Scientists

From Scientists to Policymakers: Communicating on Climate, Scientific Integrity, and More

pgleick — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 08:52:45 +0000

From Scientists to Policymakers: Communicating on Climate, Scientific Integrity, and More

Among the different professional categories, scientists and engineers remain very highly respected by the public, at least compared to politicians, business leaders, the media, and even religious authorities. Part of this is due to the fact that success in the scientific enterprise depends on impartial analysis and independence from political ideology. And yet there are strong connections between science and policy: good policy without good science is difficult; good policy with bad science is impossible. Sure, there is plenty of bad policy made even in the face of contradictory scientific evidence, but that is the result of political failures, or, at times, poor scientific communication.

A perennial question facing scientists is when -- and how -- to participate in public communication and policy debates around issues of social concern. This is not a new question: as long as scientists have seen a connection between their work and major challenges facing society, some have acted on a sense of responsibility to contribute to debates about how science can be harnessed to improve the world. Scientists have little political power: they are small in numbers, rarely sufficiently financially wealthy to use money as a political tool, and often politically naïve or poorly networked.

As a result, until the past decade or so, when new tools of social media have made more direct communication between scientists and the public easier, scientists have had limited tools to communicate policy-relevant opinions. Congressional and legislative testimony at public hearings offered one avenue for the exchange of information between policymakers and scientists. I’ve personally provided testimony at nearly 40 state and federal hearings on climate, water, and broad environmental policy issues. In recent years, however, the hostility of some policymakers to scientific evidence and information – especially at the federal level -- has decreased the number of such hearings and has turned them into events more akin to political theater than educational and informational opportunities.

Another approach was for scientists to work with television producers and film makers to produce high-quality products for the public. Early efforts of pioneers like Carl Sagan paved the way for more recent efforts, but they depended on scientists willing to put themselves forward as communicators and popularizers. Sagan, who wrote popular books and created the award-winning TV show “Cosmos,” was criticized by some colleagues at the time who felt this was not a proper role for scientists, though the more recent success of science communicators such as Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson have shown that this approach can be tremendously effective.

A simpler and more common approach has been for groups of scientists to reach out to policymakers and the public in open letters, expressing concerns about public policy, suggesting priorities for governments, and calling for actions around specific issues. Two early examples include the petition to the President of the United States in July 1945 from 70 scientists at the Manhattan Project calling on Truman to refrain from deploying the newly created atomic bomb, and the famous Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which called on world governments to banish war as a way to settle disputes because of the risks of global annihilation from nuclear weapons. That letter, signed by some of the most well-known scientists in modern history, stated:

“… There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.

Resolution:

We invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:

“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”

The use of such letters has continued over the years, with appeals to policymakers around the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs, both pro and con), the accelerating destruction of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, why Brexit would be bad for science, strategies for protecting the planet from asteroid impacts, oversight of artificial intelligence research, and more.

In the last few years such letters have proliferated for three reasons: (1) the open hostility of some politically powerful groups to science and scientific findings is ringing alarm bells in the scientific community that cannot be ignored, (2) scientists now recognize that the dramatic and rapid alteration of the Earth’s very climate poses the second massive threat to the planet after nuclear annihilation, and (3) the ability to mobilize and collect signatures from scientists has greatly improved as networks of scientists have formed and social media tools have made it easier to organize around specific issues.

Whether or not such letters are useful, motivating to policymakers, or just feel-good efforts for scientists (or a combination of such things) cannot be known for sure. But scientist seem increasingly willing to speak out on issues at the intersection of science and policy because of their special knowledge and because of their belief that they have a social responsibility to help policy makers understand the nature of both scientific threats and opportunities.

Here, from just the past few years, are some of the key letters prepared by scientists and sent to policymakers on issues around scientific integrity, climate change, and public health:

Climate Change and the Integrity of Science, 2010

An early key letter on the issue of climate change and the integrity of science was published in Science magazine in mid-2010, signed by 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences calling for action to reduce the risks of climate change and an end to harassment of scientists by politicians.

“For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet... We urge our policy-makers and the public to move forward immediately to address the causes of climate change, including the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels. We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.”

Letter from Leading Climate Scientists to the Wall Street Journal, 2012

On February 1, 2012, 38 world leading climate scientists published a letter in the Wall Street Journal rejecting an earlier WSJ op-ed on climate as dangerously misleading and misinformed.

Letter to Congress from U.S. Scientific Societies on the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. 2016

In June 2016, a partnership of 31 leading nonpartisan scientific associations sent a consensus letter to U.S. policymakers that reaffirmed the reality of human-caused climate change, noting that greenhouse gas emissions “must be substantially reduced” to minimize negative impacts on the global economy, natural resources, and human health. These scientific organization represent practically the entirety of the geosciences expertise of the nation, including:

American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Chemical Society
American Geophysical Union
American Institute of Biological Sciences
American Meteorological Society
American Public Health Association
American Society of Agronomy
American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
American Society of Naturalists
American Society of Plant Biologists
American Statistical Association
Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography
Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation
Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium
Botanical Society of America
Consortium for Ocean Leadership
Crop Science Society of America
Ecological Society of America
Entomological Society of America
Geological Society of America
National Association of Marine Laboratories
Natural Science Collections Alliance
Organization of Biological Field Stations
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Society for Mathematical Biology
Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
Society of Nematologists
Society of Systematic Biologists
Soil Science Society of America
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

Letter from Leading Australian Scientists to the Australian Government on Climate Change, 2016

In August 2016, 154 of Australia’s leading university and government scientists sent a letter to the Australian government stating “governments worldwide are presiding over a large-scale demise of the planetary ecosystems, which threatens to leave large parts of Earth uninhabitable.” The letter calls on the Australian government

“to tackle the root causes of an unfolding climate tragedy and do what is required to protect future generations and nature, including meaningful reductions of Australia’s peak carbon emissions and coal exports, while there is still time. There is no Planet B.”

An Open Letter on Climate Change From Concerned Members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 2016

On September 20, 2016, 376 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including 30 Nobel laureates, published an open letter to draw attention to the serious risks of climate change. The letter warns that the consequences of opting out of the Paris agreement would be severe and long-lasting for our planet’s climate and for the international credibility of the United States.

Letter of Concern about the Views of Donald Trump on Scientific Reality, 2016

A letter from a broad coalition of scientists was released in fall 2016 expressing concern that presidential candidate Donald Trump's stated views on many topics are at odds with scientific reality and represent a dangerous rejection of scientific thinking.

Letter to President-Elect Trump and the 115th Congress, 2016

Thousands of scientists joined an open letter in November 2016 calling on the incoming Trump administration and 115th Congress to ensure that science continues to play a strong role in protecting public health and well-being and that scientists be protected from political interference in their work. The letter has been signed by thousands of scientists, including 22 Nobel Prize winners.

An Open Letter from Women of Science, 2016

https://500womenscientists.org/#our-pledge

In November 2016, over 10,000 women of science signed an open letter noting that science plays a foundation role in “a progressive society, fuels innovation, and touches the lives of every person on this planet.” The letter expressed deep concern that

“anti-knowledge and anti-science sentiments expressed repeatedly during the U.S. presidential election threaten the very foundations of our society. Our work as scientists and our values as human beings are under attack. We fear that the scientific progress and momentum in tackling our biggest challenges, including staving off the worst impacts of climate change, will be severely hindered under this next U.S. administration. Our planet cannot afford to lose any time.”

The letter reaffirmed a commitment to build a more inclusive society and scientific enterprise, reject hateful rhetoric targeted at minority groups, women, LGBTQIA, immigrants, and people with disabilities, and attempts to discredit the role of science in our society. The signers also set out a series of scientific, training, support, and policy pledges.

Letter from All Major US Scientific Societies/Organizations to Trump Transition Team, 2016

Amidst the nationwide concern about future challenges facing a Trump Administration, the nation’s scientific, engineering, and higher education community wrote an open letter in November 2016 urging the quick appointment of a nationally respected presidential science advisor.

[A shortened version of this essay is posted at Peter Gleick's Huffington Post column, here.]

pgleick Thu, 12/01/2016 - 03:52

In theTop 10

jhalper — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 06:50:19 +0000

In theTop 10

This year's CWTS Leiden Ranking put the Weizmann Institute at number 10 -- and number one outside of the US -- for impact.

What is impact? In dry terms, it is publications in excellent journals and citations, weighted for institute size and evaluated by subject. This prestigious ranking favors the Weizmann Institute, because it compares institutes and universities solely on the basis of published research.

So you can measure impact and give it a rank. But that number is, ultimately a proxy for something a bit more abstract: We really think of it as the part our scientists play in advancing global science (or human knowledge if you want to be really philosophical about it).

So yes, we're proud of this ranking and we did, indeed pat ourselves on the back over the last day or so.

But it is also a kind of validation of our approach. Over the past decade we have risen from a respectable 19th place to 10th. In that time, the leadership of the Institute has focused on two things: actively seeking to attract the best scientists, regardless of their area of research or the cost of setting up their labs; and investing in upgrading the research infrastructure.

So far, it's working for us.

jhalper Tue, 07/21/2015 - 02:50

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Inversment in Research

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Mario Livio at the Weizmann Institute

jhalper — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 09:44:17 +0000

Mario Livio at the Weizmann Institute

Prof. Mario Livio takes the long view on science. In his newest book, Brilliant Blunders, he points out some of the mistakes made by some icons of science -- Einstein and Pauling among them. More importantly, he insists that researchers must be free to make mistakes.

Livio recently gave us a taste of his subject matter in a talk at the Weizmann Institute (in English):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYaMlTn275A

jhalper Tue, 12/31/2013 - 04:44

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popular science talks

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Why does Particle Physics matter?

esiegel — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 09:28:59 +0000

Why does Particle Physics matter?

"[S]cience is not a consumption good to be expanded in good times and restricted in bad times. The doing of science as well as the supporting of science is an expression of faith in the future. It would have been possible to have told Newton and Faraday, Maxwell and Einstein, Bohr and Heisenberg that, given the poverty and squalor around them, their research were luxuries which could not be afforded. To have done so would be to destroy the economic c progress that came out of their science and which was the main factor in relieving that poverty and squalor. We seem to be on the verge of saving one percent but sacrificing untold scientific discoveries and their unpredictable economic benefits." -Leon Lederman

The Universe is a remarkable place, full of wonder on scales large, small, and everywhere in between.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, and A. Evans.

What we learn about those scales isn't limited by our curiosity; history has proven pretty solidly that so long as there are unexplained phenomena or unanswered questions, people will try and find the best explanations and answers. Even when we have good ones, we'll always be searching for simpler, more elegant, and more complete solutions.

Image credit: Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP).

I've talked at length about why I think we should invest in science, but what I don't often talk about is my first experience with science and scientific research.

Image credit: CERN, via http://kjende.web.cern.ch/kjende/en/wpath_lhcphysics1.htm.

Before I became an astrophysicist, before the largest scales and questions in the Universe became my passion, before any of that, I had to learn about "the basics," which meant getting a solid foundational education in all of physics. And the first hands-on research opportunity that came my way -- the first chance I had to work with real data, real equipment, the full, modern theories and real, current research -- came at what was then the most powerful particle accelerator in the world: Fermilab.

Image credit: Fermilab, Reidar Hahn.

(Full disclosure: the main injector ring, shown in the foreground, was not completed when I worked there!)

That was back in 1997. Sixteen years later, it's been surpassed in energy by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and it was shut down a little under two years ago. Since that time, there has been no effort to probe the energy frontier in the United States, and it looks like there's unlikely to be going forward into the future. Despite hopes for the dream machine that I'd advocate for, there has been very little political or economic initiative to keep cutting-edge particle physics alive in this country.

Image credit: Wikipedia user Ich weiß es nicht, of the defunct SSC site.

But particle physics matters! It's the way we understand, at the smallest, highest-energy, most fundamental level what makes up all the matter and energy of the Universe! And there's been a wonderful initiative undertaken by Fermilab, SLAC, and the U.S. Department of Energy to bring some of the best reasons -- the reasons why particle physics matters -- to everyone.

Image credit: Symmetry Magazine.

Starting today, you can publicly view the 29 brave particle physicists who've stepped up to create a video explaining, in their own (very personal) words, why particle physics matters to them. Some of these have been inspiring to me, and I'm pleased to be able to share them with you, and to highlight some of my favorites.

There's Markus Luty's take, which I can totally relate to. When you have passion for what you do, for what you're trying to do, you not only want to be able to do it, you want others to share in that joy as well.

There's Robin Erbacher's passionate plea, which (at least at the time this article's being written) is the most viewed -- and deservedly so, IMO -- of all the videos up there.

There's Heidi Schellman's words of wisdom, which hold a special place in my heart, considering she was one of my very first physics professors at college. Because of her, I've always known exactly why relations like Gauss' Law and Birkhoff's Theorem cannot apply to systems of discrete particles, and I hope I've been able to pass on what I've learned from her (and others) in just as clear a way as she passed it on to me.

There's also JoAnne Hewett's tale of why particle physics matters to her. You may recognize JoAnne as a science communicator in her own right from her contributions at Cosmic Variance (among other places), and she gives a great, timeless perspective here.

Symmetry has also put together a best of compilation from all of the 29 videos, which you can watch below.

And finally, there's a contest! Symmetry has chosen five videos to compete for the best explanation of why do particle physicists do what they do, and why it's important for everyone. Here they are, in no particular order, with links to the voting below each video:

Breese Quinn, from the University of Mississippi.

Elizabeth Worcester, from Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Hugh Lippincott, from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Peter Winter, from Argonne National Laboratory.

Dhiman Chakraborty, from Northern Illinois University.

Go ahead and vote for your favorite and please, enjoy all the videos, and remember why scientists (and physicists in particular) do what we do, and how important it is to not just our development of knowledge, but to the long-term growth and prosperity of our world, and all the people in it.

esiegel Tue, 08/20/2013 - 05:28

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why particle physics matters

Hello Ethan,
I don't know if this is the appropriate place to put this, but I saw a news story that I thought you would be able to explain or shoot down.
It seems that Professor Christof Wetterich at the University of Heidelberg has questioned the Big Bang hypothesis.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2013/08/20/big-bang-idea-shot-down.
Thanks.

I'm tired of particle physicists hyping themselves and their work. The energy and size scales at which quarks and gluons and many other subatomic particles exist make them fairly inaccessable on this planet, and I can imagine no pratical application for this knolwedge - nor have I heard of any.

I agree the particle physics is worthy of study, but please tell me why particle physics should get more funding than something like solar cells. The funding priorities seem wrong.

Well, I feel dumber just after the first paragraph reading that, but I'll give a very short and terse overview because, frankly, it doesn't deserve any more time nor anyone more competent than me to have their useful life wasted on it.

"He said light emitted by atoms is also governed by the masses of their constituent particles, notably their electrons."

No, they're all the same weight, electrons. The gravitational mass of an isotope does not change the emission spectra of atoms, more proof that this assertion is not only "not even wrong" but brain-numbing in its insanity.

"The way these absorb and emit light would shift towards the blue part of the spectrum if atoms were to grow in mass"

Rather requires that the idea that the mass of the atom is the determinant. It isn't. So rather falls down.

I just feel as though that's a trolling. There's absolutely NO OTHER explanation for it other than someone is faking the whole kit and kaboodle up just to wind up the credulous morons.

Note that the piece only has the reporters words in it, all paraphrasing what someone else said.

Who knows what the hell is going on.

It's fairly easy to find the paper
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1308.1019v1.pdf
But it's not very easy to know what the author is talking about. Aside from the abstract, this research paper is totally unreadable to me.

OK back to these videos.
I started with Hugh Lippincott, from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Very nice. Why? is reason enough.

@ steve

Without particle physics solar panels (and the computers we're using to have this conversation) would not exist.

Also, there is a lot of economic incentive that exists for developing better solar panels. There is no immediate economic payoff of pure research, only unknown future benefit that we may not be able to imagine (think Heisenberg trying to predict the computer revolution).

Which is not to say I don't think there shouldn't be more funding for pure research in the area of applied device physics. Just that for government-funded research, it makes sense that it should be more focused on the forward-looking than the applied where industry can work more effectively.

Autoril on sedavõrd õigus, niikui igal teadlasel, kes isiklikult osales mingi eriala buumi ajal, saades tulemusi.
Mina isiklikult kuid kahtlen selliste, ülikallite seadmete ehitamise vajaduses - enne kui teoreetiline füüsika samale tasemele ei tõuse. Muidu jäämegi jälle maigutama: miks pidime ehitama aatomielektrijaamad, mida loodusjõud purustavad?
Primaarseks loen: katsete TULEMUSTE SELETAMISEL AINULT LÄHIMÕJU PRINTSIIBI KOHASELT - kujtledes endile ette "virtuaalseid osiseid", mida EI PEA OLEMAGI.
PS. KUI mingi osake "tekkis" - on see (edaspidi) OLEMAS, kas see siis interakteerub millegagi või mitte.

So called conservatives want to limit big science budgets severely, citing deficits and debt. The same folks can't see a reason to spend money repairing roads and bridges now, rather than waiting and spending much more to replace them. There is nothing conservative about this sort of thinking. It is a "take the money and run" mentality. Investments in education save money on prisons later. Investments in science keep the US number one in technology and innovation -- thus ensuring economic security. Economic security is national security. Spending on big science should be a priority for true conservatives.

Spending to the rich means diluting your power, handing it over to multiple others.

Galtian edict says that those with money have it because of their Manifest Destiny to have lots of money, which corollary means that those without or with less money are less deserving of money than they are, or deserving of no money at all. Therefore by giving money to these poorer people they are going against the Manifest Destiny of everyone and this is a Great Evil.

Tie it with God's Master Plan and how He Loves You, rather than the anti-theistic mumbo-jumbo Ayn Rand wrote about and you have an impenetrable fortress holding on to the rich person's money.

Spending money is therefore a great evil to be avoided at all costs, and anyone poor getting money is another great evil for the exact same reason.

Great for psychopaths and sociopaths among humans.

Sucks for the humans in humanity.

Steve @2: I believe 'why particle physics matters' is the entire subject of the first video. Did you watch it before asking your question?

please tell me why particle physics should get more funding than something like solar cells. The funding priorities seem wrong.

Basic research creates the applied research of the future. Its the "seed corn." Sure, you can eat it now. You won't starve today, but you'll starve later. Shifting funding from basic research to applied research means that in 10, 20, 30 years there won't be any new research to apply. And just to put this in context, Federally funded basic research is probably about 5-10% of total federal R&D funding right now (as an example, see here You'll note that DOD's 6.1 budget is about 10% of its total R&D budget, and this has been the case for the last 10 years). About 90% of federal R&D funding goes to applied research or development (i.e., moving a technology from the protoype phase to general use)

Ack, html fail. Apologies for the excessive italics.

The goal of basic science is to gain more understanding. In order to go to the Moon in the '60's we had to get a lot smarter. The reward from Apollo wasn't an American flag on the Moon. It was a generation of better educated people. With more smart people on this little planet there is a better chance that solutions to the difficult problems facing us. The best spinoff from basic research is smarter people.

@ Julian Frost:
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. As much as I can see it, he is not providing evidence. Without reading the paper, I think there is already a counter-argument: Andromeda is blue-shifted. According to his theory, it should be ever so slightly be red shifted. It is approaching the milky way and if the matter of particles would change over time, we would see that by observing the physics of bright stars in Andromeda. As far as I know, there have been no contradictions to the current model. Also, how would he explain baryon acoustic oscillations? This paper does not seem to be worth thinking about.

Cheers,
Semmel

What we really need is the Chinese to start building their on the biggest super collider. Then suddenly, we will worry that they will get all of the technological spin off.

Oh wait a minute, what about the "The impact of CERN on high tech industry developments. Focus: The construction of the LHC" Somebody has had to look at the economic impact of LHC on Europe. Oh, here it is http://ec.europa.eu/research/infrastructures/pdf/industrial_innovation_…

I mean if you're not convinced by the poetry of fundamental science the why; then pay attention to the economic and technical benefits.

Thank you all for your answers.

OKThen:

Thanks. You know it's really funny how many people seem to think that something like the LHC happens by putting an enormous pile of money on a pyre and sacrificing it to the Science Gods, from which springs forth a fully-formed experimental apparatus.

And if they're more sophisticated than that, they'll understand that the money doesn't just burn up but is spent employing people and companies to develop and build it, but say you could have spent that money in any other way and gotten the same economic benefit. Maybe they'll cite the Broken Window Fallacy.

But even fewer still realize that the technological developments that would only have occurred as part of accomplishing a monumental goal like building the LHC don't just vanish once it's done, either, and often have applications in many other categories.

Hell, I was just watching Sean Carroll's talk on finding the Higgs Boson, and there was (of course) some Youtuber sarcastically saying how great it was that they were playing with these toys instead of curing cancer. Not realizing that it's only thanks to particle physics -- not just the knowledge of how atoms work but the technology used to study them -- that infinitely valuable medical tools like NMRI exist.

Youtuber sarcastically saying how great it was that they were playing with these toys instead of curing cancer.

Wow, talk about ignorant. Its not just the R&D component of particl physics that help with cancer research, particle beams are used right now in many cancer treatments.

Just how many people can discover a cure for cancer?

Not many.

So I guess until these people have cured cancer, everyone else should just sit down and wait, huh? After all, anything they'd do would be whined with

> Youtuber sarcastically saying how great it was that they were playing with these toys instead of curing cancer.

They have finally failed to detect the Dark Matter (read http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/30/dark-matter-stays-hidden-as-large… and http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/oct/31/lux-dark-matter-se…) and I have been crying for more than a year that Dark Matter just could not exist. How could they introduce Dark Matter under the adopted Cosmological Model which is based on GR which presumes space contains nothing. Einstein was a trickster which is unraveled through published scientific research articles and Einstein's paradigm shift of physics has been shown to be based on a crackpot theory. The scientists who proposed the experiment for detecting Dark Matter should be taken to task for wasting millions of dollars because they were time and again informed that Dark Matter just could not exist with sufficient scientific evidences.
There is a standing (till date) open challenge to the adopted paradigm of physics which could seen at
http://www.worldsci.org/php/index.php?tab0=Abstracts&tab1=Display&id=64…
and
http://www.gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Essays/View/4018.

@20

says a person with master in general physics, who works as a forest officer. A master of general physics would hardly be an expert in relativity and QM, and also.. what does a master in physics have to do with knowledge and expertise in forest management and ecosystems. How did you get that position. Guess it's politics before science. You really messed up your professions.

@20

p.s. promoting your own papers under under random topics is forbidden under rules of this blog.

please read and follow the guides we all do: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/comments-policy/

Touching on Physics

jhalper — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 12:21:24 +0000

Touching on Physics

What happens when a former physics-student-turned-documentary-director is invited to create a video clip for the first ever physics reunion? The answer is below.

You may not learn anything new about physics by watching it, but you will note that Weizmann President Prof. Daniel Zajfman and VP Prof. Israel Bar-Joseph are featured, along with others.

Touching Something No One Found

jhalper Mon, 01/28/2013 - 07:21

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Prof. Israel Bar-Joseph

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Physics

I couldn't get through the whole video because of the very annoying sound track.

TYP are apparently very big in Germany. Guess you're not a great Europop fan.

Missing the Point

cagapakis — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:30:51 +0000

Missing the Point

It's not every day that you read about measuring skulls in the contemporary scientific literature. It's kind of a quaintly old-timey, quaintly racist kind of thing to do. But here we are, with a brand new paper about skull measuring in PLoS Biology. Already quite a few blog-words have been written in support of this new paper, which disproves Stephen Jay Gould's assertion in The Mismeasure of Man that George Morton's 1839 skull measurements were fudged intentionally or unintentionally by his racist bias.

I haven't read a lot of Gould, and I'm pretty convinced by the numbers in the paper that show that Morton measured correctly, so I don't necessarily want to defend Gould or get into any specifics on how to best measure skulls, but I do want to point out how completely the authors seem to miss the point about race, "objectivity," and the social studies of science. The authors do appear to be familiar with the modern social science literature on the social construction of race, which does not mean that there are no differences at all between different people from different parts of the world, but that the way we understand and label these differences change over time and depend on the social and cultural context. The results section of the paper begins with a paragraph where they address these issues directly:

In reevaluating Morton and Gould, we do not dispute that racist views were unfortunately common in 19th-century science [6] or that bias has inappropriately influenced research in some cases [16]. Furthermore, studies have demonstrated that modern human variation is generally continuous, rather than discrete or "racial," and that most variation in modern humans is within, rather than between, populations [11],[17]. In particular, cranial capacity variation in human populations appears to be largely a function of climate, so, for example, the full range of average capacities is seen in Native American groups, as they historically occupied the full range of latitudes [18]. It is thus with substantial reluctance that we use various racial labels, but it is impossible to discuss Morton and Gould's work without using the terms they employed.

The authors are reluctant to use the racial labels because they understand that those labels are not objective categories, that the way people were defined in Morton's time is different than it is today, and that there is more variation between individuals of a given "race" than there is between different populations. So here is the point: how can anyone make objective measurements on categories that are inherently not objective? How does stating the average cranial volume of an African skull vs. a European skull show, as the authors state, "the ability of science to escape the bounds and blinders of cultural contexts," when we know, through scientific studies on the variation between and within groups, that these categories are subjective and subject to change depending on the cultural context?

cagapakis Thu, 06/09/2011 - 06:30

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Stephen Jay Gould spent a disproportionally large amount of his career trying to demonstrate that race is a social construct (he even references this in The Structure of Evolutionary Theory - which had almost nothing to do with race or sociology). Regardless of how one feels about this, it is very, very difficult to demonstrate that race is a social construct.

The argument that within-ethnicity genetic variation is much less than between-ethnicity genetic variation is the primary (and most compelling) contemporary argument that "race" doesn't mean a whole lot.

***The argument that within-ethnicity genetic variation is much less than between-ethnicity genetic variation is the primary (and most compelling) contemporary argument that "race" doesn't mean a whole lot.***

That's like saying there is much less between group variation between men and women than within group variation. Of course you can still say that on average men are taller than women.

There is a good discussion of the 'Lewontin Fallacy' here:

Further technical comment: you may have read the misleading statistic, spread by the intellectually dishonest Lewontin, that 85% percent of all human genetic variation occurs within groups and only 15% between groups. The statistic is true, but what is often falsely claimed is that this breakup of variances (larger within group than between group) prevents any meaningful genetic classification of populations. This false conclusion neglects the correlations in the genetic data that are revealed in a cluster analysis. See here for a simple example which shows that there can be dramatic group differences in phenotypes even if every version of every gene is found in two groups -- as long as the frequency or probability distributions are distinct. Sadly, understanding this point requires just enough mathematical ability that it has eluded all but a small number of experts.)

On the other hand, for most phenotypes (examples: height or IQ, which are both fairly heritable, except in cases of extreme environmental deprivation), there is significant overlap between different population distributions. That is, Swedes might be taller than Vietnamese on average, but the range of heights within each group is larger than the difference in the averages. Nevertheless, at the tails of the distribution one would find very large discrepancies: for example the percentage of the Swedish population that is over 2 meters tall (6"7) might be 5 or 10 times as large as the percentage of the Vietnamese population. If two groups differed by, say, 10 points in average IQ (2/3 of a standard deviation), the respective distributions would overlap quite a bit (more in-group than between-group variation), but the fraction of people with IQ above some threshold (e.g., >140) would be radically different.

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/01/no-scientific-basis-for-race.html

Logan, CK, which races are accurately delineated by the scientific evidence rather than by socially constructed mappings? Exactly which set of the racial classifications that have been used throughout history have their basis in science? What science is used to set the boundaries between races, to say "they" are not "we"?

That is not a very good argument. In fact, it has nothing whatsoever to do with racial boundaries. In fact, it is so far off the mark that one can only make it if one wishes to purposefully fool people who are not paying close attention into assuming that there is scientific support for the reality of a human species that can be cut up into races.

Here's the thing. Did you know that geographical points (x,y coordinates on a map) in Connecticut are less variable as a group than the sum of geographical coordinates randomly chosen from Connecticut combined with a similar and just as carefully measured set of coordinates from California?

Typically, race models are based on the assumption of boundaries which then prove themselves (falsely) because they are used to divide up data, as well as on the observation of discontinuous sets (i.e., African Americans compared to Thai Soldier compared to Western Euro-American conscripts, ala the pseudo-scientist Rushton).

Also worth reading is "Human genetic diversity: Lewontin's fallacy," by A.W. Edwards. See too "Variability in Frontotemporal Brain Structure: The Importance of Recruitment of African Americans in Neuroscience Research."

It's no coincidence Lewontin and Gould were both Marxists.

I'm confused. If people believe that race is a meaningless way of categorizing people, then why do liberals obsess over affirmative action and whether or not enough people of a certain skin color are at certain schools or in certain jobs?

Maybe someone can clear up my confusion here. It seems like people on the left want to have it both ways. They want to deny the concept of race when politically expedient, but then they also invoke it constantly, although implicitly, when it furthers their political goals. If race is so meaningless and unimportant, why does it matter then the proportion of people with black skin at elite universities?

By the way, does arguing against the reality of race really decrease the amount of racism in the world?

***Logan, CK, which races are accurately delineated by the scientific evidence rather than by socially constructed mappings? ***

Well, as with races or varieties in other species you could look at the main major patterns of variation. That is what continental clusters or the major clades represent:

"Historically, the greatest force influencing genetic differentiation among humans has been geography. Great physical distances and geographic barriers (e.g., high mountains, large deserts, and large bodies of water) have imposed impediments to human communication and interaction and have led to geographically determined endogamous (i.e., within-group) mating patterns resulting in a genetic substructure that largely follows geographic lines. The past two decades of research in population genetics has also shown that the greatest genetic differentiation in the human population occurs between continentally separated groups."

http://bioethics.stanford.edu/events/documents/pdfs/burchard.pdf

I'm sorry that I was unclear. I meant to say what I said the other way around (in what I said about between-groups and within-groups variation).

I also didn't say that I agreed with the usage of that as any kind of evidence for anything regarding race. I just meant that it was the argument being used and it was compelling to those that it was compelling to.

Once again, I'm sorry that I was unclear and that I misspoke.

I want to say that I don't agree with CK or Stephen Jay Gould. I don't agree with the argument that I stated; I was just saying that it exists.

***I want to say that I don't agree with CK***

What don't you agree about?

perhaps it is time to consider using "strains", "stocks" or "breeds' to point out different human phenotypes: Hi! Im a green spanish speaking strain! Cool. Hi! Im of the red urdu taller stock! Hi! I am of the black finish speaking endangered breed! Very precise.

I want to make one last comment in response to Yan Shen (#6) because they bring up a common misconception. Race isn't a biologically meaningful category, but race and how we categorize people based on how they look and where they come from has profound social and cultural implications for people, including the kinds of systemic discrimination that can be addressed by affirmative action.

"Race isn't a biologically meaningful category"

True only in the sense that "biologically meaningful" can be defined any way you want.

***Race isn't a biologically meaningful category,***

Do you think that races, varieties, subspecies in any species are meaningful? It's not really clear whether you object to its usage in humans or across the board.

***race and how we categorize people based on how they look and where they come from has profound social and cultural implications for people,including the kinds of systemic discrimination that can be addressed by affirmative action. ***

It's skill gaps not discrimination that are the issue.

http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2000skillsgaps.pdf

Skillgaps will be the result of racist practices,for example?(slavery,denial of rights,so forth)

***Skillgaps will be the result of racist practices,for example?(***

In the case of Asians against europeans? Personally, I think culture and human genetic diversity are the major causes.

The authors do appear to be familiar with the modern social science literature on the social construction of race, which does not mean that there are no differences at all between different people from different parts of the world, but that the way we understand and label these differences change over time and depend on the social and cultural context.

I hate this kind of language because it results in people talking past each other. Do you care to provide some actual examples so that we may compare?

The average person whose ancestors all came from Sweden 400 years ago is distinguishable at a glance from the average person whose ancestors came from Korea 400 years ago. In turn, both can be quickly distinguished from the average one who came from Nigeria 400 years ago. The fact that intermediate types exist doesn't change this fact.

The line between one Arab dialect and its neighboring Arab dialect is rather fuzzy. However, if you attempt to converse in Moroccan Spoken Arabic with a Saudi you would be unintelligible without resorting to Standard Arabic. Distinction between one dialect and another may be hard to define, and the boundaries drawn by linguists may be a bit arbitrary, but the differences these distinctions represent are certainly not. They are real and worth noting.

Likewise, most of us have no trouble differentiating a gently sloping plain from a hill or a hill from a mountain. The fact that 'plain', 'hill', and 'mountain' may overlap to a degree doesn't mean the difference we perceive between a Nebraskan cornfield and Mt. Everest is an irrelevant social construct or that we wouldn't be damn foolish in failing to draw the distinction in a number of cases.

Scientists make distinctions that are arbitrary and fuzzy all the time because simplified models of reality applicable to a large number of circumstances are better than having no models at all. Only when those distinctions are regarded as politically incorrect do we encounter this hairsplitting nonsense about differences being the product of "social constructs" (itself an ill-defined concept).

Race isn't a biologically meaningful category, but race and how we categorize people based on how they look and where they come from has profound social and cultural implications for people, including the kinds of systemic discrimination that can be addressed by affirmative action.

Given the biological invalidity of race, how do you then go about clustering such traits into seeming racial categories like African-American without admitting the existence of something that we must admit to be essentially race? What else do you call such clusters of visible (and perhaps less visible) differences in populations that are invariant under geography and the product of heredity?

CK 17 : asians in the USA have tiger moms and hot water.

In South Africa this is particularly contentious. Ridiculously arbitrary tests were used (e.g. the "pencil test") during apartheid. And what you're classified now can profoundly affect employment opportunities. It's still very messy.

During a talk by Himla Soodyall (who works with human genographic project) I recall her saying that they allowed participants to self identify with any race/ethnic group they pleased, and then look at whatever correlates happen to fall out of that. I think this is might be the best approach.

Re: Making Cellular Memories, a Guest Post

cagapakis — Mon, 09 May 2011 13:06:26 +0000

Re: Making Cellular Memories, a Guest Post

Last month I wrote about my friend Devin Burrill's paper about synthetic memory in yeast cells. There were a lot of really interesting questions left in the comments, and I asked Devin if she would write a guest post to answer them. She agreed and here it is, answers to your questions straight from the author!

Hello Readers!

My name is Devin, and I am so incredibly grateful to Christina for allowing me to write an entry on her awesome blog. Christina and I are friends and work together in the lab of Pamela Silver at Harvard Medical School. I am writing in response to a number of excellent questions posted about Christina's entry on my recent paper, "Synthetic circuit identifies subpopulations with sustained memory of DNA damage" (Burrill, et al. Genes & Development, 2011).

One reader asked about the initiation of heritable damage responses: "Is damage restricted to random acts of nature, or can there be such a thing as self-damage....that will nevertheless be heritable?"

DNA damage can come from within an organism, as well as from external sources. External sources tend to be obvious and well-known by the informed public (e.g. UV or IR radiation, drugs, smoking). Less obvious is the fact that pools of a DNA damaging reagent known as reactive oxidative species (ROS for short) are created all the time by our own cells via mitochondrial respiration.

Mitochondria are organelles that likely evolved from bacteria billions of years ago. They function as the "powerhouse" of the cell, generating cellular energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) via the respiratory chain (RC) located at the inner mitochondrial membrane. Electrons move along the RC, reducing molecular oxygen at the end. If single electrons leave the RC earlier, ROS are generated. Incompletely reduced oxygen (superoxide radicals: O2-) can be transformed to H2O2, then leading to free hydroxyl radicals. Hydroxyl radicals are one of the most damaging forms of ROS, mutating the DNA backbone and even the DNA bases themselves. This source of internal DNA damage is simply part of a cell's natural biochemistry. As people age, however, ROS production tends to worsen because the mitochondria also age and become less efficient at tracking electrons all the way along the RC. This source of internal damage is actually hypothesized to be a main contributor toward the human aging process --- as promiscuous ROS production increases, so to does DNA damage caused by ROS, resulting in dysfunctional biological processes. Thus, damaged mitochondria are inherited over time as people age, though the exact mechanisms are how this happens are not completely understood.

Another reader asked about the nature of the observed cellular memory: "Do the cells that retain this memory of an experience then pass on that memory to those they have been divided into?...And how many generations does this affect?" Yes, the idea is that a single cell experiences the damage and responds in a specific way which is somehow recorded, thus changing the cell's biological makeup. We were interested in changes that were subsequently passed on to daughter cells when the original cell divided. The fluorescent memory loop allowed us to track the damage response from the original cell that experienced it to the daughter cells. We tracked the response for 48 hours after DNA damage, which means that the original cell divided approximately 20 times, resulting in lots of fluorescent daughter cells. A sustained response that lasts 20 cell generations is remarkable, given the propensity of the yeast S. cerevisiae to re-set its biological clock when its divides. However, one could imagine studying the response for even longer periods of time. There's really no limit!

The same reader then went on to ask a very important question, which really gets at the meat of the project: "Can the effects of this experience ever be completely erased from the genome if the experience itself is replicated or repeated in a particular environment? And is this perhaps one of the ways that cells evolve to anticipate and deal strategically with a multitude of problems?" I believe the reader is asking whether experiencing and responding to the damage once can impact how the cell responds to the same experience if it happens again. This question brings forward the idea of biological hysteresis --- does a past event allow a cell or system to respond differently to future events because memory of the past event persists? It's possible that initial exposure could result in heritable epigenetic marks or stable cytoplasmic factors, for example, that will permit a "better" response to a second exposure of the same damaging agent. While some previous work has looked at cellular responses to multiple doses of damaging agents, these studies are flawed by the fact that they take place at the whole population level, thereby diluting out any long-term effects that occur within distinct subpopulations. Now that we have engineered a device that allows for the isolation of two distinctly-responsive subpopulations, we can more properly examine the role of hysteresis in DNA damage response. Will one subpopulation respond better to a second dose of damage? If the system were moved to mammalian cells, would one subpopulation be more resistant or susceptible to multiple rounds of chemotherapy? In our paper, we laid the groundwork for exploring these questions and are now pursuing these very lines of research.

I cannot say how exciting it is to get questions like the ones proposed by Christina's readers. They are very thoughtful and insightful. Thank you so very much for asking them, and thank you for letting me answer them!

Take care!

---- Devin

cagapakis Mon, 05/09/2011 - 09:06

Tags

I'm the guy that asked the questions about cell memory and it's apparent evolutionary role in what seems to me to be the development of instinctive and anticipatory adaptive strategies.
Your answers have been very helpful, especially as this is close to the verboten subject of Lamarckian mechanisms, which it seems most researchers would rather investigate anew than talk about. Especially here on ScienceBlogs.

In regards to cell memory and heritable traits, would organisms which more readily demonstrate an ability to produce a trait become more prevalent given a particular set of environmental stimuli. In short a set of characteristics within a population may repeat, but only be of concern if presented with specific environmental stimuli, at which point the entire population would not be at risk but rather different parts of the population would survive or die depending on the stimulus. "We Beasties," has a recent blog discussing how ROS can add to the aging process, but can also be used to fight certain bacterial infections: Given that info, without a bacterial stimulus ROS is a maladaptation and leads to a shorter life...with a bacterial infection ROS leads to a better resistence and an ability to survive that would otherwise not be present. Just trying to wrap my mind around it....feel free to correct comment or laugh hysterically at my lack of understanding. In the event of laughter, however, please explain my idiocy in monosyllables so I'll understand...if possible.

Facts in Context

cagapakis — Thu, 05 May 2011 13:38:41 +0000

Facts in Context

It's been an exciting week for me. On Monday I successfully defended my thesis! Now that I have established my scientific credibility to you all, here is a picture of me at my defense party wearing my "Trust me I'm a Dr" Dr. Pepper t-shirt and hitting my SpongeBob SquarePants piÃ±ata.

And on Tuesday I went to two really interesting events/talks/discussions about science and scientists. First up was Debbie Chachra's awesome seminar "Unpacking Gender: Men and Women in Science, Technology, and More," sponsored by the Harvard Graduate Women in Science and Engineering. She described her seminar as "Power and Privilege 101," and even though I'd say I'm at least up to junior-year seminar level gender studies, she really challenged me by having us address our own unexamined privileges head-on, having us think and talk about how we benefit from and how we contribute to ways that different groups of people are stereotyped and excluded.

We all have pre-concieved ideas about what different kinds of people are like, schemas that we use to understand and categorize the world. Debbie illustrated this point with a special group of people, used car salesmen. We know what used car salesmen are supposed to be like, and this schema can protect us from getting ripped off when we're trying to buy a car. But if we meet an honest and sincere used car salesman, we don't necessarily adjust the schema we're operating on based on the evidence in front of us. Instead we will more likely assume that this salesman is so sleazy that he's gotten very good at faking sincerity. By examining how our perceptions and confirmation bias can maintain the status quo when dealing with all sorts of schemas, we can begin to make the kinds of fixes that are needed to change the stereotypes and structures that contribute to things like skewed gender ratios in some science and engineering fields.

Later in the evening I went to a lovely and lively dinner and discussion about science blogging and journalism at the Cambridge Science Festival, featuring Carl Zimmer and Ed Yong. It was great to meet writers that I admire so much and to hear their perspectives on all the positive and exciting ways that the internet and blogging are shaping science and science journalism (you can watch the video here). Overall Carl and Ed had great and nuanced perspectives on the changing science and media landscape, but with my heightened awareness of schemas I couldn't help but frame some of the surrounding audience questions and discussion of science journalism and (vs.?) science blogging in terms of our sometimes misguided underlying assumptions.

The schemas and assumptions in this case aren't about groups that are underrepresented in science, although that is obviously a huge part of the discussion when we're talking about sharing and engaging with science, but rather the assumptions we make about science, scientists, and science writers in general. For many of the comments and arguments I heard on Tuesday night, the debate between science blogging and science journalism seemed to center around an image of scientists as asocial fact producers and journalists as translators of these jargon-laced facts to a much stupider group of people known as the "lay public." But science isn't just facts, scientists aren't just robotic fact makers, science journalists aren't just fact megaphones, and non-scientists aren't just ignorant. Science and science journalism is something that real people do, people with opinions and social lives, people with interesting perspectives on the world and sometimes even a sense of humor.

Remembering that scientists are people makes it much less surprising that scientists use twitter and write on the internet, because millions of people use twitter and write on the internet for lots of reasons and for lots of audiences. We can use the internet to find scientific information and connect with collaborators, but we can also use it to connect with old friends and make new ones, to talk and learn about all of our hobbies and all of the things we're interested in. There is room in a scientific career to engage with other people and there is room online for both tweets about your breakfast and tweets about your research, blog posts by scientists and science lovers about cool things going on in the universe, and articles by journalists that share engaging stories about both the facts and the contexts of interesting scientific findings.

The best of these stories can show us new worlds beyond simple facts. I was always a nerd and I always loved science for its own sake, but even after almost a year of working in a lab as an undergrad it was Natalie Angier's book Natural Obsessions that showed me what it feels like to be a scientist, brought me closer to how the facts that I was learning in my textbooks were discovered by real people, and even made me feel more passionate about my western blots. These days I read blogs and articles and tweets by people who are interesting and interested in lots of different things and share some of those interests and a bit of their personality in their writing, whether they are students, journalists, scientists, engineers, artists, government workers, or celebrities. I can engage with and learn about people and projects similar to myself and the work I did my PhD in and areas so far out of my expertise (journalism being one of them) that I'm one of those ignorant but very interested laypeople.

All this reading makes me a better dinner date but I hope also a better scientist and a more critical and thoughtful reader of work both inside and outside of my field. One of the audience questions during "Unpacking Gender" really brought this home, and brings us full circle. "What kind of unbiased, scientific research is out there on the innate differences between men and women?" Debbie's answer was difficult and very important: we live in a society where boys and girls are treated differently from even before they are born, so it is often impossible for scientists and for other people to separate out whether an apparent difference between men and women emerges as a result of "nature" or "nurture." If we look to science as merely a source of facts that can clear up these nasty social problems, we can see statistical differences between different groups of people, but we can sometimes lose the human and social context in which these differences emerge. With the best science blogging and science journalism, we can put together the bigger picture of where the facts come from, what they mean to us, and how the facts in context can help us break out of our assumptions.

cagapakis Thu, 05/05/2011 - 09:38

Tags

Energy, Armpits, and Octopodes

cagapakis — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 09:16:05 +0000

Energy, Armpits, and Octopodes

I had a great conversation with Maggie Koerth-Baker from BoingBoing for bloggingheads.tv Science Saturday. We talked about all sorts of sciency stuff, including her upcoming book on the challenges of renewable energy, synthetic biology, the similarities between cheese and the human body, women in science/blogging, and octopus brains. I had a lot of fun chatting with Maggie and I learned a lot, and I hope you will too!

cagapakis Sat, 02/12/2011 - 04:16

Tags

im in love <3

As an engineering school grad, I'll add my two cents. In general, engineering is all about coming up with standards, which, once determined, will stand for a long time to come. So since, in professional work, there's always a lot of pressure for direct performance, anything that could add new complications is always met with, um, let's say a harsh and pained response. It definitely takes a mental toll over time. We'd be a better world if people were more honest about how we're changed by our personal experiences.

Also, the best response to arguments about capability in terms of gender or race or any other split is the statistical one. For almost any study out there, the difference between group capability is dwarfed (dwarved?) by the variance within each group. Just about everyone is in the overlap. As such, the case that some inherent differences should lead to wide gaps in results doesn't have a leg to stand on, even without taking any of the strong cultural biases into account. There are almost certainly some sorts of differences due to biology, if only b/c it's hard to see any kind of difference being completely isolated, but we've clearly already shown that anything that's there has no significant affect on making a prediction for any given individual. If we can't make that kind of decision, then what exactly are we looking for? Going for the belief-neutral response always makes counter-arguments sound like the biased tripe they are.

Keep doing good (and very cool) work!

Lab Fashion

cagapakis — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:09:08 +0000

Lab Fashion

Scientists aren't known for their fashion sense, but they do have their own unique charm, as you can see in this episode of In The Lab, with Bill Cunningham.

cagapakis Tue, 02/01/2011 - 11:09

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You should see my tuxedo-print lab coat.