john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

politics

  • California's online imposition

    Tue, 2013-03-12 23:11 -- John Hawks

    This is big education news, from the California legislature: "Measure Seeks Campus Credit For Web Study".

    If it passes, as seems likely, it would be the first time that state legislators have instructed public universities to grant credit for courses that were not their own — including those taught by a private vendor, not by a college or university.

    “We want to be the first state in the nation to make this promise: No college student in California will be denied the right to move through their education because they couldn’t get a seat in the course they needed,” said Darrell Steinberg, the president pro tem of the Senate, who will introduce the bill. “That’s the motivation for this.”

    So instead of increasing funding to existing campuses at sufficient levels to train the students who are seeking education, California will mandate that online courses from other institutions be accepted as part of the degree requirements at its state universities and community colleges.

    Does that mean I'll soon have Berkeley anthropology students taking my online course for degree credit? We'll see....

    Tags: 
    online education
    teaching
    politics
    open access
    MOOCs

  • Birth politics

    Sat, 2013-03-09 18:51 -- John Hawks

    Alice Roberts writes about the process of childbirth as she awaits her second delivery: "Childbirth: why I take the scientific approach to having a baby". The essay includes a bit of evolutionary perspective and a good discussion of evidence-based medicine and the ways that advocacy can distort it. A teaser:

    Another problem is the politics of birth. It can be quite hard for mums-to-be to access impartial evidence and advice when it seems there are plenty of people wanting to influence your decision in one way or the other. Evangelical advocates of home birth often talk about the importance of women's choice and empowerment, as well as instilling distrust in obstetricians. For me, being empowered to make a decision requires access to good evidence and the freedom to make up my own mind. And whilst "maternal satisfaction" is often put forward as an important factor to be taken into consideration, I want to know what the relative risks are. And if there's not yet enough evidence to assess that – I want to know that too.

    For more detailed reading about the role of evolution in female health, I can recommend Wenda Trevathan's book, Ancient Bodies, Modern Lives: How Evolution Has Shaped Women's Health.

    Tags: 
    birth
    evolutionary medicine
    politics

  • Quote: Morgan and Reynolds on ethics of plagiarism

    Fri, 2013-03-08 20:18 -- John Hawks

    Peter Morgan and Glenn Reynolds, from their book The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society (available online "Chapter Five: A Plague of Originality").

    In fact, appearance ethics not only fail to foster better behavior in those they govern, they also undermine the behavior of those who apply them. One of the chief appeals of appearance ethics to its enforcers (who include the corps of press and commentators) is that – much like reprinting press releases as news – judging appearances requires little knowledge of substance, allowing one to discuss the issues without the need for bothersome research or thought. Classical thinkers on ethical matters had a term for this tendency to avoid hard work. It was called laziness, and it was not considered a virtue. Another appeal of appearance ethics is that it provides something to talk about: when appearance ethics are the rule, even an unsubstantiated accusation can be said to create a bad appearance. Thus, even an unsubstantiated accusation provides grist for the mill of news flashes, op-eds, and talking-head shows.

    The classical term for this sort of behavior was malicious gossip and it, too, was not considered a virtue. This powerful appetite for accusations based on appearances itself encourages bad behavior: when the prevailing attitude is "where there’s smoke there’s fire" we should not be surprised to find a brisk trade in smudge-pots. This was known as temptation.

    That all of these human characteristics exist should come as no surprise. That they exist, by design, in an area dedicated to the improvement of ethics would have surprised classical thinkers. We should be concerned that it goes unremarked today.

    Seems apposite to recent discussions about ethics in anthropology. Self-proclaimed ethics defenders rely upon a widespread willingness to judge appearances, rather than do the hard work of engaging with evidence.

    Tags: 
    ethics
    quotes
    politics

  • More on the reclamation proclamation

    Tue, 2013-02-26 15:22 -- John Hawks

    Michael E. Smith comments on the Chagnon/Sahlins flap from the perspective of archaeology: "Chagnon, Sahlins, and science":

    What about archaeology? Are we exempt from this kind of serious but silly debate? We certainly have our sociobiologists and our cultural explanations partisans. Mostly they talk past one another, and if they do happen to engage, discourse takes the form of "Is so!" "Is not!" "Is too!" I've commented on a parallel manifestation of the serious but silly debates about the role of drought in the Maya collapse, and archaeological opinions on Jared Diamond's collapse book.

    When we allow personal ideological bias rule to our scholarly work, we limit the value of our research to answer real questions and to contribute to broader social and scientific debates. If you have an ideological axe to grind, either leave scholarship and go into politics, or else find ways to achieve a level of scholarly objectivity in your research and writing.

    Oh, how I wish I didn't have a grant proposal to finish tonight. More when I have a chance...

    Tags: 
    history of archaeology
    history of anthropology
    politics
    ethics

  • Asteroid defense: think small

    Sat, 2013-02-16 15:08 -- John Hawks

    Rand Simberg: "Should NASA Be Doing More Asteroids?"

    In fact, it’s not at all clear that NASA is the right place for this to happen, particularly given all its organization dysfunction. I would submit that there is currently no government agency chartered to protect the planet. I think I’m going to write up an op-ed or two declaring that it’s time to fundamentally reorganize the federal space establishment, including the formation of the Space Guard.

    When I hear "Space Guard", I imagine NASA as implemented by the staff of Homeland Security.

    Seems to me the fastest way to get effective planetary defense is large-scale asteroid micromining. I was skeptical about the practicality of the asteroid micromanufacturing idea I mentioned here last month ("Autonomous asteroid manufacturing"). But suppose we had a company with the technical ability to ship an indefinite number of 70 kg payloads from the asteroid belt to Earth. That company has everything needed to fling an indefinite number of 70 kg impactors from the asteroid belt at another asteroid in a lower, Earth-intersecting orbit.

    This is essentially the same idea as the "kinetic bombardment" concept for space weapons -- inert masses that strike targets at orbital velocity, nicknamed "rods from God". Instead of having to launch all that mass from Earth up to escape velocity, the scheme can use a huge amount of mass already at higher orbital energy, using autonomous manufacturing to package the mass with devices that can decelerate into an intercept orbit. Assuming a lead time of a few years, this ought to be a lot cheaper and more flexible than any Earth-based solution, and it has the side effect of providing material and goods for wider space colonization.

    The best reason to manufacture things in space is so that you can use them in space, after all.

    Tags: 
    space
    politics

  • Recantation of a former genetic know-nothing

    Fri, 2013-01-04 16:03 -- John Hawks

    The text of this lecture by Mark Lynas is remarkable ("Lecture to Oxford Farming Conference, 3 January 2013"). Lynas gained prominence as a critic of genetically modified crops, and describes in the lecture how his activism developed and how he has come in the last few years to renounce his prior views. This happened as he learned to read the scientific literature in order to write books about climate change.

    My second climate book, Six Degrees, was so sciency that it even won the Royal Society science books prize, and climate scientists I had become friendly with would joke that I knew more about the subject than them. And yet, incredibly, at this time in 2008 I was still penning screeds in the Guardian attacking the science of GM – even though I had done no academic research on the topic, and had a pretty limited personal understanding. I don’t think I’d ever read a peer-reviewed paper on biotechnology or plant science even at this late stage.

    I find that completely jaw-dropping. Here is someone who had never read a scientific study on the subject, purporting to be an advocate in the popular press, and having his ignorant statements printed widely by multimillion-dollar media organizations. I understand that he is an exception only in his newfound candor about his ignorance. But this is the totally unacceptable problem in science communication: Big media uncritically spreads the word of ignoramuses to fit a political agenda.

    Should we laud Lynas for his current change of heart? I'm glad to see that he started reading instead of mindlessly parroting ignorant anti-science propaganda. But his current stance even if honest seems transparently opportunistic, as he has found books more profitable than his former advocacy. I would rather see him name names about his former anti-science associates who likewise worked on the basis of complete ignorance.

    Tags: 
    anti-science
    science communication
    GMOs
    biotech
    climate change
    politics

  • The Stalin Age diet

    Tue, 2012-06-05 23:00 -- John Hawks

    Dan Lieberman, writing in the New York Times, supports the Bloomburg soda ban with a call for additional regulations banning: "Evolution's Sweet Tooth".

    We humans did not evolve to eat healthily and go to the gym; until recently, we didn’t have to make such choices. But we did evolve to cooperate to help one another survive and thrive. Circumstances have changed, but we still need one another’s help as much as we ever did. For this reason, we need government on our side, not on the side of those who wish to make money by stoking our cravings and profiting from them. We have evolved to need coercion.

    "We have evolved to need coercion?!"

    Evolution has a role in the science of obesity. It's undeniable that our evolved preferences can be maladaptive in today's industrialized food environment.

    But coercion? Guess what? We already have coercion. There's extreme social coercion against the obese in this country. Lieberman's argument in the column is a good example:

    I think we should focus paternalistic laws on children. Youngsters can’t make rational, informed decisions about their bodies, and our society agrees that parents don’t have the right to make disastrous decisions on their behalf.

    Great. Blame the parents. But who's making the disastrous decisions here?

    Along these lines, we should ban all unhealthy food in school — soda, pizza, French fries — and insist that schools provide adequate daily physical education, which many fail to do.

    Notice: It's the state that's coercing children to be in school all day, where they are denied access to healthy food and physical activity! In this coercive environment, the federal government provides two free unhealthy meals a day for poor children. Seriously: If you want to bring an evolutionary perspective to bear on this question, look at the effects of eight hours of daily sedentism with an average 1200 kcal/day on a free school breakfast and lunch --not even counting after-school snacks and supper. The state is using its enormous coercive power to force children to become fat.

    Despite this record, now Lieberman and others want to bring on some more coercion:

    The final option is to collectively restore our diets to a more natural state through regulations. Until recently, all humans had no choice but to eat a healthy diet with modest portions of food that were low in sugar, saturated fat and salt, but high in fiber. They also had no choice but to walk and sometimes run an average of 5 to 10 miles a day. Mr. Bloomberg’s paternalistic plan is not an aberrant form of coercion but a very small step toward restoring a natural part of our environment.

    I'll believe in restoring our ancestral environment when politicians begin to walk 5 to 10 miles a day to forage for their high-fiber meals. As it is, all they do is dish up high-fiber verbiage for the rest of us.

    My opinion: This isn't about health, it's about control. Some people cannot stand freedom for others, and do everything they can to squelch it.

    Tags: 
    diet
    politics
    freedom
    Synopsis: 
    I find totalitarian diet control to be unpalatable.

  • "We don't need a master"

    Sun, 2012-05-27 13:56 -- John Hawks

    The Boston Globe has a a story about a new institute, founded by Jon F. Wilkins, that aims to solve some of the administrative problems facing independent scholars: "The Ronin Institute for wayward academics".

    But the issue isn’t just a lack of jobs for would-be academics. To do research, young scholars usually need to find full-time academic jobs. By training more people than it can employ, the current system leaves untapped brainpower languishing.

    In a white paper published this month by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Wilkins and coauthor Samuel Arbesman, a senior scholar at the foundation, are suggesting an alternative. Academics, they argue, need not be professors with experiences “steeped within the ivory tower.” They can be “fractional scholars”—a term they coined—pursuing their interests on their own, outside of academia. “Many, many PhDs have the ability to do it,” said Arbesman, who has also written for Ideas. There’s just one issue. “Within the current culture,” he said, “you need some sort of institutional affiliation.”

    As the article explains, the affiliation is necessary for grant-seeking from some funding sources. Obviously its other function -- as a source of credibility -- depends on the scholars who affiliate with the Institute and their work. I think such an institute needs to establish a positive agenda so that others won't perceive it as a mere reaction to the job market.

    One way that other institutes gain credibility is by becoming involved with training students, or facilitating students to do work with established scholars. (The Santa Fe Institute, which the article mentions, is one that provides opportunities for advanced students to interact with resident scholars, for example). Could there be "Ronin workshops"?

    Tags: 
    metascience
    academics
    politics
    grants

  • Shoelaces tied together

    Wed, 2012-05-23 09:53 -- John Hawks

    Zen Faulkes comments on last week's National Academies meeting on Science Communication: "Self-defeating prophecy".

    Here’s a screenshot of day two of the Sackler colloquia on science communication from the National Academy of Science, where the most diversity you see is in tie colour. (That John Holdren is a wild man. A coloured tie?)

    and

    I was disappointed that he showed as an example of the current state of the art in science communication. He includes someone who is dead (Sagan) and someone who isn’t a scientist (Gore). That’s our A list team? One, maybe two, living scientists as skilled communicators?

    Tags: 
    science communication
    meetings
    politics

  • Making science or making news?

    Fri, 2012-04-20 22:18 -- John Hawks

    Christopher Reddy, from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, comments on his experience doing science around the Deepwater Horizon oil accident in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago: "How Science Failed During the Gulf Oil Disaster". His essay concentrates on the competing interests of scientists, journalists and policymakers.

    We had published the study a little more than two months after gathering the data — lightning fast for a scientific paper. But when I was the academic liaison at the oil spill’s headquarters the following month, I learned that those on the front line weren’t impressed by the publication of a paper a month after the crisis was over. Crisis responders often must make decisions on the spot, with imperfect information, even if it is risky.

    During a crisis, “peer review is the biggest problem with academia” Juliette Kayyem, who was an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security during the Deepwater Horizon and teaches crisis response at Harvard, told me.

    In this case, the scientists and bureaucrats both wanted peer review to validate straightforward buck-passing reciprocity. The government is often willing to do something expensive that might fail, as long as they can pin the blame on scientists; scientists will shoulder the blame as long as peer review covers them from other scientists' criticism.

    Missed is the sad fact that peer review is only as good as the probability of drawing two thoughtful reviewers from the pool.

    Reddy and many others did a lot of good science during the Deepwater Horizon spill. In particular, they were able to discover and quantify some of the different dynamics of oil in deep water, including the formation of a deep water oil plume. As a study in mismatched priorities, Reddy describes his experience working on the problem, which drew overhyped attention from the press:

    Government responders and industry had to respond to the press about the plumes, rather then focusing on higher priorities such as capping the well. And the public had to respond to these reports, too. I recall one Gulf resident asking me if he should sell his house and move away.

    The investigation of the plume was where the most novel science was to be found, but was not the central issue for the engineers and other workers tasked with ending the spill and minimizing damage to shoreline ecosystems.

    I wish I could say I wasn’t thinking about scooping my peers, confirming the plume, and publishing a top-notch science paper, but that wouldn’t be true. In fact, I called an editor of a journal from the bow of a boat asking him if he was interested in our findings.

    Reddy's essay lacks a clear moral, but he is revealing about his motives. He began by criticizing other scientists who drew press attention to the idea of a deep water plume, then joined them in the chase to find it.

    Tags: 
    press
    science writing
    metascience
    politics

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