It is an always increasing problem: the EU doesn’t pay in time for your science. The European Ombudsman now invites observations from the public concerning his own-initiative inquiry into the problem of late payment by the European Commission [link].
Yes, again some thoughts about the limits of science and the horizon of religion, triggered by The Mermaid who writes about cause and effect and is itself
triggered in part by watching a video of a BBC television series called The Impressionists. It is a very fine dramatization of the 19th century French impressionism movement in art: Degas, Manet, Monet, Cezanne and others. At the same time these painters were working, realist painters were working as well (and there was conflict between the two groups, of course). So why did impressionism arise? Why is impressionist art so impressive (to some, at least)?
There are different ways to describe reality – and clearly the impressionist’s painters have developed their own way – neither better nor worse, just different.
But why are there so many materialistic scientists who want us to show that all religion is either caused by genes (VMAT2 – the “god gene”), by neuro-anatomy (Ramachandran’s god modul) by psychology (Freud’s “phantasy structure”) or just politics (“Opium des Volkes”). Why is it unacceptable that religion may be just the “impressionistic” way that may be even advantageous in some if not many situations?
At least in medicine but also in many other fields, formal proof of a scientific hypothesis is difficult if not impossible. Reading again Greaves’ cancer book, I discover even more insights there. Talking about the hormonal stress leading to breast cancer he makes the point that
there is no ’cause’ in the straightforward, singular, or usually perceived meaning of the word; no tubercle bacillus equivalent. Neither is a mutant gene the common cause. Chronic hormonal stimulation driving persistent epithelial stem cell division seems to be a major factor (cycles driving cycles) and this reflects in large measure our social divorce from evolutionary adaptations for reproduction … Superimpose some degree of inherited predisposition and chance itself on this prescription and a very plausible causal network imbued with evolutionary principles becomes evident.
This is a very different view to the current sequencing headlines like “Lung cancer and melanoma laid bare“.
It is interesting to see, how journals are trying to increase their market visibility – Nature has becoming famous for their investment in Second Life? Just recently I received an email that JACI – the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology – has now opened an account at Facebook. Continue reading Do we need scientific journals at social networks?
— a quote of a new FM article entitled “Looking for you” that sees blogs as a form fo self-presentation on the internet (blogs btw show a dramatic increase of 1,4 new blogs every second worldwide). I haven’t seen blogging activity so much as Continue reading People are, in a sense, on stage
Here is my bit for the Ig Nobel – that piece that has just been published at PLoS ONE:
We studied the facial appearance of 102 pairs of female Danish twins aged 59 to 81 as well as 162 British females aged 45 to 75. Continue reading Why some women look young for their age
An interesting piece published in Science finds that
The accuracy and predictability of a hypothesis depend on the validity of the inputs used to generate and test it. Because problems are typically complex and information regarding their solution is limited, the solution is more likely to be found if the information base is greater. This rationale is a driving force behind systems biology, which attempts to define biological complexity from a systemic perspective using information technology … High-profile journals publish systems biology studies, including the human genome sequence, but most papers focus on hypothesis-driven investigations.
The most remarkable point here is the fact that there are still more people who believe in an underlying truth. This reminds me to the philosopher Continue reading Coordinates of truth and hypothesis-generating research
Wikepedia defines
“Fake it till you make it” (also called “act as if”) is a common catchphrase Continue reading Fake it till you make it
A review of “Unscientific America” on p 678 in Science Magazine 7 Aug 2009 finds
According to Mooney and Kirshenbaum, atheistic scientists such as Richard Dawkins and P. Z. Myers [who runs the immensely popular science blog Pharyngula] drive people away from science by forcing them to choose between the facts and their faith.
I am curently working on a new lecture series on that topic – having a gut feeling that the evolutionary history will explain how and why we get diseases. Some German magazines (“Fehlkonstruktion Mensch” DER SPIEGEL 40/2009) even write about that topic quoting a forthcoming book of Ganten / Deichmann / Spahl). I will rely, however, mostly on Continue reading evo-devo-dis
was die Welt zusammen hält… Continue reading Collegium logicum
From a press release
Today, the open-access publisher the Public Library of Science (PLoS; www.plos.org), announces the release of an expanded set of article-level metrics Continue reading First major publisher releases article metrics
Overfunding of research seems to be a largely neglected area. Getting money twice for the same project (or doing something different than being in the application) seems to be the “creative” Continue reading How to cheat with timesheet
Finally, here is a technical solution to a proposal that I made here earlier
Ok, we are aware that recovery is always possible with cut & paste into other applications or printing a text -so we may better think about some watermarked graphics. “Don’t ever say anything on e-mail or text messaging that you don’t want to come back and bite you.”
NI has an editorial on hyping research
Although these attention-grabbing headlines might help sell papers and increase traffic to newspaper websites, such reporting is irresponsible to the public and to science in general. Even if the article itself is more balanced, it must be remembered that many readers never get much beyond the headline. The net result is the public comes away with much misinformation.
Continue reading Attention grabbing headlines