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Migrations between Science & Art

jjacquet — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:20:56 +0000

Migrations between Science & Art

It is nice to see science and art getting along. The World Science Festival's
event Eye Candy demonstrates how science can help
us understand some of our notions of beauty. Art is equally useful to science,
especially to scientists who envy the artist's ability to parlay an idea into
something visual—something that does not make too many demands on
their audience's time.

Most people are unaware of human impacts on the oceans, such as
overfishing, pollution, and invasive species. This deficiency is in part due to the
ocean itself—the opaqueness of the surface transmits a deceiving
tranquility—and also in part because scientists studying the ocean have
not been able to quickly communicate the problems. That is why I wanted to
collaborate with Dave Beck, an artist and
professor at Clarkson University.

Read the rest of my latest post at the blog for the World Science Festival.

jjacquet Tue, 05/25/2010 - 12:20

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Uh oh . . .Dave warned you not to show that letter to anyone.

The link to Dave Beck is experiencing a cyber glitch...

Loved these thoughts!

Most people are unaware of human impacts on the oceans, such as overfishing, pollution, and invasive species.

Do Scientists Want to Bridge Science and Society?

jjacquet — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 11:34:45 +0000

Do Scientists Want to Bridge Science and Society?

So much of what the scientists do is less relevant than it could be. This was the motivation behind the theme at the 2010 AAAS annual meeting, Bridging Science and Society.

Our panel discussed non-regulatory means of enhancing cooperation - namely through reputation and shame. Ralf Sommerfeld, a recent graduate who worked with the Max Planck Institute, presented several of his new game theoretical studies showing that gossip and reputation can lead to increases in overall cooperation [1, 2]. This is the theory that underpinned my presentation proposing that we migrate away from guilt-based efforts in conservation (e.g. eco-labels) and toward shame-based strategies, which we can use to motivate large-scale resource users -- a more effective conservation strategy. To show evidence of this in the real world, John Hocevar, head of oceans campaigns for Greenpeace USA, presented their work on affecting retailer reputation (e.g. the campaign) to encourage greater cooperation. In particular, he focused on the seafood scorecard, which has been released in 15 countries around the world and ranks major supermarkets according to their seafood procurement policies. As a result, many large retailers have stopped selling certain fish, like Orange roughy and sharks, and have engaged with discussions with the 'good cops' of conservation, like WWF.

The AAAS theme of bridging science and society was commendable, but there is still hesitation from scientists who try to avoid being perceived as advocates. For instance, Chris Clark, head of the Bioacoustics lab at Cornell University and an expert on sound in the ocean, showed that the oceans are three times louder than they were in the 1960s - much of it on account of shipping. For acoustic feeders like right whales, this means greater difficulty locating food and each other, as noise disturbance causes "frequent tears in their social fabric". The evening before, Clark mentioned to me that a potential solution was to slow boat speeds, which was also more fuel efficient and cheaper for shipping. A Norwegian firm had, in fact, already committed to slowing their ship speeds. Clark has also made progress in installing smart buoys that alert ship captains to the presence of right whales to help them avoid collisions. The following day, Clark made a very compelling presentation of the problem of acoustic disturbances, but oddly he did not mention any solutions in his presentation.

This is why scientists need to build bridges and they need to make maps. I am not necessarily referring to a literal "map making", which is what a colleague dubbed the spatial planning session at AAAS. I refer to an action map to guide the audience where they might go if they want to know more or do something with the science they just learned.

Since the 1960s, studies have shown that behavior does not change merely as a result of information, even if it is fear inducing. Behavior can change if information is combined with an action plan. In a 1965 study on tetanus inoculation, researchers showed students the somewhat terrifying results of contracting tetanus, which resulted in 3 percent of the students getting a tetanus shot. Other subjects were given the same lecture but were also given a copy of a campus map with the location of the health center circled. They were then asked to make a plan for when they get the shot and look at a map to decide what route they would take to get there. In this case, 28 percent of the students managed to show up and get their tetanus shot. The medical message seemed to influence attitudes but a specific plan influenced action [3].

In bridging science and society, scientists need to consider avenues to give their audience an action map. One obvious solution could be for scientists to incorporate policies and actions that would deal with the issues they study, like Chris Clark's recommendation to slow shipping speeds to reduce ocean noise. In some cases, scientists can take action, as happened in 1974 after two chemists at the University of California Irvine proposed a hypothesis that related CFC use to the depletion of the atmosphere. Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina did not stop there but advocated for the ban of CFCs, which occurred regionally just three years later and, globally, with the 1987 Montreal Protocol [4].

However, many scientists feel uncomfortable with action plans or, what many call 'advocacy'. In this case, scientists can team up with people who already have action plans, which is why AAAS supported a panel that included a main player at Greenpeace. It is why coral reef ecologist Terry Hughes, who presented about the fish biomass improvements within no-take zones, presented alongside Jay Nelson from Pew, who is working to establish large marine reserves in an ocean where less than 0.08 percent of the area is no-take. Hughes also nicely exhibits the benefit of having scientists to examine the effects of action plans themselves. Like the scientists who examined the effects of a map on tetanus shots, Hughes has studied the biomass improvements in certain fish, like the coral trout, afforded by society's decision to re-zone and protect a greater area of the Great Barrier Reef [5]. His research was a nice reminder that the bridge between science and society is a two-way street.

1. Sommerfeld, R. H. Krambeck, D. Semmann, and M. Milinski. 2007. Gossip as an alternative for direct observation in games of indirect reciprocity. PNAS 104:17435-17440.
2. Sommerfeld, R. H. Krambeck, and M. Milinski. 2008. Multiple gossip statements and their effect on reputation and trustworthiness. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 275(1650): 2529-36.
3. Leventhal, H., R. Singer, R. and S. Jones. 1965. Effects of fear and specificity of recommendation upon attitudes and behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2, 20-29.
4. Haas, P.M. 1990. Obtaining International Environmental Protection through Epistemic Consensus. Millennium - Journal of International Studies 19: 347-364.
6. McCook et al. 2010. Adaptive management of the Great Barrier Reef: A globally signiï¬cant demonstration of the beneï¬ts of networks of marine reserves. PNAS.

jjacquet Sat, 02/27/2010 - 06:34

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"However, many scientists feel uncomfortable with action plans or, what many call 'advocacy.'"

The presentation of scientific research has two components: presenting evidence and advocating for a specific interpretation of that evidence. Advocacy is an inherent part of scientific research. If you don't believe in your own work enough to advocate for a specific interpretation and meaning of it, why bother doing it?

There's a profound asymmetry here. In the regulatory arena it is not hard for a corporation to find any number of degreed scientists willing to act as paid consultants to present and discuss scientific evidence in the aggressive manner of an advocate. Entire consulting firms exist which employ scientists to provide what can only be called representations of pure advocacy, ie. to advocate for the regulatory outcome the corporate client wishes. By this metric it is abundantly obvious that many many scientists have no problem with entering the arena of advocacy.

But to hire these scientists to advocate on your behalf costs an enormous amount of money. And this amount of money is generally not available to those in the public who are advocating solely on behalf of the commons and its preservation. The commons, by definition, has no specific constituency. Corporations generally wish to extract resources from the commons as quickly and as cheaply as possible to serve short-term profit goals without regard to the long-term, or even short-term, health of the commons.

The original purpose of publicly funded natural resource agencies and universities was to act as stewards for the commons in perpetuity, but many have been saddled with explicit or implicit expectations to act on the short-term behalf of those users which produce jobs and economic activity by exploiting the commons, even if this exploitation will damage or destroy the commons.

One of the conundrums is that in a perfect world, scientific research is supposed to be conducted in a value-neutral context. But this is not possible if the science you are conducting is in a natural resource field which affects a commons. If the commons has economic value which can be exploited, then your scientific work is deeply embedded in a value-laden context and cannot be freed from it. It's part of the job. This is why the Precautionary Principle was developed: to give scientists a value framework which explicitly favors long-term preservation of the commons in the face of short-term scientific uncertainty.

But in the end there needs to be a constant and sober assessment of whether progress is being made toward the goal of protecting and improving the health of the commons. Are things better than they were 10-20-30-50 years ago? Why or why not? What has worked and what hasn't and why?

Science is informed advocacy.

This, is a fascinating exploration. Personally, I am wondering if there is also another way of looking at this consciousness by asking the question(s) "Does society want to bridge science and society?" Or, "Why are there segments of society that resist [or struggle with] the bridging of science and [non-scientific] social conscience/awareness?"

This discussion doorway opened another vein of musing, in wondering if social mores, and how we develop, and or evolve behavior is actually more of a biological science, rather than a loose and often muddy cultural phenomena? Then, if we begin to accept the nature of evolutionary social creative adaptation and mutation of behavior, do we then ultimately perceive how we evolve as something called: Biomorals. Seems to me that in the end, genetics always trumps dogma...

I could not more completely disagree. You cannot as a scientist go into a study or experiment with a planned outcome in mind. This violates basic scientific method.

You have to stay objective, and you cannot be objective if you go into the lab everyday with the presumption that something is going to be true because its good for the environment.

I can understand why scientists want to preserve their role as providers of information, rather than advocates of solutions. That being said, I don't think it is ethical for them to ignore it when important information is ignored or responded to inappropriately.

This is most true where it comes to climate science, due to how enormously important it is to start mitigating now, if we are to have a decent shot of avoiding catastrophic outcomes.

Scientists do have prescribed social roles, but that doesn't mean they don't have other ethical duties as human beings. Among those are helping people to do a better job of making very important decisions.

lets not forget what happened in recent times when the emails of a couple climate scientists that put a little too much advocacy into their work got released.

You cannot as a scientist go into a study or experiment with a planned outcome in mind. This violates basic scientific method.

Not true. The whole idea of developing a hypothesis is that you think you have a good idea for what will happen when you do a study. Then you do the study and see what happens and adjust your hypothesis in response to the results. This is the essence of good science. Science is advocating for your explanation of some little corner of reality and being able to back it up with studies that were designed to falsify your idea, and failed to do so.

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lets not forget what happened in recent times when the emails of a couple climate scientists that put a little too much advocacy into their work got released.

That's bogus. Every single thing those climate scientists have said is fully supported by peer-reviewed research and none of them have backed down an inch from their findings, nor do they have any reason to.

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Science is not about presenting "information" -- a thermometer or depth finder can do that. Information is stenography. Science is providing cogent explanations for why the information is what it is. Without the underlying explanation, the information is meaningless.

You cannot be objective if you go into the lab everyday with the presumption that something is going to be true because its good for the environment. -- jim.

Nobody does that because nobody ever frames the question that way, except in some weird conservative hallucination of what actual scientists actually do.

It's not bogus at all. I don't dispute the results of climate science, but I think if you tred the line of science and advocacy you have the very real possibility of all of your valid work being undermined in a political arena. Where does that leave you?

I also don't understand how you interpreted "planned outcome".

I've seen plenty of examples where alpha values suddenly become inflated without any justification in order to reject the null hypothesis because the OUTCOME shows how great some new thing is for the environment. Then other times the null hypothesis is not rejected and then they still go on to discuss and support the hypothesis like it never happened.

Is this good science?

or when completely inappriopriate data is used to show a trend and make far future predictions waaaaay outside the statistical inference of the trend. Then the appropriate data is used and reanalyzed but by that time the media and public has latched onto a single number "2048".

I think this abstract by a researcher at UCSC states my view on this topic much better than I have been able to articulate:

Separating environmental science and environmentalism in the study of marine reserves
Marc Mangel, University of California, Santa Cruz

The issues associated with the study of marine reserves reside along the boundary between environmental science and environmental action, and it is easy to confuse the two because we often feel strongly about the outcome of the work. If we, as a community, do not want to end up with egg on our faces, we must take extreme care when working on this subjectâregardless of our personal opinions. I will illustrate these difficulties using two simple models. The first is a stochastic, single-species model and helps illustrate the questions that can be answered as scientific ones and the questions that are rightfully the domain of social discourse. The second is a deterministic two-species model that illustrates the importance of conceiving of the role of reserves in a wide, ecosystem context. These models help us see how to separate the scientific questions from the activist issues. By blurring the line, we ignore the need for important discussions.

"The medical message seemed to influence attitudes but a specific plan influenced action."

In Thaler's book, "Nudge", he describes that road workers used shorter road stripes between lanes to slow traffic on a dangerous curve(drivers perceive they are going faster) when all manner of warning signs did not work. I am most definitely in the 'no advocacy' camp, but see no conflict in ecologists working with social scientists, et al. to develop strategies such as these.

Also, see the work of Cialdini about using normative messages to change behavior.

Very interesting. This ("So much of what the scientists do is less relevant than it could be.") has been a concern of mind for a really long time -- for my entire scientific career, in fact (about 20 years since my Ph.D in plant molecular biology).

My own experience suggests a more practical cause than has been discussed so far: the rewards structure and culture of universities where most scientists work. Briefly, the traditional rewards structure places great value of publication in traditional scientific journals, and these journals expect a particular, and passive, approach to the science. Meanwhile, it's hard to come up with publishable data, and scientists tend to gravitate toward fields that aren't too crowded. This, combined with the exalted status of "basic science," means publications are almost by definition irrelevant to the real world.

I think the emphasis on neutrality and passivity comes from the notion that science itself is neutral, but applications of science are not. What happened in WWII left science with a bad hangover when it comes to applications. Many scientists -- including Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA -- left physics for biology as a result. Vannevar Bush's "Science: The Endless Frontier" was the founding document for basic science.

In 1997 the Brookings Institute published "Pasteur's Quadrant," an attempt to reorder research and funding priorities. I learned about this book at a AAAS meeting about 10 years ago, from NSF grant program managers who really liked it, but it has apparently failed to get traction in the university world.

I wouldn't be able to do any of the things that I think actually need doing if I were still part of academic culture. Of course financially supporting doing things that need doing is very hard outside of academic culture, but at least the work is permitted. One has only to answer to one's spouse.

"In November 2006, academic research scientist Ray Hilborn denounced what he described as a 'faith-based fisheries movement' that produced in 'Science' and 'Nature' magazines 'a long string of papers on the decline and collapse of the fisheries that have attracted considerable public attention, occasionally gaining coverage in the New York Times and Washington Post.'

Hilborn asserted that the peer review process 'has totally failed,' conquered as it were by the anti-fishing imperative that worked backward from conclusions to findings.

To support his argument, the first paper Hilborn cited was Casey and Myers' which had been featured in the Washington Post under the headline 'Barndoor skate near extinction.'

Into the same category, 'agenda-driven' science he also placed another Myers collaboration - this one with Boris Worm - which purported to prove that large pelagic species, the alpha predators, had been fished down to 10 percent of their historic abundance.

'Widely cited in the scientific and popular literature, this paper raised a furor among many scientists specializing in pelagic fisheries who knew the same data, knew it was being misinterpreted and knew there was a large body of other data that contradicted Myers and Worm's results,' Hilborn wrote in the November 2006 Fisheries Magazine.

The decline of the alpha predator report was not easily diminished, and remains a near ubiquitous citation in policy papers by the Environmental Defense Fund and other groups."

Ãzellikle son zamanlarÄ±n en popÃ¼ler cilt yenileme Ã¼rÃ¼nÃ¼dÃ¼r. Pembe Maske bir Ã§ok Ã¼nlÃ¼ isim tarafÄ±ndan da yoÄun olarak kullanÄ±lmaktadÄ±r. YÃ¼zdeki kÄ±rÄ±ÅÄ±klÄ±klar, sivilce ve sivilcelerin sebep olduÄu deformasyonlarÄ± gidermede kullanÄ±lan Pembe yÃ¼z maskesi ve inceltici, selÃ¼lit giderici olarak kullanÄ±lan pembe vÃ¼cut maskesi olmak Ã¼zere iki farklÄ± Ã¼rÃ¼n mevcuttur.

Jellyfish Burger Wins NSF Visualization Challenge

jjacquet — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:35:01 +0000

Jellyfish Burger Wins NSF Visualization Challenge

The jellyfish burger digital artist Dave Beck and I created has won an honorable mention award in the illustration section the National Science Foundation Visualization Challenge and was also featured in the New York Times. Watch for the rubbery future of seafood coming to this week's issue of Science, too. And be sure to check out the other winners, too.

jjacquet Fri, 02/19/2010 - 03:35

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Congrats!

Congrats, Jennifer! And thanks for the links, the rest of the visualizations are great, too!

Wow what a great illustration. But what an ominous message. I remember reading a study done in Norway where those fjiords that were turbid had a higher number of jellyfish also because they can feed without having to 'see' their food. Normally fish would control their populations. So also add to the list bad land use management and pollution as promoters of the jellyfish burger.

That is very cool that your creative vision was recognized!!! I really love this image!!! I would buy a poster of this in a flash...

Hmmm... Intathting tecthta, but it thtings ma tongue.

Sure we're got Jellyfish Ice-cream in Japan!

http://inventorspot.com/articles/japan_jellyfish_ice_cream_5953

I don't know. Considering burgers aren't (usually) made out of seafood, and that jellyfish is actually pretty yummy, the picture doesn't work that well for me. Sandwiching a live jellyfish is disgusting, but so is sandwiching a live cow. Sushi would work better, but many Americans don't eat sushi.

BTW, other ideas for jellyfish extermination..

Awesome! Congrats, Jennifer.

apeescape, surely the idea is to raise awareness by replacing something very common with something freaky (to many, at least). The idea is not to speak badly of jellyfish.

That's bloody disgusting. I hate the critters.

Can't we bioengineer some predator to make them extinct?!

I hate them, I hate them, I hate them!

Avatar: A Half Billion Dollar Conservationist's Dream

jjacquet — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:34:27 +0000

Avatar: A Half Billion Dollar Conservationist's Dream

I rolled in the New Year like most people -- in a gummy movie theatre watching Avatar. Caveat: go no further if you're worried about spoiling the plot (for a film that, like it or not, stands mostly on its technological innovations).

I don't want to seem like some Cameronophile. I found Avatar too long, for one (and, unlike Daniel Pauly, would never see it twice). It has the typical man vs. technology and man vs. nature themes of futuristic sci-fi. It did have some very cool marine influences (e.g. Christmas tree worms, anemones, comb jellies, hammerheads). But there was one very special thing about Avatar: on Pandora, when Western civilization and its mining machines rolled in to take over, all the animals were capable of teaming up with the blue feline na vi natives to stop invasion.

The thing about conservation is that most of the time (okay, all the time) you feel like you are on the losing team. But imagine if all the wildlife out there could pitch in and fight for a ban on high seas trawling, more marine protected areas, or a goal of 350ppm? That would be awesome. A winning team it would be. Unfortunately, Earth doesn't have the same infrastructure as Pandora...

Still, it's a nice dream, which is what movies do best. At a price tag of nearly $500 million, Avatar was also an expensive dream. But everyone deserves to dream.

jjacquet Sat, 01/09/2010 - 07:34

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I loved the moment when the cavalry arrives in the form of Pandora's fauna. Regardless of the faults of the movie, Cameron did an amazing job inspiring one to care about the world; a winning mix of cheap emotional manipulation and dazzlingly beautiful, absolutely convincing visual production.

Who else thinks an organic USB connection to a planetary network of life would be wicked awesome?

"But everyone deserves to dream."

Thank you.

We've already seen this plot in Dances with wolves, where I think it was done far better. Hands down for graphics, though.

Why would you want to target a certain level of any gas concentration in the atmosphere? Biology 101: Earth is in a dynamic equilibrium.

"Earth is in a dynamic equilibrium"

I don't even know what that means. And besides that, atmospheric chemistry isn't part of Biology 101.

This analysis, of course, ignores the inherent racism in the movie.

I also enjoyed Avatar for the graphics and was happy the 'plot' was decent enough not to ruin it.

Some reactions to the conservation message have been quite dramatic.

Here's a quote from a recent CNN online article (http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.h…): "When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed ... gray. It was like my whole life, everything I've done and worked for, lost its meaning," Hill wrote on the forum. "It just seems so ... meaningless. I still don't really see any reason to keep ... doing things at all. I live in a dying world."

Although I haven't visited the parts of the blogosphere where depressed Avatar viewers are apparently congregating, the article sadly didn't quote anyone who was inspired by the movie to save the one habitable planet we do have.

I hope those people are out there, too.

What's with all the Negative Nellies around here?

350 is a goal intended to help keep this dynamic equilibrium hovering in a range that's suitable for life like us. And I would say it's more of a ceiling than it is a spot on which to fixate.

Yes, the movie had faults, but the point of the original post was to focus on an inspiring aspect of the movie where the planet (which many who would consider themselves environmentalists would empathize with and root for), was actually able to stand up for herself. I can definitely identify with that feeling -- the desire to see the thing you love and protect be able to do more for itself when, so often, your efforts to inform people about the dangers of the path they're on fall on deaf ears, your actions more than countered by the short sighted habits of the multitudes and your attempts to talk about the things you find beautiful and important in the world are met with ridicule. I can totally get behind the vicarious thrill of giant hammerheaded jungle beasts kicking the crap out of caricatured symbols of the very forces that are screwing our own planet beyond comfortable habitability for us. Yes I can.

There are some questions about the film. Besides I liked it so much. I will watch it again and again I think..

The Benshi

jjacquet — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:44:50 +0000

The Benshi

Randy Olson, a scientist turned filmmaker (his film Flock of Dodos premiered at Tribeca and recently made the Smithsonian blog's list of ten great science films from the 2000s), opened up a new online journal this week where he explores the worlds of science and cinema called The Benshi. The title, as Olson explains, "refers to the tradition the Japanese developed with their silent films in which a humble, friendly little man -- 'the benshi' would stand beside the movie screen with a pointer and explain to the audience who the characters in the film were and what they were saying." Olson believes even sound movies often need a Benshi and he has lots of provocative thoughts to share. I really enjoyed the bit about about Bob Ballard in his first post. Check out the Benshi here.

jjacquet Fri, 01/08/2010 - 05:44

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Levitt and Dubner Visit Seattle

jjacquet — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:40:08 +0000

Levitt and Dubner Visit Seattle

In 2006, I bought Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's first book Freakonomics and, like the four million other people who bought the book, thought it was excellent.Â It was full of originality with chapters on why parents disadvantage their children with bad names and why crack dealers live with their mothers. For this reason (plus the fact that I spent $30 and drove a total of 3 hours), I had high expectations when I went to see the pair in Seattle last night. Sadly, I left feeling that Levitt and Dubner seem to be suffering from a bad case of overexposure.

I should have seen the writing on the walls of Town Hall. For one, their latest book has the title of their old book in its title -- for someone seeking novelty, a sequel is not one's best bet. Furthermore, the talk was structured in that awful way that attendance required buying a copy of the book (hence the $30 price tag; strike two). And nothing could save Levitt and Dubner from the corny radio show host's introduction and on-stage interview (it turned out to only be a Q&A, not an official talk). All the event lacked was a theme song.

Their two man show was too relaxed and too predictable. Predictable? How can two men who argue (poorly -- according to a letter published at RealClimate.org by Geophysical Science professor Raymond T. Pierrehumbert) in favor of geoengineering global cooling be predictable? I think they thought the tension around 'global cooling' would predictably sell books and talks. Dubner spoke of the prostitution market with similarly coy looks.

I fear their sophistication was overshadowed by flippancy. For evidence, Levitt spoke about global cooling garden hoses to the sky, proposed by Nathan Myhrvold of Bellevue's own Intellectual Ventures (who was not in attendance), the same way Cousteau talked about colonizing the oceans by the year 2000 (note: we did not accomplish this).

I always consider a speaker in three categories: Are they likable? Are they credible? Are they critical? Levitt and Dubner are passing in the credible category since they have the two books and Levitt does respectable and compelling economics research. But their talk was only slightly critical (mostly of car seats for toddlers ages 2 to 6) and the duo was strangely unlikeable despite their smiles and anecdotes. Maybe a theme song would help...

jjacquet Tue, 11/03/2009 - 10:40

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How much does the 25Km "hose" is supposed to weight ?
How much pressure is needed to pump liquid SO2 that high ?
How will they keep the SO2 liquid (boils off at -10F) ?
How will they deal with jet stream winds on the hose and the balloons ?

Go over to realclimate.org (Gavin Schmidt and others with NASA), they have a couple of blogs about how wrong Levitt and Dubner are on the whole global warming/cooling claims and geoengineering.

Hi Jennifer,

I just came across your blog and I think it's terrific. Excellent writing and interesting topics. I put up a link at climateprogress on this post http://climateprogress.org/2009/11/05/superfreaknomics-errors-levitt/#c…

On a separate topic, I have a daughter who is graduating Princeton this year, majoring in environmental biology having studied coral reefs. She's applying to grad schools and not really sure where she wants to go. Any advice? witsendnj@yahoo.com

Jennifer, I live in Seattle, and I wouldn't pay to see these guys. They have left their credibility on the floor with the nonsense they published in the global warming chapter. Just check out Romm's latest post on Climate Progress, and their own blog on the NYTimes website (Dubner writes for the NYTimes).

Levitt is a prof at the U Chicago, and he has one of the best climate scientists in the world sitting just across campus, Dr. Pierrehumbert, and doesn't bother to even check in with the climate studies group there. Dubner writes at the NYTimes and has Andy Revkin writing extensively on climate change there, and doesn't bother to talk to him about this nefarious scheme. Then the only real climate scientist they talked to, Dr. Caldeira at Stanford, claims they have mis-quoted him and says the SuperF authors have reached a conclusion he doesn't share (that controlling CO2 emissions is unnecessary). And their response is to play around with the chapter wording, but they have lost any creditable sources for the conclusions they draw (Nathan Myhrvold is not a climate scientist).

Finally, Dubner and Levitt censor most negative comments about SuperF mistakes at their blog on the NYTimes website. For a self-proclaimed contrarians, they are incredibly dismissive of knowledgeable critique that runs counter to their unsupported conclusions and recommendations.

While the first book was packed with a lot of very interestingly odd material, there was a tone to the writing that put me off a bit. An underlying edge of slightly snarky cleverness, or something like that, which felt like it had been smoothed over by an editor.
The "Freakonomics" brand name really started wearing thin for me when the less-than-stellar blog started at the NY Times, so by the time this new book came out, I sort of said to myself, "Meh".

I think they are way overexposed and overrated.

I would like to propose not to wait until you get big sum of cash to buy goods! You should get the credit loans or auto loan and feel yourself fine

Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King (for a Time)

jjacquet — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:29:54 +0000

Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King (for a Time)

My review of Brad Matsen's new book Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King is out today at SEED Magazine today (the SEED graphic is so cool). In reviewing the book two things struck me: 1) that I knew actually very little about a man who is considered a founding father of marine conservation and 2) that there had to be a reason for my ignorance (other than the obvious). My hypothesis is that his tumultuous personal life, particularly the loose strings left at death, has contributed to why the Cousteau legacy is fading. See if you agree.

jjacquet Tue, 11/03/2009 - 06:29

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Interesting review, Jennifer. I'm of the generation that did grow up watching JYC on TV. And your question about why he has faded in memory is one that I have wondered about a number of times. I knew that the death of Philippe was devastating, but did not know of the other in-fighting. It is a shame. It is also interesting to read of his evolution into an environmentalist - it shows that thoughtful people can learn and grow and change. Thanks.

Thanks for this review, I may be interested in this biography. I am French and fondly remember following almost religiously with my family each episode of Cousteau undersea documentaries, during the 70's and 80's.
My fascination for nature and science was definitively feed by these movies.
Today, whenever I am talking of Cousteau, peoples never heard the name before. I was assuming that it was because I am now in North America, but even in France, his fame completly faded away. So is his legacy.
A pity. He was making us so proud while he was alive, and actually managed to put into mainstream some ecological concerns. Today, all we have left are either ecological loonies or green politicians, none of them I can trust.

Thank you also for your review, I found it quite interesting. I will put a link in my next newsletter on this.

As a long-time admirer of Captain Cousteau, I was puzzled by the way his work faded from the scene (along with the Norfolk, Virginia-based Cousteau Society) after his death.

The revelations in your review shed some surprising light on that. I knew about the bad feeling between Cousteau's second wife and his son Jean-Michel, but not the rest of it.

My respect for the Cousteau legacy remains intact. (You may be interested in reading my review of The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus, where it's expressed more fully. See http://www.chris-winter.com/Erudition/Reviews/JY_Cousteau/Huma_Orchi_Oc… ) I look forward to reading The Sea King for the insights it provides.

A Memorial for Vanishing Species

jjacquet — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:52:45 +0000

A Memorial for Vanishing Species

Maya Lin, the architect behind the Vietnam memorial in Washington D.C. among other endeavors, thought she would not be making any more memorials. But her latest and last memorial focuses on the loss of biodiversity using animal sounds and is called "What is missing?". The interactive project is newly installed at the California Academy of Sciences and is designed to show us what we've lost and what we stand to lose. Listen to her talking about her listening cones as a wake up call for humanity, which will be installed in many science museums around the world, at On Point at NPR. Keep a close ear on minute 8, where Maya Lin uses the term shifting baselines, showing its increasing popularity as a concept (and for the bit that follows on how she gave up sushi grade tuna):

I think scientists call is 'shifting baselines'. I don't think people really understand how rich this land used to be and if we try to prevent it, there's a lot we can do...it's really a wake up call.

jjacquet Mon, 11/02/2009 - 11:52

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Shifting Baselines

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Morton on Arts vs. Science [Guilty Planet]

sb admin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:59:15 +0000

Morton on Arts vs. Science [Guilty Planet]

Oliver Morton wrote a delightful book all about photosynthesis called Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet, which I reviewed earlier this year for Search Magazine (R.I.P.) under the title "A Song for the Heartless". One of my favorite passages in the book beautifully explains the difference between art and science:

Discoveries feel determined. They are there to be made, and if one person doesn't, another will. This doesn't lessen the achievement; indeed it can give it spice. The thought that 'this is the way the world is--and I am the first to see it as such' is an intoxicating one. It is not unique to science- a poet may have the same feeling, or a painter- but the scientist who feels this way has the feeling in full measure, because he knows that it is in the nature of science that what he first sees as a truth will, if he is right, eventually be received as such universally. It will change the way the world is seen by everyone. No artistic insight can make this claim so universally. But the other side of this power is that a truth we accept as truly universal loses the need for an author. It becomes part of the way the world is, regardless of who saw it first, and in time the identity of whoever it may have been who first looked out from that particular peak in Darien is lost.

sb admin Wed, 10/28/2009 - 13:59

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Morton on Arts vs. Science

jjacquet — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:59:15 +0000

Morton on Arts vs. Science

Discoveries feel determined. They are there to be made, and if one person doesn't, another will. This doesn't lessen the achievement; indeed it can give it spice. The thought that 'this is the way the world is--and I am the first to see it as such' is an intoxicating one. It is not unique to science- a poet may have the same feeling, or a painter- but the scientist who feels this way has the feeling in full measure, because he knows that it is in the nature of science that what he first sees as a truth will, if he is right, eventually be received as such universally. It will change the way the world is seen by everyone. No artistic insight can make this claim so universally. But the other side of this power is that a truth we accept as truly universal loses the need for an author. It becomes part of the way the world is, regardless of who saw it first, and in time the identity of whoever it may have been who first looked out from that particular peak in Darien is lost.

jjacquet Wed, 10/28/2009 - 13:59

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I'm reading it at the moment.
Totally agree that science and humanties needs to be closer -- it's what my doctorate is about!

Interesting take on the immortality of the artistic visionary v. the transience of the scientific explorer. I suppose there's something to that, some seed of truth, although only if "everyone" refers to everyone in the scientific community, and not some more general culture. "Relativity", for instance might qualify as a "universally accepted truth", yet relatively few people even grasp yet, although it's been around for centuries, and so it's hardly universally accepted. In contrast, Picasso's cubist realization of relativity will always be his, and in ten thousand years his name might be affixed there...but who will be credited with discovering relativity in the physical Universe? Or will the notion have been discarded in favor of a deeper view?