Deceptive science reporting by Newsweek

May 7, 2017 • 3:45 pm

Look at this tweet from Newsweek:

https://twitter.com/Newsweek/status/861244266697437184

Now read the damn article: it doesn’t say that they found ANY “signs of life” on the moon Enceladus, It is possible that life could evolve or exist there, but there’s no evidence for that. In fact, the article itself undercuts the tweet. After describing the well known plumes of water and gas that spew from that moon, the article notes that some of the gas is hydrogen. And then:

The team of researchers behind the Cassini mission examined all the possible explanations for what could be generating such large quantities of hydrogen gas. Only one withstood the calculations: hydrothermal vents. Lunine and his co-authors on the Science study reporting the analysis believe that ocean water is reacting with rocks in hydrothermal vents on the seafloor to actively produce hydrogen.

Finding newly manufactured hydrogen on Enceladus is significant because the element can support life.

. . . After months of ruling out alternatives, the researchers came to the only conclusion that made sense: The ocean is making hydrogen. Ocean water reacting with minerals in hydrothermal vents is generating the element, an ecosystem found on Earth. “It has all the requirements for life,” says McKay, who was not involved with the new study. “It’s similar to Earth in ways you might not expect from a tiny little moon in the outer solar system,” says study co-author Kelly Miller, who studies planetary formation at Southwest Research Institute.

Note that habitable is not the same as inhabited.

Pity that whoever wrote the tweet didn’t seem to grasp the last sentence. What a pile of bullpucky!

 

Ceiling Raccoon!!

May 7, 2017 • 2:30 pm

Reader Taskin sent me a link to a piece at the Toronto Star that describes the appearance of a rival to Ceiling Cat: a celestial procyonid that is Ceiling Raccoon. The story, called “Raccoon makes appearance at Pearson Airport baggage claim“, describes a baby Procyon lotor that peered down from above the Pearson airport’s baggage claim:

A rebellious raccoon showed up to greet new arrivals at Toronto Pearson International Airport Friday, delighting travelers and inspiring jokes about Toronto’s unofficial mascot.

A video of the critter, posted to Twitter by Cameron Graham, shows the raccoon peeking out from the ceiling to look at the passengers below. Graham said he was waiting to greet his wife, who was coming home from a trip to Edmonton, when the little head popped out of a gap in tiles in the ceiling.

“There he was, having a good gander at everyone,” Graham said.

Who is the right god?  Ceiling Raccoon:

Or Ceiling Cat?

And will this lead to war?

I think they trapped the raccoon, but there’s no report on its health.

Finally, the piece gives several tw**ts, but the best is by the airport’s Vice President:

Preliminary report: Was the March for Science successful?

May 7, 2017 • 12:00 pm

Although I didn’t feel compelled to participate in the March for Science on April 22, I still hoped it would change the minds of science denialists and perhaps spur further and ongoing action.  There were more than 600 marches and estimates of between 300,000 and 500,000 participants worldwide. As far as what’s still happening, each week the organization provides a daily list of things you can do (this week’s is here); so far they amount to a list of science advocacy societies to join (and groups supporting marginalized people), petitions to sign, and the addresses of politicians you can contact. But realizing the ultimate aim—to keep science in the forefront during the new administration, and ensure that funding isn’t cut and scientific reports by the government aren’t censored or suppressed—won’t be clear for a long time.

So it’s too early to tell if the march achieved any aims beyond allowing people to express their sentiments. But is there any way to tell? Reader Loren called my attention to a May 2 piece in the New York Times attempting to do just that: “How marching for science risks politicizing it“. The author is Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth College, and here are a few excerpts:

Before the recent March for Science, scholars and journalists debated the likely effect of the protest: Would it defend science against politicization or unnecessarily polarize the public on the value of the scientific enterprise?

Some early evidence suggests the march may have widened the divide among liberals and conservatives in their views of scientists but not, crucially, toward the research they conduct.

Nyhan shows that while confidence in science among both liberals and conservatives has always been robust in America, the question many had was whether that confidence could be eroded by the March portraying science (not deliberately) as a liberal pursuit. Again, we don’t know, but there’s at least one survey, tentative as it is, showing that polarization in attitudes towards scientists themselves increased after the March. There is no link to the survey cited, so it’s unclear how significant are the differences in attitudes before versus after the March.

. . . Some preliminary evidence is available from Matthew P. Motta, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Minnesota who tracked opinions toward scientists and scientific research among a sample of survey respondents recruited on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk workplace. Though these participants are not representative of the general public, we can still conduct a valid test for polarization by comparing how the views of liberals and conservatives in the sample changed from before the march to afterward. (Eight in 10 respondents reported having heard at least something about it, including approximately one in two who said they heard a “moderate amount” or a “great deal.”)

Between the Wednesday before the march (April 19) and the Monday and Tuesday afterward (April 24-25), liberals and conservatives in the survey panel moved further apart in how warmly they felt toward scientists. Specifically, liberals reported somewhat warmer feelings toward scientists (up to 86 from 82 on a 0-to-100 feeling thermometer scale) while the feelings of conservatives toward scientists became somewhat less warm (down to 67 from 70).

The liberal-conservative gap in agreement with the statement that “Scientists care less about solving important problems than their own personal gain” also widened significantly — conservative agreement increased to 32 percent, up from 22 percent, whereas liberal agreement fell to 8 percent from 11 percent.

However, no corresponding increase in polarization was observed on the statements that “Most scientific research is politically motivated” and “You simply can’t trust most scientific research.” On the latter question, for instance, agreement did not change significantly among conservatives (22 percent agreed before the march compared with 21 percent afterward) or liberals (6 percent agreed before the march; 3 percent did afterward). This finding suggests that the polarizing response that the march elicited toward scientists did not spill over into views of the research they conduct.

So there’s a difference in how attitudes changed towards researchers themselves versus the research they conducted. Why is that? Motta has one explanation:

Mr. Motta cites the emphasis on the marchers in news coverage as a potential explanation for these findings. In an email, he writes that “the ‘public face’ of the march appears to be the protesters; the clever signs they came up with, dressing as dinosaurs, etc.” This focus on the scientists who participated, he writes, “put a human face on science, which might be why it led to polarization with respect to attitudes about people, but not necessarily their research” — a topic that received less attention.

These findings should be evaluated in future studies, but they suggest another way in which science can become politicized — not by challenging the findings of a field of research, but by portraying the people who do science as political. In this sense, the march and events like it could paradoxically make scientists a more inviting target for future attacks.

In the end, of course, we’d like to know whether the March had a long-term versus only this unsatisfactory short-term influence on public attitudes towards science. As there wasn’t really a control—a world in which there were no Marches—it would be hard to tell, as other factors will undoubtedly come into play as politics moves on and Trump and the Republicans engage in more shenanigans. One suggestion is simply to look at the funding for science: how much money the Congress approves for the budgets of the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. That funding has been decreasing for some time. Since Congress is mostly Republican, a change in sentiments should be reflected in a rise in the budgets. But that’s unlikely given Trump’s budget appropriating more money for defense, and perhaps for that accursed Wall.

When the dust settles, I don’t see a clear way to determine if the March achieved its aims.

A new book on CRISPR, gene editing, and their ethical implications

May 7, 2017 • 10:15 am

Word on the street is that the book shown below, by Jennifer Doudna and Samuel Sternberg, is very good (it’s out on June 13; click on screenshot to go to Amazon link). You may have heard of Berkeley professor Jennifer Doudna, one of the pioneers in using the new CRISPR technique to genetically edit cells—”genome editing”; co-author Samuel Sternberg studied with Doudna as a postdoc and now works for a biotechnology company.

And I hope you’ve heard of CRISPR (“clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”), which is a method of genome editing that grew out of pure science: the discovery that bacteria have immune systems in which they incorporate into their own DNA short bits of DNA from invading viruses, and then use those bits, along with an enzyme called Cas9, to cut up and destroy the genomes of those viruses when they invade again. This is analogous to our own immune system, which has a memory that can inactivate harmful proteins the body has experienced before. (This is the basis of vaccination.) That pure science grew, through the work and ingenuity of many scientists, into a method that now enables us to cut DNA at any given sequence in nearly any species (including our own), and then insert new DNA of our own making, or DNA taken from other cells. We could cure sickle-cell anemia by editing into sufferers the “normal” hemoglobin gene, and do likewise with many other genetic diseases. We could get rid of the AIDS virus that hides in the human genome. We could genetically engineer crops to make them resistant to insects and herbicides. We can study gene function by selectively inactivating genes or visualizing their expression using proteins that fluoresce. We already have some ability to do these things, but the CRISPR-Cas9 system makes this dead easy.

But there’s also the possibility of editing not just the genes in bodies, but the genes in sperm and eggs, giving rise to the possibility of genetically changing our own and other species, permanently—or directing our own evolution. (It’s not just humans, either; we could alter disease-carrying insects to render them harmless.) The possibility of germline editing carries with it severe ethical problems: how much can we and should we change our own genetic legacy? Both the methodology and ethics are discussed in Doudna and Sternberg’s book, as this Amazon summary shows:

A trailblazing biologist grapples with her role in the biggest scientific discovery of our era: a cheap, easy way of rewriting genetic code, with nearly limitless promise and peril.

Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR—a revolutionary new technology that she helped create—to make heritable changes in human embryos. The cheapest, simplest, most effective way of manipulating DNA ever known, CRISPR may well give us the cure to HIV, genetic diseases, and some cancers, and will help address the world’s hunger crisis. Yet even the tiniest changes to DNA could have myriad, unforeseeable consequences—to say nothing of the ethical and societal repercussions of intentionally mutating embryos to create “better” humans.

Writing with fellow researcher Samuel Sternberg, Doudna shares the thrilling story of her discovery, and passionately argues that enormous responsibility comes with the ability to rewrite the code of life. With CRISPR, she shows, we have effectively taken control of evolution. What will we do with this unfathomable power?

(There’s some nastiness in the field about who gets priority for this discovery, as it’s sure to garner a Nobel Prize (getting CRISPR to this point is the work of dozens of people, but certain scientists—not Doudna or Sternberg—are trying to establish hegemony. There’s also a big patent battle over the use of the system, but I won’t get into that. Go here if you want to read the dirty details.)
Now you could read about the CRISPR-Cas9 system on Wikipedia, or you could read a good but technical paper by Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier (another pioneer in this area) published in Science (free at the link).  But if you have any interest in science, or in bioethics, I’d strongly urge you to learn about the new methods of gene editing, how they work, what they can do, and their ethical implications. You might order the book above, and I’d also direct you to two explanations by our own Matthew Cobb.

The first is a BBC show he did about gene editing, (“Editing life”), whose description and link I’ve given before.

And now Matthew’s just published a short primer on the issue called “The brave new world of CRISPR”, which appeared in the new Biological Sciences Review. That piece will bring every reader up to speed. Sadly, it’s not online free, but if you email me I’ll send you a pdf.

The CRISPR system is the most important innovation in biotechnology since the advent of DNA sequencing methods; its development is a fascinating story and its ethical implications are profound. You need to learn about it if you have any interest in science. I’ve given you at least five resources to do so.

Here are Doudna and Sternberg:

 

NYT’s piece on a Muslim comedian evades some important issues

May 7, 2017 • 9:15 am

Yesterday’s New York Times had an article written by a Muslim comedian, Zahra Noorbakhsh (you can see part of her act here). Her piece, “It’s not this Muslim comedian’s job to open your mind,” recounts the dilemma of a woman expected to have a comedic mission: to show Americans that Muslims are just like everyone else. This is a task that she doesn’t like, and doesn’t think she should have to take on. (This task, by the way, is also something that many atheists are urged to do by humanizing heathenism, and I think it’s a good strategy for nonbelievers. There’s no better way to dispel bigotry than by seeing and associating with those you were taught to dislike—one theme of the wonderful South Pacific song “You’ve got to be carefully taught.”)

Noorbakhsh chafes under this burden, and thinks it’s useless to try:

This ambivalence has followed me as I’ve fielded similar requests during a time when the Trump administration has attempted to defend its “Muslim ban” campaign promise in the courts, Islamophobic attacks have been reported throughout the country, and fears of a “Muslim registry” still swirl throughout my community.

The idea that jokes will stop the tide of fear, hate and misunderstanding about people who practice Islam is seductive. As a comedian, though, I’m not convinced. We have tried this before.

After Sept. 11, Muslim comics went on what I call “We’re not that scary, we’re funny and just like you!” tours, in desperate attempts to push back against bigotry. In 2005, the “Axis of Evil” tour fought stereotypes with jokes by Muslim comedians in shows throughout the country. In 2013, the docu-comedy “The Muslims Are Coming” aimed to introduce Middle America to normal, huggable, everyday Muslims.

I played this game, too. I tried to humanize Muslim families, with my one-woman show, “All Atheists Are Muslim,” sharing the story of moving in with my white atheist college boyfriend, and telling my parents about it. It’s a typical boy meets girl story, up against thousands of years of cultural tradition and religious doctrine. The message the audience was meant to be left with was that if total nonbelievers and Muslims can find common ground, then everyone in between should be able to.

Unsurprisingly, none of this worked. I saw firsthand that the fairy tale, mind-opening reaction that producers imagined was nowhere to be found. While mixed-race and interfaith couples often thanked me after my shows, many others let me know that I was one of the “good Muslims” whom they didn’t have a problem with. I hadn’t made them more empathetic to Muslims as a whole.

Her solution is just to expose tensions; the underlying theme (see below) is that the tensions, and worry about Muslims, is simply a manifestation of bigotry against Muslims, “Islamophobia” (I prefer to call that bigotry “Muslimophobia”):

. . . Television producers, publishers and those booking events for college campuses all seem to want something similar: a representative of an “everyday” Muslim (I still don’t really know what that means) with an outlook relatable enough to get audiences to forget their bigotry. These pleas don’t make me as sad as the ones that come from Muslim activists, who seem to be begging: Use your jokes to make us human; make us likable; let us prove to people that we’re just like them.

I do understand that comedy has some potential to open people’s minds. But I’ve become convinced that the primary role of political humor today shouldn’t be to alleviate tensions or smooth out differences. It should be to heighten them and illuminate for everyone what is a moment of crisis.

I sympathize with Noorbakhsh: why should the burden of solving the “Muslim problem” rest on her shoulders. She’s a comedian, for crying out loud! But still, she attributes all the tension she’s supposed to relieve as “bigotry” (she uses the word). And there’s the rub, because for many the Muslim problem does not simply come down to “othering”.  (It does, of course, for Trump and his Ban, as well as attacks on Muslims.) Rather, it also reflects a suspicion toward and fear of Islam’s religious dictates, and the attendant fear that they’ll cause harm not just to America, but to the world as a whole. Islam is the most misogynistic, the most violent, and the most intolerant of the world’s great faiths, and its pefidy hasn’t yet been tamed by Enlightenment values. All religions are useless and sometimes harmful reflections of human delusion and irrationality, but Islam is, at present, the most harmful.

Should a comedian deal with those issues in her act? I don’t think so. But at least Noorbakhsh and the Times might recognize that there’s more to the issue than bigotry. As the correspondent who sent me this article commented,

The author of the Times piece elides all the reasons why Muslims are “not just like the rest of us,” ignoring the ideology of Islam, and casting negative reactions to Islam as racism and ignorance.  No editor at the Times thought to point out any of this to her.  There’s an undercurrent of hostility to the piece: it’s not her fault (or Islam’s) if we have negative reactions to the religion; it’s our fault.
You’ll see that as soon as you read it.  We just cannot advance the conversation if major news outlets like the time won’t publish pieces asking the questions that need to be asked…”
Judge for yourself.