Math Music Needs Some Love

To finish out the year, I offer a music video.  Typically I’ve focused on science-related music, in part because of the They Might Be Giants album Here Comes Science and the latest work of rap artist Baba Brinkman.  But I intend no slight against math.  This calculus ditty is worth a view (H/T standupmaths and JenLucPiquant).  I think Queen would approve (Dr. Brian May would certainly approve).

And never forget to add that constant C.

Happy 2011 everyone.  Traffic this month was nearly double the biggest month to date, so the bar has been raised tremendously.  I’ll try and keep up.

Rap Guide to Evolution DVD Needs Your Help

I wrote about this project last month – an effort to augment Baba Brinkman‘s forthcoming Rap Guide to Evolution DVD with excellent graphics, animation and other visuals.  With roughly three weeks left, the momentum has stalled with about 2400 pounds to go.  I’ve chipped in, and I hope you will too.

Consult my previous post or the Crowdfunder link for the specifics.  It’s worth noting that Brinkman makes much of his music available online for free/pay-what-you-want, so if you think 30 pounds is a bit much for getting a DVD, you’re really supporting much more than that.  Think of it as paying for an excellent box set or deluxe edition that will also be available to educate kids on biology, psychology and evolution in a very engaging fashion.

If you know of a science festival looking for entertainment, Brinkman will perform there (depending on availability) for a thousand pounds plus travel.  US Science and Engineering Festival, I’m looking at you if there’s a 2011 festival in the works.

Some video persuasion after the jump:

The Main Problem For Science Advocates is Priority, Not Party

Part of the reason I think the partisan meme of the ‘war on science’ is a bad idea is that it could lead some to infer that the least war-like party is very committed to supporting science – at least to the extent that science advocates (including champions of the partisan meme) would like.

However, I think the more important struggle, a perpetual struggle, is over the priority placed on supporting science and technology.  Regardless of the parties in power (be it in Congress or in the White House), the challenge is not getting the science supporters in one party to reach critical mass.  It’s getting enough supporters, regardless of party, to pay attention to the issues we think are important.

ScienceInsider notes the latest evidence supporting this idea in a recent statement from President Obama noting the accomplishments during the ‘lame-duck’ session of Congress.  The passage of the America COMPETES reauthorization bill did not receive much attention from the White House, the President, or much of the non-science and technology press.

The slightly larger press notice that accompanied the passage of the original COMPETES legislation was followed by a failure to follow through in appropriations, so the concerns expressed by those disappointed in the minimal notice this time haven’t exactly changed in the nearly three years since.  And it’s the fight for priority that deserves the attention, not poking a bear with a stick.

An Added Bonus of School Children Getting Published: Readable Papers

I Tweeted about this last week, where a group of 8-10 year old school children had their research on bumblebees published in Biology Letters, a peer-reviewed journal.  Bully for them.  Their experiments determined that bumblebees could be trained to recognize colors and patterns to assist in their foraging.

I did take a look through the journal article, thanks to a nudge from WIRED Science, and noticed something else worth passing on – the article’s pretty readable.  The scientists who guided the students made an effort to put the article in the students’ own voices as much as practical, to the point of not including references to earlier literature (since the kids wouldn’t have read them to begin with).

As a result, I think it would be tough to find anyone who couldn’t read the article and understand what the students did and the impact of the research.  From a policy perspective that would make it easier to make the case to the public of the value of the research, and researchers and policymakers examining useful research outside of their field(s) would have an easier time with digesting the material.  All that and a decent impact factor (3.521 for 2009, 14th in Biology).

Realistically, if this were to be done, it would be much easier for the researchers who developed the original paper to write it in this style.  However, if enough of the underlying data and methods were made available at the time of publication, others could take a crack at writing a paper more suitable to public consumption.  How they would be rewarded is an excellent question, one for which I lack a decent answer.  As the WIRED Science article indicates, there were challenges in getting the project funded and the article published.  (To that end, one of the leaders for the project runs a similar program called Street Science that is worth supporting.)  I’ll close by relating a definition of science taken from the paper:

“This is science: the process of playing with rules that enables one to reveal previously unseen patterns of relationships that extend our collective understanding of nature and human nature.”

There’s nothing that says the sense of play must be lost on the way to a research job.  It can even help justify your funding.

Science and Technology Guests on Late Night, Week of December 27

Every show that graces these posts is either in repeats or pre-empted this week.  However, if you missed it the first time, the appearance of Susan Casey, author of The Wave, on Conan, will re-air on Thursday, the 30th.  MythBusters will be on a lot this week, perhaps as compensation.  Blocks of episodes run today and Wednesday, with a full-blown marathon on Saturday to ring in 2011.  Check those local listings.

Lies and Science Writing

Lawrence Krauss has an interesting, if not necessarily novel, take on science writing in a recent edition of The Wall Street Journal (H/T Arts and Letters Daily).  Titled “The Lies of Science Writing,” the framing is provocative perhaps just to get your attention.  The article is perhaps more accurately titled “The Inexact Metaphors of Science Writing” as the argument is that when someone tries to write about science without using the equations and mathematics underlying research results, they miss some details.  Certain analogies and metaphors are better than others, and what is missed by some of them can lead to unfortunate and inaccurate assumptions.

Putting aside the likelihood that Krauss has committed the very sin he is trying to describe (he goes so far as to say ‘I don’t mean lie in the sense of intentionally misleading people’) the article reminds me of the difference of public (at least non-science trained or non-science-inclined members of the public) perception compared to those of scientists or science writers.  We may not see the lie (or misdescription) that Krauss points to, but the public might.

That’s part of the reason why the appearance of conflicts of interest, or the appearance of abuses of science, can be as much of a problem as the actual conflict or abuse.  The public may see it as something it isn’t, and will remember that long after the thousandth explanation that it really wasn’t what it looks like (methodological ‘tricks’ anyone?).

For that reason, the protestations of others that the misrepresentation of engineering advice in the Interior Department moratorium report weren’t an abuse kind of misses the point.  They sure looked like an abuse, and that perception is a problem that can’t be effectively dealt with by just saying “they didn’t mean it.”

Watch Out What You Do Around Those Faults

This article from EARTH Magazine noted something I wasn’t aware of, but probably shouldn’t be surprised about – induction of earthquakes caused (or at least suspected to be caused) by geological exploration.  Usually connected to work done for energy related purposes, it appears that at least one geologist has been taken to court (though acquitted) for inducing 30 earthquakes in Switzerland that caused millions in property damage.

While the Swiss case dealt with an enhanced geothermal energy project, the article also brings up the practice of fracking.  It’s a related practice involving the injection of water at high pressure into the ground, except fracking is typically done in exploring for natural gas.  Usually the complaints associated with fracking have to do with groundwater contamination, due in part to the chemicals used in the process.

Perhaps it shouldn’t, but the induction of earthquakes seems to cross across some kind of line in terms of environmental modification.  Perhaps it’s worth including those techniques that might induce earthquakes in the same category as other geoengineering projects?  You might think that the magnitudes of the quakes involved (typically under 3) would make it unnecessary, but it’s as much the location of the quakes and the lasting impact on surrounding rock (and nearby faults, should people be crazy enough to induce near fault lines) that matters.  Such effects, more subtle than the damage of stronger quakes, would make better scrutiny of efforts that could induce earthquakes a good idea.

Holdren Offers His Idea on “The Rightful Place” of Science

ScienceInsider is running an interview they conducted with presidential science adviser John Holdren during the recent American Geophysical Union meetings (Part 1, Part 2).  It’s worth reading because it seems that what exactly the President’s science adviser does or is supposed to do needs repeating every once in a while.  (Part 2 focuses more on the day-to-day aspects of the job, while Part 1 is more about specific policy areas tightly linked to science.)  It seems to me that some expect the person in this job to be the cheerleader for science, when that’s usually very far down the list of expectations and job requirements.

“You only do the external stuff—meeting with the community, for example—as it is consistent with those other obligations. So if I have to be there to deal with the 2012 budget or to meet with the president to talk about the science and technology dimensions of the new START treaty, or the clean-energy options we ought to be investing in, I’m going to choose the president.”

That said, Holdren seems to be making more of a visible outreach effort to scientists than recent science advisers have, even though that’s not the most critical aspect of his job.

One of the items in the interview that attracted my attention was Dr. Holdren’s remarks about science and its ‘rightful place’ – the phrase that seemed to make scientific supporters of the President swoon during the inaugural.  Boldface is mine.

J.H.: I feel we have. … What it means to have science in its rightful place is that science is at the table. That the president and his senior advisers are not making decisions unaware of what the relevant science and technology have to say about it. But that doesn’t mean that the preferences of scientists will always be the final decision.

I find this to be quite unobjectionable – all of it.  But it’s hard for me to see “having science at the table” as radically different practice from previous administrations.  This does reinforce Holdren’s comments elsewhere in the article that suggest the function of science and technology in an administration’s policy decisions will reflect the President much more than the science adviser.

The difference is then one of preference and priority, which can fluctuate between presidents and within presidential terms, rather than presence.  But if the rightful place for science is simply to be at the table, I think a fair number of people would be disappointed in Holdren’s comments.  Would love to hear from those that are and those that aren’t.

Seventh PCAST Report Rounds Out Big Report Thursday

While the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST) has been very active in its current incarnation, the last month has put an exclamation point on that activity, with three reports released.  Following reports on energy innovation and health information technology comes a report on the national Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program.  This report is one of a series conducted by PCAST going back to the creation of that program in 1991.  The program coordinates the efforts of 14 different agencies to conduct advanced research in networking and information technology as well as support the deployment of advanced and experimental information technologies to assure the continued leadership of the United States in this field.

(Again, like my coverage of the Internet Privacy Task Force report, this overlaps with my day job.  Since covering PCAST, particularly in its latest version, has been an emphasis in this blog, I think I need to cover it here.  Of course it was influenced by what I wrote for USACM.)

The report is extensive, and finds much to like about NITRD, while outlining the research and administrative challenges that have to be addressed for the nation to maintain its leadership in networking information technology.

The recommendations emphasize the need for continued federal investment in research and deployment of cutting edge information technologies.  It may be possible to support at least some of these investments from redirecting and/or repurposing current expenditures.  Part of this comes from the finding that a percentage of the spending under the NITRD program has not been focused on research and development on networking and information technology, but research and development in other areas.

Besides recommendations for strengthening NITRD coordination and capacity, the report has a number of related recommendations about specific research problems to tackle, specific national goals that could benefit from advances in networking and information technology, and necessary improvements in technical infrastructure and human resources.  Public comment on the report is encouraged, and needs to be submitted by January 31.

America COMPETES Passes; Ideological Fight Over Government Funding, Not Science

This may well be a pre-emptive strike on my part, or me just tilting at windmills.  Since there seems to be a surge of opinion viewing the next Congress (or at least the next House) as targeting science, I want to advance an alternative or additional explanation for future actions based on a recent vote.

The America COMPETES reauthorization bill has finally passed both houses and will be signed by the President soon.  While it passed the Senate by unanimous consent (which can be as much an issue of process as it is of support), the House vote was pretty close to partisan lines, with no Democrats voting against and 16 Republicans voting in support.

The House Republican vote can be interpreted as being against science and technology, but if you take the complaints they raised (which they have raised throughout the process of making this bill into law), they focus on two other ideological points: federal spending, and the role of the federal government in supporting science and technology research.

The issues with the focus on federal spending are vast and go beyond the scope of this blog (in part because the entirety of federal spending is beyond the scope of this blog).  But the Republican emphasis on a limited government role in supporting science and technology research and development isn’t new (that it doesn’t apply to defense so much emphasizes the ideological angle behind it).  They have generally supported federal funding for so-called basic research and little else.  I think that viewpoint is increasingly outmoded in an era where traditional notions of science and technology development outlined in the Vannevar Bush ‘linear model’ no longer make sense when dealing with cutting edge and new technologies.  Problems in making successful innovations and/or economic gains in those areas can be a problem in commercialization as much, if not more than issues with fundamental knowledge.

An emphasis on limited government support for science and technology may be out of touch with today’s current bottlenecks in innovation, but it’s not anti-science.  Those suggesting otherwise are joining an ideological fight that helps nobody.