Everybody gets an A

In Spider Robinson's Mindkiller, a professor at Dalhousie University who starts off one of his semesters telling all the students in his English class (James Joyce, if I remember right) that they will all get an A. He tells students this because he wants students to be there because they are actually interested. The section concludes with something like, "The students who remained looked mighty interested."

In idle moments, I've contemplated doing this myself. I've considered whether I could possibly get away with it.

But I never expected to find someone with the chutzpah to actually do it.

University of Ottawa professor Denis Rancourt gives everyone As. The result?

In December, the senior physicist was suspended from teaching, locked out of his laboratory and told that the university administration was recommending his dismissal and banning him from campus.

Firing a tenured professor is rare in itself, but two weeks ago the university took an even more extreme step: When Prof. Rancourt went on campus to host a regular meeting of his documentary film society, he was led away in handcuffs by police and charged with trespassing.

"Sneak out while the adults aren't looking"

Our local newspaper has a story on who educators in our part of Texas are viewing the recent vote on K-12 science standards.

Science teachers in the Valley didn't experience much pressure from local districts or the community on how to teach evolution.

Perhaps that is because most people in the Valley are Catholic, and the Catholic Church — as well as mainline Protestant denominations of Christianity — have backed off from the evolution debate, said Bob Soper, a retired science teacher and an ordained minister with the Episcopal Church.

Kathryn Tabb has some things to say about the teaching of evolution.

Darwin preferred the outdoors to the schoolhouse and once confessed, "Observing, thinking & some reading beat, in my opinion, all systematic education." My guess is that Darwin would urge the children of Austin to take advantage of all the mayhem to sneak out while the adults aren't looking--and, equipped with magnifying glasses and notebooks, take to nature and draw their own conclusions.

Good advice, considering that the governor of Texas reappointed creationist dentist Don McLeroy to chair the State Board of Education, and his shenanigans seem set to extend... how long are these appointments?

Go boss!

My undergrad supervisor, Jennifer Mather, spoke at TED today. A liveblogged summary is here.

If we can understand [octopus] intelligence, we can understand just how different intelligence can be and can manifest.

My jealousy continues unabated.

Hispanics in science from an outsider on the inside

The Extrovert Scientist asks a question I've had to think about a lot since moving here:

What’s the deal with the disparity of Latins in the sciences? It has to be a cultural thing because I know for a fact there are numerous opportunities for scholarships. Some organizations are virtually begging for Latins to apply in the STEM disciplines.

I'm reposting, with a little revision, my comments from that thread, because I am a lazy blogger:

Caveats: I’m at an institution (seen from above here) with about 85% Hispanic students, but I'm not Hispanic. Some of these may be regional attitudes, rather than Hispanics across the board. Still, I think the following factors might play into the lack of Hispanics in science. I'm certainly not saying they're unique or unusual to Hispanics, but I think they may be exacerbated compared to anglos.

• People who are good academically are pressured to pursue high paying professional careers (e.g., health professions). You may say, "Everyone wants their kid to be a doctor," but many Hispanics come from regions that are not well off, and this seems to make people gravitate to careers that have cash and clearly defined respectability.


• Family ties make people unwilling to move from a region to pursue an academic career. Academic careers usually requires several moves from institution to institution, with no easy guarantee of ending up close to family home.


• People are pressured to get jobs sooner rather than later. Even the value of years of “not working” for an undergraduate degree can be a hard sell. Heck, even convincing families to let kids finish high school required a cultural shift.


• We’ve seen students — usually female — whose partners or family seem determined to sabotage the students’ prospects for continuing in education. In at least one case, there was no doubt: a family forbade one of our students to leave the area to pursue a degree after her bachelor’s. Sometimes this argument is over familial obligations, but other times seems to be motivated by a lot of macho bullshit.

More commentary over at On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess.

Who you callin' doctor?

One addendum to the issue of calling people with academic doctorates doctors.

There is one set of people who I would refuse to call "Doctor", and it's exemplified by this article.

Laura L. Callahan was very proud of her Ph.D. When she received it a few years ago, she promptly rewrote her official biography to highlight the academic accomplishment, referring to it not once or twice but nine times in a single-page summary of her career. And she never let her employees at the Labor Department, where she served as deputy chief information officer, forget it, even demanding that they call her "Doctor." ...

"When she was running around telling people to call her 'Dr. Callahan,' I asked where she got her degree," says Richard Wainwright, a computer specialist who worked for Callahan at Labor for two years. "When I found out, I laughed."

This, I suppose, is the twisted flip side of the situation with Jill Biden's doctorate. This civil servant Laura Callahan got her degrees from a non-accredited institution, a.k.a. a diploma mill. Anyone who insisted on being called "Doctor" because they had a degree from a "prestigious non-accredited university" (as they frequently call themselves)... my response might be very similar to the one described above.

More commentary on Dr. Isis's blog On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess (here and here). Note: The comments to those posts are lively and frequently profane. But this comment from Ben in the latter post got me thinking:

In general society, people who are smarter than you are more dangerous than atomic bombs.

The original doctors

Cluelessness from the Los Angeles Times:

“My feeling is if you can’t heal the sick, we don’t call you doctor,” said Bill Walsh, copy desk chief for the Washington Post’s A section and the author of two language books.

Yeah, because fact-checking and veracity at newspapers is so last century. It’s all feelings.

At issue is whether Jill Biden (pictured), wife of American Vice President Joe Biden, “deserves” to be called “Doctor” or not. I’ve blogged about this before, so this sort of stuff is no surprise. Disappointing, but not surprising. I still like Russell T Davies’ answer to this sort of small mindedness.

But what I love about the blogosphere is that there’s someone who will not only point out that this is wrong-headed, but give a fairly detailed analysis to drive the point home. From GrrlScientist:

Long long ago (in the early Paleozoic), Islamic law awarded the first Ph.D. degrees in the 9th century; a “Doctor of Laws” degree. Then in the middle ages (shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs), the Ph.D. or Doctor of Philosophy degree (Latin; philosophiæ doctor, meaning “teacher of philosophy”) was expanded to include all fields of scholarship except theology, law and .. medicine. Let me repeat this in tiny words for the journalists in the crowd: the Ph.D. became THE most advanced academic degree awarded by the vast majority of the English-speaking world and it is required for those Doctors pursuing a career as a university professor or researcher in most scholarly, academic or scientific fields. By comparison, medical practitioners (have) been known as “doctors” only very recently.

More commentary at:

• DrugMonkey
• Uncertain Principles
• Terra Sigillata
• Adventures in Ethics and Science
• Pharyngula
• The Questionable Authority
• The Austringer
• Citizen Sugar
• Oh! Industry

I also have to agree with several of the above commentators that this whole thing shows up some fairly blatant sexism. Women with doctorates of any variety are far, far less likely to be referred to as “Doctor.” Sad to say, I've seen this in play on my own campus.

I live to serve

"What's that? My scientist super hearing is picking up a call of distress on the Internet! Someone needs help!"

I'm glad I was able to help out writer Marv Wolfman. Marv had an awful old picture on Wikipedia and wanted something more current. But uploading pictures for Wikipedia, like some many things, is only easy once you know how...

As a long time comics writer, he's probably shaped a large amount of my psyche without me necessarily being aware of it. I have no idea how much of Marv's work I've read over the years, though I will say Night Force has a soft spot in my heart.

Once again, the day is saved...

The three Rs, Texas Board of Education style

The Houston Chronicle reports that some members of the Texas legislature are getting peeved enough at the antics of the Texas State Board of Education to start working on some laws to give that board greater oversight.

(The Texas State Board of Education) would be abolished and its duties transferred to the Texas Education Agency. He has filed a bill to accomplish much of that by stripping the board of its authority over textbooks, curriculum and graduation requirements. It would be left with only its narrow constitutional duties, including managing the Permanent School Fund. ...

(A) separate bill... would put the board under the periodic sunset review of the Legislature. That step would force more oversight of board members, several of whom, he believes, are more fixated on the three Rs of religion, religion and religion than on improving public school classrooms.

A separate article in the Chronicle discusses how evolutionary theory is used to generate economic growth.

Supporters say they want children to understand there are viable alternatives to evolution.

But Andy Ellington, a University of Texas evolutionary biologist, called that argument “almost amusing.”

“You have these folks who are trying to suggest that we shouldn’t teach evolution as something our kids need to know,” he said. “But at the same time, there are these new technologies out there shaping our lives every day.”

Odessa American doesn't get it

The Odessa America, commenting on the recent hearings about K-12 Texas science standards, provides an opinion piece that falls into many traps.

Now it's true that federal courts have ruled against forcing the teaching of creationism and the similar theory of intelligent design.
But that doesn't mean that teachers can't at least present both sides of the argument and use that to stimulate classroom discussion and demonstrate that there is room for both schools of thought.

Actually, that is what the law means. The American legal system been down this road many times. If you use a public school to advance a particular religious view, such as fundamentalist Christian creationism, you are violating the separation of church and state.

After all, both sides claim to have solid evidence to support their beliefs. But they are still beliefs with no definitive answer available.

Incorrect. Badly so. Evolution is not just a "belief" -- it is supported by vast heaping gobs of evidence and research. Creationism is contradicted by vast heaping gobs of evidence and research against it.

And truly, why does state government have to establish some sort of declaration on this issue?
Why not let individual school districts decide how evolution will be presented in individual communities? There's a lot to be said for local control.

Education is a state issue. Such is federalism. Many countries have national guidelines.

Sure, school districts (as well as those who teach science) would have to make decisions based on federal guidelines due to the religious nature of creationism. But there's nothing to preclude an open presentation of both strains of belief without open advocacy of either.

Yes, there is. Court case after court case after court case has ruled you can't do that. It's advocating a particular religious view. Plus, local district after local district has shown that they really don't understand the legal issues involved.

Plus it would be easier for individual school districts to make sure no teachers are running afoul of federal rulings than to have a state agency trying to monitor thousands of classrooms.

And if this happened, there would be lawsuit after lawsuit as local district decided to try setting their won standards. The Kitzmiller v. Dover story would be repeated across the state, with communities being torn apart, bad feelings, and school board incurring huge legal costs.

You have to do what?

Simon LeBon of Duran Duran once described how everyone in the band really, really wanted to be pop stars. And then they realized this would require that they learn how to play musical instruments.

Similarly, lots of people really, really want to be doctors / surgeons / dentist / optometrists / health care professionals. And eventually they will realize this will require that they learn how to fight with insurance companies.

People who want to be scientists eventually realize this will require that they learn how to administer grants, create graphics, do accounting, be a coach, be a teacher, be a communicator, be a diplomat, and much more.

Careers rarely require just doing one thing. This is emphatically so for science.

People worry about themselves, not funding

Dr. Isis writes:

I believe that many young scientists are afraid of a career in academia -- not because they don't believe themselves capable of managing the research, but because they are afraid of running in the funding race.

A huge number of students have bled away from scientific careers long before they know what "R01" means. For instance...

• The training period is too long.


• The career path is downright hostile to families. It's hard enough to keep things working with a partner, never mind kids.


• You can't easily pick where you live. The job market is so small that even trying to find a position in a particular country is tough. (And yes, I'm speaking from personal experience.)

I think there's a lot of projection going on. Researchers with grants worry about getting the next one, so they think that's what more junior scientists (students, post-docs, etc.) are also worried about. I don't think that's the case.

We're having a sale on amazing

Dr. Isis writes:

Now, you show me $250,000/year for five years and I will show you something amazing.

I'm having a sale in my lab. I'll deliver "amazing" to your door for $25,000 a year. Maybe even less after a mail-in rebate.

(See recent related posts on the distorted scientific market and animals costs.)

Robert Ballard in conversation

Dr. Robert Ballard was in town yesterday for out university's distinguished speaker series. I'd seen his TED talk (below), which is pretty good, but his talk last night was really superb. If I were to characterize his presentation approach, it would be, "Take the best stuff from 50 years of work and be funny." (Ballard went on his first expedition as a high school student a the age of 17.)

Echoing a recent theme in this blog about being inspired by fiction (here and here), he talked about how he wanted to be Captain Nemo when he grew up.

He talked about the discovery of hydrothermal vent communities, and how they almost blundered into a vent plume that could have turned their submarine into a molten heap of slag. He talked about his finding the wreck of the Titanic, and -- actually more interestingly -- his search for more ancient shipwrecks, looking for the "empties" of sailors in the Mediterranean Sea. He talked about how they found even better preservation in the Black Sea. All this with wry humour and a kid's enthusiasm.

During questions, he'd just said that he was most proud of his discovery of hydrothermal vent communities, because they were really new forms of life. Shortly after, he spotted a large cockroach and joked, "I've discovered another new form of life. It's got it's hand up. I'll take your question in a minute."

He indulged the audience and took quite a few questions. He talked about how a huge amount of wrangling he did to get an expedition associated with the Jason Project in the Galapagos Islands going after a barge with almost all the equipment sunk... It was perfectly clear that he could have talked a lot longer and not run out of material for a long time.

My one concern was that during his talk, he mentioned exploiting the ocean's resources a couple of times. During the reception afterwards, I asked him about that, pointing out that management of ocean resources has an abysmal track record. Being Canadian, the example that comes to mind is the collapsed cod fishery, which looks like it may not come back for a very long time, if ever. He gave a much more nuanced answer, saying, "You can't turn 72% of the planet into a park." He also talked about the importance of knowing what is out there so it can be sensibly managed.

If you have a chance to hear this guy speak, don't miss it.

Even more aftermath of votes of Texas science standards

The Houston Chronicle has a new editorial that isn't kind to the recent votes of the Texas State Board of Education:

But, as if to remind the world that evolution is indeed a long, slow process, the social conservatives on the board are still attempting — in the face of all reliable evidence to the contrary — to keep the bogus controversy over evolution alive and to sabotage, yet again, Texas’ chances of being taken seriously in the realms of science and education.

And this blog in the Springfield News Sun in Ohio asks:

Does it concern you that decisions in other areas could affect the information Ohio students have in their books?

May be worth checking the comments over the next few days.

More aftermath of votes of Texas science standards

The Houston Chronicle follows up on the amendments that Texas state board of education members added to the draft science standards.

“There are many, many gaps that don’t link species changing and evolving into another species, so we want our students to get all of the science, and we want them to have great, open discussions and learning to respect each other’s opinions,” said Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands, a former science teacher.

Not all opinions are worthy of respect. At some level, science strives for "visible certainty," to quote Galileo, and that means that some things are just wrong. They're just not supported by any evidence.

She scoffed at claims that social conservatives on the 15-member board were just trying to find another way to expose students to creationism — the belief that life, Earth and the universe were created by a supreme being.

“This isn’t about religion. I don’t know how many times we have to say it before people accept it,” she said. “It’s about science. We want to stick to the science.”

You know, I might -- might -- be willing to give Barbara Cargill (pictured, with current Texas governor Rick Perry) personally the benefit of the doubt, because I don't have at my fingertips statements from her about her religious views. Although she does have a science camp that is described as an outreach project of The Woodlands United Methodist Church which had (the web page doesn't seem to be active any more) links to animations of the seven days of creation. And Cargill was one of the board members suggesting a Bible studies curriculum. While Cargill may be totally about the science, I hope that she appreciates how someone might get the wrong impression that her actions are highly informed by her religious beliefs.

Cargill aside, several other board members have made it very clear that they are Biblical literalists and fundamentalist Christians.

The Chronicle also gets letters about the recent State Board of Education decision, and not surprisingly, there are cranky creationists with many of the usual arguments. (science is as inflexible as religion, they have something to hide, etc., etc.) But there's one surprise -- for its goofiness.

Amphibians and reptiles have three-chambered hearts, and birds and mammals have four-chambered hearts. The gradualism part of the theory requires that the change from three-chambered to four-chambered hearts came about by a long series of micromutations. Our students should be permitted to ask: “Where is the evidence of a three and one-half chambered heart?”

This reminds me of an old kid's riddle. "If it takes 10 minutes to dig two holes, how long does it take to dig three and a half holes?" The punchline: "You can't dig half a hole."

And right after looking at this, one of the next articles I read in my newsfeed mentions the "textbook" Explore Evolution, saying:

In one particularly egregious case he discussed, a claim in Explore Evolution about the evolution of the four-chambered heart "is supported by citing a single article ... which does not mention heart development, but does discuss developmental (non-neo-Darwinian) sources of evolutionary novelty. The next paragraph refers to it as a 'critique of neo-Darwinism.' And this after giving an explicit warning against the logical fallacy of equivocation."

I can't help but wonder if there's a connection...

Coverage in New Scientist can be found here. Cargill will surely dislike the headline, "Creationism defeated in Texas."

Meanwhile, the San Antonio Express News has an article featuring much sane commentary from people teaching in unabashedly religious schools:

The theory of evolution is “the cornerstone of teaching biology,” he said. Without it, it would be “like teaching chemistry without teaching atomic theory.”

But that doesn't mean there's no room for talking about intelligent design and creationism, which, (Rob) Friedrich (co-chair of science department at The Episcopal School of Texas) argues, are not scientific theories.

If students have a genuine religious objection to evolution, Friedrich said he takes the time to talk it out.

“I have no problem with that,” he said. “But I impress on them that it is a religious conflict, not a scientific conflict.”

Another instructor nails what's always been one of my biggest gripes with ideas like intelligent design: it stops research dead.

“We don't tell folks evolution is wrong,” (Pat Cunningham, the principal of Central Catholic High School) said. “We say there are some things that are more difficult to explain. The importance is to let science grow.”

A blog post on the subject contains some humour:

Some were rather silly in an attempt to inject "humility and tentativeness" into science standards. I'm still giggling over that one. Wouldn't want the science standards to think they were better than the math standards, eh?

In all seriousness, I realize she just wants to take scientists down a peg what with their elitist insistence on evidence and falsifiability and such.

Funny, but I like Conan O'Brien's bon mot even better:

Members of the Texas public school board are debating just how evolution should be treated in science class. For instance, should they call it "the theory of evolution" or "the lie that makes God cry"?

Sleep does not always bring good ideas

Insight from a dream the other night:

"All scientists should wear hats."

Hm.

An appreciation

I'd like to take a moment to thank Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for teaching me something about science.

Stan and Jack was the core team that created what is now Marvel Comics. The Fantastic Four, X-Men, and the Hulk were all their creations. I'd like to single out the latter for teaching me a little science: specifically, radiation.

The Hulk comics frequently referenced gamma radiation and gamma rays, since the Hulk was the product of an accident involving radiation. I looked it up in an encyclopedia and found out it wasn't just gibberish -- that there were such things as gamma rays. And along the way, I learned about alpha particles and beta particles and atomic decay.

I would never claim I became a scientist because of comics. But I do appreciate that they got me thinking.

Aside: I didn't pick the cover shown at random; I had a beat-up copy of that issue.

News roundup on Texas science standards

As I expected, there were a lot of 8-7 votes on the Texas science standards by the State Board of Education, with "weaknesses" of evolution being kept out of the standards. But other changes got stuck in, and there's a very clear pattern of who tried to make changes to the draft standards, in every case trying to weaken them so they would be more palatable to biblical literalists.

Coverage in the press can be found in The New York Times:, two from The Dallas News (first, second)) the Austin American Statesman, where the latter quotes:

Changing the standards from those recommended in the draft document for what seemed to be ideological reasons could make it more difficult for teachers to teach often controversial science topics, said Joe Bean, a spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association, a labor group.

Coverage in blogs includes Bad Astronomy, Houston Pres blog, and NSCE news.

But this still isn't done. One more round of education death match in March. Unfortunately, is the only one that matters.

Biological costs

Expanding a bit on relative costs of different kinds of research... Something I noticed while at a trip to the pet store to pick up supplies and animals.

• Grass shrimp: 33¢
• Guppy: $3.00
• Mouse: $30.00

That's a hundredfold cost difference in research subjects. Many years ago, I heard researchers say the cost of a single cat was $300, which would make for a thousandfold difference in cost of subjects. And that's not including animal care.

Now, I am not taking shots at the science done using mammals as research subjects. But maybe the recession will create an opportunity for people working on invertebrates to make the case that funding research in invertebrates is very cost efficient way of doing good science.

Second day of meetings on science standards

The public testimony is over, but the Texas State Board of Education meeting from yesterday is still going on in Austin today. Blog coverage again at Evo.Sphere, Thoughts From Kansas, and I missed yesterday's posts from Texas Freedom Network (first, second, third; "expert" testimony, first second, third). Wish I'd been there to see David Hillis in action:

Too bad we can’t type faster. Hillis is kicking butt and taking names. One anti-evolution argument after another bites the dust in his presentation.

Meanwhile, more coverage on yesterday's hearings from the New York Times. It's better than AP's article, but still tends to create the "two equal and opposite views and gee, they both seem valid" structure that journalists often create in an effort to seem objective.