Category Archives: Philosophy

Yes, it is true and and quite right too

25.02.2008 admin 1 Comment

Science reports that the NEJM is being sued by Pfizer

in various jurisdictions on product liability grounds. Plaintiffs are claiming that its products Celebrex and Bextra cause cardiovascular and other injuries. Pfizer asserts that in some cases plaintiffs are making use of published papers from the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). So it wants to dig though the confidential reviews of those papers in search of something to strengthen its defense.

Two giants fighting each other… Continue reading Yes, it is true and and quite right too →

Philosophy

Phantastic, the peer-review system is broken

22.02.2008 admin

A comment on the online Nature website says it all

Phantastic. Moreover, the peer-review system is broken with top PI’s getting away with publishing high impact poorly reviewed rubbish. If more non-peer-reviewed research becomes more prominent it will hardly make a difference to quality and can overall only be a good thing.

commenting on the recent decision at Harvard to automatically publish all papers by its Faculty of Arts and Sciences on the university’s website (except there is a waiver). I am waiting for the first German university to follow; effectively since January 2008 we get all our ordered documents on paper again for copyright reasons.

Philosophy

Un altro giro di giostra

15.02.2008 admin

This is the book that I am currently reading – a monologue of the world famous journalist Tiziano Terzani – who describes at the end of his life his view of the “scientific” medical approach at MSKCC, the achievements but also shortcomings. “Un altro giro di giostra”.

Genetics, Philosophy, Theology

Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind?

11.02.2008 admin

While Nature magazine is preparing something about Darwin’s enduring legacy here is a piece from Darwin’s own writings

doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

which can be found in Continue reading Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind? →

Philosophy

When science fails

7.02.2008 admin 1 Comment

Science fails if there is no gain in knowledge. At least in my research field the majority of papers does not provide any significant new knowledge leading even to the incredible notion “Beam me up”. Paper output is reaching an all time height as reported in a recent Nature commentary [1, 2]. Continue reading When science fails →

Genetics, Philosophy

New psoriasis gene would have been missed by testing linkage only

4.02.2008 admin

A recent study published in nature genetics study highlights a ß-defensin gene where increased copy numbers are related to psoriasis. The normal range is 2 – 12 copies with the risk increasing with each extra copy. I donÂ´t know if the given explanation is really correct: more genomic copies lead to more RNA, lead to more antimicrobial peptide, lead to skin inflammation. Maybe there is an unknown intermediate step: more antimicrobial peptide -> induce other inflammtory interleukins -> skin inflammation.
In any case, Continue reading New psoriasis gene would have been missed by testing linkage only →

Philosophy

Write letters – they are important

1.02.2008 admin

Scientific correspondence has always been important – as part of the dialectical and hermeneutical process of interpreting data. The value of scientific letters recently dropped for several reasons Continue reading Write letters – they are important →

Philosophy, Theology

In memory of Peter Lipton

28.01.2008 admin 1 Comment

I have been asked to give an evening lecture about science and religion here at a local congregation. At the first moment, I did not want to do that, but finally promised to take up this challenge – there are so many heroes where I could get some inspiration. I remember having read a wonderful paper by an author but could not recall his name. Continue reading In memory of Peter Lipton →

Philosophy

Finally: A true alternative to Thomson ISIÂ® impact factors

7.01.2008 admin

That was even worth a note in Nature News that finally a free journal-ranking tool entered the citation market. The attack came by an article in JCB (“Show me the data“), the response was weak. Sooooooo we have a choice now which of the metric indices is being the worsest way to rate a researcher (if you can’t understand otherwise what she/he his doing).
BTW individual IF reporting was never intended but ISI but is now common use in many countries. I donÂ´t believe (as Decan Butler explains) that there is so much difference between popularity and prestige – but there is a big difference between popularity and quality.

Philosophy

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited

20.12.2007 admin

is one of my favorite quotes by Plutarch. Here is a view from my first exercise-book. On the right page I tried to erase an error that was awarded a small devil Continue reading The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited →

Philosophy

No scientist is always a scientist

18.12.2007 admin

Today I watched the full length video of the Nobel prize ceremony last week. I had to think of Stefan Zweig saying in “Sternstunden der Menschlichkeit” (my own translation)

No artist is always an artist during 24 hours of daily life; everything that is important, ever lasting and successful, happens within a few and rare moments.

in other words Csikszentmihalyi’s “flow” that we are always chasing, surfing the ultimate wave, yea, yea.

Philosophy, Software

Research not re-search

16.12.2007 admin

Zotero is a browser plugin that I am currently exploring as it can recognize PUBMED or PLoS entries and knows about Endnote/Refer/BibX export in UTF-8 format. The Open Office 2.1 insert reference macro produces a runtime error here and importing 100 references freezes my computer for about 5 minutes. Nevertheless Zotero follows a promising concept and holds much premises for the future; just discovered that data are stored in “…\zotero\zotero.sqlite”, great! one of the best available databases. This is the reason why I will

yea, yea.

Addendum 1

As there is no central Zotero server, I wonder how I could access my local installation from different sites. The recommended portable Firefox is not really an universal solution. As with other open source databases, surrounding code of SQLITE is getting commercialized but there seems to be a free? sqlite server for download.

Addendum 2

This is a more philosophical remark on science publication: With a technical sound solution for online referencing I expect that science blogs will get more influence while printed papers will loose their importance. Post publication peer review (attached comments) is certainly as good as pre publication peer review (that kills many new ideas, always delays publication and costs a lot of money better spent for research). You can cite me for that idea ;-)