Sunday, April 26, 2009The Graduate School Experience While doing research on paleo-osteoarthritis, I came across an essay from the Journal of Cell Science by Martin A. Schwartz titled "The importance of stupidity in scientific research". It seems to really resonate with me, so it must be true and I must share it. Here's how it starts:
"I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science, although in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school, went to Harvard Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major environmental organization. At some point, the conversation turned to why she had left graduate school. To my utter astonishment, she said it was because it made her feel stupid. After a couple of years of feeling stupid every day, she was ready to do something else." The rest is here, with a handy pdf for download. It is an excellent description of the line between inspiration and total confusion that I dance around every time I read or write (or do) anthropology. I had the sneaking suspicion but I'm glad someone else agrees it's quite normal. Labels: dissertation, science link : 11:44 PM
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Tuesday, March 3, 2009Erectus Disfunction As I work on my dissertation tonight I'm also viewing some educational Netflix. Tonight's showing: Before We Ruled the Earth: Hunt or Be Hunted. They had a dramatization of H. erectus failing to hunt elk because their torches (used to scare the elk) went out in the moist air. I think they would've beta-tested that technology before actually using it in a if-it-fails-we'll-get-gored situation.
Also they make it sound like H. erectus had no expression of loss or remorse. C'mon, even dogs have that. This documentary also takes the stance that Neandertals were rather stupid and the ice age happened like overnight. Labels: science link : 6:40 PM
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Sunday, January 4, 2009I Knew It! Why am I writing about agriculture? It's a long story that started at my first blog, kccomics.com. In May 2002 I was in a sciency mood. I was thinking about evolution. I was taught that group evolution doesn't exist, natural selection occurs on the individual level and individuals don't give two hoots others. An exception, kin selection, is used to explain the evolution of social organisms like bees and people. I started out my 2002 blog post with an overview of kin selection:
In animal behavior in Berkeley I was taught that social insects such as wasps and ants are willing to help each other, especially the queen, because the workers have a genetic relationship with the reproductives. Thus, the workers would help pass on their own genes by helping the queen raise her young. Kin selection didn't sit well with me though. Sure humans can identify kin, but what about insects? I guffawed that bees would have a concept of kin to select for. Of course the notion that bees count genetic relatedness is a misperception of sociobiology. It's a misconception that sociobiologists spread themselves though*, so it took some thinking to transcend it. I came up with two reasons why social insects are successful, or reasons why they could evolve. Reason 1 isn't really relevant here. Reason 2 is where the money is: 2. A worker which defies the society and does not help the queen is completely maladaptive. A nest of such workers would quite quickly doom themselves and its queen, which then stops their genes from being passed on. Since the alternative to a group of altruistic workers is so highly selected against by natural selection, it's reasonable to think that any surviving insect societies would not be so self destructive. I was halfway to a group selection explanation of social insects. What logically follows but I didn't say is this: given limited resources, a nest that is more altruistic will outcompete a nest that is less altruistic, and is more likely to be selected for and reproduce. I ended my blogpost with this: I'll complete that thought at a later time. I should have finished my thought! I was reminded of my past musings by an article in American Scientist. The article, co-authored by none other than E.O Wilson, originator of sociobiology and most famous social insect researcher, basically said the same thing, but better with a full explanation with tons of evidence. From slime molds to chickens in a lab, the authors show that selection can occur on groups, favoring successful teams over single extraordinary individuals working singly. Group selection is back, and I totally called it. So now I am making a concerted effort to put my other "crazy" ideas down to see if they pan out. And I'm going to finish my thoughts. *This happens every time a sociobiologist says a gene is "selfish," or "a gene wants," or a gene has any expression of will or emotion. It's almost inescapable given the limits of language, but man is it annoying! Article Citation: Wilson DS and Wilson EO. 2008. Evolution "for the Good of the Group." American Scientist. 96(5): 380. Labels: science link : 10:48 PM
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008A Giant Facepalm for Mankind Sometimes I think I'm too critical of science news. But I occasionally see an article that irks me so much because it make so many basic scientific mistakes. Take this one for example. First it's the headline: "Cane toad evolution 'too fast for bodies.'" How can evolution be too fast? The article actually explains it: toads are literally fast because they move fast, which is putting strain on their bodies. But that doesn't jibe with the headline's meaning at all! Anyway the article goes on to say that researchers found that fast toads become arthritic which then cause a weakening of the immune system. Cane toads are a pest in Australia so they are suggesting using controlled dispersion of cane toad illnesses to kill them while they're weak.
That plan doesn't even sound good on paper, or in this case, computer screen. This little tidbit reinforces the flaw: "[Arthritis] affected 10 per cent of toads on the invasion front, he said." So, basically the plan to give toads diseases will only work on 10 percent of the population, leaving 90 percent which are resistant. And that 90% will then become 100% because the weak ones died. And when that happens the disease will have no effect whatsoever and toad populations will keep on growing. Why even bother in the first place with the disease? Also, the article ends with a gratuitous Old World use of the work "chink:" "All these vulnerabilities constitute chinks in the toads' armour.'' While technically there's nothing wrong with that, it's like using the word "niggardly," the word is similar (or identical!) to a loaded word. There's a reason we don't refer to rabbits as "cunnies" anymore... Labels: science link : 1:53 PM
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Tuesday, May 27, 2008 I can't sleep right now because earlier today I made a kinda-important scientific discovery and now the race is on to get it published. Does that make me a geek?
link : 1:48 AM
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Wednesday, February 21, 2007The High Price of Number Crunching I do a lot of work in statistics. In fact, almost all of my work involves statistics. I don't collect data in the field. I don't do things in a lab. I sit in front of my computer working with data sets and spreadsheets. Lately I've been doing a lot of online research for a good Mac statistical package. Right now I use a combination of SPSS and Excel.
SPSS seems like the perfect thing for me (it stands for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). But it's, in a word, bad. It's just bad. I have version 11, which ironically works on Intel while version 13 does not. Still, it follows archaic command line structure under its GUI. Variables can have a name eight letters long or less. No numbers or symbols. What? You can assign labels to variables but that's killing one bird with two stones. And that's gross. Excel... well Excel is easier to use (which says more about SPSS than Excel) but there are several published articles on how you shouldn't use Excel due to its inaccuracy. In the statistical package market there are a few alternatives. Aabel and Stata are both up-to-date to work with Intel Macs. The problem, they're around $500 each, and that's the student price (it's almost as expensive as.. a PS3!). If you're just some guy who wants to do statistics, it's $1500. Additional feature packages are $300 or so each. Why're they so expensive? I guess they're trying to sell to people with grants, but you'd think they would want to aim low and get students to like it first, then sell it to them again when they're professors with labs. Open source to the rescue! Kind of. R is free, but it's strictly command line. And it's hard. The manuals and tutorials aren't very good. Lesson 2: Add and subtract. Lesson 3: Multiple regression! I got lost somewhere in there. Also, trying to find outside advice for using R is hard in itself because it's hard to Google. The internet has a lot of things, and the letter R is one of them. Labels: anthropology, science, tech:computers link : 11:14 PM
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Friday, February 2, 2007How My Dissertation is Going: Part One in a Long Series The past week has been full of numbers. I've been examining the relationship between femur length and stature, hoping to find a sound way to estimate the latter with the former. Regression is the way to go, but what kind? Most studies have settled on linear regression but there is an inherent bias in its calculation. I'm trying to find alternatives. With the help of my advisor I think I found something that eliminates the bias completely. That gave me some sense of satisfaction.
Next on my list of things to do is to finish my dissertation proposal. It sounds backwards, and it is. I had a really hard time trying to write a proposal when I finally decided on a research topic. The scientific method starts with coming up with a hypothesis, but in reality it often starts with a sudden thought in the shower, or during a sleepless night. Doing statistical work is also not something that has a definite ending where my experiment is done and my question is answered. One result leads to more thinking (and another revelation in the shower) which leads to more testing and so on. I got so caught up in the actual work that I left the proposal behind. The graduate school requires that I do have a proposal however, as they should. It's a good organizational tool for myself to get my thoughts straight and for my committee whom would like to know what I'm up to. So ironically I'm taking a short break from my work to write a good proposal... for my work. I already have a few drafts done and comments from my advisor. I just have to find them again and read them. link : 5:30 PM
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Saturday, December 23, 2006Go #54! My advisor Robert Benfer made Discover Magazine's top 100 science discoveries of 2006! He is number 54 on the list, not a bad showing at all. Bob made the list for finding the oldest known site in the New World that was used for astronomical observations. These observations were important for Andean groups for planning their agricultural seasons. I unfortunately haven't seen all of the cool alignments and stuff in person since I wasn't there the field season when the discoveries were made.
Only two archaeological discoveries beat Bob's Temple of the Fox on the list: a newly-discovered tomb in Egypt and the earliest evidence of writing in the New World. Omega-3 fatty acid-producing pigs was another MU development that made the list, at a surprising (?) #38. Alternative energy in general was the #1 story. Bob's Article from Discover Magazine Article from the Columbia Missourian My glorious advisor's webpage with more information on the site. Labels: anthropology:archaeology, MU, peru, science link : 2:25 PM
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