Richard Dawkins, PZ Meyers and others take when refusing to debate evolutionists. The concept here being that by sharing the stage with creationists, scientists lend credibility to the creationist arguments. In some ways, I think this is a cowardly response. If you have a sound argument, the opposition should not win the debate.
That’s wrong on multiple levels. First, a debate is not won by sound argument; it’s by persuasive rhetoric. Many creationists have that skill (I have to repeat a mantra I’ve got: creationists are not stupid, just ignorant and misled by ignorant arguments), so it is a serious tactical error to think that because all the facts and science are on your side, you’re going to win debates. That’s a recipe for consistent failure.
The other problem here is that I’ve “won” most of my debates…because the other side is just nuts. Jerry Bergman and Geoff Simmons, to name two, were raving loonies who made me embarrassed to be sharing a spotlight with them. There was no gain for me, and plenty for them. You get two possibilities: you’ll face an eloquent rhetorician who will run rings around you despite your command of the facts, or you’ll get a nutcase who makes you feel like you’re sharing the podium with a brain-damaged hobo. Neither are great options.
The final big problem is that creationist debaters willingly lie and distract to win their arguments. The Gish Gallop is just one of the tools they use; they sputter out dozens of claims that are false and falsifiable, if you had an hour to address each one. And then, of course, if you do “win”, they’ll cheerfully lie to their little closeted evangelical audiences that they not only defeated you, but that you were a big abusive meanie who was rude and accused the creationists of making stuff up.
I have little hope for Vernon’s endeavor if he doesn’t grasp these basic realities of dealing with kooks.
As for Huffpo, he has a couple of hurdles. He has openly announced his intent to expose the “bad science” on HuffPo — while I like that idea, does he really think Ariana Huffington is going to look kindly on that proposal?
Also, we know that Huffpo editors censor articles. There isn’t going to be any criticism of the site’s major goals, the promulgation of Newage garbage, getting through unbutchered.
But let’s assume Vernon succeeds, and gets a good science section with reputable contributors writing about good solid science and criticizing the pseudoscience and quackery otherwise rife on Huffpo. If it acquires even a scrap of prestige and respect, I can predict exactly what will happen: Deepak Chopra and Robert Lanza will ask Huffington to include their raving madness in that section. They write about “science” and “medicine”, after all. And a credible science section on Huffpo will be quickly subverted to promote quackery.
Convergent Revolution agrees that Huffpo Science would be a bad idea. Huffpo is tainted fruit — stay away from it altogether.
Bleh. MSNBC is running a terrible article that claims they have “proof” that chickens came before eggs. It’s just an awful mess, and one of the scientists is at least partly responsible.
The scientists found that a protein found only in a chicken’s ovaries is necessary for the formation of the egg, according to the paper Wednesday. The egg can therefore only exist if it has been created inside a chicken.
…
“It had long been suspected that the egg came first but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first,” said Dr. Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University’s Department of Engineering Materials, according to the Mail.
No. What they found was a specific molecule called ovocleidin which is a member of a family of C-type lectin-like proteins. These things are all over the place; they’re cell adhesion molecules, some are involved in cell signaling, some function in modulating the immune system and blood clotting pathways. They’re even found in snake venoms. They’re found in everything from C. elegans to mammals. Their key property is that they bind calcium.
In birds, these proteins have been coopted to regulate egg shell formation. They bind calcium and can seed the crystallization of calcium carbonate, and also control the rate of crystal formation. Chickens have ovocleidin, but geese have an ortholog, ansocalcin, and ostriches have struthiocleidin. There seems to be a lot of lability in what particular calcium-binding protein is used in shell formation, and it’s probably the case that most of the sequence is free to mutate without affecting the nucleating function.
You simply can’t make the conclusion the reporter was making here. The species ancestral to Gallus gallus laid eggs, the last common ancestor of all birds laid eggs, the reptiles that preceded the birds laid eggs…the appearance of egg laying was not coincident with the evolution of ovocleidin. The first chicken that acquired the protein we call ovocleidin now by mutation of a prior protein also hatched from an egg.
What were the people involved in this story thinking?
But the part where he gets in a sloppy threesome with the hydrogen twins is too racy!
But I can’t. I am quite possibly the worst dancer in our galaxy (notice the nod to my self-esteem: I can acknowledge that there might be an entity worse at dancing somewhere in the universe). But still, this announcement spoke to my inner Balanchine.
Who said scientists can’t dance? The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is proud to announce the third annual “Dance Your Ph.D.” interpretative dance video contest. The contest, which is open to anyone with a Ph.D. or pursuing a Ph.D. in a science-related field, asks scientists to transform their research into an interpretive dance. Winners of each of the four categories (physics, chemistry, biology, and social sciences) will receive $500, then compete head-to-head for an additional $500 grand prize for best overall dance. Submissions are due by September 1, 2010. All winning dances will be screened at the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York City in mid-October, where the best overall dance will be determined by a panel of judges and the audience. A more detailed description of the rules and how to enter can be found at http://gonzolabs.org/dance/.
True confession: I once upon a time, 25 years ago, considered doing part of my thesis defense with interpretive dance, but decided that my profound lack of talent and the impracticality of bringing together a dance troupe on short notice made it impossible. I cobbled together an animation instead — on an Apple II. In lo-res graphics mode. Don’t laugh, it was a simpler time.
My thesis was basically an analysis of the construction of the motor circuitry of the zebrafish spinal cord. I was particularly interested in how descending outputs from the hindbrain, especially the Mauthner cell, connected to the segmental motoneurons of spinal cord. You see, we knew that if you stimulated the Mauthner cell, it sent a signal down the nervous system that made all the body muscles on one side contract abruptly, causing the animal to make a fast bend that was part of its escape response.
What I did was work out the anatomy of the cord, identifying two classes of motoneurons: the very large primary motoneurons, 3 per segment, which innervated large blocks of muscle, and smaller secondary motoneurons, which innervated smaller groups of muscle fibers. Then I determined that the Mauthner axon seemed to only contact the primary motoneurons; I also, with Judith Eisen, used fluorescent probes to mark motoneurons and watch them grow out over time. Those developmental studies and the anatomy of the cord — new fibers are layered onto the outside, so there’s a time-series laid out in space from deep cord (early) to superficial fibers (late) — led me to a choreographic model of development.
The Mauthner and primary motoneurons grew first, but the Mauthner had a long way to go, so in each segment primary motoneurons sent out growth cones, then the Mauthner axon arrived, and then after it had passed by, the secondary motoneurons sent out their growth cones. It was all in the timing (although my work in those ancient days could not rule out the possibility of specific molecular cues in addition). So the dance was obvious. Here’s what I would have done, given time and resources and complete shamelessness.
Picture a football field. Gathered on one sideline in clumps ten yards apart are groups of dancers. One in each group represents the primary motoneuron, and is dressed in brilliant blue. The others, in bright green, are the secondary motoneurons.
At the goal line is a single dancer in red, representing the Mauthner growth cone. At the start of the dance, she moves alone, trailing a red ribbon representing the axon behind, heading towards the opposite goal line. Since she’s a growth cone, the dynamic leading edge of a developing axon, she should be flamboyant and exploratory, reaching out all around her as she moves across the field.
As Mauthner starts, the primary motoneurons all wake up and send out their growth cones — they shouldn’t do it at precisely the same time or in any order, but asynchronously. The should move across the field in exactly the same pattern, however, trailing their blue ribbons behind them. Primary motoneuron growth cones are initially huge and expansive, so the blue dancers should be outdoing the Mauthner cell as they move.
Mauthner, as she crosses each blue ribbon, should pause and stroke the ribbon, and then tie her red ribbon to the blue, indicating the formation of a synapse. And then she moves on to the next and the next and next.
The secondary motoneurons rest quietly while all this is going on, but after Mauthner passes them, they should also jump up and start moving across the field, passing over the red ribbon but clinging to the blue, eventually diverging from it to explore their own little patches of the field.
It woulda been beautiful.
I missed my chance, though, for lack of talent and ambition. Don’t miss your opportunity: if you’ve got an idea, go for it, just so you don’t end up a gray-haired old geezer moaning about how he should have created some art, once.
Chris Mooney has another vacuous op-ed in the Washington Post. It’s aggravating because he actually starts out well, saying stuff that I agree with entirely, and then suffers a massive failure of either nerve or logic to offer meaningless noise as a solution.
The part I agree with is that he points out that education is not the only answer to our problems with creationism, climate change denial, and anti-vaccination movements. Many of the noisemakers behind these denialist machines are quite intelligent and well educated, and there isn’t a clean and simple correlation between, for instance, having a college degree and accepting evolution (this does not diminish the importance of education—without it, your views are at the mercy of popular fads).
The real drivers of anti-science are toxic ideologies: modern Republican politics (there is a deeply buried strand of Republicanism that is pro-science and industry, but it seems to be lost among the Beckians and Palinites), naive libertarians, fear of exploitation by Big Pharma, and one that Mooney strangely omits from his list, religion. Republicans and Libertarians and Christians are not necessarily stupid people at all, and the reason they turn to denialism isn’t always because they are ignorant, but because their ideology skews their perspectives in destructive ways.
I actually agree with Mooney on this.
Unfortunately, he ruins it all with his conclusion, which is a fantastic example of do-nothingness.
Experts aren’t wrong in thinking that Americans don’t know much about science, but given how little they themselves often know about the public, they should be careful not to throw stones. Rather than simply crusading against ignorance, the defenders of science should also work closely with social scientists and specialists in public opinion to determine how to defuse controversies by addressing their fundamental causes.
Go talk to the social scientists? Now the social sciences are wonderful tools, and I agree that we need to get their insights, but Mooney has already given us the perspective of social science research: that bad ideas aren’t simply the product of bad education, but of bad ideological priors. Fine. Let’s move on. Now how can we weaken the influence of the know-nothing wing of the Republican party and religion? Once upon a time, Mooney was one of the better artists of confrontation, who did an excellent job of tearing up Republican policies and making positive suggestions for strengthening the influence of science. Since he started listening to certain ‘specialists in public opinion’, he has lost his fire and turned into a passive follower who seems to do nothing but advocate deference to the very ideologies that are elevating anti-science into the public discourse.
We don’t need any more acquiescence to the status quo. That’s how we got here in the first place.
What we need from social scientists is better strategies for dismantling the influence of religion and demagoguery on American politics, and that requires clearly identifying and targeting those bad beliefs as the enemy of good science and good education. I already know that Mooney will run away from that kind of forthrightness.
Let’s also not forget that the one group that is growing fast and challenging the hegemony of Christian politics in this country is the aggressive, assertive, affirmative, activist atheist advocates (that A stands for more than one thing, you know) — and that Mooney detests them. We are going right to one of the roots of the problem, we aren’t assuming that simply educating everyone about science will make creationism and global warming denial and anti-vax lunacy go away — we’re promoting more science education and criticism of superstition. We seem to be putting into practice what Mooney only mumbles ineffectually and non-specifically about.
The Evolution 2010 meetings are taking place in Portland, Oregon as you read this (unless, of course, you’re reading this in The Future, in which case they’re all done) and Jen McCreight is attending and presenting there. She attended a symposium on communicating science which, unfortunately, turned out to be one-sided atheist bashing and the promotion of theistic accommodation — no dissenting views were offered, despite the fact that us ungodly assertive atheists are such a prominent part of the voice of evolution that they needed to discourage attendees from listening to us.
I get this impression that scientific organizations are so afraid of the Dawkins-like trumpet of atheist voices that they’re actively maneuvering to exclude their point of view from sessions like this, when all it does is reduce them to tepid tedium, lacking all fire and passion. They should at least throw in one token assertive atheist to spark some interesting discussion. Heck, Jerry Coyne is right there right now, although it sounds like he’s more interested in sampling great Thai food, the clever guy.
