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...

Michael White

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

Who Needs Scientific Thinking When You Have Large Datasets and Fast Computers?

Jun 27 2008 | comment(s)

From "The End of Theory over at Wired

This is a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.

Do we need scientific thinking at all anymore?

Getting Your DNA Sequenced: Should Regulators Crack Down On Genetic Testing Companies?

Jun 26 2008 | comment(s)

California and New York regulators have been in the news lately (such as here and here), with their attempts to crack down on the nascent direct-to-consumer genetic testing industry. These states argue that companies like 23andMe, Navigenics, and several others, are offering unproven and unlicensed clinical tests directly to consumers. Are the services offered by these companies clinical tests, subject to the normal regulations of other clinical tests? Should the government be able to stop you from getting your DNA sequenced?

The answer to the second question is a flat-out no. The government has no legitimate reason to prevent you from getting genotyped. The technology used by these personal genetics companies is very good - in the future, this technology will be cheaper and cover more variants in your genome, but what is available right now is very good. And there are reasonable non-clinical reasons to get yourself sequenced, out of sheer curiosity, or for genealogy purposes, for example. More importantly, this sequence data is a permanent resource for you. Although we may not have very good clinical tests for complex genetic diseases right now, we'll have them in the future, and any DNA sequencing you get done now will be suitable for these future analyses. Once you have your raw DNA data in hand, it's there if you need it in the future.

So, as things stand now, the genotyping serviced offered by 23andMe, DecodeMe, and Navigenics have enough non-clinical use to justify themselves, and these services should not be blocked by state regulators. But simply offering people DNA sequencing is one thing - making disease risk predictions is another.

Multitasking and Science Don't Mix Well

Jun 23 2008 | comment(s)

Multitasking is detrimental to how we learn according to two interesting pieces which discuss recent neurological studies of multitasking, in The Atlantis, and in The Atlantic (yes, those are two different magazines). In one study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a study participant wrote:

"I multitask every single second I am online,” confessed one study participant. “At this very moment I am watching TV, checking my e-mail every two minutes, reading a newsgroup about who shot JFK, burning some music to a CD, and writing this message."

Does this sound like you? It sure sounds like me sometimes (and it's the same way at work, if you replace the JFK newsgroup and TV with reading a science paper, answering email, and doing a Western blot), and personally I think this fragmented way of working leads to a very superficial way of working.

Presidential Science Advice 2.0

Jun 23 2008 | comment(s)

A new report at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has some recommendations about science advice for the next president. The rationale for this report is that:

The next President will need a superb Assistant for Science and Technology—not only to evaluate complex issues and develop sound policies but also to guide and oversee the federal investment in science and technology, which totaled some $142 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2008.

Chief among the recommendations is to restore the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to the higher status of "Assistant to the President." The OSTP director position was demoted during the Bush administration, and filling that position was a low priority, resulting in a long delay before the current OSTP Director, Jack Marburger was appointed. This report is essentially saying that the next president should signal that good science policy is a priority, by giving the President's science advisor cabinet status, and by making the appointment early in the new administration. To back up this recommendation, the report's authors have brought together an armful of statements on Presidential science advice by former key players, including Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford, Al Gore, and many former Presidential Science Advisors, such as George Keyworth, Ronald Regan's first science advisor:

So you want to get a job in biology

Jun 22 2008 | comment(s)

What does it take to get a job in science, and what role do universities play? There has been some discussion of these issues in the blogging community lately (here, here, and my thoughts are here). Being on the inside, it doesn't seem that complicated to me, but to someone considering a career in science, choosing a college, or just starting college, it can seem very confusing. On occasion I supervise undergraduate summer students, and from their questions, it's clear students aren't so sure about what job opportunities there are in science, and what educational pathways are involved in getting those jobs.

Getting Our Congressional Candidates to Talk About Science

Jun 20 2008 | comment(s)

Scientists and Engineers for America have put up seven questions that they suggest asking Congressional candidates (see their website for the full questions; the following is abridged): 1. What policies would you support to ensure that America remains the world leader in innovation? 2. What is your position on the following measures that have been proposed to address global climate change—a cap-and-trade system, a carbon tax, increased fuel-economy standards, and research? Are there other policies you would support? 3. What policies would you support to meet the demand for energy while ensuring an economically and environmentally sustainable future? 4. What role do you think the federal government should play in preparing K-12 students for the science and technology driven 21st Century? 5. What policies would you support to meet demand for water resources? 6. Given that the next Congress will likely face spending constraints, what priority would you give to investment in basic research in upcoming budgets? 7. How do you see science, research, and technology contributing to improved health and quality of life? Most of these questions are good ones, and each of these subject areas is something your Congressional representative should have a thought-out answer for. It is glaringly obvious though, that these questions scrupulously avoid areas of science that have been caught up in the culture wars, like stem cell research and evolution vs. intelligent design.