"These Are the People Who Actually Did the Work"

Today I heard a fantastic seminar, and as for most science presentations, the professor ended the talk with an acknowledgements slide. "And these are the people who actually did the work..." she said, and spent about ten seconds reading some of their names.

Science is about people. Oh, we pretend it's about molecules and deep-rooted universal truths. But all of that is pie in the sky. What we really have is people, interacting on the day-to-day, performing experiments, discussing results. People.

For the most part these people - the ones actually doing the work - labor in anonymity. They don't get a lot of credit. They don't make money. They may dream of a Science paper. But for the most part, they leave it to their PIs to acknowledge them at the end of a talk.

So here's a turn. From now on, when I give a talk, I'm going to give the acknowledgements slide first. I'm going to introduce the people who did the work. And then I'm going to tell their story, through the data they have generated. Because that's the story that really matters.

People.

Revenge is sweet

About 6 months ago, I commented on a medical blog that possibly - just possibly - we were overtreating for breast cancer. After all, it was possible that some tumors came and went without us even knowing about it. I suggested that we needed some negative controls for breast cancer, and that it wasn't a bad idea to let some patients opt out of masectomies and see what happens.

I was laughed off the blog. My scientific credentials and ethical values were challenged. The comments were very reactionary, not very scientific.

Six months later, and my how things have changed. The phenomenon I predicted was borne out in major studies. I heard doctors talking about it on NPR. Now, in recognition of these new findings, it looks like the recommended age for mammography may soon change from 40 to 50.

A lot of bloggers call themselves "skeptics" because they dare to mock other peoples' beliefs. But that's not what science is about. Science is about creativity and challenge, not biology-textbook dogma. It's about thinking outside of the box. From that perspective, I daresay some of these science bloggers could learn a thing or two from the people they are mocking.

Talkin' politics

Hi [Samurai],

Being that you are one of the most politically liberal people I'm in contact with, and I believe you to be intellectually honest, I'm curious how you would respond to this: Warmongers or Peacemakers: Who will scorch the earth?

Granted it's from a conservative source, but it seems to raise some very convincing points.

Also: WIKI - Prisoner's_dilemma Prisoner's dilemma & Obama

The arguments raised by the above cause the current approaches to relations with other countries, both by the US and Israel, to trouble me greatly.

(If you aren't yet interested in a political discussion, ignore this...)

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Hey [Friend in Israel], thanks for the e-mail, I appreciate your genuine interest. I do try to be intellectually honest.

So far, I've listened only to the first video (about Hitler, WWII). I think these arguments do hold some water. In particular, I agree with the speaker's central thesis - that diplomacy frequently fails to bring peace. However, I think the speaker is not sufficiently critical of war, which often fails as well (often at tremendous cost).

... The main problem with the video is that it only considers only two options: diplomacy (by politicians), or war. Neither option is very effective in my opinion. This is characteristic of Western thought these days - very polarized, not very creative.

There is a third option - one that has been largely forgotten even by the left. That option is non-violent resistance. It is the way of Ghandi and Martin Luther King, both of whom led tremendously successful social movements post-WW2. Non-violence does not mean non-action. It means active protest without resorting to violence. In theory, this helps you win the enemy's hearts and minds by getting them to think and respect you. If you are interested in learning how it works, I suggest you read two books:

1. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr., by Clayborne Carson
--this is a collection of MLK's writings and speeches, chronicling his civil rights days through his opposition to Vietnam

2. Ghandi: an Autobiography; the Story of My Experiments With Truth
--penned by Ghandi himself, it goes into depth about his early upbringing and his philosophies of non-violence and experimentation

A common denominator to these two fellows is that they were raised very religious, although in two different faiths, and both men drew from their faiths to arrive at the principle of non-violence. I can relate to this; when I memorized Pirkei Avot over ten years ago, the many sayings about peace, wisdom, and relationships planted the seeds of this philosophy in my mind, well before I read any of the above.

I think there are other ways to wage peace besides non-violent resistance, but you really have to get creative. This creativity is what's missing from our leaders these days. I do not trust them one lick - they are old fools, and one is worse than the next. I would not follow them into battle, or rely on them to make peace through diplomatic means.

Hope this gives you something to think about! Let me know if you have any specific responses to what I've said. Take care and always fun to talk politics with you.
Samurai

PS Have you ever seen Watchmen? Or read the graphic novel? It gets into a lot of these questions. You might like where it ends up.

Curing color blindness, and color vision

My two color-blind brothers will be heartened to learn that scientists recently used gene therapy to cure color blindness in adult monkeys. After being injected with a corrected gene, the monkeys' brains rewired and learned to correctly distinguish red from green. If the research translates to apes like us, there's a good chance my brothers will see green and red before the end of their lifetimes.

Turning to color blindness of a different sort, I recently had an interesting facebook conversation about the hidden hand of race in our society. I was not alone amongst my friends (or the media/politicians) in detecting a hint of racism in the GOP of late. From the "fiery latina" bullshit that surrounded the Sotomayor hearings (white males are the victims of racism!) to Joe Wilson's shameful "You lie!", there's something more than a healthy fear of socialism going on around here.

Most agreed, but one friend felt I'd mistaken partisan politics for racism, and certainly it's difficult to prove. After all, no one wants to be a racist, and even fewer want to be labeled one. In this emotionally charged arena, science is really our best hope of understanding what is really going on. As another friend pointed out, there is a burgeoning field of research on implicit racism, which distinguishes between overt racism and less conscious racism and predicts that people with implicit biases act equally in cut and dry situations, but act very biasedly in ambiguous situations.

One set of recent experiments showed that people pause just a fraction of a second longer before identifying opposite-race faces as friendly. Other research has revealed that schoolchildren have a tendency to self-segregate, suggesting that racism is to some extent a natural tendency (the tribe instinct?). There's some great stuff about this in a recent Newsweek cover story, including this hilarious excerpt about an experiment observing classroom children:

It being December, the teachers had decided to read to their classes 'Twas the Night B'fore Christmas... As the teachers began reading, the kids were excited by the book's depiction of a family waiting for Santa to come. A few children, however, quietly fidgeted. They seemed puzzled that this storybook was different: in this one, it was a black family all snug in their beds.

Then there was the famed clatter on the roof. The children leaned in to get their first view of Santa and the sleigh as Johnson turned the page—

And they saw that Santa was black.

"He's black!" gasped a white little girl.

A white boy exclaimed, "I thought he was white!"

Immediately, the children began to chatter about the stunning development. At the ripe old ages of 6 and 7, the children had no doubt that there was a Real Santa. Of that they were absolutely sure. But suddenly there was this huge question mark. Could Santa be black? And if so, what did that mean?

Now replace the word "Santa" with "President," and you begin to get the idea!

It may yet prove easier to cure color blindness in our eyes than to unlearn "color vision" in our hearts. But if there's a cure to this societal disease, it lies in every next generation. We have to talk to our children, integrate them socially, and be honest about our own implicit biases - when in doubt, letting science be our guide.

A shortcut to curing human disease

Last time we discussed the crazy high costs of sponsoring clinical trials. What you may not realize, however, is that there's a shortcut to making medical advances - the medical "innovation".

"Medical innovations" is what surgeons call trying out new techniques on patients. It's important to keep in mind here the difference between medicine and research. As a recent Science article explains:

... What are the hallmarks of an innovative stem cell–based medical intervention? To answer this question, we have to clarify the central difference between research, as carried out in a clinical trial process, and medical innovation. As explained in the seminal U.S. research ethics document, the Belmont Report, research aims at scientifically generalizable results (not patient care), whereas the goal of medical innovation is the benefit of the individual patient. Because of these disparate aims, the regulatory requirements for clinical research do not serve as a proper surrogate for the ethical standards appropriate for attempts at medically innovative therapies. In short, the ethics of medical innovation is the ethics of patient care, not research.

There is potential here for a cheapie shortcut towards curing human disease. Basic research funding is cheap and gives us detailed, scientific information. Medical innovations are cheap and let us test potential cures. If we can establish lines of communication between the two (plus reasonable ethical guidelines for their application), perhaps we can circumvent the need for prohibitively expensive clinical trials - and discover some new cures in the process.

Did Michael Jackson's doctor KILL him?

What's clear is that Mikey's personal physician gave him a heavy anesthetic the night before he died. What isn't clear is whether he ever woke up in the morning. The drug in question (propofol) is quite dangerous and is usually only administered in hospitals, because it can cause breathing problems.

Granted, Mikey had issues. But he was not overweight or diabetic, and appeared in decent shape compared to other big stars. His sudden heart attack at 50 was unexpected, and now we know why. He might have lived another 20 years at least - had this douchebag with an MD not poisoned him!

(And don't even get me started on the cosmetic surgery that made him look like an alien. Some doctor did that to him, too.)

The physician's rule is "First, do no harm," and I wish every vocation had such noble priorities. But I find it strange to hear physician-scientists on the web constantly criticizing alternative medicine but never thinking to question the dangers of their own profession. Jackson's death is a reminder that medical technology is a double-edged sword. Physician, heal thyself!

Cleaning Lady

She called me her professor,

though I was only seven then –
cleaning, washing, making beds,
she spoke in broken English.

I was only seven then,
I helped her learn to read;
she taught us games in broken speech,
we were her only children.

I tried to help her read, but still
she couldn’t understand. And soon
we weren’t children, didn’t need
her silly Polish games.

We mocked her, couldn’t understand
her broken English, crooked teeth;
“The stupid Pollack’s fault again,”
blaming her for everything:

the missing pen or broken lamp,
those teenage years were full of hate.
We blamed her for our own mistakes –
I led my siblings on.

Those teenage years were full of hate,
and where was she to run?
One night I led in the attack,
so cruel the words I said. . .

but where was she to run? Ten years
of cleaning, washing, making beds –
“I used,” she said with angry tears,
“to call you my professor.”

Playing "Uncle Darwin"

I usually try to pick up some toys for my nephews well in advance of my visits. I was all prepared to give them a wooden rubber-band gun and a slingshot, which I picked up on my travels for a couple of bucks. But wouldn't you know it, I went in to lab before my flight and forgot to pack the toys. What's a scientist uncle to do?

Improvise, of course.

Truth is, there are lots of nifty "toys" just lying around the lab. I remembered making 'potions' of random liquids as a child, so I grabbed a bagful of little plastic test tubes and several of these little plastic dounces (think mortar and pestle). I demo'd it for my nephews (4 and 6) and got them excited about the idea. I suggested smashing up bugs, but both children objected on ethical grounds. Instead, we picked petals from flowers and plants of different colors and "extracted" the colored juice. The older nephew, who is quite the budding young naturalist, started a little zoo of bugs in test tubes - he even caught a baby praying mantis! It was a lot of fun and confirmed my suspicions that science is a little like playtime for adults.

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Fresh Fathers: Pre-ramble

During my first year in Israel after high school, I decided to memorize the mishna. Like a Tanna of old, I wandered the streets of Jerusalem, silently repeating the little tidbits of case law and pithy sayings. Did you know that the word mishna means “that which is repeated”? And when you repeat something long enough, a little bit of it trickles down into your soul.

The book that truly stuck with me was Pirkei Avot, or the Book of Fathers. Memorizing Avot was a transformative experience - it blew my mind. The book is abstract and philosophical in nature, quite different from the case law that characterizes most early Rabbinic writings. It opened my heart to many of the values I still cherish today.

I'd like to revisit Avot, here on Samurai Scientist and/or Twitter, over the coming weeks. Traditionally, the book is studied during the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot, so this is a good time to start. Avot lends itself easily to blog format - the pithy sayings are short and open-ended, a springboard for discussion. I hope you'll chime in.

Be Amazing!

Thanks to the Avanator for tipping me off to this superviral video.

Is Obama behind the times on stem cells?

He's so eloquent, I'll just let him say it.

Political opponents reacted by calling Obama "behind the times" on stem cells. After all, there are now ways of making ES cells without destroying embryos:

If you listen closely to Obama, you'll realize that he knows this, too. But he also realizes that Bush's opposition to ES cell research was a symbolic gesture - fueled by anti-abortion ideology, not science. By overturning the Bush ban, Obama is laying down his own criterion for science policy - that it should be guided by facts, and not ideology.

What are the facts? The embryos used to derive embryonic stem cells are tiny balls of about 100 cells, without sensory organs or circulatory systems. Our society is willing to discard them for the sake of IVF, just to give parents their own biological child instead of adopting. Certainly, we should be willing to discard them for the sake of research which may cure untreatable diseases. The destruction of adult farm animals, just so we can enjoy the pleasure of eating their meat, poses a far greater ethical dilemma than embryonic stem cell research.

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