Blue Collar Scientist

By way of Space Politics I learn that the upcoming 2008 Libertarian National Convention, at which the libertarian party will select a presidential candidate, was to include a presentation on the topic of “Inside NASA” by Dr. David Hoagland.

This, it turns out, was an error, and the actual talk is “Do We Still NEED NASA?” and will be given by Richard C. Hoagland. He’s going to talk about this:

Mr. Hoagland will … reveal –with official NASA imagery — startling scientific discoveries NASA, by law, has deliberately withheld from the American people for more than 40 years!

It is bad enough that every third Libertarian I meet is a credulous UFO nutjob, and now they are giving voice to this total whackjob¹.

This is a guy who believes that James Clerk Maxwell’s equations were misunderstood and can only make sense in terms of “Hyperdimensional physics,” which says that enormous energy is available at a latitude of 19.5° on the Sun and every planet in the solar system. The evidence? Olympus Mons. (Which isn’t at 19.5 °, but 18°, a degree and a half difference.) No word about all the free energy available on the Earth at this latitude as yet.

This is the guy who thinks there was an advanced extraterrestrial civilization on Mars in the past.

And that the Martians moved to Earth and became humans.

And there was a similar civilization on Europa.

And on the moon.

And on Iapetus, the moon of Saturn, which is in fact artificial, kinda like the Death Star except maybe without Darth Vader and the big planet-destroying laser beam.

And that the moon civilization built glass domes which have been retouched out of Apollo imagery.

And that the Apollo astronauts had their minds wiped to they forgot seeing these domes.

This is the guy who claims that the Galileo probe to Jupiter caused a black spot due to nuclear materials on board.

This is the guy who claims the 9-11 attacks were part of a Masonic conspiracy.

This is the guy who says the Apollo 1 astronauts were murdered by NASA.

This is the guy who claims there is a clandestine space program, using antigrav technology stolen from extraterrestrials, which causes comets to explode².

This is the guy that swore that the Space Shuttle main fuel tank could never work using conventional engineering, and something called “Torsion Physics” would have to be used to solve the problems.

This is the guy who repeatedly claims to have friends at JPL who provide him with inside information.³

This is the guy who claims to have designed the Pioneer 10 plaque that was actually designed by Carl Sagan.

And so on.

Now, if you believe anything in this lengthy list of Hoagland claims, congratulations. You are a nutjob. If you don’t believe it, you should understand why I view the libertarian party as the party of choice for cranks, lunatics, and other stout deniers of reality.

1. And yes, the taxonomy is valid - total whackjobs are far stranger than nutjobs. [↩]
2. Sounds like fun. But I’m pretty sure I’d notice if comets started exploding; you know, that’s the sort of research we do here at the observatory I’m currently visiting. [↩]
3. I have actual friends with real names at JPL who deny they provide Hoagland information, inside or otherwise. [↩]

This morning, “cls” left a comment on the Expelled Reviews post, which I’d really like to see some discussion of. The comment brings up an issue that has repeatedly dogged me and almost certainly limited my effectiveness as a science educator, and the issue is simply this: I don’t always understand the questions being asked.

Usually, I understand questions asked by someone who is already engaged with the subject and wants to know more about it. Usually, I understand the questions posed by people who don’t know the answers but are engaged in a quest to satisfy their curiosity. But sometimes I run up against a series of questions that I don’t get, and those questions are usually, but not always asked by one of two kinds of people:

1. Anti-science people, denialists, etc.
2. The profoundly ignorant.

Because I am a scientist, and I know that there’s a lot that I don’t know, when I’m confronted by a question I don’t understand, I usually assume the fault is mine. But that’s not a safe bet when dealing with questions from these two populations. And cls’ comment includes several questions that I just don’t get.

for me, i want to know a few things of the process of evolution:

do the most mixed varieties of living things contain the most genetic
diversity?

I don’t get it. What is a “variety of living thing,” and once that is defined, what does “most mixed” mean? If a friend of mine had said “variety of living thing,” I would probably have understood them to mean a pink rose instead of a red one. But I still wouldn’t know what “most mixed” meant, and I kinda doubt cls is asking about botanical varieties here.

do the most specialized varieties of species have the least genetic diversity?

What does “varieties of species” mean? And how is that different from “variety of living things?” See, from my perspective as an astronomer, this could be (a) a well-established biological term that I don’t know, or (b) meaningless¹.

I’m going to guess that the most specialized multi-cellular organisms on the planet are parasites, and that some populations of parasite have greater genetic diversity than some populations of non-parasitic animals. I’d guess that pandas, California condors, and other organisms having very low populations would be less genetically diverse than a healthy population of ticks that are so specialized they need specific hosts to complete their life cycles.

If yes, this means they are usually successful in a specific environment, and then would only survive in that environment?

I kinda get this, and my answer would be that organisms that exploit certain ecological niches would probably have problems if their niche went away, but it doesn’t mean they couldn’t adapt to new conditions. But here I fail to see the connection to genetics or evolutionary biology - this is Ecology 101, stuff that we knew before we knew much of anything about evolution.

does evolution weaken a species when it becomes specialized?

This kind of question just bugs me. To my way of thinking, evolution doesn’t “do” anything. Evolution is just a description of how things happen.

I think maybe the question here is something like “does increasing specialization weaken a species,” and the answer, I think, would be - yes, and no. Some specialized species are on the decline, others are ubiquitously common and obviously very well adapted for their environment. But it kinda depends on how you define your terms - do specialized species go extinct with greater frequency than non-specialized ones? If so, does this mean they are “weak?” Do they speciate with greater frequency? If so, does that mean they are not “weak?” What does weak mean, exactly? From an evolutionary perspective, I would think it would have to do with how long they can keep their genes alive. I’m just not sure the question is meaningful as asked.

does evolution, like inbreeding, pass on weakness?

What?

in specific environments? (sure those too weak die.)

What?

do the mutations in the pesticides and medicines mentioned above do a lot of killing of unwanted living things?

Mutations in pesticides? What? Pesticides aren’t even living things - how can they mutate?

I can almost discern that this question is along these lines: Since organisms can evolve resistance to pesticides/medicines, there must be mutations. Since there were mutations, pesticides/medicines must be mutagenic. Do the mutagenic properties of pesticides/medicines kill organisms?

If this is what that means, the problem is that a substance need not be mutagenic in order for an organism to evolve resistance to it. Mutations happen, period - whether there are mutagens about or not.² Besides that, a quick scan of encyclopedia articles on pesticides and antibiotics will show that most have their effects through toxic (not mutagenic) properties.

These questions are mixed in with some other musings, which I also don’t get:

whales sometimes use these legs in mating, and
belugas come to shore…

Whales have legs? That’s news to me.³

And belugas do come to shore - to eat. They occasionally get stuck, and they are well adapted⁴ to surviving the ordeal until the tide comes back in and allows them to swim back out to sea. I’ve witnessed this process myself, and I’m not sure what the point is here.

there are some distinct differences in the
nature of birds and reptiles that may be unlinkable with survival

Unlinkable? What does that word mean in this context?

Even if it means that some birds/reptiles have phenotypic characteristics that are not good for their survival, the answer is “so what?” To survive, an organism need only be good enough to get by. There’s no requirement for hyper-optimization.

This kind of thing is extremely confusing to me. A lot of these questions, on first hearing, sound like complete nonsense. The questions appear to have no meaning, even if you read the dictionary definitions of the words used and apply the normal rules of grammar. They have no meaning in the mundane use of the language, and no apparent meaning as part of a technical vocabulary either.

I guess this comment has gotten me thinking about the issue of who can be reached. From long experience, I’ve learned that antiscience people can’t be talked to. If I’m going head-to-head with antiscience, I’m doing it for the onlookers, so that they have a chance of escaping the stupidity. But the people who actually believe things like the plasma universe⁵, the Jupiter effect, and other crazy ideas that shouldn’t survive for ten seconds in a reasonably educated and properly functioning mind - these people cannot be reached. At least not by me.

People who ask questions that I don’t get fall into a gray zone to me. Are they unreachable? Or am I just not able to understand the hip new lingo?

1. Until defined by the person using it, of course. [↩]
2. Besides which, not all evolution works on mutation - selection of favored variations also occurs. [↩]
3. I know all about fossil whales with legs, but don’t know how cls would know how they were used sexually. [↩]
4. Compared to other whales I’m familiar with. [↩]
5. Not the same thing as plasma cosmology - not that the latter is necessarily any good either. [↩]

Here is an excellent example of how the antiscience movement harms people and stands in the way of their happiness. This video is from the IEEE Spectrum Online, and it is about a prosthetic arm currently under development. A really amazing, very cool prosthetic arm, so please watch.

The best bit is toward the end:

Amputee: I’ve been able to do stuff with this that I haven’t, seriously, I haven’t been able to do in 26 years.

Interviewer: Like what?

Amputee: Pick up a banana. Peel a banana and eat it, without it squishing….

A few seconds after that, he mentions something else he could do with the prosthesis that he hasn’t done in 26 years….

What would have happened here if the engineers and amputees that are working on this prosthesis had taken an antiscience approach to their work? Simple: They wouldn’t even have tried to build this thing. There’s way too much mysterious technology at work here - footpad input systems, sensory feedback devices, multiple parallel processing, closed loop positioning systems¹…. It all comes from science, and you can’t hate science and have anything to do with developing something like this.

An antievolutionist, applying the logic of their worldview to this problem, would have said “we don’t know how to make an artificial arm like this, so it can’t be done.” And they might well have said “If someone loses an arm, God meant it to happen, for his own mysterious reasons.” Or perhaps they would blame the victim: “if only the amputee had enough faith they would be healed.” This isn’t wild, unfair conjecture on my part, Christians actually say stuff like this.

Such as Exhibit A:

This guy says that amputees would be healed if only Christians had enough faith, and if good spiritual leaders would arise. Amputations wouldn’t be a problem, see, if we just all agreed about god, and were all holy and spiritual. If that happened, then we wouldn’t need those pesky engineers who are working to give people their arms back right now. If only we were better Christians, amputees could have their arms back, you know, whenever we might get around to being good enough Christians and all that….

This next guy says that amputees do heal. What he means is that they don’t bleed to death; that the blood clots, scar tissue forms, the wound heals over, and they don’t die. Apparently not dying is considered just as good as “getting your limb back.”

He also says people who disagree with him are ignorant of science and are in “violation of the philosophy of science.” Whatever that means. Why should I even listen to it, or think about his point at all? There’s a really simple fact in place here. Engineers who embrace what science tells them about materials and energy have actually created a really outstanding artificial limb, and the kid broadcasting from his bedroom is nattering on and on about how the rest of us misunderstand science. Well, I think I’m going to go out on a limb here, and embrace my alleged stupidity, because I think the engineers are doing a good and creditable thing, whilst the antiscience folks are just bellyaching into webcams² from their bedroom.

If we leave it up to these antiscience people, the amputees will be sitting outside the city gates dressed in rags begging for coins while we all try to join the perfect church and raise up some kind of ideal spiritual leader who will make everything better. This has never worked before. These are terrible, terrible people, with a crass and uncaring attitude toward their neighbors.

Who do I like better? Duh. The person who looks around and says, “holy crap, that guy doesn’t have an arm, let’s figure out how to make him one,” and then goes to work building it. Those are the people who have chosen to join us in civilization, those are the people who have exhibited a grasp of and commitment to morality, and those are the people who are actually helping their fellow man. Let’s hope the antiscience people get a clue and join us in this endeavor.

1. Ok, that’s not mysterious at all - that’s part of my stock in trade. But much of the rest seems daunting. [↩]
2. The irony, that webcams come from science, is not lost on me [↩]

It has finally penetrated the awareness of the Sciblings, or whatever the heck they call themselves, that Ken Miller, noted witness in the Dover trial and author of a good biology textbook that was attacked by intelligent design creationists in South Carolina, has used the term “design” when describing biology and wants those of us who do science education and outreach to do so as well. I’m not sure why it took so long - Miller’s halfhearted publicity blitz on his new ideas came at the time of a controversial panel discussion at the AAAS meeting organized by Matt Nisbet about a week ago. The topic of that panel discussion was framing science, and the discussion deliberately excluded the voices of scientists who oppose framing. That was the source of the controversy and much of the notoriety of the panel.

The Sciencebloggers reactions are muted.¹ PZ Myers says:

The word “design” carries other implications: purpose, planning, calculation. These are not present in evolution! Miller isn’t even trying to propose purposefulness in evolution — design, he is saying, is a consequence of the natural mechanism.

I don’t think it can work.

Greg Laden, after an extensive analysis of word frequency in the works of Erasmus and Charles Darwin:

So, I reject design. Both the intelligent kind and the use of the word in standard biological writing.

John Wilkins at Evolving Thoughts:

Ken Miller is going to bow to the intelligent design crowd and try to refurbish design as a biological concept. And why? I ask myself. There’s no need. Design in the absence of information about the manufacturers of an object is a totally otiose notion.

I’m amazed by these understated reflections. Kenneth Miller’s proposal is suicidally destructive to science education, and his actions are are already causing problems among people trying to offer sound science outreach. Perhaps the above feel a natural reluctance to offer the appearance of delivering a bitch-slapping to a respected colleague, but their response is a little surprising considering the severity of the problem.

My concern over this situation is a result of understanding that most science education and outreach comes from people who are not scientists, and a close familiarity with intelligent design creationist tactics.

Scientists are, with certain notable exceptions, not well known for being good at science outreach and (nonmajor) education. Laden, Wilkins, and Myers are exceptions to the rule, but despite this they enjoy a status that people doing the trench warfare of science education do not. As a result of their academic credentials and affiliations, they enjoy a reasonable assurance that people in their community will at least respect them. It is my observation that you don’t often see people in such positions volunteering at the local kid’s science museum², dealing with laypeople in this direct way, day after day. While these people have correctly discerned the insanity of the various antiscience activists, they don’t have to deal with it except at a fairly high level: I’ve never seen Behe or Ham putting in time at the local science museum either, and the antiscience crowd generally sends first-stringers into radio debates and the like, not an everyman armed with the standard talking points. The professors provide a very necessary service for those of us who are working in education and outreach outside our fields of expertise. Without their work, we couldn’t as easily respond to the waves of cannon fodder that the antiscience activists throw at us on a daily basis. But I doubt it is in the daily routine of a PZ Myers or a Greg Laden to deal with the cannon fodder directly.

Let’s step back a bit and look at what Miller’s publicity says:

Miller will argue³ that science itself, including evolutionary biology, is predicated on the idea of “design” — the correlation of structure with function that lies at the heart of the molecular nature of life.

Let’s contrast that with an interaction I experienced with an antiscience nutcase:

Me (talking to an ID creationist): But what is it that you mean when you say “design?”

They: Design means that, or it refers to the idea that structure is associated with, or coupled with function.

If this guy had thought of⁴ the word “correlated,” he probably would have used it. The intelligent design creationists are already using Ken Miller’s talking points. Miller knows this - this is why he’s adopted them.

The framist’s ideas are supported by research into how people perceive rhetoric. There is some support for the notion that appropriating an opponent’s semantic space can convince undecided people to support your side. That’s fine as far as it goes, and in policy debates those tactics can help. The problem is that when doing this, you have to be very careful not to give the appearance that there’s no difference between you and your opponent. If you do that, the audience will conclude your opponent got there first and knows better what they are about. You also have to avoid giving the appearance that you are trying to ride on the coattails of an idea with wide appeal, which you don’t really accept. These problems have plagued political campaigns for generations - this isn’t a new realization.

One problem with framing science, as Miller and Nisbet propose doing it, is that they apply research on questions of public policy debates to science education. Policy debates have no clear “right” or “wrong” conclusion; some policies are obviously not good, and some may be better than others; but these conclusions aren’t as black-and-white as science issues. In many science concepts, the only choice is between reality, and wrongness. I think it is a methodological error to apply research about influencing people to adopt ideas of indeterminate correctness, to the problem of educating people about reality.

Perhaps I am wrong. If I am, it is still incumbent upon people proposing these ideas to provide us with techniques to avoid the two big pitfalls of appropriating someone else’s rhetorical space. We don’t want to be confused for intelligent design creationists, or even as people who, with slight adjustments to the way we think about things, would find such ideas amenable. And we don’t want to give the appearance that we’re hitching a ride on the supposed “popularity” of ID ideas.

If we’re going to do this framing thing, we need a rigorous method to prevent these outcomes. We need some focus groups and polling to determine the relative appeal of different methods. We need to get the word out in an organized way so that everyone can at least understand what is being done.

Miller offers none of this. He’s a loose canon, acting unilaterally, releasing a trial balloon that is dangerous because he is the one letting it go, rather than some insignificant third-string underling (like me).

Finally, the framists want to adopt a body of research about influencing people on matters of opinion - questionably adopted for the task of educating people about facts, as I see it - instead of adopting evidence based biology education techniques that are unquestionably pertinent to the issue at hand, and result from research methods that have a long history, wide acceptance, and proven effectiveness.

Let’s get back to the crank I mentioned above. Here’s how I responded to that guy’s definition of design:

Me: Well, ok, but does that mean it is intelligently designed?

They: Yes, because when things are used for a task they are the things that are best able to do that task.

Me: Well, that sounds nice, but it isn’t true. I have a shed in my backyard. When I use a screwdriver to chip ice off the latch, I’m not using the “thing that is best able to do that task.” It just means I don’t own an ice pick. Or a heat gun. And that’s how organisms use their body structures. When a chimp hits another chimp with his fist, the fist isn’t the “best thing” for hitting, it’s just what he has. An Ankylosaur tail would be better⁵, but he doesn’t have one of those.

This response was not great, but it was good enough - my interlocutor was speaking during Q&A at a public speaking engagement, and the audience understood what I was saying. Contrast and compare:

Antisciencer: But if all these creatures are so well adapted to the long winters, why don’t you think they are designed?

Me: Just because these animals body designs are well adapted, doesn’t -

Antisciencer: So you admit there is design there, then?

That’s what you call a stupid and embarrassing mistake. You now have to back up and explain what design means, so that you don’t leave your students with a misconception. In doing that, you are going to look like some smug and pedantic college professor type. Some people are going to think you are splitting hairs in order to look smarter than the other person. Some people are going to say “they were saying the same thing, they just didn’t want to admit it to each other, they both want to be right.”

If you do get through to some percentage of the audience, you still have the burden of explaining the difference between “design” the way you used the word, and “design” the way it is commonly understood. That adds an unnecessary layer of complexity to the concepts you are trying to teach. It’s a needless burden upon the instructor. Miller seeks to impose this burden, and I’m unhappy with that.

More, from a different talk:

Me: Sure, the structure of organisms have functions. We eat with mouths. We also speak with them. And we ski down mountainsides, but that doesn’t mean the owner of the ski resort made the mountain for that purpose.

Antisciencer: Why can’t you just admit there is design?

Me: Because it doesn’t look like there is design. There are attributes, but to say design means that something was put together deliberately for an intended effect. That might be right, but nobody can come up with an experiment that shows that it is, so it isn’t science. And I don’t see how molecules work with “intent.” Genes don’t want to do things, they just make proteins. So as long as I’m up here to talk about science, I’ll use scientific concepts and scientific language. Design isn’t one of them, in this case.

Antisciencer: So you really do disagree?

Me: Oh, yes, I disagree completely. Our ideas about biology are completely incompatible, this isn’t a matter of splitting hairs. Now if you could tell me how to do an experiment which would prove a designer, I’d sing a different tune. Until then, I’m sticking with the science.

I came out of that one in considerably better shape. I had an educable moment there, in which I could make clear to the whole audience the depth of disagreement between science and antiscience. Some of the other material from this interaction, which I haven’t reproduced here, shed some light on that difference.

What the sciencebloglingadingalinglongs don’t seem to fully appreciate here is the way that antiscience activists are constantly in your face when you are doing this kind of education, looking for any opportunity to take something that you say, and twist it into support for their strange beliefs. Now that Miller has taken leave of his senses and begun worshiping at the church of framing, I am shortly going to have to deal with this:

Antisciencer: You may say that, but Kenneth Miller is a real biologist, and he says there is design. Why should we believe you instead?

And frankly, I’ve got nothing.

1. Presumably, Nisbet is in favor. [↩]
2. You know, the kind of place usually called the “Imaginarium” or “Exploratorium” - a place where kids go to get overstimulated with sciencey stuff. [↩]
3. The quotation refers to the AAAS panel discussion, which has now taken place. [↩]
4. Or knew. [↩]
5. This tactic works better if you have a cartoon monkey with an Ankylosaur tail to project on the screen at the proper moment. As I do. [↩]

In an example of breathtaking cowardice an ISP called Netcetera has unilaterally cancelled the Quackometer blog, because some guy who promotes nutritional supplements threatened to sue them. Quackometer was devoted to telling the truth about non-evidence-based and potentially dangerous health practices.

Netcetera has written to the owner of Quackometer with the explanation:

We do not wish to be in a position where we could be taken to court, and incur the loss of time and expense that would involve. Consequently Netcetera have decided to suspend the Quackometer website, with reference to our Acceptable Usage Policy, the first part of which is quoted below.

….

1.1) Netcetera reserves the right to suspend or cancel a customer’s access to any or all services provided by Netcetera, where Netcetera decides that the account has been inappropriately used.

Apparently Netcetera believes that calling out scam artists and promoters of dangerous practices masquerading as “medicine” is improper. I can only presume that the Netcetera offices are awash in homeopathic remedies, Noni juice, and and special high-powered antioxidant supplements.

Despite having all this amazing snake oil to hand, the people at Netcetera nevertheless don’t have the magic elixir that would grow them a spine.

I just learned from Denialism Blog that terrorists have set fire to a UCLA professor’s house. An LA Times story (registration required) reports that some sort of incendiary device set the house aflame:

The device was placed Monday morning (February 4) on the front porch of a Westside house owned by Edythe London, FBI officials in Los Angeles said.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller confirmed that officials with the Joint Terrorism Task Force were investigating the incident.

“It was ignited and caused damage to the property,” Eimiller said. “No one was home at the time and nobody was hurt.”

Eimiller said no one had claimed responsibility. But the agency is investigating the allegation that the Animal Liberation Front used a garden hose to flood London’s house Oct. 20 in an attempt to stop her animal experiments.

The victim, Edythe London, is a researcher at UCLA who studies addiction to nicotine, methamphetamine, and alcohol. Her research has resulted in a better understanding of addiction, and better treatments to help people addicted to drugs to recover, and subsequently live better, more productive lives. Although this has helped drug abusers - and their primary victims, their families and communities - the research has helped millions more. London has developed new ways to study brain function, and almost anyone with a head injury, neurological disease, or learning disability has befitted in one way or another from London’s twenty or so years of research.

“Animal-rights” terrorists want to kill her because some of her work involves the use of lab monkeys. They’ve already successfully attacked her house once, doing $20,000 to $30,000 worth of damage by flooding it. The terrorists who claimed credit for doing that, calling themselves the Animal Liberation Front, said at the time they they were torn between flooding the house and burning it down.

Now they have come back, and since vandalism didn’t work, they’re trying to kill her.

She looks like a huge threat, doesn’t she? Why, just by looking at her, you can tell that she’s evil, fire-breathing spawn of demons.¹ And obviously any attractive middle-aged women named Edyth must be at the root of the collapse of civilization.

London has written about why she uses animals in some of her research. It is a thoughtful explanation of her opinions. This gentle, peaceful explanation of the subject is answered with violence. Her opponents can’t be bothered to put forth a vigorous argument in response - they have to try to kill those who disagree with them.

The people who want her dead have put her home address on a public website, disguising their intent by claiming they just want to distribute flyers in her neighborhood. If this is all they wanted to do, they could just disclose which city block she lives on. Instead, they publish the house number. The intent is clear enough - they want to target her specifically. They want to intimidate her by letting her know that any crackpot who wants to believe they are doing God’s work by killing someone can find her easily.

They have also taken quotations from her research papers out of context and reproduced them in a misleading way. No doubt this serves to fire up their fellow-travellers, and makes it seem as though their violent and deadly actions are somehow justified.

That, incidentally, is the typical tactic of all antiscience malcontents. I’m not sure it is actually possible to oppose science by telling the truth. So the socially maladjusted just make stuff up and pretend that what they say has something to do with reality. In this particular case, if they get what they want they will halt all progress in understanding biology and medicine. And not just by killing all the the researchers, although I’m sure they’d find that good sport - but by banning all research.

I recently commented on the skepchick blog about how to recognize an extremist:

The way that you know that you are dealing with a minority extremist sect of a larger movement is that the larger movement works to morally condemn and limit the influence of the minority sect.

I’m concerned that the violent are the mainstream in the so-called “animal rights” movement. A simple google search turns up not a single example of an animal rights activist condemning this attempted killing of a woman, their family, and depending on how well their IEDs work, her neighbors.

1. If you don’t get this, please look up the definition of sarcasm. [↩]