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About Michael White

Welcome to Adaptive Complexity, where I write about genomics, systems biology, evolution, and the connection between science and literature, government, and society.

I'm a biochemist

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Michael
White

It's Friday and time for a coffee break.

Looking for more Darwin reading? (If you're already sick of the Darwin Bicentennial, you're in for a loooong year.) Michael Shermer takes on common misunderstandings of evolution in Scientific American, and Matt Ridley explores Darwin's Legacy in National Geographic. Richard Dawkins has derived a formula to determine the power of a scientific theory (well, maybe not derived, just invented), and evolution fares well.

Evolution is not a theory in crisis, but Cracked has 6 insane discoveries that science can't explain, along with 5 scientific experiments most likely to end the world.

US scientific output is decreasing according to a new report by Thomson Reuters (hate EndNote? blame them), which is "essentially marketing information that's freely available (and taxpayer funded) via the NSF" according to Jonathan Gitlin at Ars Technica.

If you're looking to do some meatier science reading, check out this large, outstanding list of free online math and physics textbooks.

Interested in being a pirate? Get up to speed on your game theory. The Rugbyologist is in here at Scientific Blogging, and he's ready to explain the theory to aspiring pirates.

In case you missed it, scientists are expected to save democracy. Well, not quite, but check out this this essay on the subject in this week's science section of The New York Times.

Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Well, how about an eight grader? A first grader? If you're too insecure to find out, have you kids take this online test of knowledge at the Department of Education's website. See how your kids stack up against the rest of the world.

To return to Darwin, check out this slide show-essay that takes you on a tour of Kentucky's Creation Museum and explains why the dinosaurs at Kentucky’s Creation Museum are stalking evolution, reason, and the American city.

Have a great weekend, and tune in tomorrow for day 4 of 30 days of evolution blogging.

Comments

That's a cool graphic on Shermer's article.

You can always tell if there is a skew on a site by how they phrase their news. CNN wrote yesterday, for example, that 'stocks struggled to climb' while before the inauguration it was 'stocks declined again'.

American science output went from 32.8 percent of global research to 31.5 in the last three years - and we are clearly outmanned 7:1 by just India and China in Asia - that gets a fair shake from the Ars Technica folks, context free. Yet where America is far and away still the leader (instead of only mostly far and away the leader like peer reviewed papers) is impact factor, which get "The ScienceWatch article takes the time to pimp other Thomson Reuters publications, both of which show a slightly healthier US research base."

So Thomson Reuters is only accurate and not 'pimping' when they think it makes American scientists look bad?

Hank Campbell | 01/30/09 | 19:36 PM

RE End Note: I know Gitlin and that sounds like something he would say. When one pays for a Thomson Reuters product one is paying for tools to handle information or for their analysis, not just the resale of information. It's not like they are stopping me from dredging PubMed and doing my own dubious stats. Perhaps we should argue for Mathematica being free too, since we all have an internal number line.

Josh Witten | 01/30/09 | 20:06 PM

Is that the same Gitlin we know? Or is it a Gitlin you know and I don't?

My take was that Gitlin was knocking the report more than the tools. What's the point of Thomson coming out with a report saying the same thing the NSF said in a free report?

But even when it comes to tools, some are more useful (or less abused) than others. Thomson's citation database is great, but the impact factor has, I think caused people to fine-grain journal rankings more than is really warranted. I suppose that's more the fault of the people using impact factors than it is Thomson, but their marketing contributes to the problem.

Michael White | 01/30/09 | 20:56 PM

Ah, I did not look at the middle initial. This a different Gitlin. It was not clear if the criticism was specific or general. Either way, one is paying for the analysis. Doesn't mean its not pretty much the same thing?

Their ability to market "impact factor" is based on people wanting an impact factor ranking. Does anyone think a legitimate impact factor that will meet all our needs is actually possible? I'm not sure it would even be helpful. Journals that I usually find completely uninteresting still occasionally turn up gems.

Josh Witten | 01/30/09 | 22:59 PM

Their ability to market "impact factor" is based on people wanting an impact factor ranking.

That's not necessarily true - marketing can create demand where none existed before.

I was wondering about the ars technica Gitlin when I first read the piece - I couldn't tell if he was the one we knew.

Michael White | 01/30/09 | 23:15 PM

The one we know is D, this one is M.

The ability of marketing to create demand is often cited. I've always been skeptical. Perhaps that product is not desired, but the concept of it is.

For example, I could not want a car until the first car was built. I would probably first become aware of the car's existence via some mode of advertising. Post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning would suggest that the car's marketing created the demand. In reality, demand for the car was really latent demand for something like a car, which previously may have been directed toward carriages.

Josh Witten | 01/30/09 | 23:45 PM

Defining just what counts as latent demand can be a tricky issue. The car is an obvious case where there had long been demand for that kind of improvement in transportation.

In other cases, there isn't such obvious latent demand. Take about bottled water, or water filters. Companies selling these products market them with images of snow-capped peaks and meadows watered by mountain springs, suggesting they are safer or better tasting than tap water. Bottled water or Brita filtered water generally isn't any safer than most tapwater, and the supposed improvement in taste in most cases is probably in part an effect of marketing.

Michael White | 01/31/09 | 11:38 AM

The market for clean, fresh water has always been there. The bottled water manufacturers just fudge the truth to get into the market. My argument is that you don't generate demand for a market, but you can lie about whether your product fits the market and fool people that way, like with impact factor and bottled water. Eventually, their lies get tacitly accepted by the customers without evidence.

Josh Witten | 01/31/09 | 12:31 PM

The market for clean, fresh water has always been there.

No it hasn't, not since the demand was largely satisfied by clean, fresh municipal water. The market was created by advertising from bottled water companies. Like I mentioned before, I think we're disagreeing on the definition of demand. You can always say there was a latent demand for something, because any time you sell someone something, you play on some sort of need, even if it's a vague psychological need instead of a real physical need or want.

Before Thomson came along, I doubt anyone was clamoring for a better way of rating journals, in the way people were wishing for a better mode of transportation before the car came along. But once the metric was there, as Hank said, people think it's valued because it exists.

Michael White | 01/31/09 | 14:06 PM

Indeed, as Kai Simons pointed out in Science, impact factor is misused but the community lets it be misused by creating a metric people then think is valued because it exists. Basically starbelly Sneetches came along and everyone has wanted a star since.

Hank Campbell | 01/30/09 | 23:49 PM

Even if I didn't know you had kids, I would know now due to an excellent Dr. Seuss reference.

Josh Witten | 01/30/09 | 23:55 PM

Sylvester McMonkey McBean has been my economic role model since I was 5.

Josh Witten | 01/30/09 | 23:57 PM

Yeah, he certainly comes out of the story doing well. I wonder is Seuss's real point behind the whole story is that it's easy to find suckers.

The scientific community, and some of the non-scientists involved in academic administration certainly bear much of the blame for the misuse if impact factors, but Thomson's marketing certainly contributes. They don't just put their product out there; like diet pill makers, they aggressively push controversial claims about their product.

Michael White | 01/31/09 | 11:20 AM

It depends on where you are at too - if your IF is high, you will use it. That's a human trait. In online science, there is one site that uses only Technorati to talk about its position. Because that measures online links from other sites, they can be in the top 100 in the world or something - lots of bloggers as fans and a CMS structure that links all of their individual authors to each other in a brilliant bit of compoundomagic. Meanwhile, Discover or Scientific American or us basically never care about Technorati because our readers are not bloggers, advertisers don't pay on Technorati rank and our readers don't much care about it.

But if we were in the top 100 in Technorati, we probably would mention it. :)

Hank Campbell | 01/31/09 | 12:00 PM

Mike, the Sneetches is clearly intended to caricature the use of superficial characteristics to stereotype people (i.e., "race"). Sylvester McMonkey McBean represents the amoral and equalizing force of capitalism. It also demonstrates how allowing racist concepts to influence our behavior is both pointless and can incur significant costs.

Josh Witten | 01/31/09 | 12:41 PM

the amoral and equalizing force of capitalism

I think you would enjoy G.K.Chesterton's The Outline of Sanity. (You can read it online.) I'm not suggesting you would agree with everything he says, but it's got some good textbites.

P.S. I love Dr Seuss's books. For a while, I had One Fish Two Fish Read Fish Blue Fish memorized.

Robert H Olley | 01/31/09 | 13:32 PM

The Sneetches is clearly intended to caricature the use of superficial characteristics to stereotype people (i.e., "race").

Well, yeah that's the obvious interpretation, but I occasionally like to think that there was a darker side to Seuss. Most kids finish the story thinking they need to emulate the Sneetches at the end, all living harmoniously, but on occasion some clever kid is going to recognize that Sylvester is really the coolest character in the story.

Michael White | 01/31/09 | 14:11 PM

Alas, the Sneetch is one Dr Seuss I haven't read, but that sounds like those kids who read Harry Potter and want to join the Death Eaters.

Robert H Olley | 01/31/09 | 16:30 PM

Sylvester McMonkey McBean has been my economic role model since I was 5.

Apparently I was a clever kid.

Josh Witten | 01/31/09 | 18:43 PM

Gitlin pointed out that the picture inevitably looks worse when you look at the US contribution as a percentage of the whole, and he seems to be implying that looking at the percentage of the total is not the best measure:

When one looks at US peer-reviewed publications as a percentage
of the world's total output, the decline looks most worrying. Looking at the
actual number of papers published gives a slightly rosier view; the total
number of publications in 2006 was down about 5,500 compared to 2005, with 2007
flat-lining.

Obviously the US is going to contribute a smaller portion of total scientific research as times goes on, because of populations issues, and it's not something we should worry about. But a decline in absolute numbers might be something we should worry about. (I say 'might be' because I still think way too much crap gets published, so a decline in absolute numbers may not be a bad thing.)

Michael White | 01/30/09 | 21:04 PM

I tried out that online test of knowledge. Not gonna lie, I'd kick any fourth grader's behind. Or 12th grader. Or whatever grader you are. And now I'm hooked.

Becky Jungbauer | 01/30/09 | 23:57 PM

It's amazing how validating it can be to find out that you can still pass elementary-school level tests of knowledge.

Michael White | 01/31/09 | 16:47 PM

It was both gratifying and a little sad. Good that I retained useless trivia but sad that that's the level of achievement we expect our kids to attain. The bar really needs to be raised.

Becky Jungbauer | 01/31/09 | 17:56 PM

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