Although it may not be obvious here, I also occasionally write formal scientific stuff, like a review article for Trends in Genetics:
Joshua T. Witten and Jernej Ule, “Understanding splicing regulation through RNA splicing maps,” Trends in Genetics (1, 2011). Continue reading “Trends in Genetics”
The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.
–Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
In it’s common usage, I’m not sure this is a strong critique of capitalism. Continue reading “Rope for sale?”
The science of economics often takes a pummeling in the press, largely because this field is so intertwined with the messy business of policy. But from a pure research perspective, the way economists successfully handle extremely heterogeneous systems with some relatively simple mathematical models offers some lessons for biologists.
While reading this piece (Paul Krugman talking about his research career), I was struck by how biologists are faced with similar problems:
Robert Solow used to tell his students that there were two kinds of theorists: those who like to generalize, and those who like to look for illuminating special cases. Continue reading “Biology lessons from economics”
More recent creationism news, close to home: the “teach the strengths and weaknesses of evolution” bill returns from the dead yet again in the Missouri State Legislature:
The state board of education, public elementary and secondary school governing authorities, superintendents of schools, school system administrators, and public elementary and secondary school principals and administrators shall endeavor to create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues, including biological and chemical evolution. Such educational authorities in this state shall also endeavor to assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies. Toward this end, teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of the theory of biological and hypotheses of chemical evolution.
Legislation that specifically singles out evolution nearly always fails, but even if this bill didn’t fail, I don’t see how creationists think this will help them stop their endless string of court losses. As shown yet again in the recent Freshwater case, teachers enthusiastic about teaching the “scientific weaknesses” of evolution pretty much always end up pitting the mainstream science curriculum against “supplementary material” from religious organizations, which is a legal non-starter.
An Ohio 8th-grade creationist science teacher with a habit of branding crosses on his students’ arms has been fired, after a long and tedious process and a lawsuit that cost the school district some big bucks.
The referee who evaluated the case for termination nicely summed up in one sentence (PDF) exactly what you can’t do when you’re a public school science teacher:
…He persisted in his attempts to make eighth grade science what he thought it should be – an examination of accepted scientific curriculum with the discerning eye of Christian Doctrine.
The Finch and Pea 