Nota Bene

What glitters in the net today

ddobbs — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:27:11 +0000

What glitters in the net today

I'm 'posed to be writing, really writing (insert argument over what's really writing in comments), but hit so many juicy bits in my morning read today I wanted to share. Here's my eclectic mix for the day:

A great rompy scary post from @susanorlean on how her book bounced around many publishers and editors.

Keith Kloor at Collide-a-scape has a round-up of stories on the "credibility of climate experts" report

"memory performance boosted while walking" Â Beautiful. Perhaps why walking oft solves writing probsï»¿. Â via @mariapage:ï»¿

"Theory Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning" From @kerin at Savage Minds, on anthropologists' uneasy rel w theoryï»¿.

ï»¿At The Economist: Every genome on the planet is now up for grabs, including those that do not yet exist #economist via @revkin

Knight Science Journalism Tracker Â» Blog Archive Â» MedPage Today: Should reporters tell readers when a PIO listens in? I say Yes.

7th-Graders Discover Mysterious Cave on Mars - Yahoo! News Interesting if true. But what were those kidsi doing on Mars?

Newspapers Are Still Dying, But the News Is Not Going Anywhere. This is increasingly obvious but still worth stating.

John Updikeâs Archive - A Great Writer at Work - NYTimes.com I thought this nicely done. But then, I love Updike, despite being conflicted about his complicated misogyny.

My wife loves Gourmet magazine. She thinks the iPad ridiculous.Â Gourmet Magazine Revived for the iPad ï»¿This will be interesting to watch.

ddobbs Wed, 06/23/2010 - 01:27

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Books

Brains and minds

culture of science

Environment/nature

Food and Drink

Genetics & genomics (incl behav genetics)

Journalism & media

Nota Bene

Writing

Scientific excuse for favorite snail jokes

ddobbs — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:48:02 +0000

Scientific excuse for favorite snail jokes

A press release about Snails on methamphetamines works for me. Â The story is about memory.Â The jokes are about snails:

SnailÂ Joke #1

A turtle gets mugged by a gang of snails. Cop is interviewing the turtle afterwards, still at the scene. Turtle still flustered.Â Cop asks, "Just start at the beginning."

"I don't know," says the turtle. "It all happened so fast."

Snail Joke #2

Guy opens his front door and grabs the paper off the porch. There's a snail on it. He gives a flick of the wrist, and the snail sails off the porch into the garden.

Three weeks later there's a knock at the door. Guy answers. It's the snail.

Snail says, "What was that all about?"

ddobbs Fri, 05/28/2010 - 10:48

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What goes "Wheeeee!"?

A snail riding on a turtle.

A Swiss arrives at the hospital with two broken arms. The doctor asks him: "Holy shit, what happened to you?"
"I slipped on a snail."
"Didn't you see it?"
"No, it came from behind."

This was just what I needed today. Excellent.

Riding the Daily Wing (my buddy Bryan's new bird blog)

ddobbs — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:59:58 +0000

Riding the Daily Wing (my buddy Bryan's new bird blog)

I've been following a new birding blog lately, "The Daily Wing," kept by Vermont bird guide, dragonfly follower, and writer Bryan Pfeiffer. It's a nice mix of

â¢ birding how-to, with guidance both basic and intricate, such as his lovely entry on a bird-attraction technique he calls spishing (especially effective in winter):

The woods were otherwise silent. Vacant. But I suspected otherwise. So I stopped and spished.

"Spshsh-spshsh-spshsh-spshsh. Psssp-psssp-psssp-psssp-psssp. Spshsh-spshsh-spshsh-spshsh."

Two white-throated sparrows jumped into view from a tangle of catbrier. Then several more. An eastern towhee belted out a plucky reeEEP! I kept spishing. A northern cardinal emerged and uttered its short, bright peek note. Two hermit thrushes popped onto a white oak branch, flicked their wings and repeated a couple of soft chuck calls.

But the concert was only beginning.

â¢ biology bits:

Birds have light receptors in their brain tissue that trigger hormones which shift their reproductive systems into gear. They don%u2019t necessarily need to see that the days are longer. Their skulls, somewhat translucent, allow sunlight to penetrate. The result is music. And nothing says %u201CI want you%u201D like bird song.

â¢ and now, as he heads west across the country, a birding travellog

Onward, westward. As the waves of geese dissipate behind yet more miles of I-80, I begin to notice the rolling trumpet calls, the reaching necks and dangling feet, the dorky elegance of Sandhill Cranes. They are everywhere, rising in great waves from the Platte River, loitering in stubbly corn fields, drifting like thousands of kites over the Plains. Each March these lanky birds carry on one of the great events in all of North American birdwatching, stopping here to fuel up for the journey north or even to nest not that far away, a half million reasons to have faith that spring is indeed approaching..

Bryan (who is an old friend, and whose office I'm borrowing while he's away) is in Golden, Colorado, now, and will be heading down through the Rockies toward the Grand Canyon, where he'll disappear for a couple weeks next month. Along the way he'll track birds and, I suspect, bugs of all sorts, especially dragonflies, on which he's going to write a book. He's an excellent guide, an extraordinary photographer, and (like all great guides and good friends) first-rate company. A highly recommended follow on either web or twitter.

ddobbs Mon, 03/15/2010 - 04:59

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Satisfaction

ddobbs — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:50:25 +0000

Satisfaction

Never thought I'd run an ad on my blog. But this is just so ... satisfying. And quite pretty. My favorite part is when the dog's feet leave the ground.

h/t @taylordobbs

ddobbs Fri, 03/12/2010 - 04:50

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I laughed SO HARD when I first saw this-- Just picturing my dog in super slow-mo... eyes all googly when he sees the treat, treat bonking him in the nose as he misses catching it in his mouth, googly eyes following treat as it flies away, frantically chasing after treat... I must do this!

Huh. I wonder if sight hounds or retrievers do better than other breeds--how effective have breeding/domestication programs been?

My own dogs, a Pyr and a Newf, have virtually no eye/mouth coordination and low prey drive. They can catch dead chipmunks, but that's about it.

Eureka! Neuron Culture goes Sally Field

ddobbs — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:15:35 +0000

Eureka! Neuron Culture goes Sally Field

I was thrilled this morning to learn that this humble, erratic blog was named one of Top 30 Science Blogs by Eureka, the new monthly science magazine recently launched by the Times of London. I find myself among some most admirable company, including giants, longtime favorites of my own, and a few blogs new-to-me-but-presumably-really-good-anyway.

Given my history of ambivalence about blogging, my sporadic rhythm, my not-best-practice of ranging far and wide, and my generally low traffic, I find this recognition a surprise, but a happy one. I feel a bit like I've been upgraded (possible in this one context) from Sean Penn to Sally Field.

It's also gratifying in two other ways. As I make most of my living writing for print, I find it heartening as well to get this recognition from a wonder of wonders -- a print monthly that just launched, despite much noise about (and evidence for) the demise of serious print journalism. That it comes from the UK, where I'll likely be moving later this year to work on my new book for a while, makes it that much sweeter.

So thanks, Eureka, and thanks especially to regular readers -- and welcome to new ones.

ddobbs Wed, 02/03/2010 - 03:15

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Congrats, David! The honor is well deserved.

Dan

Many congrats, you deserve it! From "toleration" to "like" -- do you really feel that way? You are much too hard on yourself.

Congrats! I saw the list this morning and was happy to see you on it. Well deserved.

Hi-five.

Mark Henderson at the Times is a good chap and he fully gets that the supposed fall of specialist science reporting doesn't mean that the public appetite for science is decreasing. He's pushed the Times to start filling the void.

Thanks, all!

hi.thank you for this post..
it's really search but i found that..

Dave - Great News... good a reason as any to keep the science flowing to pedestrians such as myself! - John

David, Great job and congrats. Sally Field is still around? Are You kidding me...

Mazel Tov.

And deserved.

Where in England will you base yourself? The metrop., or one of the university cities?

That Sally Fields is something else. I have always liked her.

I love sally Fields and everything about her... Thanks

Coming sort of soon to a bookstore near you: "The Orchid and the Dandelion"

ddobbs — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:33:40 +0000

Coming sort of soon to a bookstore near you: "The Orchid and the Dandelion"

I'm happy to announce that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, publisher of many a fine book over the decades, will be publishing "The Orchid and the Dandelion" (working title), in which I'll explore further the emerging "orchid-dandelion hypothesis" I wrote about in my recent Atlantic story. (In brief, that hypothesis -- a simple but deeply transformative amendment of current views -- hoids that many 'risk genes' for behavior and mental problems magnify not just maladaptive responses to bad environments but advantageous responses to good environments. That is, these "risk genes" confer not just vulnerability, but greater responsiveness, sometimes to bad effect, sometimes to good.)

I'll be working with editor Amanda Cook, whom I met at the sensible urging of my compadre Jonah Lehrer. No publication date yet set, and I'm not crazy enough to promise one here. It will, of course, take some time. But if the Atlantic story left you wanting to read more about this hypothesis, and about how genetics and environment constantly interact to create everything from murder and madness to benevolence and high art, ye shall be satsified -- soon as I get a bit of work done. Okay, a lot of work. (I'm on it. Don't rush me.)

Meanwhile, I'll use ~~Orchid~~ Neuron Culture to share ruminations on research and reading; published studies old and new that relate to the bidirectional sensitivity emphasized by the hypothesis; outtakes, sidetracks, etc -- in short, a parallel but non-duplicative exploration of this emerging hypothesis, its study, and its implications.

I'll start here and now, with a dip into the many responses I got to the article. I've never before received so robust or various a response to an article. The many emails, conversations, blog posts, and tweets confirmed what I sensed when I first encountered this idea at a conference this past March: It recasts much of one's thinking about human behavior and evolution. I've heard from psychologists, psychiatrists, and pediatricians; parents, of course; quite a few teachers; lactation consultants; geneticists and endocrinologists and neurologists; and plenty of people who say the piece changed the way they think about themselves, their kids, their siblings' kids, friends, lovers, spouses, strangers, depression, happiness -- you name it. (I'm still answering some of these emails, and will answer all; forgive me if I've not yet got back to yours.) There are, as someone put it, a lot of payloads in this idea -- implications in all sorts of realms.

Some of the more notable responses I got regardedd parenting. One reader articulated particularly well some of the implications for raising kids:

I recognized my kids in this article. My oldest, in particular, was difficult practically from birth. I think I spent the fist 6 years of his life fending off suggestions from a wide variety of people that there was something wrong with him. "Stubborn is just the other side of determined and overly emotional is just an undisciplined way of being passionate," I used to say. My philosophy was that my job is to help my kids be who they are (highly emotional, active, stubborn, neurotic, etc) in a way which will work for them in this world we're living in. My two boys are now 14 and 10 and are actually doing quite well. My 14 year old in particular is shockingly mature for a boy his age. He's still working some things out, but I do believe that in a few years when it's time for him to really go out into the world, he's going to be an amazing person. I also believe that he would have been completely destroyed in an environment with parents who were less able to really work intensively with him to turn his less desirable traits into positives. But, I have to say that raising orchids is HARD work. I wouldn't really want to go back and start over for much of anything.

She was one of several emailers and bloggers to note that this orchid hypothesis, while a significant, even fundamental amendment to a major tenet of today's behavioral science, in some ways simply confirms dynamics and truths we already recognize. It squares main strands of modern science (biological psychiatry, behavioral genetics) with a more intuitive sense of behavior, firming up the boundaries of each. This makes the science feel more accurate, useful, and complete. And it provides a harder explanation of behavior that can otherwise seem out of character.

To take a trivial but stark example, consider my 5-year-old daughter. (I won't do this too often.) She's a bit like the girl with the curl in her forehead. She engages the world with a tremendous energy that is, the vast majority of the time, delightful to be exposed to -- lots of light, laughter, movement, imagination, and chatter -- organized, purposeful, and ardent. It's usually wonderful to be around. Yet the blue sky can fast fill with twisters. After starting the day by kissing everyone, chatting amiably at breakfast, and cheerfully clearing her plate and brushing her teeth, she can, without warning, melt down completely, loudly, and apparently irretrievably because -- lo! no! disaster! -- the tops of her socks do not fit smoothly over the bottoms of her leggings. No words will assuage, no clothes will do. The front hall grows is loud and crowded, the day dark, and the walk to school, if it ever happens, a grim prospect.

Right about then it's easy to wonder what on earth is wrong with this child? This is just insane behavior. How can someone so delightful be so horrid. Maddening. Something's amiss.

She's only five, of course, and we should expect such things. But .... well, you try it.

Yet I find found this orchid idea makes this situation -- seemingly impossible, inexplicable, endless -- easier to deal with. It suddenly makes sense. She hasn't become unhinged; she's just being irritated with the same energy with which she's usually cheerful. It'll pass. And it'll pass faster if I treat it as not, certainly, something to be approved of or indulged, but as something to be expected now and then, and accepted not as "acceptable behavior" but as part of the spectrum into which this girl throws her light.

This is not the same as saying, "Oh well, that's X being X.," and indulging such behavior. It just means staying calm and reasonable (which is, after all, where I want her to end up) and looking for hints of the path I know that she'll take eventually -- the one back to cheerfulness -- and giving her a nudge down it. The main and most important variable a parent can control in these situations, it seems to me, is how calm the parent stays. Things go better, end faster, and leave less sense of a day or an hour ruined, in proportion to the parent's ability to stay calm. And the meltdowns pass as bumps -- something everyone understands the child will grow out of -- rather than painful memories.

I want to note too that recognizing this sensitivity doesn't necessarily mean parents need to be super-parents. "Oh great, environment is crucial!" one friend said to me after she read the article. "More pressure on the parent." Well, sort of. As the above-mentioned mother of the passionated, determined 14-year-old notes, parenting a highly sensitive or reactive kid can be taxing. But that doesn't mean the parents must be be perfect. Many of the studies show that you don't need an extraordinary environment to transform an orchid gene from a\ vulnerability into a shield -- to produce more resistance to depression, for instance, in a kid who carries the S/S SERT allele. Those studies show that simply not having major, intense, or repeated large stressors or traumas gets you to the upside. The parents don't necessarily have to be super-parents; in most cases they just have to be fair to good. As privileofparenting put it in a thoughtful response to the article,

Kids with sensitive genes are easier to mess up because they are highly sensitive to virtually all experiences. As parents, however, we don't need to be brilliant to parent brilliant kids well--we need to be calm, loving, attuned and engaged.

More later.

Meantime, you can read the article here or, if you're more a radio-listener type, listen to my 20-minute visit with WNYC's Brian Lehrer and his visitors here:

*Houghton Mifflin IHarcourt press release Publisher's Marketplace, behind paywall.

ddobbs Mon, 12/07/2009 - 03:33

Tags

Brains and minds

culture of science

evolution

Genetics & genomics (incl behav genetics)

Nota Bene

Reading

behavioral genetics

differential susceptibility

genetic vulnerability

Congratulations! That is wonderful news. :)

First: Wonderful news, and after reading that article I eagerly await the book.
Second: The image at the top of this post is completely gorgeous.

Yes, congrats ++ I agree with the comment about the image. I've been sharing the "Orchid Hypothesis" ever since I encountered it. I think we could say the same thing about 'learning' that you are describing with 'sensitive genes' - learning can be very positively adaptive and/or it can be darkly maladaptive. My work is about what I call 'stewarding the HEALTH of our children's learning' and your work resonates well with its key points. I will be watching and learning as you continue to unfold this work... again congrats on getting a publisher!

w00t! Can't wait!

First, congratulations! I loved your article, and can't wait for the book. I was wondering if you were going to touch on learning disabilities in your book. In my experience, many learning disabilities may mean a kid has difficulty fitting in with the mainstream school model, but it also means a different way of thinking that can be a huge asset in the right conditions.

Congratulations, I'm looking forward to your new book.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. ec313, I can't say yet whether I'll get into learning disabilities in the book -- though I suspect it's not likely to receive a lot of attention or be a main focus, as it's a sort of spectrum that doesn't seem to line up well with the behavioral/mood/temperamental issues that are closer to the book's heart. Though, as you note, some learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, appear to be cognitive styles, if you will, that can have upsides depending on upbringing and context, just as the different temperaments discussed in the article can.

Hello Mr. Dobbs. I thoroughly enjoyed your article in the Atlantic and look forward to the book. I have shared your article through my website here: http://www.theinductive.com/blog/2009/12/8/orchids-and-dandelions.html

I want to thank you for reporting this news. I grew up during the nineties, when the idea of giving children medication for behavioral problems started to go mainstream. I have many friends who suffered through school only to realize that their callings were not academic. I have long felt that giving children behavior-modifying medications during their formative years will someday be seen in the same light as lobotomies and electric-shock therapy.

Undoubtedly, seeing children who think and behave differently as orchids instead of problems for teachers is a step in the right direction. It is both moral, and, thanks to the recent research which you reported, scientific.

Congrats! I was just commenting on another blog of yours urging you to consider writing a book about this. I'm looking forward to reading it in the (hopefully) near, but not-too-near (you've got to spend time with the kids, right?), future.

I'm looking forward to your new book.Thanks a lot.

Awesome news. I'll be preordering...

I love the idea of a book. Thank you. I just want to add that I think that in the book 'raising your spirited child' shows how every difficult trait has a positive side and it is worth a read and meshes well with the theory.
I also wonder if any neuroscientific research is going on regarding Sensory Processing Disorder and the genetic underpinnings. Because a lot of this externalizing behviours is now being labeled sensory issues (i think it is the new fad after ADD is falling out of style).
And the orchid metephor actually goes quite well with a child who has sensory issues (temperature, light/dark, amount of water etc.. it almost makes me laugh).

Congratulations, I'm looking forward to your new book.

Congratulations! That is wonderful, thanks

I was wondering if you were going to touch on learning disabilities in your book.

I love the idea of a book. Thank you.

Congrats! I was just commenting on another blog of yours urging you to consider writing a book about this. I'm looking forward to reading it in the (hopefully)

Tebrikler! Sadece bu konuda bir kitap yazmayÄ± dÃ¼ÅÃ¼nÃ¼n sizi Ã§aÄÄ±ran senin baÅka bir blog hakkÄ±nda yorum oldu. Gelecekte, (saÄa, Ã§ocuklarla vakit geÃ§irmek iÃ§in var?) (UmarÄ±m)

n the one island, how does the east shore compare to the west? Is this phenomenon observed only in this area due to the proximity of a popular hawk nesting site?

And what about during mating season? The researchers tested playback on clusters of females and juveniles, reportedly the hawks' coveted target. During mating season, though, male A. cristatus turn bright red. This makes them more visible on the rock face; I wonder if it makes them more attractive targets too. Does it alter the hawks' feeding preferences? Does it change the listening dynamics among the iggies???

about during mating season? The researchers tested playback on clusters of females and juveniles, reportedly the hawks' coveted target. During mating season, though, male A. cristatus turn bright red. This makes them more visible on the rock face; I wonder if it makes them more attractive targets too. Does it alter the hawks' feeding preferences? Does it change the listening ..

Charlie Houston, mountaineer, doctor, scientist, ends a great life at 96

ddobbs — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 05:20:15 +0000

Charlie Houston, mountaineer, doctor, scientist, ends a great life at 96

Charlie Houston, right, in 1936 with Pasang Kikuli (center) and British climbing legend Bill Tilman

I used to do a bit of climbing and a lot of climbing reading -- a deep and rich literature.

If you read much about American climbing history, you'll read about Charlie Houston, who made one of the most dramatic and tragic attempts at K2 in 1953, pioneered the modern study of high-altitude physiology, practiced and taught medicine for decades, and at one point ran the Peace Corp. Amazing man. He was one of many physicians and scientists who have loved climbing and made huge contributions in their day jobs as well. I once interviewed Houston for a story I did about his buddy Bradford Washburn, another climbing great who did great cartography, superb photography, and developed the Boston Museum of Science from a little house to one of the country's greatest science museums. In his late 70s when I interviewed him, Houston was still razor sharp and a pleasure to talk to. (And Washburn, climbing the stairs 3 flights to his office in the science museum, was hard to keep up with.)

Charlie died last week (other obits here, here, and here) at his home in Burlington, Vermont, a few miles up the road here. Bill Moyers' remembrance (you have to go to the site, as I couldn't find an embed code) includes some footage from, and the tale of, the he and some friends made on K2 in 1953, a tragic attempt that led him, in the superb chronicle he later published, to label K2 'the savage mountain."

It's a moving clip. Moyers has Houston describe the horrid outcome of the 1953 expedition, and his decision to stop climbing then so he could live to enjoy his family and do his medical practice and teaching in Burlington. He walked away from it cold, and went on to live a rich, fulfilling life. He and Moyers talk about something else for a bit. And then Moyers returns to the climb, "I know you did so much else, but I want want to return to that K2 climb again...," says Moyer. And Houston says, "The best thing I ever did."

A fuller account of the accident, is shown in the film Houston made about the 1953 expedition, "Brotherhood of the Rope," which occupies the bulk of this clip from a talk Houston recently gave at the local library in UVM. The film starts at 15:30, after some biographical talk from Houston. This too ends quite movingly, with an emotional reunion between the climbers and the sherpas when the climbers finally descend to the safety of base camp.

ddobbs Sun, 10/11/2009 - 01:20

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Miniatur Wunderland -- Your ultimate toy train village, inc 'houses of bad reputation'

ddobbs — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:06:05 +0000

Miniatur Wunderland -- Your ultimate toy train village, inc 'houses of bad reputation'

Maybe best argument yet for expanding the US rail system. I need to go here:

ddobbs Sun, 09/27/2009 - 16:06

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Art

Nota Bene

Astonishing!

I'd like to take a walk/Not around the block

ddobbs — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:06:39 +0000

I'd like to take a walk/Not around the block

Hubbard Park, Montpelier, VT, 9/21/09. Via Neil Young

Posted via email from David Dobbs's Somatic Marker

ddobbs Mon, 09/21/2009 - 09:06

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Nota Bene

Watchdogs, sniff this: What investigative science journalism can investigate

ddobbs — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:16:23 +0000

Watchdogs, sniff this: What investigative science journalism can investigate

Ed Yong, echoed by Mike the Mad biologist PhysioProf asks what the heck investigative science journalism would look like. I hope to write more extensively on this soon. In the meantime, a few observations:

To ponder this question -- and to do investigative reporting -- I think it helps to have a sense of the history of science, which embeds in a writer or observer a sense of critical distance and an eye for large forces at work beneath the surface. Machinations in government surprise no one who has studied the history of government and politics. Likewise with science.

Science -- the search for empircal answers to important, testable questions -- is an extremely worthy endeavor. But that endeavor is always in danger of being compromised by both the inevitable conflicting interests that every scientist has (which range from pride, allegiance to ideas, ambition, money on or under the table) and by broad cultural forces that frame both the questions asked and the reading of the evidence the asking generates. As in politics, these human and cultural forces often push even the most well-intentioned efforts off track -- and the unprincipled into big trouble. Find an example, judiciously dig, lucidly write, and -- if you're lucky -- publish, and you've got investigative science journalism.

To see what such looks like when applied, consider my own article and blog posts on the PTSD Wars, Philip Dawdy's tireless watchdogging of the pharma industry; or, if you've a taste for longer work, Horace Freeland Judson's "The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science." (Judson's book is really history, but brings the peel-the-onion spirit of investigative journalism to bear, and draws on many good examples of investigative journalism as well.) Other examples an approaches out there; these just leap readily to mind.

I find it odd that these or other examples, particularly in coverage of pharma by the several bloggers and reporters who do that well, didn't spring immediately to the minds of people pondering what investigative science journalism looked like. The discussions at Ed's and other blogs on this tended to focus on how to do investigative reporting of discoveries or results. Discoveries are the tip. Sometimes the ice beneath is good. Sometimes it's rotten -- or the whole thing is just styrofoam, patched together or even elaborately faked to buttress up an unsupported argument.

That said, I don't see why a given writer can't be both watchdog and, if not "cheerleader," then a judicious but enthusiastic explainer. Why shouldn't good science be admired? No reason you can't do that -- while calling bullshit when you see things done otherwise.

Finally, it strikes me -- a beta observation, as I've not scanned the entire blogosphere for this, and may be suffering a selection bias -- that the science blogosphere could improve its watchdog function by giving as much attention to deep-running stories about problems in science as it presently does to problems in science reporting. I'm not suggesting we let lousy science reporting slide; we need watchdogs on science reporting. But I fear that as a group we sci bloggers (if I can be considered a marginal member of the club) suffer from some of the navel-gazing tendency that infects the broader press, which often writes about itself and its own problems while ignoring bigger, more important things going on elsewhere.

My own sci-blogger newsfeeds lately (again: possible selection bias at work) have been filled with posts about science journalism and posts about lousy framing of science, but not so much with posts about deeper running issues. (Admittedly, often the two cross, as with the reporting and meta-reporting on the genetics of schizophrenia.) But it troubles me that we seem to be giving more attention to hand-wringing about our own reporting quandaries than to, say, the present flap over the DSM-V debacle, the country's preparations (or lack thereof) for the likely return of the swine flu this fall, the VA's disastrous approach to PTSD, or the warped evidence being used in the health-care debate. Here are stories where science meets culture, with much in the balance; and while they're getting some good attention by policy wonks, it seems to me they're going underexamined by the science blogopshere.

ddobbs Wed, 07/08/2009 - 05:16