Author Archives: admin

Objectivity and other people.

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As a follow-up to my last post, it looks like I should offer a more detailed explanation of why exactly scientific activity is a group activity — not simply as a matter of convenience, but as a matter of necessity. Helen E. Longino has already made this case very persuasively in her book Science as Social Knowledge (specifically the chapter called “Values and Objectivity”), so I’m going to use this post to give a sketch of her argument.

The upshot of the argument is that objective knowledge requires the involvement of other people in the building. All by yourself, there is no way to move beyond subjective knowledge.
First, what do we mean by “objective”?

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Peer review and science.

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Chad Orzel takes a commenter to task for fetishizing peer review:

Saying that only peer-reviewed articles (or peer-reviewable articles) count as science only reinforces the already pervasive notion that science is something beyond the reach of “normal” people. In essence, it’s saying that only scientists can do science, and that science is the exclusive province of geeks and nerds.

That attitude is, I think, actively harmful to our society. It’s part of why we have a hard time getting students to study math and science, and finding people to teach math and science. We shouldn’t be restricting science to refereed journals, we should be trying to spread it as widely as possible.

Peer review and refereed journals are a good check on science, but they do not define the essence of science. Science is, at its core, a matter of attitude and procedure. The essence of science is looking at the world and saying “Huh. I wonder why that happens?” And then taking a systematic approach to figuring it out.

I see what Chad is saying — and to the extent that science can be said to have an “essence” think he’s hit on a nice way to describe it. But I’m going to speak up for peer review here.

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Friday Sprog Blogging: just add water.

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StarchyHands.jpg
One afternoon, the Free-Ride offspring were in the mood for some spur of the moment experimentation.
So, we cleared the kitchen table, rummaged through the cupboards, and came up with a plan.
The question we decided to investigate:
What happens to different dry ingredients when you add water to them?

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ScienceBlogs survey, and an invitation to introduce yourself.

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First, from the Seed Overlords:

You may have noticed some pretty yellow banner ads around the site this week. They’re advertising a huge reader survey that we’re conducting right now. Anyone (excepting Seed employees) who fills it out can enter to win an iPod and MacBook Air.
The survey takes about 10 minutes to complete. Here’s the survey page:
http://www.erdossurvey.com/sb/survey/

Then, following the lead of Ed, Bora, DrugMonkey, and Alice, I’d like to invite the readers of this blog, from regular commenters to committed lurkers, to check in.
Tell us who you are, what brings you here, and what brings you back. What do you like reading about here? What topics would you like to see more of?
I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

NYC bloggers/readers meet-up: venue changed!

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A quick update on the details for the meet-up in Manhattan this coming Saturday:
Owing to the number of people who say they’ll be coming (large) and the weather forecast (chance of thundershowers), we will not be meeting at the Arthur Ross Terrace at the American Museum of Natural History.
We’ll be meeting somewhere else. Once that somewhere else is known to me, I will post details (including information on how to get there by subway).
UPDATE: The location is now known!
We’ll be at: Social, 795 8th Ave (close to 48th St.), New York, NY 10019.
Google maps it thusly. It appears to be close to subway stations serviced by C, E, 1, 2, and 3 trains.
Seed will be buying the first round of pitchers (of real beer and of non-alcoholic beer alternatives).
I’m really looking forward to meeting a bunch of you on Saturday, August 9, 2-4 PM.

Friday Sprog Blogging: random bullets of sprog.

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Because it’s been one of those weeks.
*The elder Free-Ride offspring conveys heartfelt thanks to those who provided quantum mechanical book recommendations in the comments on this post — and to Super Sally who sent three of those books as birthday presents. The elder offspring is about two chapters into Alice in Quantumland right now and pronounces it good. “There’s an electron bank, but the more energy you borrow, the faster you have to pay back the loan.”
We have not yet located the science content in the other print-based present that went over well (Emily the Strange comic books). I’m confident we’ll find some, though. Everything has science content if you look hard enough.

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Medical research with ‘legacy samples’ raises ethical questions.

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In the July 18, 2008 issue of Science, I noticed a news item, “Old Samples Trip Up Tokyo Team”:

A University of Tokyo team has retracted a published research paper because it apparently failed to obtain informed consent from tissue donors or approval from an institutional review board (IRB). Other papers by the same group are under investigation by the university. Observers believe problems stem in part from guidelines that don’t sufficiently explain how to handle samples collected before Japan established informed consent procedures.

The samples in question were “legacy samples”, samples that had been previously collected for other research projects. The fact that these samples were collected before the institution of the rules for research with human subjects to which Japanese researchers are now bound complicates the ethical considerations for the researchers.

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