Author: Mike White

Genomes, Books, and Science Fiction

A win for academic freedom

In case you missed it, Virginia Attorney General’s fishing expedition against climate scientist and former UVA faculty member Michael Mann has been shut down by the Virginia Supreme Court.

The principle of academic freedom does not mean blanket immunity from legal scrutiny, but if it means anything, it certainly means that academic researchers should be protected from legal harassment by government authorities whose aim is to suppress research conclusions that they don’t like. Attorney General Cuccinelli claims that: Continue reading “A win for academic freedom”

The half-life of zombies

Over at SF Signal, a post on the post-post-apocalypse by author David Moody:

We’re taught from early days that all stories must have a beginning, a middle and an end. Take my genre of choice – post-apocalyptic fiction. You have the beginning – the event – then the middle as our cast of characters inevitably have to fight to survive in what’s left of their world, but what about the end?…

I get frustrated by the lack of development in much zombie fiction…There’s a blatantly obvious issue which usually gets totally overlooked, and that’s that the zombies are rotting. They might be a deadly threat today and tomorrow, but what about in six months time?

Motherhood vs the Lab

Science has a news piece asking Is Motherhood the Biggest Reason for Academia’s Gender Imbalance?.

Well, I don’t know if it’s the biggest reason, but this issue is certainly huge – it has been an issue in every lab in which I have worked, and in ~90% of the labs that I observe around me. Which is why I don’t understand the pushback from some researchers quoted in the article, such as this:

“I think [the issue] does have merit, for a subset of women, during one part of their lives,” Nelson says. “However, it has not uncovered a problem which, when solved, will create an equal environment for women.” Nelson says it would be unfortunate if departments “were to invest millions of dollars in things like in-house daycare centers” only to find that such investments improved conditions for “a relatively small number of women.”

Seriously??? In-house child-care and other investments to help mothers in academic science would benefit only a relatively small number of women? Walk into just about any science department at any research university in this country, and you will quickly be disabused of the notion that this is an issue for a relatively small number of women. Continue reading “Motherhood vs the Lab”

Lifespan as a function of centuries post-Noah (as in Noah’s Ark)

If you haven’t been following the dust-up over science publisher Springer’s announcement of a volume by creationists, you should head over to the Panda’s Thumb and follow the latest, if only for its entertainment value.

While you’re there, check out the slide from John Sandord, a creationist who claims that he’s a geneticist at Cornell*. He plots human lifespan as a function of centuries born after Noah, and gets an impressive R^2 of 0.90. I’m sure this is going to upend the field of lifespan genetics.

*As is usual, this is not quite what you think it is.

Springer Press almost suckered by Intelligent Design

Springer’s editors in the field of engineering who aren’t familiar with the star figures of the intelligent design movement appeared ready to put the prestigious Springer stamp on a volume of pseudoscience:

As the National Center for Science Education reports, this one sounds like standard creationist pseudo-science-speak:

The volume in question, entitled Biological Information: New Perspectives, edited by R. J. Marks II, M. J. Behe, W. A. Dembski, B. L. Gordon, and J. C. Sanford, and slated to appear in a series of engineering books dubbed the Intelligent Systems Reference Library, was advertised by Springer as presenting “new perspectives regarding the nature and origin of biological information,” demonstrating “how our traditional ideas about biological information are collapsing under the weight of new evidence,” and written “by leading experts in the field” who had “gathered at Cornell University to discuss their research into the nature and origin of biological information.”

Continue reading “Springer Press almost suckered by Intelligent Design”