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Melville on Science vs. Creation Myth

From Melville's under-appreciated Mardi: On a quest for his missing love Yillah, an AWOL sailor...

Non-coding DNA Function... Surprising?

The existence of functional, non-protein-coding DNA is all too frequently portrayed as a great...

Yep, This Should Get You Fired

An Ohio 8th-grade creationist science teacher with a habit of branding crosses on his students'...

No, There Are No Alien Bar Codes In Our Genomes

Even for a physicist, this is bad: Larry Moran, in preparation for the appropriate dose of ridicule...

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Michael WhiteRSS Feed of this column.

Welcome to Adaptive Complexity, where I write about genomics, systems biology, evolution, and the connection between science and literature, government, and society.

I'm a biochemist

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Morning Science Quote

Morning Science Quote

Jan 05 2010 | comment(s)

Most American dictionaries do not distinguish between dynamic and dynamical. There is good reason to do so, however. Dynamic means changing. Dynamical is what concerns change. The position of an artificial satellite changes rather rapidly by earthbound standards, so it is very dynamic. The orbital energy of the satellite changes very little - not at all to a certain level of approximation - so the orbital energy is a dynamical property.
The Internet in 1945

The Internet in 1945

Jan 05 2010 | comment(s)

Vannevar Bush, the first U.S. presidential science advisor who played a leading role initiating the Manhattan Project, was one of the great 20th century visionaries of technology - a futurist, as he might call himself today.
Modeling in Biomedicine Meeting

Modeling in Biomedicine Meeting

Jan 04 2010 | comment(s)

Getting back on my feet after the holiday rush and the expansion of our family: A meeting was held in mid-December to examine "The Impact of Modeling on Biomedical Research." This was held under the umbrella of the IMAG and the MSM Consortium.

The acronyms stand for Interagency Modeling and Analysis Group and the MultiScale Modeling Consortium, which are being operated by various federal science agencies, with the goal of helping the biomedical sciences get serious about modeling.
Old Scientists Dominate Funding

Old Scientists Dominate Funding

Dec 22 2009 | comment(s)

Old Scientists Dominate Funding I've written about this multiple times before, but it's never to soon to visit the skewed age distribution of NIH grants, via Marginal Revolution:
Paul Romer is interviewed in From Poverty to Prosperity, an excellent new book from Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz.  When asked about threats to progress Romer says the following: One factor that does worry me a little is the demographic changes. Young people, I think, tend to be more innovative, more willing to take risks, more willing to do things differently and they may be very important, disproportionately important, in this innovation and growth process.
Adaptive Complexity Upgrade

Adaptive Complexity Upgrade

Dec 19 2009 | comment(s)

OK, it's not a blog upgrade but a family one:


So please excuse the absence while we integrate girl number 4 into the the household. Read the feed:
H1N1 Big Picture

H1N1 Big Picture

Dec 16 2009 | comment(s)

Last week I talked about some H1N1 numbers from the CDC. The numbers I highlighted were by and large from either the CDC's focused surveillance sites, or based on reports voluntarily submitted by various hospitals, providers, etc.  Carl Zimmer has highlighted the CDC's effort to estimate the big picture - total infections, hospitalizations, and deaths nationwide. At this point, the CDC says there has been no seasonal flu - almost all flu cases have been H1N1.