On the spot

The Science Museum of Minnesota has a regular feature where they pick some local scientist and put them on the spot to answer questions — it’s like the dunk tank at the carnival, I think, where someone becomes the target and everyone else gets the fun of flinging things at him. This time, it’s my turn. Serious and sincere questions about biology only, please. Kids especially welcome. Trolls will meet an ignominious fate.

My colleague, Van Gooch, preceded me in this exercise. You can read his section to get an idea about what kinds of questions are appropriate…and you can also learn something about circadian rhythms!

We consider ourselves atheists and scientists, of course

Have you ever gotten sucked into one of those endless “Teach the controversy!” or “You’re afraid to look at both sides” kinds of arguments? You know, the ones people backing the most ridiculous positions always make? I need to make a copy of this cartoon to carry with me. It’s a point I’ve often tried to make.

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Unfortunately, the kinds of people who advance those arguments are exactly the kinds of people who won’t be able to get it.

I’m never going to get to go to parties anymore, am I?

There is no one simple evolution story

I’ve never liked this stereotypical portrayal of evolution.

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It implies that evolution is linear, that it is going somewhere, and of course, that it is all about people — all the wrong messages. Yet it is ubiquitous, and probably the most common rendering you’ll find anywhere. Try googling for images of evolution, and you will turn it up, or variants on it, or jokes built on it…it’s a bit annoying and trite.

(Although, when I googled to find that image — which was easy — I also found this one.

Very nice. I like it.)

This is actually a problem. When we’re trying to get the message of the science of evolution across to people, one thing that helps is having a story — people respond well to narratives. The canonical image definitely tells a story, which is probably why it caught the public imagination so well, but the problem is that it is the wrong story.

Evolution should not be portrayed as an epic tale with a beginning and an end, with a narrative drive to a conclusion, with a single hero or even any heroes at all. Trying to shoehorn it into a simple linear story destroys the meaning. Does this mean our efforts to catch the attention of a fickle public are doomed, because science does not fit the story-telling conventions that best fit the human mind?

Not necessarily. Here’s an interesting analogy, a comparison of the evolution story to a dramatic convention that the public does eat up happily: evolution is like a soap opera. I can see it.

Both have lots of characters and story lines, every one full of anguish and drama, some ending happily (for a while), others ending miserably; individuals come and go, they get their brief period in the spotlight, then poof, everything moves on to the next big new event. There is no one grand goal for the ensemble, just a series of overlapping dramas, some ridiculous, some mundane, and the vehicle to tie them all together is usually something commonplace — a town or a hospital, for instance — and stories can abandon that unifying premise freely. And it never ends!

Days of our Lives has been on the air since 1965. Dozens, probably hundreds, of characters have come and gone. There have been murders, affairs, rapes, and (for all I know) alien abductions. The show isn’t going anywhere. And yet as any soap-opera fan will tell you, their favorite soap has had dozens and dozens of riveting, heart-breaking stories over the years, that make the series so gratifying and rewarding in the long run.

And that’s exactly the deal with evolution. It isn’t going anywhere, and yet it’s going to keep on going and going and going for as long as there’s planet to go on, and even after that it’ll probably be going on someplace else.

Cool. And yet, somehow, all that chaos and confusion and complexity and strangely unresolvable big picture manages to engross viewers day after day after day, in the case of the soaps. There’s a lesson there that we need to figure out: how can we map the science of evolution onto the imaginations of human beings?

Café Scientifique this week, and next week

The Minneapolis Café Scientifique is taking place tomorrow evening: and it’s all about spiders in love. I want to go, but I’m still digging out from under my accumulated work.

I will be at the Café next week, here in Morris — I’m giving half of it, and Lynn Fellman will be giving the other half. We’ll be talking about genetics and genealogy, and reconstructing deep ancestry from your genes. Should be fun! Come to one or the other!

Take a survey, win a bag

Help the National Academies out:

What topics in science, engineering, and medicine matter most to you? The National Academies are interested in developing useful and engaging print and web-based educational materials on the topics that you’d like to learn more about. They invite you to participate in a brief survey. You can find that survey here.

In the 2-minute survey you’ll be presented with a list of topics and asked to select the five that matter most to you. At the end, you can see how your answers compare with the results so far. And you can enter a drawing to receive a National Academies tote bag!

Let the National Academies know what topics you think they should focus on so they can be sure to provide you with materials that are informative and useful. Your participation is greatly appreciated.

Oxygen has eyelashes!

It’s cute: this exercise in molecular visualization has been all dolled up with anthropomorphized atoms to sneak it into kids’ attention spans.

I can’t be entirely dismissive, though. There’s some cool stuff lurking in the backgrounds of these scenes, it’s just unfortunate that the goofy cartoon stuff is always being placed front and center.

I am kind of hoping that the creationists, with all their talk of cars and buses and traffic lights in the cell, steal this video. I can almost imagine Michael Behe exclaiming that the sophisticated facial expressions of atoms are evidence of intent and design.

Getting the roles of blogs and journals straight

It isn’t at all unusual for the authors of scientific papers to leave a comment at a blog discussing their work — it’s happened here quite a few times, and it’s a good thing. It’s a plus when they confirm what you’ve said or add more information to the discussion, and it’s also wonderful when they correct you on errors. I think most scientists are getting the idea that blogs are tools to help disseminate scientific ideas to a wider audience than the science journals can. They certainly don’t replace the journals, but add a way to inject the results into the public sphere, where they can be part of a popular conversation.

Sometimes you do find scientists who don’t quite get it. Dr Isis wrote a critique of a paper in the NEJM that reported a correlation between the change to daylight savings time and heart attacks; she thought the data was interesting, but the interpretations were sloppy. She pointed out some observations that were glossed over, suggested that some specific interpretations were a bit off, and listed some other articles on similar topics.

The authors took exception to the criticisms and left a comment. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the kind of informative comment, pro or con, that advances an argument — it was more of a condescending dismissal that ignored her comments and suggested that she needed to learn some basic epidemiology. And then there was this bit:

There can be many other explanations and pathways not written here (again we had a strict limit). The reviewers and editors agreed to our interpretation as probably the most likely one. So were experts in this field all over the world who commented our study so far. We would actually encourage you to write a comment to NEJM. NEJM is well known for its devotion for scientific debates on recently published papers. That would be a normal way to debate and discuss scientific findings. We would also have a possibility to answer on an “equal ground”.

The first part is a particularly annoying misconception. Peer review is only a first, preliminary hurdle for a paper to cross; passing peer review and getting published does not mean that your work is right. Some incredibly awful papers get through the review process, somehow. Getting published only means that now your paper is going to be opened up to wider criticism. Don’t take the attitude that publication means vindication; I know reviewers, and I’ve reviewed papers, and I know that reviewers are sometimes lazy, sometimes susceptible to croneyism, and always overworked, and that publication doesn’t mean you are right.

The last part shows that the authors have the wrong idea about blogs. A blog post is different from a letter to NEJM; it can reach a much wider audience, for one thing, and uses a little more stylistic variety than dry academic writing to appeal to a larger group (Dr Isis is definitely guilty of that — she uses humor, which is often sadly lacking in medical journals). I get the impression that the authors would prefer criticisms be made in the journal, not because it would directly target the best people able to understand the argument, but because it would limit the number of people who would see the disagreement.

The attitude that this is the “normal” way to discuss science is also aggravating. It is a restrictive view that contributes to the popular conception of scientists as aloof and unengaged with the culture, and it’s not true. We need to change the idea of normal so that talking about science over breakfast is normal, that having a conversation about science around the watercooler at work is normal, that guys at the bar get into arguments over science instead of football (sometimes) is normal. Change normal!

And finally, a blog is equal ground. The authors could have easily thrown in a few observations and explanations that supported their position, rather than treating Dr Isis like some ignorant nobody they could swat away by telling her to take a course in epidemiology. Explain your answers as you would to an undergrad or bright high school student. If you can’t, it implies that you aren’t looking for an equal opportunity, you are looking for a way to avoid probing questions.

(via DrugMonkey)

Cafe Scientifique tonight!

Tuesdays are not relaxing days for me; this is the day of the week when I sink into long class sessions for hours at a time. Somehow, I also decided that the last Tuesday of every month was also going to be the day for Cafe Scientifique, which I host here in town, and which I’m also giving today.

So come on out to the Common Cup Coffeehouse on Atlantic Avenue in Morris tonight, at 6:30pm, and watch a tired PZ give a talk. Don’t worry, though — I’m going to present a little travelogue on my cruise to the Galápagos Islands, with a little science sneakily snuck in here and there, which is going to be fun…so I’ll perk right up. I’ll just crash right after the talk.