October 5, 2008
Category: Public Perception of Science
...keep an eye on the left sidebar of this blog. There's a listing there of the times and dates when the prize announcements will be made. If all goes well, the list will be automatically updated with the names of the winners, as soon as the announcements are made.
The first announcement, for the winner or winners of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, will be made sometime after 09:30 GMT tomorrow. Feel free to use this thread as an open thread for discussing speculation on who it might be, and for commenting after the winner is announced.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 12:20 PM • 1 Comments• View blog reactions
September 30, 2008
Category: The Blog
Just so you know, I haven't forgotten about this blog. My laptop suffered a major hard drive failure a few days ago, and my internet access has been limited by the need to share the desktop with my wife and my daughter, both of whom need to use the computer for educational purposes.
Things should be back to normal shortly.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 12:08 PM • 0 Comments• View blog reactions
September 19, 2008
Category: From the Right
Apparently undeterred by last week's marijuana misadventure, DaveScot just decided to add another topic to the growing list of things he has absolutely no understanding of but writes about anyway. In today's installment, he joins the growing list of right-wingers who have decided to blame the current subprime mortgage crisis on the Democrats who passed the Community Reinvestment Act of 1975. Predictably enough, it doesn't take much effort or research to figure out that this claim has very, very little resemblance to the truth.
The basis behind the claim that the CRA caused the subprime crisis is relatively simple. The Community Reinvestment Act requires banks to make loans in the low- and moderate-income areas that they serve. Everyone knows that low- and moderate-income families are going to be bad risks, so this means that the banks are being forced to make subprime loans. Therefore, the CRA is the cause of the current problem.
The thing is, very little of this is true.
Read on »
Posted by Mike Dunford at 11:18 PM • 59 Comments• View blog reactions
September 11, 2008
Category: Science and Public Safety
If you have any doubt about how dangerous Hurricane Ike is likely to be, I've got some pictures for you. These pictures were taken within the past two hours, on the shoreline along the grounds of Naval Air Station Pensacola.
This is a sheltered shoreline, protected by both barrier islands and sandbars, and typical wave heights run under one foot. Currently, they're running at about 3 feet, on top of a water level that looks to be at least 3-5 feet above where it should be. So far, this storm has done more to reshape the beaches I looked at than Gustav did, and Gustav came closer and was moving toward us.
The conditions I was looking at were taking place at a time when the storm center was more than 350 miles to the south, and moving more or less parallel to the shoreline. This storm is moving a hell of a lot of water around. You do not want to be in front of it. If you've been told to get out of the way, get out of the way.
The pictures can be found below the fold.
Read on »
Posted by Mike Dunford at 5:00 PM • 4 Comments• View blog reactions
September 10, 2008
Category: Accidental
You have to give Uncommon Descent poster DaveScot credit. He's not one of life's overly specialized intellects. He's a good, old fashioned generalist, able to talk about absolutely any area of science with exactly the same degree of spectacular incompetence. Today, he's turned his attention to the intersection of mental health and substance abuse.
DaveScot's uninformed ire was sparked, in this particular case, by a news report discussing a paper that recently appeared in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. According to the report, the researchers found a strong association between cannabis use and an earlier age for the onset of psychosis:
The results showed a significant gradual reduction in the age at which psychosis began that correlated with an increased dependence on cannabis. Compared with nonusers, age at onset was reduced by 7, 8.5, and 12 years among users, abusers and dependents, respectively, the researchers report.
In further analysis, the effect of cannabis on age at onset "was not explained by the use of other drugs or by gender," they also note. The finding was similar in the youngest patients, suggesting that this effect was not due to chance.
These results "point to cannabis as a dangerous drug in young people at risk of developing psychosis," Gonzalez-Pinto and colleagues conclude.
DaveScot, in his infinite wisdom, read this news report and immediately concluded that the research article is, "a wonderful demonstration of how crap science that supports something politically correct is used and abused all the time". I'm really not sure why Dave thinks that it's "politically correct" to believe that marijuana is potentially a dangerous drug, but that particular question is best left for another occasion. Instead, let's see why he thinks that this is "crap science":
Immediately obvious to me is the possibility that voluntary marijuana use is a symptom of an underlying problem that has nothing to do with marijuana use. People often resort to recreational drug use to escape and/or ameliorate some underlying problem. Alcohol abuse is a classic case of being symptomatic of some other problem. These researchers had no control group to rule out the very likely possibility that people who tend toward psychosis are unconsciously or consciously attempting to self-medicate. The medication isn't the cause, in other words, its a symptom. . . .
But no, the researchers in fact did nothing at all to discriminate between cause and symptom and it's obvious in seconds to even a casual observer such as myself that the study and its conclusions are flawed. Where was the peer review that should have prevented this junk science from reaching the pages of the Journal of Clinical Psychology without correction of obvious flaws?
If you actually take the time to read the research article itself, and not just the Reuters piece, you'll find that the authors of the paper wrote the following:
One explanation for this possible link is that the illness is precipitated by substance use, although it remains uncertain whether this effect is limited to people with a predisposition to psychosis. Another possible explanation is that the early onset of symptoms is a risk factor for substance use. The experience of symptoms could make patients vulnerable to substance use, perhaps in an attempt to cope with the illness or to self-medicate.
Would anyone like to guess how much of the actual paper DaveScot would have had to read to learn that the researchers were in fact aware of the possibility of self-medication as an explanation for the relationship? The answer is right below the fold
Read on »
Posted by Mike Dunford at 11:43 PM • 73 Comments• View blog reactions
Category: Misc
Somehow, though, I doubt that there are going to be a lot of scientists who are thrilled with the latest use Henry's found for his iPhone.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 12:33 PM • 5 Comments• View blog reactions
September 8, 2008
Category: Do Something
Last week, right around the time that Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin were mocking community organizers at the Republican Convention, I found myself talking about how community organizing can help us become more effective when it comes to dealing with issues where science and politics intersect.
I think this is something that we really need to do. The political groups that are opposed to science are typically very well organized. This is true for the anti-evolutionists, it's true for the global warming denialists, it's true for the anti-vaccinationists, and it's true for the anti-reproductive rights lobby. All of these groups have been extraordinarily effective when it comes to bringing people together around a common cause.
The members of the scientific community, on the other hand, typically belong to many organizations. Sadly, this is not the same as being well-organized.
During my childhood, I had many opportunities to see what community organizing can do. My mother is a professional organizer, and I started going to meetings with her when I was about two. This was in the Bronx, somewhere around thirty years ago. It's really no exaggeration to say that without the community groups, the Bronx would not have managed to do anywhere near as well as it has during that time.
That's because there is real power in numbers. When a single tenant in a slum building tries to do something about the conditions they're living in, progress is (at best) slow. The landlord is never in the office. The buildings department loses the complaints. Local legislators are friendly and courteous, but the matter isn't high on their list of priorities. The tenant who is trying to work on the problem is going to spend a lot of time and effort, and will be rewarded with a lot of frustration.
The same thing is probably going to happen to any other tenant who tries to do it alone - even if they're going through the same steps right around the same time as their neighbor.
When all the tenants in the building band together and refuse to pay rent until the landlord makes the building livable, things are different. The landlord is definitely going to take notice. The city inspectors find it much more difficult to avoid taking action. Elected officials take things very seriously when they know that the issue involves a number of constituents, not just one.
History shows that the organized approach works. It works when it's applied to slumlords and their unlivable buildings. It works when it comes to long-neglected public parks. It works when it comes to getting the local police precinct to pay more attention to neighborhood concerns. Similar approaches have also worked when it came to getting workplace safety and child labor legislation passed. It's also worked in places like Dover, Pennsylvania, when local citizens banded together, ran for office, and got rid of the nincompoops who got the school district into so much trouble.
I doubt that much of what I've said so far is controversial. I've had conversations about this sort of thing with some of before. Every time I've brought up the idea of trying to see if we can make community organizing work for us, the consensus has been that it's an idea worth trying. The problem is that so far, I've never made it past the "talk" point. And it's definitely going to take a lot more than talk for us to get organized.
As my mother has pointed out to me now and again (more or less weekly, over a period of at least a decade), there are professional organizers out there, they've been doing it for a long time, and they've gotten pretty good at it. They've had time to learn what techniques work, which ones don't, and how to modify the basic tools to handle different situations.
Fortunately for us, some of them have actually written some of this stuff down. And that's where my challenge to you comes in.
If there's one person who gets most of the credit for developing community organizing as a profession, it's Saul Alinski. Alinski started out organizing in the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago in the 1930s. In the early 1970s, he published his second book, Rules for Radicals. Alinski was mostly interested in bringing about social and political change, but that doesn't mean that the strategies and tactics he outlines are necessarily going to be inapplicable in our own lives and interests. At the least, I think its worth looking at.
Starting on October 1st, I'm going to begin reading and blogging about "Rules for Radicals" at a pace of one chapter per week. I'm willing to do this by myself, but I think we'll all get a lot more out of it if I'm not the only one reading it. Which brings us to the challenge.
If you think that we (however you define we) need to do a better job when it comes to making the case for the role of good science in any aspect of public policy, read this book with me - especially if you're skeptical that tools developed to help deal with social problems can be used in the field of science communications. It's not a thick book, we're not going to be going through it quickly, and you've got plenty of time to get your hands on a copy.
I'll post on the first chapter four weeks from today - on October 6th. Is anyone else going to read it with me?
Posted by Mike Dunford at 8:49 AM • 2 Comments• View blog reactions
September 7, 2008
Category: The Blog
As I write this, I'm sitting bouncing up and down in a sardine can high above the Atlantic Ocean. If I'm lucky, this state of affairs will continue for another few hours, and be followed in rapid succession by two repeats of the experience, a car ride home, and re-familiarization with my own bed.
The last week has been absolutely fantastic, and there are quite a few people that I'd like to thank for contributing to the experience.
In no particular order:
Matt Brown for composing and conducting two spectacular tours of London - one that focused on pubs, and a second that took us to quite a few sites that are really, really cool if you're remotely interested in science. I'll have more on both of those later in the week.
Karen James of The Beagle Project for helping to contribute to both the science sites tour and the liver damage I sustained over the course of the week.
Maxine Clarke for giving us the grand tour of Nature, and all of the employees there for putting up with the flock of cats bloggers as we spread chaos quietly meandered through their workspace.
Simon Frantz of the Nobel Foundation for several intoxicateding conversations, one of which apparently included the phrase "we should do this as an unconference session". I'd also like to thank Simon for his role in the frantic last second efforts to come up with any sort of unconference plan putting the finishing touches on the unconference, and for running around the lecture theatre with the microphone facilitating the ensuing discussion. More on the unconference session will also follow shortly.
Matt Brown (again), Corrie Lok, Anna Kushnir, the people at The Royal Institution, and all the folks at Nature Network who put the conference together. They did a huge amount of work, and produced an outstanding conference.
David McOrmish and David Field of English Heritage, as well as their two colleagues whose names I never got, for allowing a random tourist to tag along with them as they toured the archaeological digs around Stonehenge. More on that at some point, too.
Mo Costandi, Grrlscientist, and Bob O'Hara for spending time hanging around and touring things after the conference ended.
Henry Gee for introducing me to the wonderful world of unicycling girrafes, and for helping to remind me that everyone can fit in somewhere - it's just a matter of finding it.
And, of course, my wife and children for their extreme kindness in letting me have the time away from them, and for (presumably) taking me back afterward.
Pre-posting update: The problem with foreign places is that they're all so damn far away. I finished writing this thing hours ago, and I've still got something like another two hours left in this winged tin can. I really hate daytime long-distance flights. Sleeping too much makes the jet lag worse. The movies are boring, the seats are small, the food marginal, and as it turns out I'm actually not very excited about the books that I stuck in the carry-on.
Of course, I hate nighttime long-distance flights, too. The seats have all the sleepability of your typical concrete block. There's always someone who snores, and by the time you nod off it's time to wake up and land. It's very rare that you don't wind up walking around like a zombie for most of the day you arrive.
And, yes, I would like some cheese with that whine. Thanks for asking.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 12:43 PM • 5 Comments• View blog reactions
September 4, 2008
Category: Picture Posts
Ozymandias was a piker.
He left us his legs, most of his face, and a clear statement of what he wanted to achieve. When you get right down to it, he's not much of an enigma.
The people who built this left an enigma. Stonehenge was constructed to stand proudly forever, a monument to the greater glory of something, but we don't know what. Their engineering withstood the test of time. They - and their cultures - did not.
Stonehenge stands today, on a plane covered with the barrows of the unknown lords of long forgotten peoples. It reminds us, far more than Shelley's statue ever could, of just how fragile all of our hopes and dreams really are.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 5:13 AM • 7 Comments• View blog reactions
September 3, 2008
Category: Politics
Matt "Framing Science" Nisbit has a post up that asks a somewhat very loaded question: "Did the Far Left Blogs Turn Lieberman Into a Republican?" In fact, now that I look more closely at the question, I'm starting to notice that the question isn't just loaded; it's loaded on multiple levels. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Matt is a communications guy, and he knows what to do to shape a message (even if he doesn't always manage to do it successfully).
Matt seems to see part of his mission in life as a voice in the wilderness, pointing out all the ways we communicate wrong, and all the ways the Republicans do it right. One of the things that he thinks Republicans do right is "mobilizing" or "activating" their base. One of the things that he thinks we do wrong is in failing to "mobilize" or "activate" the Republican base. Given that, I suppose I should have guessed that he'd find some way to try and saddle us with all of the blame for a situation that many, many other people contributed to.
It's probably a good idea to start things off with a really quick review of the events that took lead us from having Lieberman on the Democratic ticket eight years ago to having him speaking at this year's Republican convention, and shortlisted for their Vice-Presidential nomination. None of this is new, but it does provide the context we need if we want to look at Nisbit's nonsense objectively.
Read on »
Posted by Mike Dunford at 4:17 PM • 13 Comments• View blog reactions
August 30, 2008
Category: The Blog
I'm sitting in the Faraday Theatre at the Royal Institution right now, at the Nature Network's Science Blogging 2008 conference. There are about 100 people in the room, 90% of whom I don't recognize at all. 90% of the people I do recognize are people I've met for the first time somewhere in the last two days. There's a list of the attendees and their blogs on the conference website. I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't had the chance to read all of those blogs yet.
At the same time, it's also great (in a way) that I don't know who most of the people are or where they blog. If nothing else, it shows just how large the science blogging community has become. It's going to be interesting to see what comes out of our interaction and conversations.
As the day goes by, I'm going to try to update this post with bits about who is saying what at the conference. There's good, free wifi here, so I'll go on at least until the battery runs out. At that point, with 100 bloggers in the room, there may be a Darwinian struggle to see who gets a power outlet.
The updates will be below the fold.
Read on »
Posted by Mike Dunford at 5:04 AM • 8 Comments• View blog reactions
August 28, 2008
Category: Presidential
The Democratic nominee for President is giving one hell of a kick ass speech at the moment. I really hope this is the Obama we see for the rest of the campaign.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 10:28 PM • 2 Comments• View blog reactions
Category: Travel
Only now, as I sit here in my hotel room eating a cheddar and roasted tomato sandwich, with a packet of Worcester Sauce crisps on the side, is the fact that I'm in London starting to sink in.
In a few minutes, I'm going downstairs to meet up with Mo, and we're going to stroll over to the Jeremy Bentham, which is the first stop on a tour of scientifically-connected pubs that the Nature Network's Matt Brown has arranged. I'm bringing my camera, and I'll try to remember to let the autofocus take over from me as the evening progresses.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 12:41 PM • 3 Comments• View blog reactions
August 26, 2008
Category: Picture Posts
Congrats to John Lynch for quickly coming up with the correct answer to the previous picture quiz. The man in the statue is Richard Owen; the statue sits inside the Natural History Museum in London. Since that quiz was taken care of so quickly (and I'm going through pictures anyway), let's try another one.
This is a picture I took this morning. What's wrong (or at least atypical) about this shot?
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Posted by Mike Dunford at 9:46 PM • 7 Comments• View blog reactions
Category: Picture Posts
Just the statue of some dude.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 1:06 PM • 16 Comments• View blog reactions
Category: Accidental
I went birding again this morning. There's a nice, peaceful nature trail on base that's usually deserted if you're there before 7:30. The trail runs near the shoreline, and there's enough beach access to make it easy to watch the various shorebirds.
Anyway, I've been slowly wandering around on the trail and on the beach for a while when my morning coffee finally starts to catch up to me. I casually stroll over to a secluded clump of dense bushes, and start to take care of things.
No sooner have I begun than there's this massive rustling noise, as an extremely irritated - and wet - rabbit erupts from the foliage. Scared the living daylights out of me.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 10:56 AM • 3 Comments• View blog reactions
August 24, 2008
Category:
...and all the whos down in whoville,
the tall and the small...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 8:32 PM • 5 Comments• View blog reactions
Category: Anti-Evolutionism
If you're going to read anything today, you should read Amy Harmon's article on teaching evolution in Florida. I haven't taught high school, but I've had similar experiences teaching evolution in an introductory level college course.
Evolution shouldn't be this hard a subject to teach, but it is. It could be worse, of course. Keeping it from getting worse is the reason we spend so much time trying to deal with the narrow-minded bigots who fight so hard to keep our children in the dark.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 10:54 AM • 0 Comments• View blog reactions
August 23, 2008
Category: Animals
I've only recently started birding with any sort of regularity or enthusiasm, and I'm not all that good at it yet. I snapped a couple of pictures of a bird in flight the other day, and I've been trying to figure out what species it is ever since. Despite my lack of expertise, I think I've got it narrowed down to two possibilities. Of course, it's also possible - again given my lack of expertise - that I've managed to totally miss even the family identification.
With that in mind, I'm turning to all of you for help. I've got two pictures, both taken through a 300mm telephoto lens. One of the two pictures is decent; the other is out of focus. I'm going to post the two pictures below the fold, and then I'll run through my thinking as I try to id the bird. I'd really love to get feedback from the rest of you on how well I've done.
Read on »
Posted by Mike Dunford at 10:24 PM • 2 Comments• View blog reactions
Category: Flaming Small-Minded Stupidity
I know I'm far from the first to go off on this commercial, but...
No, vehix.com commercial lady, you cannot go online and "literally take a test drive". It doesn't work that way. The tubes that connect your computer to the interwebs aren't big enough. The wheels get stuck every damn time. So stop saying that. Or at least learn to stop overacting first.
And lose the hat. It makes you look like a moron.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 12:24 PM • 7 Comments• View blog reactions
August 22, 2008
Category: The Blog
Next week I'll be in London for Nature Network's Science Blogging Conference. It's entirely possible that I'm looking forward to the trip as much as GrrlScientist is, and not just because I'll be hanging out in the UK for a week afterward. Both ScienceBlogs and the Nature Network host groups of bloggers who are interested in and write about science, but there are also quite a few differences between the two groups. It'll be interesting to sit down with folks there and look at our different perspectives. Hopefully, everyone will be able to take away something new from the discussions.
After the conference, I'm planning on doing some scientific sightseeing. I've been to London before, but that was a family trip, and there were some constraints on what I could do and where we could go. (To put it another way, I could only get away with boring everyone else so much without facing a revolt.) This time, I'm going to try and get to a few more places that have strong history of science ties. Down house is definitely on the agenda, as are trips to Oxford and Cambridge. Aside from that, I'm leaving things up in the air a bit. Suggestions are, of course, welcome.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 1:30 PM • 2 Comments• View blog reactions
August 13, 2008
Category: Misc
Seed is trying to figure out who you are, why you read our material, and what you like. If you're willing to help us out, head over to the survey and fill it out. You'll help us, and you just might win a bunch of Apple stuff.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 10:24 PM • 0 Comments• View blog reactions
Category: Flaming Small-Minded Stupidity
I used to have a hard time explaining the anger, resentment, and hostility that many scientists feel toward the big academic publishing houses. It's been getting easier, though. Recent events have, unfortunately, provided people with an experience that makes it easier to relate to what the academic community has been going through.
Gas prices are going up. You've been combining trips, cutting your milage as much as you can, driving a more efficient vehicle, and your fuel costs are still going up. You drive home from work, stopping along the way to put $30+ dollars worth of gas into the 10 gallon tank in your Prius. You sit on the sofa, turn on the news, and hear that Exxon-Mobil just reported quarterly profits of about $1,500 per second. The price of something that you need to buy is going through the roof, it's making things inconvenient for you, and the people who sell it are making money faster than the mint can print it. How happy are you?
If you want to understand the anger that the major publishing houses are generating, that's a good place to start.
Read on »
Posted by Mike Dunford at 2:44 PM • 21 Comments• View blog reactions
August 12, 2008
Category: Flaming Small-Minded Stupidity
Update: 13 Aug. I've added a new post that I think provides a clearer explanation for the reason that this sort of behavior is such an irritant when it comes from a company like Elsevier.
Like most bloggers, I have an ego. I'm not mentioning that by way of apology, but as an explanation for why I was browsing through my sitemeter statistics last Friday. Every now and then, I head over to sitemeter, call up the view that lets me see what websites referred people to my page. If I see a link that's coming from a source I don't recognize, I browse over and look to see what people are saying about me. Yeah, it's sad. Yeah, it's shallow and self-centered. And, yeah, I know a bunch of you have your own blogs and do it too.
Anyway, I'm almost at the end of the list from the last 100 hits when I come across this link. I don't recognize it, so I click on it and I'm taken to this page. (I saved it as a pdf because I've got a feeling that it won't be accessible at the link for much longer.) That page contains the majority of a post about open access that I wrote a few weeks ago.
The vast majority of the content on that page was written by me. All but the first 13 words in the "comment" at the top of the page were taken from my article. The remainder of the page contains the first 60% of my post. The links I included in the original have been omitted, but the text itself is unaltered. The source that is given for the material is simply "ScienceBlogs.com". My name is not given, and the only link to the original article is in the section of the page marked "related links." The copying that took place in the "comment" section is entirely unacknowledged. The only mention of copyright occurs at the bottom of the page, and reads, "Copyright © 2008 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. "
I was not asked for, and did not give, permission for my work to appear on that page, much less in that format. Needless to say, I felt a little slighted.
Read on »
Posted by Mike Dunford at 8:50 AM • 19 Comments• View blog reactions
August 11, 2008
Category: Science, Policy, and Management
This should come as no surprise, coming as it does on the heels of last week's revelation that the Bush Administration is planning to change the federal definition of abortion in an effort to make it easier for our homegrown religious extremists to deny women their right to good reproductive healthcare: we've just learned that the Bush administration is proposing rule changes that will eviscerate the Endangered Species Act.
This is no joke. The National Wildlife Federation has a pdf of the leaked proposal, and their own analysis of the proposed changes. I've looked at the proposal, and NWF description is, if anything, an understatement of the effects that this rule change could have.
I'm going to go over some of the more disastrous of the proposed changes, and what they'll mean for environmental protection efforts. I'll also finish up with some suggestions for things you can do, but, realistically speaking, things are grim.
Read on »
Posted by Mike Dunford at 8:35 PM • 8 Comments• View blog reactions
Category: Education
The initial phase of the California Creationist Lawsuit is over, and quality education is the decisive winner. Kevin Vicklund has Judge Otero's decision, as well as a very nice analysis of the ruling up over at his blog. If you've been following the case closely, you can probably jump right over there for the details. If you haven't been tracking the events closely, or want a quick review of the case, keep reading. I'm going to go over the history first, then I'll talk a bit about what Friday's decision means, and what is likely to happen with the case in the future.
The lawsuit (ACSI v. Stearns) was filed in federal court in August of 2005 by the Association of Christian Schools International, Calvary Chapel Christian School, and parents acting on behalf of their children, who were students at Calvary Chapel. They were challenging the University of California's decision to refuse to accept several of their courses as fulfilling UC's admissions requirements. The rejected courses covered the academic spectrum, with English, history, and science classes all failing to meet UC's scrutiny. The common element in the rejected courses was that they did not actually teach the material that UC requires from incoming students. Instead, the rejected courses taught a radically wrong "Christian perspective".
For most of us, the rejection of the courses was nothing more than the natural consequence of the Christian schools' decision to reject reality and teach fantasy. From their perspective, it represented an unconstitutional attack on their freedom of religion. The court, obviously, did not agree. To see why, we really need look no farther than the introduction to the biology textbook used in one of the rejected courses:
Read on »
Posted by Mike Dunford at 9:54 AM • 53 Comments• View blog reactions
August 10, 2008
Category:
The American Men's 4x100 freestyle relay team just gave the French a very painful lesson in why it's really not a good idea to talk smack:
"The Americans?" Bernard recently told the sports newspaper L'Equipe, "We're going to smash them. That's what we came for."
Bousquet looked at members of the United States team in the ready room Sunday and saw a few cracks. "They didn't look at us, although usually they do," he said. "We could sense that they were a little bit afraid."
The American Response? Beautiful.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 11:57 PM • 12 Comments• View blog reactions
August 8, 2008
Category: Politics
The camera at the opening ceremonies just captured our President, sprawled in his chair, binoculars dangling limply from one hand, looking blankly out in space, and generally appearing to be thoroughly bored. That appearance was not dispelled when he looked at his watch. Way to represent us to the world, Bushie.
Update: Daily Kos has the video up for those of you who missed it.
Posted by Mike Dunford at 10:02 PM • 4 Comments• View blog reactions
Category:
As I mentioned earlier, the current issue of Nature has a perspectives article by Donald Berry, a statistician at the MD Anderson Cancer Center that addresses problems with the current system for testing athletes. I more or less agree with the overall conclusion of the article - there needs to be more detailed scientific study of the tests that are used to see if athletes are using banned substances. Unfortunately, I don't think the entire article was as solid, or as well justified, as his conclusion. In particular, I think he seriously overstates the possibility of false positives.
Berry writes:
Landis seemed to have an unusual test result. Because he was among the leaders he provided 8 pairs of urine samples (of the total of approximately 126 sample-pairs in the 2006 Tour de France). So there were 8 opportunities for a true positive -- and 8 opportunities for a false positive. If he never doped and assuming a specificity of 95%, the probability of all 8 samples being labelled 'negative' is the eighth power of 0.95, or 0.66. Therefore, Landis's false-positive rate for the race as a whole would be about 34%. Even a very high specificity of 99% would mean a false-positive rate of about 8%. The single-test specificity would have to be increased to much greater than 99% to have an acceptable false-positive rate. But we don't know the single-test specificity because the appropriate studies have not been performed or published.
More important than the number of samples from one individual is the total number of samples tested. With 126 samples, assuming 99% specificity, the false-positive rate is 72%. So, an apparently unusual test result may not be unusual at all when viewed from the perspective of multiple tests. This is well understood by statisticians, who routinely adjust for multiple testing. I believe that test results much more unusual than the 99th percentile among non-dopers should be required before they can be labelled 'positive'.
This is misleading, because it ignores both laboratory procedures for identifying false positives and the use of multiple tests before a final positive result is confirmed.
Read on »
Posted by Mike Dunford at 12:56 PM • 12 Comments• View blog reactions
Category: Science and Public Safety
The latest issue of the journal Nature has two articles (an editorial and a perspectives piece) on the topic of drug testing for athletes. Both the editors and Donald Berry (the author of the perspectives article) argue for the need for both more scientific testing to support standards for athletic drug screening and for more openness in the process.
From the editorial:
Nature believes that accepting 'legal limits' of specific metabolites without such rigorous verification goes against the foundational standards of modern science, and results in an arbitrary test for which the rate of false positives and false negatives can never be known. By leaving these rates unknown, and by not publishing and opening to broader scientific scrutiny the methods by which testing labs engage in study, it is Nature's view that the anti-doping authorities have fostered a sporting culture of suspicion, secrecy and fear.
From Berry's article:
Whether a substance can be measured directly or not, sports doping laboratories must prospectively define and publicize a standard testing procedure, including unambiguous criteria for concluding positivity, and they must validate that procedure in blinded experiments. Moreover, these experiments should address factors such as substance used (banned and not), dose of the substance, methods of delivery, timing of use relative to testing, and heterogeneity of metabolism among individuals.
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Posted by Mike Dunford at 9:32 AM • 5 Comments• View blog reactions
August 7, 2008
Category: War and Peace
Sometimes the only thing that separates comedy from tragedy is the involvement of an actual living human being.
That certainly seems to be the case where today's military commission verdict in the trial of Salim Hamdan. Despite having the advantages of what we must, for the lack of a better word, call a legal system that was set up to give the prosecution the edge, despite the admission of hearsay evidence, despite the use of material taken from interviews that didn't come within a light year of the Miranda guidelines, and despite the use of secret prosecution testimony, the prosecution was unable to secure a conviction on the charges that Hamdan conspired to commit terrorist attacks.
He was, however, convicted on charges of providing material support (his services) to a terrorist organization. That part of the verdict is hardly a surprise, given that Hamdan admitted to being Bin Laden's driver.
Now you might think, as the White House apparently did, that anyone capable of driving Bin Laden's car must be a criminal mastermind, capable of planning devious attacks on unsuspecting civilian targets. Or, if you are less well grounded in the ideologically driven world, you might wonder if Bin Laden really needed much more in a driver than someone capable of understanding how and when to use the pedals, gear shift, and steering wheel. The question, of course, is how to tell which possibility actually fits Hamdan.
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Posted by Mike Dunford at 12:21 AM • 4 Comments• View blog reactions
August 6, 2008
Category: Life in an Army Family
Don't get me wrong. Living on base has some huge advantages for military families. The kids are around other kids who also move a lot. My wife can bike to work (on days when she doesn't walk). There are good recreational facilities available close to the house, both for us and the kids. On the whole, it's a good deal - especially for the price.
But there are also some disadvantages. There are a lot of training programs here, and quite a few of the classes get to do their physical training together, as a unit, under the gentle direction of their instructors. Early this morning, a couple of those instructors decided that it would be a good idea to not only run one through our housing area, but also to stop their unit for some remedial instruction in the art of running together and following orders.
My morning wake-up today came in the form of, "HALT MEANS STOP!! STOP MOVING NOW!!!" WE CAN DO THIS ALL DAY!!! FALL IN!!!
Posted by Mike Dunford at 7:51 AM • 5 Comments• View blog reactions
August 4, 2008
Category: Politics
There have been a number of indications that the Associated Press isn't being as neutral in the election as we would expect from a major media outlet. At an event in April, two Associated Press employees gave McCain a box of donuts and a cup of coffee - both prepared to his tastes - while the Chairman of the AP asked Obama a question about Afghanistan, where "Obama bin Laden is still at large". Concerns have been raised regarding AP campaign coverage of Iraq and health care, among other issues. The hypothesis that there might be a solid pro-McCain bias at the AP has received additional support and attention following recent revelations that the man responsible for APs campaign coverage sent Karl Rove an email that signed off with "keep up the fight", and "seriously considered" taking a job working for the McCain campaign.
An AP article published this morning is going to to absolutely nothing to reduce those concerns. The article is allegedly about Obama's calls to tax oil company profits in order to fund a tax rebate for Americans who are hurting at the pump. It uses this as a hook to "discuss" the energy plans of both candidates. It also seems to use a reporting technique that originated at Fox News: if you're going to criticize a Republican, make sure you report their party as "Democrat":
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Mike Dunford was a graduate student in the Department of Zoology at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, where he studied evolution. Life as an army spouse has since moved him on to Pensacola, where he's currently trying to figure out what to do next. While he's doing that, he writes stuff here, although not usually in the third person. He's also a contributer to 
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