This is not a real scientific conference

I'm all for open debate over the genuine science behind global warming - researchers who have research results that don't jive with the IPCC's consensus report should be free to present their stuff at real scientific conferences and not be ostracized just because their results are different.

But, as Real Climate points out, the Heartland Institute International Conference on Climate Change didn't even try to disguise the fact that it was a PR event, and not a scientific conference. The conference organizers invited speakers with this letter (PDF file), which clearly states that:

"The purpose of the conference is to generate international media attention to the fact that many scientists believe forecasts of rapid warming and catastrophic events are not supported by sound science, and that expensive campaigns to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not necessary or cost-effective. " (emphasis mine)

There are big conferences which are basically promotional events (not necessarily a bad thing!) like the Bio-IT World Conference, but these are not to be confused with real research conferences like the Keystone Symposia or the Cold Spring Harbor Meetings, where the latest, and often unpublished research is presented primarily to other scientists, and not to the media or interested laypeople. And real scientific conferences aren't usually sponsored by organizations that have decided what the answer to a scientific question has to be beforehand (the Heartland Institute is specifically devoted to "discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems" - I'm all for finding free-market solutions when they're feasible, but we ought to [gasp!] consider cases where the free market solution isn't the most efficient or beneficial).

John Tierny is having trouble understanding this distinction as well, implying that Heartland's advocacy simply counteracts government climate change-advocacy perpetuated by bureaucrats doling out funding at the NSF and NASA (never mind those pesky study sections!).

If you've never been to a real science conference, I suppose it can be hard to understand that, for all of the human failings that exist in science like anywhere else, there are strong institutional cultural mechanisms in place that make science work - like the fact that speakers at a meeting are chosen by a scientific organizing committee, and not by financial sponsors. Advocacy can play an important role in public policy, but research conferences aren't about advocacy.

(Real Climate has more.)

Seeing Human Embryos - Two Different Perspectives

The NY Times today has a profile on Shinya Yamanaka, the senior author on one of the recent papers reporting the creation of pluripotent stem cells by expressing 4 transcription factor genes in adult fibroblasts. Yamanaka (who "is known on campus for refusing to join colleagues for lunch, choosing to eat by himself so he can keep working" - unfortunate, since informal conversations with colleagues can really be quite useful) has without question achieved something significant by successfully creating stem cells, first from mice and then from human fibroblasts. However I take issue with Yamanaka's outlook on the ethics:

"Dr. Yamanaka was an assistant professor of pharmacology doing research involving embryonic stem cells when he made the social call to the clinic about eight years ago. At the friend’s invitation, he looked down the microscope at one of the human embryos stored at the clinic. The glimpse changed his scientific career.

'When I saw the embryo, I suddenly realized there was such a small difference between it and my daughters,' said Dr. Yamanaka, 45, a father of two and now a professor at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences at Kyoto University. 'I thought, we can’t keep destroying embryos for our research. There must be another way.'"

You might expect Dr. Yamanaka to be concerned about the much greater destruction of embryos that takes place in fertilization clinics - far more human embryos are destroyed there than in research labs. A petri dish is not exactly the most natural environment for an embryo, and the very act of creating embryos in vitro puts those embryos at risk.

While I'm not belittling Dr. Yamanaka for his views, and realize that he's just giving his impression and not necessarily making a strong ethical statement, I do think we should realize that his reaction is not universal. I've seen human embryos as well - and two of them became my youngest daughters. Several others never made it that far. I don't feel traces of sorrow for those lost embryos.

I suspect most physicians who work in fertility clinics feel the same way. Many, if not most scientists whose views I personally know, share this persepctive. We're happy for the ones that become human beings, but we don't lose sleep over the millions of little clusters of cells that are lost each year, both in and outside of IVF clinics.

Do Universities care about more than image?

"What makes the modern university different from any other corporation?" That's the question asked in the NY Times this week. In light of increasingly unaffordable tuition rates and the profitable but corrupt business of lending huge sums of money to students, do universities deserve their nonprofit status? Is the tight competition for federal grants corrupting the mission of universities?

The Times isn't so sure:

"Driven by big science and global competition, our top universities compete for “market share” and “brand-name positioning,” employ teams of consultants and lobbyists and furnish their campuses with luxuries in order to attract paying “customers” — a word increasingly used as a synonym for students."

I can relate: during my orientation as a new postdoc at Washington University, I was given what basically amounted to a marketing lecture by the HR person: I was told about the ongoing marketing campaign to raise awareness around town about our medical school's national status, and lectured about how every day in my work I should think about how I can please my customers. And just who are my customers? Everyone - my mentor, the grad students in the lab, the dean, and God knows who else.

So ok, my job orientation indoctrination was a dumb triviality, but are big research univeristies still pursuing the higher mission they were founded on? I think that the answer to a large degree is still yes, but the risk that money concerns are overwhelming more fundamental ones is real. Not all, but most cutting edge scientific research these days requires a lot of money and supportive infrastructure. That also means a lot of 'overhead' funds for the universities that win lots of federal dollars.

Most disturbing is the excessive focus on the university's image, rather than substance, because a good image (including a good US News ranking), as coporate America knows, can often be more effective at attracting customers than a truly substantial product.

Major research universities are a good thing - they produce the best science in the world, and often the best medical care in the world. But they (along with great liberal arts schools) should also produce a top education for their students, who will hopefully in the future produce more great science and medical care. Students who are educated in an environment of excessive concern about image and coddling 'customers' are unlikely to make great future scholars.

The biggest casualty of this trend, beside the decline in the general quality of a college education, and collegetown streets draped with tacky banners emblazoned with slogans pushing the local school's image, is the eroding status of universities as the best source in our society of excellent, honest scholarship. If we don't pass on how and why we do good scholarship, our culture will forget and be surpassed by others that do care about honestly understanding our world.

David Brooks and the Age of Darwin

NY Times columnist David Brooks has written about our society's new grand, all-encompassing narrative - evolutionary theory (Times select - subscription required).

His point is basically this:

"And it occurred to me that while we postmoderns say we detest all-explaining narratives, in fact a newish grand narrative has crept upon us willy-nilly and is now all around. Once the Bible shaped all conversation, then Marx, then Freud, but today Darwin is everywhere."

He concludes that our society has set aside a postmodern aversion to grand explanatory narratives and embraced Darwinism - one which we can "embrace, argue with or unconsciously submit to."

In his column, Brooks makes reference to both popular science books as well as the latest genomics or brain research. While I don't disagree with Brooks that this latest biological view of life is something one can "embrace or argue with," I think it's very important to distinguish between popular science and mainstream research. It's one thing to read Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell (basically David Hume's The Natural History Religion skillfully and elegantly reframed from an evolutionary perspective) and disagree with such a thoroughly evolutionary outlook, but quite another to reject the message from genomics research showing that genes impact our susceptibility to type II diabetes, nicotine addiction, prostate cancer, and Alzheimers. Our genes really do affect so much of our lives, including our personalities, our sexual behavior, how we think, and how we age. In fact, too much of the credit for this grand narrative goes to Darwin - Mendel is at least equally responsible.

Our society may have a new "grand narrative that explains behavior and gives shape to our history." Maybe not all, but certainly a good part of this grand narrative is based in solid research that has revealed much about how the world does in fact work, unlike previous grand narratives noted by Brooks - those based on a literal reading of the Bible, or Marx, or Freud. This new narrative is not exclusively the work of "evolutionary theorists" who write popular books and come up with theories to explain everything. True scientific theories are always tested against nature in the lab or in the field, and like physics, with its grand narrative of atoms, modern biology's grand narrative is based deeply in the rigorous study of our world.

The Latest IPCC Report on Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released its latest report, which of course has been all over the headlines. This report, already obsolete since it couldn't include the most recently published research, states more strongly than ever that humans have clearly contributed to global warming. We're reaching the point where professional scientists who continue to deny this are at risk of crossing the border into crank territory. As an inducement to make that border crossing, the American Enterprise Institute has offered $10,000 to several scientists to write critical essays of the IPCC's latest work.

I'm not suggesting anything negative about the recipients of this letter - yet. I have no idea how they responded. You can find the full text of the letter here on a site defending the AEI. No, the AEI is not asking these scientists change their mind for a bribe - they would be writing what they already believe. But read the letter and see how the AEI knocks the intergrity of the IPCC while telling the letter's recipient that "From our earlier discussions of climate modeling..., I developed considerable respect for the integrity with which your lab approaches the characterization of climate modeling data." Make of the letter what you will, but I certainly wouldn't go whoring away my scientific credibility by taking a $10,000 honorarium for an oil company-funded attack on climate change. It smells a lot like earlier tobacco-funded attacks on the link between smoking and cancer. Check out Cosmic Variance for some more commentary.

The well-funded and widely echoed opposition to climate change science in the US can make it hard to find scientifically reliable news sources amid the media coverage that tends gives equal time to unequally substantiated viewpoints. One place to look is the climate change feature on Nature's News site (some articles are free, some require a subscription). For a running commentary by people who are actually doing some of the relevant research, check out the Real Climate blog.

John Tierney's Science Blog at the NY Times

John Tierney, a conservative/libertarian/who knows? columnist at the NY Times has started a science blog. I'm usually not very optimistic about pundits commenting on science - the results are rarely good, with one of the worst cases being Gregg Easterbrook. The pundits usually have a muddled grasp of the technical issues and view scientific debate through a deep partisan tint.

However, the NY Times science section has much higher standards than opinion magazines like Slate and The New Republic, and so far Tierney's blog looks interesting. I recommend checking it out.