How do you think we ought to deal with information about bad actors?

This is a follow-up, of a sort, to the previous post on why serious discussions (as opposed to shouting matches or PR campaigns) about the use of animals in research seem to be so difficult to have. One of the contentious issues that keeps coming up in the comments is how (if at all) such discussions ought to deal with prior bad acts that may not be representative of what’s happened since, or even of the actions of most of the scientific community at the time of those prior bad acts.
My sense, however, is that the real issue is who we think we can engage in a serious reasoned dialogue with and who we’ve already written off, who we think is worth engaging because there’s really a shared commitment to take each other’s interests seriously, and who intends to “win” at any cost.

Continue reading

Discomfort with the gray areas in animal research.

Lately it’s struck me that when I post on the issue of research with animals, many of the comments I get on those posts see the issue as a black and white one. Mind you, these commenters don’t always agree about whether it is the scientists or the animal rights activists who are on the side of the angels. However, many of them feel quite confident in asserting that all animal research is immoral, or that ideally all the judgments about what is necessary and appropriate in research with animals would be left to the scientists doing the research.
I can’t help but think that there must be a lot of people who recognize gray areas between these two extreme positions. Does the fact that relatively fewer of them comment on the posts reflect their discomfort with the gray areas themselves, or with how those gray areas are treated in the debate between the extreme positions?

Continue reading

Monday brainteaser.

This is our third teaching day of the semester (which started last Thursday), so of course, WebCT’s servers decided that it would be a good time to freak out. (The official description:

… experiencing network latency within our VA2 data center that may be affecting your Blackboard environment. This may result in increased latency and/or packet loss when trying to access your hosted Blackboard system.

But you can’t tell me that this doesn’t amount to the servers freaking out, especially as they are still “working with our Infrastructure team to determine the cause and to work towards a resolution.”)
So here’s the brainteaser:

Continue reading

DVD review: Physicians – Speaking for Research.

The other day I received a DVD made by Americans for Medical Progress called Physicians – Speaking for Research. (They indicate on their site that the DVDs are free for the asking.)
This is a DVD aimed at physicians, rather than at research scientists or the general public. However, the aim of the DVD is to help physicians to be better at communicating with the general public (primarily their patients, but also their family members and neighbors) about the role animal research has played in medical advances upon which we depend today, and the continued importance animal research will continue to play in medical progress.
In other words, this is a resource prepared with the awareness that groups like PETA have spent a lot of time communicating their message directly to the public, while scientists and physicians haven’t made much of an organized effort to communicate their views on animal research to the public, nor even to think hard about precisely what that message might be or how to communicate it most clearly to laypeople. The DVD puts communication (dare I say it, framing) front and center.

Continue reading

On the perils of choosing a T-shirt on a Friday that includes a committee meeting.

One of the best things about Fridays on my campus is that hardly anyone is around. Not only does this make parking less of a headache, and interruption mid-task less probable, but it means that there’s even less pressure to dress in a manner that asserts, “I am a responsible adult!”
I mean, I am a responsible adult, but must I prove it by wearing a suit?

Continue reading

Friday Sprog Blogging: fixing a hole.

As an added bonus, this week’s entry includes a behind the scenes peek at our FSB “process”. Yeah, I’m scared, too.
Walking across a large field at the junior high school where we sometimes play soccer:
Younger offspring: My foot almost went in a hole.
Elder offspring: Be careful! There are lots of holes, and they’re all about the right size for your foot to get stuck.
Dr. Free-Ride: Funny how it works that way.
Younger offspring: Are all of these ground squirrel holes?
Elder offspring: Either that or giant ants.
Younger offspring: (With a dramatic eye-roll) They aren’t anthills.

Continue reading

Three cheers for Dr. May!

A reader made sure I saw this today. (Thank you, reader!)
From Brian May’s website:

Yes. It’s done, and after about 37 years, I am finally a doctor. The oral examination of my thesis, and of me, lasted about 3 hours, and then I retired with Prof Rowan-Robinson, for a few moments, for my two examiners to confer. After only a couple of minutes they called me back into the room and offered their hands in congratulations. Yes, my category was number 2. I understand pretty much nobody gets a 1st category – which is “This is perfect – here’s your PhD.”

Congratulations to Dr. May on a job well done!

Thursday night RBOC.

* After watching The China Syndrome tonight, I will henceforth refrain from saying “Coffee is for closers!” when I see Jack Lemmon on screen. Getting mad about falsified X-rays of welds makes his character, Jack Godell, an official friend of this blog.
* My online Philosophy of Science course has been switched on for about 12 hours and already more than 50% of the enrolled students have logged in to the course. That’s good! (Sometimes, weeks into the term, I’ll get phone calls asking, “So, when and where is the class going to meet?”)
* My soccer team (of six-year-olds) seems to have grown an attention span over the summer. That’s also good!
* The surprise that three separate people expressed to me today that I, as a female parent, would be a soccer coach? Less good.
* For this evening’s soccer practice, I wore a T-shirt with a buckyball on it. Does that make me a nerd?