The Hallmark Election

Dana Milbank has an great column in the Washington Post on Hillary Clinton bringing "the sensibility of Hallmark greeting cards to the 2008 presidential race". It's a brief summary of some of the most trite statements Clinton has made in her recent political career. And that, I think, is part of the problem with modern American politics -- most candidates (not just Hillary) seem to think the voting public is, on average, two years old and capable understanding only the simplest and shortest sound bites. What ever happened to the era of candidates capable of delivering truly great oratory?

Conservapedia - A den of...

Liberals?! That or the editors aren't doing their jobs. As evidence, here's the entirety of the article on the USA PATRIOT Act (as of when this was posted):

The Patriot Act (formally, the `Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001') was an act passed by the Republican congress following the 2001 attacks on World Trade Center. It removed a certain number of liberties from American citizens, including such things as the right of habeas corpus and the requirement for a search warrent, since of course freedom might be used by terrorists against America, and hence freedom is the enemy of security.

Long ago patriots said things like "Give me liberty, or give me death", but today we say "take away my liberties, that's ok, patriotism means security not liberty."

The Patriot Act seems to indicate that safety holds a higher value than liberty, which is a very strong argument in favor of gun control, something that followers of the Patriot Act seem strangely opposed to.

However, there are mistakes; for example, the suspension of habeas corpus is actually part of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, but what else can you expect from a obviously biased liberal source?

Conservapedia - Your source for good, family-friendly entertainment.

On human evolution

Newsweek has an excellent article summarizing our current understanding of human evolution. It details how genetics and "paleoneurology" are helping us understand when and what changes occurred that made us human. If you're looking for a really short summary of the article and what recent evident suggests, here it is:

[The traditional] model [of human evolution] assumes that each biological innovation, whether bipedality or a large brain or any other, evolved only once and stuck.

Instead, evolution played Mr. Potato Head, putting different combinations of features on ancient hominids then letting them vanish until a later species evolved them.

Daily batch of science

Today's theme is all creatures, great and small.

At the molecular level, studies showing that inter-species gene transfer is surprisingly common and that dinosaurs had surprisingly small genomes (along with a commentary in Science).

At the cellular level, nifty facts about deep sea bioluminescence, explanations of how mono-cellular organisms find food, and a report on how a species' size affects cell longevity.

And finally, reports on the biology of narwhals; Mafia-like behavior in cowbirds; rats knowing what they don't know; and how social tolerance among bonobos allow them to perform better at cooperatives tasks than chimpanzees.

A few comments on the state of the world

Three nice editorials from the week just passed:

First, a New York Times must-do list enumerating the "things that need to be done to reverse the unwise and lawless policies of [the Bush administration]". It mainly focuses on calling for changes to the Military Commissions Act, that odious piece of legislation that undermines the American tradition of law and justice. Sadly, I suspect that the Democratic Party still lacks the spine and the political capital to enact any of the changes described in this editorial.

Along the same lines, the LA Times has a piece by Khaled El-Masri, the German citizen mistakenly detained by the U.S., asking why he is being treated as a state secret, even though his case has already been thoroughly discuseed in the press. In asking for a formal apology for his detention, El-Masri asks this pointed question:

Isn't it more likely that showing the world that America cannot give justice to an innocent victim of its anti-terror policies will cause harm to America's image and security around the world?

Finally, on the home front, Ben Stein (of all people) has an editorial in The American Spectator (of all publications) describing the economic inequities in the United States today. It is definitely worth reading all the way through, especially since neither the author nor the magazine can be described as being liberal whiners.

Reality has a liberal bias

Andrew Schlafly was on NPR's All Things Considered talking about Conservapedia today. Most of it was what you would expect, things like Wikipedia is run by liberals and doesn't provide a "balanced" view of the world.

One statement, however, really got to me; in the interview, Schlafly states: "It's impossible for an encyclopedia to be neutral." Statements like this really do scare me; they seem to reflect an unwillingness or even an inability to admit statements of fact are by definition neutral. Kangaroos did not descend from the pair that boarded Noah's ark. That's not bias; that's the truth, and there's really nothing you can do to change that.

Such statements are the greatest expression of a truthiness culture: the world has to be the way we say it is, regardless of what the facts are. Such statements are dangerous; they absolve us of the responsibility to question and think about what we are told. Such statements are, in short, the greatest obstacle to progress.

What is less clear to me is what to do with people who make such statements. Suppressing them, telling them that they cannot speak, is wrong -- as ridiculous as their ideas may be, they have the right to speak. Arguing with them is equally futile -- their beliefs are so ingrained that no amount of fact will be able to change them. I suppose the best we can hope for, then, is to present the truth to everyone else and hope they understand. If anyone else has a better idea, by all means, let me know.

A quick batch of science

From the "Saving us all from impending death" department, reports on the sequencing of 2,000 influenza genomes; understanding why our immune systems overreact to certain infections; and collecting samples from a giant space rock.

From the physics department, Rob Knop asks and answers one of the greatest question in physics: why should inertial and gravitational mass be the same? Slightly less useful, but perhaps more amusing, Coturnix and Chad Orzel report on the physics of cow tipping.

In the area of gender relations, reports that women's work areas are dirtier then men's even though women make better friends. Also, we have a study that correlate anger in women with variations in HTR2C (a serotonin receptor gene) and another that indicate hot tubs lower fertility (regardless of how romantic the situation may be).

Finally, the cool picture from last week: a high-resolution 3-D image of a cell (along with a press release).

The RTNDA enters a new reality

The world was a much better place when only Steve Jobs had a reality distortion field. But no. Now, we have Fox News chairman Roger Ailes winning the "First Amendment Leadership Award" from the Radio and Television News Directors Association, the same group to whom Edward Murrow gave his famous keynote on the future of television news. Then again, I suppose Fox does illustrate the wonders of the First Amendment -- say what you want, reality be damned!

However, if someone from Fox wins the Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in journalism, I'm pretty much going to give up hope for reality based TV journalism.

Daylight savings time

After all the work put into patching our systems for the earlier start of daylight savings time (DST), it turns out that DST may not save energy after all (similar article available from AutoblogGreen). What's more -- DST messes with our circadian rhythms.

Why Conservapedia isn't all that funny

Mike Dunford over at the Questionable Authority has a great article on Conservapedia isn't all that funny. In short, Conservapedia is indicative of the truthiness and denialist mentalities we see more and more of these days. Then again, one really can't help but laugh at (while feeling somewhat sorry for) whack jobs who deny the atmoic nature of matter (AKA "atomism").

Science in the "real world" (part 1): Paying for it

One thing stories about science generally fail to mention is how dirty the business of doing science can get. While the public seems to understand how labor intensive bench work can be, it also seems ignorant of other difficulties scientists encounter on a regular basis -- things like useful information being hidden from you, professional rivalries, or the big one, funding.

In an academic environment at least, securing funding tends to consume a larger portion of an investigator's time than most people would guess. Yes, science does get done while we're producing preliminary results, but preparing a grant means an nearly immeasurable amount of time spent organizing data, tweaking figures, and simply writing and editing.

To some extent, having to put this much work into writing a grant application is understandable. Given their limited budgets, funding agencies can only afford to give money to the best proposals. Still, waiting to hear back about a grant can be a nerve racking experience, especially for new investigators. One person I know has told me she's avoiding academic research due in large part to an aversion to the grant writing process.

What makes the process really frustrating are seemingly bizarre budget priorities. For all its talk about investing in science and technology, the U.S. federal government continues to woefully underfund research agencies. The FY 2008 budget provides $143 billion, less than 1% of U.S. GDP, for all research and development expenditures. Excluding defense R&D expenditures, federal R&D investment is expected to be a little under $60 billion; while that may seem like a lot, this actually represents a cut in R&D spending, especially in terms of real (inflation adjusted) dollars.

These raw numbers hide some of the effects at the individual lab level. For example, although NIH received an increase in its budget, a large fraction of that increase is being dedicated to Roadmap related programs as well as other programs like the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine which frankly shouldn't be funded at all. This leaves less to fund key grants like R01s and forces paylines to move down. The net effect is that otherwise strong proposals simply cannot be funded, leaving good and important science undone. For new investigators, failure to get an R01 could slow, if not scuttle, a career.

I suspect the public isn't more upset by this cut for a number of reasons. First, aside from the occasional DoD program, R&D funding tends not make for good politics; as such, neither politicians nor the media tend to make a fuss when funding levels drop.

Moreover, a lot of science simply isn't sexy. Yes, there are sexy projects like establishing a moon base, but from a scientific standpoint, such projects often have a very poor return on investment. Ironically, these projects are the kinds that grab the public's attention and cause them to demand increases (however minute) in science spending, even though such projects divert money that could be spent on more important things, like finding a killer asteroid.

What about corporate funding? While corporations spend quite a bit on R&D, they tend to be (rightly) focused on making the Next Great Thing (TM) to sell to customers. Relying on corporations to support basic science research is sketchy at best; by and large, corporate executives tend to frown upon dedicating employees and money on high risk projects that have no guaranteed return on investment, especially in the short term (meaning less than five years). As such, we are pretty much dependent on government funding and academic labs for basic science research.

So, what can be done about funding? In short, I think it's a public relations issue: as researchers, we must inform the public about funding shortfalls and screwy budget priorities and ask for their help in demanding change. However, therein lies the problem. As a group, scientists tend to be bad at PR, not matter how interesting the science. Until we learn how to be good at PR, I don't see the funding situation changing anytime soon. But, that's a topic for another post.

[As an aside, The Onion has a hysterical piece on egregious abuses of funding; fortunately, these tends to be rare in the real world.]

Link dump (the first)

Since I've been lazy and haven't posted for a few days, a summary of stuff from the week just passed:

From the pretty picture department, Hubble capturing the demise of a Sun-like star (coming soon -- as in a few billion years -- to a neighborhood near you!) and a galaxy being ripped apart.

From the area of fun science, we have a comparative study on the effectiveness of various tin-foil hat designs; nifty videos of Faraday waves in oobleck (cornstarch and water) and a Rubens tube; notes on the evolution of spice; and instructions for a liquid nitrogen rocket (don't try this at home!)

From the goofy engineering department, an explanation on why Linux tells you that your printer is on fire; cost savings using a $10 wok as a satellite dish; and a report on remote control pigeons -- perfect for implementing RFC 1149 (IP on Avian Carriers) and RFC 2549 (now with QoS!)

And finally, from the department of actual science:

• Brief reports (here, here, and here) on graphene -- A new material that will revolutionize the world, much like GaAs did many years ago (heh, heh, heh)
• A new type of non-reflective surface -- "Shag carpet" finally finds a use. [Originally from Scientific FrontLine]
• Understanding how we detect motion -- Why have two types of neurons when one works just fine?
• Tricking viruses into extinction -- Well, it looked like it was the right type of cell.
• Monkeys defuse tensions with hugs -- Though I doubt that Condi and the Iranian foreign minister are about to hug.
• Size matters, but bigger isn't always better -- At least when it comes to areas of the brain.
• Micro-racks for studying cells -- Since a standard medieval rack is just too damn big.
• Seeing fairness and justice by avoiding moral outrages -- Though this still can't explain Ann Coulter.
• Quantum algorithms for Hamiltonian NAND trees -- Yes, I am just as confused as you are; but, quantum algorithms are cool.

More to come, but I've got to get organized first.

Behold! The mighty Swiss army!

Via the Associated Press, the Swiss invaded Liechtenstein on Thursday; according to the BBC, this is apparently not the first incident (something about setting a forest on fire).

So, while they may make fine watches and chocolate, the Swiss may need to spend some time learning how to use GPS. Then again, how hard could it be to occupy Liechtenstein -- a principality covering 61 square miles with a population of 34,000 and no army?

Wha...?

I'll give the Conservapedia article on the Moon credit for these correct statements: "The Moon orbits the Earth. Unlike most planets, Earth has only one moon..."

From there, however, it goes downhill with gems like these:

The Moon presents the same side to Earth at all times...This has an awesome artistic or design effect without any plausible physical reason.

[snip]

The Moon's surface lacks the abundant iron that permeates the Earth, thereby proving that the Moon did not come from the Earth...There is no plausible non-creation theory of origin for the Moon at this time.

[snip]

Our solar system is one of the few that has only one sun. Only one sun and only one moon: this uniqueness may reflect the existence of only one God.

Right...never mind that synchronous rotation is a feature common to many satellites in the solar system; or that we do have a plausible theory for lunar origins that explains the lack of iron; or that we don't have anything close to a comprehensive catalog of solar systems in the galaxy, let alone the universe (so claiming our "uniqueness" is premature to say the least).

Nope, we'll just ignore science and turn an article about the moon into some bizarre pro-creationist rant. Remember, before trying to answer questions by pulling things out of your ass, check this site first.

Well, at least Conservapedia got a mention in Wired.