If anyone is curious about what life in research is all about, this is a nice description. Also, if you do science for a living, this is a nice thing to send to your confused families.
“What purpose does research serve?” … I think the answer is knowledge. Research is supposed to provide knowledge that can be used by others and hopefully the broader society.
I should watch Kathryn Schulz’ TED talk every time I’m mad about something political. Here is a paraphrase of my favorite part, about 4 minutes in.
How does it feel to be wrong? Most of us are doing everything we can to avoid thinking that we ourselves are wrong. Maybe we get it in the abstract – we’re fallible – but we can’t think in the present tense of something about which we are actually wrong. When we are wrong about something, but before we realize it, we’re like Wyle E Coyote right after he runs off a cliff but before he looks down. It does feel like something to be wrong: it feels like being right.
I have a deep love for failed prophesies. People who make them are so cocksure and so obviously wrong, that they always amuse me. Plus, you can only ever lose once on this kind of bet. The odds are, to put it mildly, in my favor.
Here’s the thing: The end has always been Nigh and always will be Nigh according to someone.
I laughed when Harold Camping was wrong in May. I will get to laugh as loudly again when Harold Camping is wrong again on October 22 (or whenever). I fully expect that, without a lapse in his self-confidence, he will push his prediction back again and I will get to laugh at him a third time. How long can this go on? I’m game as long as he is. [Edit: I can admit when I am wrong – he gave up on predictions]
From the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize awards:
MATHEMATICS PRIZE: Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of KOREA (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of UGANDA (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (who predicted the world would end on September 6, 1994 and later predicted that the world will end on October 21, 2011), for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.
This follows nicely on the Great Randi the Skeptical’s list of failed predictions of the end of the world. Or if you would like some more details on the Millerites and the Great Disappointment have a read at Wikipedia or Britannica.
It blows my mind that people get taken in every time. How many times will these hucksters get it wrong before people stop listening? Well… I think Albert Einstein said it best:
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.”
I read something interesting from the Archdruid Report. It suggests that science provides a narrative to contextualize human lives. That’s interesting, but not the intention or concern of scientists.
…When the late Carl Sagan spun his compelling “We are star-stuff” myth for the viewers of Cosmos, for example, he was engaging in reflection rather than abstraction. His goal was not to communicate an abstract rule but to weave a narrative of meaning that provided a context within which human life can be lived.
He makes an interesting point about science. I see it as the fringe of knowledge, pressing outward. There is an aspect to which the Archdruid points that is the opposite. He suggests that science is a competing reflective narrative in our culture. I don’t disagree, but I can vouch for this: scientists don’t see their work in this context. Sagan was building a narrative to directly compete with The Religious Narrative. I think religions see see only this aspect of science, and it’s an aspect of science to which the scientists themselves are oblivious and uncaring. That disconnect is part of the problem with communicating science to non-scientists. It’s one reason Carl Sagan was so smart.
The devastating March 2011 earthquake in Japan is now six months behind us. Tragically, more than 15,000 people lost their lives.
I heard a speaker a few weeks ago suggest that her Father’s cancer may have resulted from living too close to the Three Mile Island incident. Admittedly (and to her credit) she did not insist that the nuclear accident was the cause, only suggested that it might be the cause. And (like all wobble language) it is hard to argue against such claims. About 140,000 people evacuated from a region around the plant with a radius of 20 miles. Afterward, about 2 additional cases of cancer resulted beyond what would be expected, statistically. The normal incidence of cancer is about 400-500 per 100,000 people per year. So it is completely impossible to discriminate between of the people who lived around TMI and would normally get cancer and the two extra cases that resulted from the accident. Maybe her father was one of those people. But the likelihood is slim.
I (of course) did not confront a grieving woman after the death of her father. Her statistical analysis was off, but her emotions took precedence. Yet her attribution of that cancer to TMI leaves her audience with a little more fear of radiation and nuclear power.
With that in mind, I think back to the Japanese earthquake. Again, tragically, 15,000 people lost their lives. A dam broke and drowned at least four people. Living in front of a dam carries some risk. Are dams a threat to humanity? No, and neither are nuclear power plants. So far, as of yet, not one person has died from radiation.
Alarmists would have everyone believe that the nuclear disaster associated with the accident was far more terrible than the earthquake itself. If that were true, we would expect that there would be many thousands of sick or dead people due to radiation. But there are none yet. Now, if the nuclear tragedy doubles the risk of cancer across a 30 mile swath of Japan containing 100,000 people, we might see 500 additional cases of cancer per year. That is a terrible (and unrealistically bad) scenario, but it is (still) not remotely so terrible as a single tragedy killing 15,000 people without warning.
So it is strange to me that irrational fears resulting from Fukushima nuclear disaster will have so great an emotional impact relative to the natural disaster. And it may be that the emotion will have a lot bigger political impact than reality.
-Peter
P.S. To be fair, one rad-worker has leukemia, but that disease takes years to develop, so is not likely due to the meltdown.
Dr. Peter B Allen - Lab Blog 
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