Protecting the critics who save us from ourselves

Originally shared by Meg L

A game changer. The European Parliament has adopted a resolution declaring Edward Snowden a "human rights defender," and calls on EU member states to give him legal protection.

https://t.co/aIervMUKNR

Scientific paradigms keep changing, almost by definition

Via Winchell Chung. The short version is here :
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/if-you-think-science-is-the-enemy-you-dont-know-what-science-is

"When Newton said: ‘If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’, he wasn't merely being modest; rather he was emphasising the extent to which science is cumulative, mostly building on past achievements rather than making quantum leaps."

He probably wasn't being modest at all - he was saying it as an insult against a shorter colleague. Just because you're a genius doesn't mean you can't be a jerk as well.

"Caffeine was also bad, a verdict that has been increasingly reversed – but only up to a point. Wine, especially red wine? Bad. Well, actually – good. So long as it’s not overdone. Sugar? First OK, then not. And now, so-so. And don’t get me started on gluten.... Some of these unseated certainties will not be missed, at least not for long: it is relatively straightforward (although not always easy) to keep changing our diets."

Well, not so much. People are creatures of habit. Plus the "paradigms" of nutritionists seem to be changing so rapidly it's hard to see them as paradigms at all. Seems more like a disparate set of ideas that haven't really converged on a consensus yet. At least that's how it feels to me as an outsider. On the other hand, public education is usually many steps behind the forefront of research. I bet you could still find textbooks showing that different parts of the tongue are sensitive to different tastes.

" A mere hint of such anthropomorphism was a kind of third rail in animal behaviour research: touch it and you might not get electrocuted, but you certainly wouldn't get a research grant, or tenure. ...Once denied by science, animal minds are now legitimate subjects of research, under the rubric of ‘cognitive ethology’."

An unfortunately good example of a closed-minded academia. Yes, the paradigm shifted eventually, but really, how hard is it to accept that animals can think ? Answer : not at all, it's bloody obvious. It's not something that requires a billion-dollar space mission and a team of 200 people to answer. You just need a dog and a stick and about five minutes of spare time.
http://aeon.co/magazine/science/why-scientific-paradigms-keep-changing

Spacecraft sterilisation may be a waste of time

“If Earth life cannot thrive on Mars, we don’t need any special cleaning protocol for our spacecraft; and if Earth life actually can survive on Mars, it most likely already does, after four billion years of meteoritic transport and four decades of spacecraft investigations not always following sterilization procedures.”

Originally shared by Universe Today

The recent announcement by NASA confirming the presence of liquid water on Mars pulls planetary protection into the spotlight and is causing some serious head-scratching in the scientific community. On the one hand, having existing liquid water on the Red…
http://www.universetoday.com/123029/the-puzzle-of-planetary-protection/

Waste not, want not

I don't normally care much about food stories, but the scale of the problem demands attention.

"This kind of near-criminal waste of good fresh produce is, unfortunately, very much the norm. Approximately one-third of the food we produce in the UK is never eaten. Take a minute to think about that - millions of tonnes of good food, and all the resources that go into producing it, squandered. Bonkers, isn't it ?"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34647454

Political horseshoes

Originally shared by Lilith Dawn

Just leaving this here....
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheHorseshoeEffect

How to prevent a false consensus

Another long and rambling article I'm afraid. Concision isn't my strong point. There's just something about the idea that scientists are closed-mined that really winds me up the wrong way.

This time I look at the idea that a scientific consensus doesn't mean anything because scientists all want to / have to agree with each other. In astronomy at least, this isn't true. There's an abundance of examples, past and present, of people publishing very non-mainstream ideas in reputable journals. One reason it might appear so is that there is a media obsession with making things exciting. This tends to happen at the slightest provocation without good evidence. It's great for generating enthusiasm, but that turns sour if astronomers have to keep saying, "nope, that's not true" all the time.

There's nothing wrong with being excited, it's just that scientists hate getting excited about things which aren't true.

On the other hand there are some scientific trends which should start warning bells ringing. Astronomy is a competitive subject made of many different small groups each trying to outdo the other. This means there's very little incentive for everyone to agree and lots of incentive to claim new, unexpected discoveries. With projects that requires hundreds of people, this rivalry is by necessity much reduced. We don't need to eliminate huge project groups by any means, but it would be a mistake to rely exclusively on large groups.

There's also a "publish or perish culture" which is potentially more serious. You cannot sensibly evaluate someone's abilities in a multifarious subject like astronomy using only the number of papers they've published. If your ranking as an astronomer depends only on this, there's a strong motivation to publish a lot of mediocre papers rather than a few good ones. Which encourages you to go for small, easy, boring projects.

Finally, the "research grant" funding system. It doesn't exactly encourage a false consensus, but it comes close. Grants typically expect a certain number of publications relating to their given topic. This is hardly a sensible way to encourage original thinking and innovation. The postdoctoral system (which is where most of the research is done) is ever-more reliant on this model of funding, and that's dangerous.

Scientists are prepared to break the law to access papers

"In many countries, it's against the law to download copyrighted material without paying for it - whether it's a music track, a movie, or an academic paper. Published research is protected by the same laws, and access is generally restricted to scientists - or institutions - who subscribe to journals. But some scientists argue that their need to access the latest knowledge justifies flouting the law, and they're using a Twitter hashtag to help pirate scientific papers."

"...Elsevier wouldn't comment on the case, but did give a statement to BBC Trending saying that they recognise that access and publishing options are key for researchers. The company says it provides open access journals, rental options, individual article purchases and other means of disseminating research papers."

They do, but open access is much more expensive for authors than the standard license (>$1000-2000). Individual article purchases are not a sensible alternative : it's rare to read a paper in its entirety, far more often you just need to know one particular measurement or conclusion. It's not expensive per paper but it very quickly adds up since most papers cites >~30 papers each (currently I'm working on one that cites 90, which would come to $2700 at $30 per article EDIT : And that doesn't even begin to count the number of papers I had to look at to determine that they weren't relevant, which at a minimum would double this).


The great thing about astronomy is that we have http://arxiv.org/ which provides free access to pretty much everything these days, regardless of journal license.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-34572462

Chewbacca versus Worf

[This was a poll run by the BBC Focus magazine on Google Plus.]

Who would win in a fight between Chewbacca and Worf? This question has really been troubling us today...

Witness Theresa May shooting herself in the foot

What, you mean like those who think refugees should all be turned away ? Irony, thou name art May.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34568574

A friendly reminder

Found on the internet.