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Many people who are now disappointed by the Obama administration didn't pay close enough attention during his campaign and election. It's the same with all presidents, really -- the promise of a new president brings at first a golden era of hope during which people seem to cavalierly shed their analytical abilities; then the denial phase as the president comes into his own; then the rude awakening when they're shocked, shocked, shocked at the scale of the deception.

Remember the Bush presidency? Mr. Compassionate Conservative? People barely twitched when he invaded Iraq, then slowly awoke to his mendacious governance -- the fact that there were no WMDs, there was global warming, arsenic levels weren't safe, Guantanamo prisoners were tortured to within an inch of their lives the end of their lives -- etc.

Warnings

But before presidents are elected there's time to profile their past, time for people to shake themselves out of wishful thinking into clarity. Usually at least one enterprising journalist digs into a candidate's history and accurately predicts their presidency. For instance, during the George W. Bush presidential campaign of 2000, Harper's author Joe Conason wrote an excellent, disturbing article about Bush's tenure in Texas politics called, "Notes on a Native Son: Part I. "The George W. Bush success story: A heartwarming tale about baseball, $1.7 billion, and a lot of swell friends." (Feb. 2000) The article disabused people of their ideas that George W. Bush and Democratic candidate Al Gore were very similar. Conason nailed Bush's future leadership proclivities. Perhaps some of it was luck, and I'm sure Conason wasn't the only one who caught on early. But the Harper's article showed that some people really can get a bead on leaders, and that if we pay attention we could too. That, at least, is reassuring to know.

Forward to the Obama campaign, in July, 2008, when New Yorker magazine shocked the world with a cover cartoon of Barack and Michelle Obama pictured with radical accoutrements and dressed -- as Al Jazeera put it -- "in what many [Americans] see as 'Muslim clothing'". We think fewer people read the accompanying article, which we touched on back then in "We The Thin Skinned, The Public and The Media".

The New Yorker cleverly juxtaposed a detailed political biography of Obama by Ryan Lizza against their cartoon cover depiction. In Making It: How Chicago shaped Obama, Lizza portrayed Obama as a pragmatic politician alert to the vagaries of politics, who proved himself more than adept at maneuvering through the political quagmires of Chicago and Illinois to emerge unscathed, all the while governing blandly. We quoted this from Lizza's profile:

"Perhaps the greatest misconception about Barack Obama is that he is some sort of anti-establishment revolutionary. Rather, every stage of his political career has been marked by an eagerness to accommodate himself to existing institutions..."

Liberals now realize that Obama's "existing institutions", as Lizza put it, were in many cases set up by the George W. Bush administration. The public didn't seem to get the New Yorker's sly joke back then, the paradox of the cover story versus the true inside scoop. The public went apoplectic over the cover. And only now are people starting to catch on to the fact that the Obama they compiled in their head isn't the Obama who's leading the country.

Misconceptions

If liberals and independents are unhappy -- Bush at least went full tilt with his base-- so too are conservatives. Conservative columnist Ross Douthat sought to explain the Obama paradox recently. He wrote: "In hindsight, the most prescient sentence penned during the presidential campaign belongs to Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker", then quoted Lizza's two sentences ("Perhaps the greatest misconception...institutions"). Douthat's "The Obama Way" explained that everyone vilified Obama differently but the president fit no particular mold. The most discontented people were the liberals -- as Douthat said:

"The left has been frustrated, again and again, by the gulf between Obama's professed principles and the compromises that he's willing to accept, and some liberals have become convinced that he isn't one of them at all. They're wrong. Absent political constraints, Obama would probably side with the liberal line on almost every issue."

There goes Douthat, first heartily agreeing with Lizza's New Yorker quote describing Obama as a political accommodator, next labeling Obama a flaming liberal who's only tenuously tethered to some middle way -- as if to warn conservatives not to relax. Well, which is it, young feller?

Does Douthat peg Obama as impossible to categorize but at his core very liberal? Or does he fall for the same fallacies of judgement he's just finished explaining to us?

Pragmatism

How liberal is Obama, deep down inside? Honestly, we don't know. But look, for instance at the politics of one of his long term advisors, the only person with a more quixotic image than Obama himself, whose intentions are even more difficult for observers to pin down -- Cass Sunstein. Sunstein leads the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). OIRA reviews regulations from all rule-making agencies in the Office of Management and Budget, regulations for banking, air and water quality, food, drugs, transportation...in other words, Sunstein's philosophy affects us all, and he's supposedly a close counsel of Obama's .

We've somewhat regularly followed Sunstein's progress in the Obama administration and his amazing ability to attract venomous critics as well as admiring followers from both the left and the right. There wasn't always such focus on OIRA administrators. Sunstein's very driven regulation-allergic conservative predecessors at OIRA, John Graham and Susan Dudley, attracted only the sparsest attention as they weakened regulation, ignored science, and developed symbiotic relationships with industry.

Sunstein often quotes John Graham and shares and builds on Graham's cost-benefit analysis legacy, yet people often label him, like Obama, as an out of bounds liberal. Sunstein's nomination was supported by conservative groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute and by the Wall Street Journal. Yet wildly preposterous rumors about his views, for instance on animal rights, held up his OIRA nomination for months. Republican senators stymied his appointment, as hunters and factory farms hijacked meaningful deliberation about Sunstein's most controversial ideas -- on cost-benefit analysis, for instance -- by focusing on the false notions that he might ban hunting, something that he had actually convincingly argued against.

The other thing that's interesting given Sunstein's well-documented ideas, is how pundits from both sides seem to ignore history when they periodically burst out over one thing or another they unearth in his writing. Of course some people, like Rena Steinzor of the Center For Progressive Reform, have long focused on environmental law, cost-benefit analysis, and the likely impact of Cass Sunstein heading OIRA. But to my point, recently Glenn Greenwald popularized a flurry of concern about Sunstein with his Salon article, "Obama Confidant's Spine-chilling Proposal". Greenwald's focus is not on Sunstein's cost-benefit machinations or environmental stances, but on Sunstein's exploration of government control of "conspiracy theories".

The Mirror, A Gift or A Curse?

Greenwald takes Sunstein to task for advocating in a 2008 paper that the government ought to do things like anonymously infiltrate groups to dissipate conspiracy theories. The Sunstein paper is really interesting (and funny, to me), and Greenwald competently attacks the ideas Sunstein presents. But just like Bush and Obama, Sunstein's proposals in 2008 proved consistent with what he has publicly explored/advocated for years.

In his 2001 book Republic.com, for instance, Sunstein argued that the government (he later changed this to private companies) could fight internet "hate-sites" and polarization that 'threatened democracy' by enforcing things like cross-linking to politically opposing sites. What did Thaler/Sunstein's book Nudge urge but for the government to "architect" our "choices"? If you circle through his books and papers you'll find that one way or another, either by infiltration or nudging, Sunstein's quite pre-occupied with government control of "undesirable" information, voices and outcomes, as judged by the government. These aren't terribly liberal obsessions, and it would be hard for me to call Sunstein a liberal.

Back to Douthat's point, I would also be hard-pressed to call Obama a liberal, either by his associations or his Illinois and presidential records. I'm surely biased, but so far he's a pragmatist, (though not a "centrist" Douthat says), and we were adequately and accurately warned. How many years does someone need to act like a centrist/pragmatist before people stop labeling them a liberal?*

Obama gets everyone together, he does. And they're all suspicious. During his campaign, people would say that Obama's campaign gift was that he made everyone see a bit of themselves in him. Perhaps now he has the opposite effect. No one can see any bit of themselves in him. Is that a curse?

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*And btw, as an aside, what is a liberal? And does the country need a "liberal" president, anyway, liberals?

Trick

Scientists sometimes confuse people with inscrutable acronyms -- BPA, NIEHS, NTP, EPA (bisphenol A, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Toxicology Program, Environmental Protection Agency), words that are difficult to pronounce -- "phthalates", or words that are difficult to get to the end of -- "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis". But lately, we've been stumping people with words everyone thought they knew, like "trick". People went wild over the idea that East Anglia scientists had used a "trick" to manipulate raw data.

"Trick", previously associated with annuals "treats" and six year olds in fairy costumes, was suddenly linked to nefarious acts. Yes, there is that "trick", but it's not often used¹. And did the media mayhem over "trick" top the media mayhem over the breast-baring wardrobe malfunction during Super Bowl half-time a couple of years ago? Hard to say -- but global warming is actually serious.

Scientists explained over and over that "trick" can be a good thing, like mathematics, logical thinking, transparency, pragmatism, maybe even dignity for life -- but their insistence only increased suspicion and talk. "Trick" dominated the news cycle longer than any five letter word should be allowed to and even wormed its way into events like the US legislature, where senators leveraged the word in committee meetings to veer away from very important topics like the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)².

Now we see the word all over the place. And like the original East Anglia "trick", it's often used to rationalize why climate change, the reality, isn't being translated into climate change policy. The Financial Times reported on the tension between China and the US in Copenhagen and quoted China's on its changing stance:

"'China will not be an obstacle [to a deal]. The obstacle now is from developed countries,' he said. 'I know people will say if there is no deal that China is to blame. This is a trick played by the developed countries. They have to look at their own position and can't use China as an excuse...'"

John Tierney recently used the word to propose a temperature based carbon-tax -- a joke perhaps, or to scoff at science?

"[U]se the temperature readings as the basis for a carbon tax instead of a cap-and-trade system...the carbon tax would be more effective at reducing emissions because it is simpler, more transparent, easier to enforce and less vulnerable to accounting tricks and political favoritism."

Up to his usual tricks, that Tierney.

Talking about the challenge the US Senate presents for Obama in Copenhagan, Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center described Obama's challenge as a "Goldilocks Problem":

''The trick is finding something just right in balancing the importance of demonstrating international leadership while not undermining the legislative dynamic here at home.''

Moving away from climate change, the word "trick" can morph from a bad thing or a challenge, to a good thing. An author recently mused in an essay in the New York Times about the "tricks" to maintaining a marriage.³

Hack

The confusion over "trick" is not entirely unjustified. Merriam Webster has seven possible uses of "trick". And another word that's ambiguous for some people, again, reasonably so, because it has nine uses in Merriam Webster, is "hack", as in, they hacked into the email server in East Anglia and stole a thousand emails.

During the December 2, 2009 hearing on the pressing imperative of revising the "Federal Toxic Substances Control Act" (TSCA), climate denier Senator Inhofe (R-OK) hijacked the meeting to windbag on about "tricks" in emails necessitating a halt to EPA emissions rulemaking.

Senator Boxer (D-CA) responded eloquently and forcefully, noting that although she was concerned about criminal acts of "hacking", she was more concerned about anthropogenic carbon emissions, about global warming, and about the repercussions for human health -- that's where her duty was, to the people effected by global warming. About the email break-in she said:

We're dealing with a criminal act of hacking into a computer...It seems to me they must have been hacking this for years. And just before Copenhagen they came out with it...That's what it seems to be...because, these emails, they go back...how many are there? Over a thousand emails? So I don't know how long a thousand emails...

This may be a silly example, but it shows how people with expertise in a particular area assume common understanding of simple words. Here it seems like "hacking" into a computer is visualized as George Washington trying to "hack" down a giant redwood tree in the Muir Woods National Park.

Hack can mean to chop at roughly. It can also mean to tolerate or bear something, for instance, I don't know how Senator Boxer can hack Senator Inofe's perennial global-warming-is-a-hoax B.S. so gracefully. Used as a noun, hack can also be a cough, a horse, a worker, or (derogatorily) someone who misconstrues or butchers something -- for example, Senator Inofe is a real hack when it comes to science and global warming.

But when someone hacks into a computer as they did in East Anglia, they exploit a vulnerability in order to access data owned by someone else. Different than hacking at a tree. It can take a computer hacker a while to find the vulnerability and locate the data, but then they most often swoop in, get it, in this case a bunch of emails, and go. Sometimes they lurk about, poised to commit further crimes, or leave an opening to come back, obviously there's no rules, but generally they're not hewing emails out of the server one at a time over many years 465 -- hack, hack hack, 466 -- chop, chop, 467 -- hack, hack -- that's a different use of the word.

The Trick for Scientists, If They Can Hack It

So "trick" can not so intuitively mean find a solution, as well as to deceive, and "hack" can mean deceptively break into a computer in order to plunder or pillage, as well as to chop at something. And confusingly, computer scientists, sometimes known as "hacks" but in a good way, will "hack" a solution to a very tricky programming problem, just as scientists use a "trick" to help analyze and make sense of data.

And that's the challenge for scientists -- a trivial one, but another one. In addition doing science, teaching, writing grants, motivating grad students, negotiating politics and budget cuts, actually physically looking out for hackers and those who would break into scientists offices and steal computers as part of a global effort to undermine climate science; in addition to assessing threats of bodily harm, scientists need to simplify concepts, avoid acronyms and watch their use of simple seeming words whose meaning they take for granted.

All that work because even people with the best intentions don't always have a grip on either science or its lexicon. And once scientists sort out "trick" and "hack" for everyone, they'll then face the greater challenge of explaining the risks of doing nothing about global warming, with the risks of doing something. After all, probability and risk are orders more challenging for people to grasp than "tricks" and "hacks".

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¹ See, "Do Names Portend Profession?", in AR's Science Dust-Ups and Dirty Laundry

²

We wrote about TSCA here. Of 80,000 chemicals produced, there's little information about which ones are on the market, and only 5 are regulated by the EPA.

³ In the NYT on marriage: "Recently one of my wife's college students kept pressing us, with baffled curiosity, for our secret, as if there had to be some trick to it..."

The past couple of weeks have been filled with stories about scientists' public dust-ups, intriguing to all, especially non-scientists. Why are they so interesting? Maybe such sordid tales offer something beyond dry research results sexed-up by editors desperate to grab readers weaned on YouTube? Maybe the stories make scientists seem not quite so pocket-protector laden and boring? (We're not boring, really!) But since we all know people who slow down to gawk at accidents, others who link lavishly to tales of disease, distress, death, and dismal demises, perhaps those people are just as enamored, in the same schadenfreude way, to science bickering and wave-making?

• Ice Floes and Climate Woes: Antarctica is losing ice from the eastern side as well as the west, according to a study in Nature Geoscience, an event that could significantly increase sea levels. But that's not the news everyone's focusing on these days. What interests them are the emails exchanged between a few scientists, stolen from a server at East Anglia University in England and broadcast on the internet.

  Fox News and the usual suspects are gleeful of course, oiling up for a long campaign of undermining science and swaying wishy-washy people. Everyone else spectates, eagerly leaning into the ropes. The Financial Times avidly quoted 'both sides', first the "free-market think tank" CEI spokesperson who called the emails "global warming house of cards", then the scientist whose email revealed that he wanted to "beat the crap out of" a certain scientist, a phrase that one person sincerely explained as "a common pleasantry" among high-calibre scientists. Optimistic climate deniers are talking "smoking guns" and ClimateGate. But as Real Climate: put it in one of their posts:

  "if cherry-picked out-of-context phrases from stolen personal emails is the only response to the weight of the scientific evidence for the human influence on climate change, then there probably isn't much to it."

  "Probably" is understatement. Somehow the media constantly gets away with quoting 'both sides' without signaling to readers the truer story: One side has hundreds of studies - the scientists; whereas the other side is lobbying for some corporation, or out of desperate laziness. The science is depressingly convincing on climate change. But obviously people don't all embrace change, and to that end, the deniers have proven time and time again that hammering away with their fraudulent message will keep people consuming petroleum products.

  My take is that if you unearthed the email trove of any group - government, academic or corporate - you'd find some nasty, flaming emails, but not everyone sees it the way I do of course. Some scientists are calling for increased transparency.

• Personal Genomics, What Risk? Researchers from the J. Craig Venter Institute and Scripps Translational Science Institute compared the results of two personal genomics companies for five individuals and found discrepancies in the disease risk predictions. The two companies, 23andMe and Navigenics DTC, responded to the paper in a recent issue of Nature. The two companies agreed with the criticism on some points and offered explanation on other points -- for instance about the differences between population risk and individual risks, and the importance of doctors' communication about genetic risks to patients.

  In other personal genomics news, Iceland's deCode Genetics went out of business, leaving it ambiguous, although we're assured that the genetic information will be protected, where their vast genetic data bank will end up.

• Curly-haired Science Populizers Spar: Steven Pinker popularizes cognitive science and evolutionary psychology. Malcolm Gladwell popularizes sociology and social psychology. They both have Canadian roots and very curly hair. Now they're sparring. Pinker critiqued Gladwell's, "What the Dog Saw" in a recent issue of "New York Times. Like any good manager or professor, Pinker offers four paragraphs of compliments before he breaks out the sharp red pen. Gladwell is a "minor genius", Pinker writes, but "unwittingly demonstrates the hazards of statistical reasoning and who occasionally blunders into spectacular failures", and "frequently holds forth about statistics and psychology, and his lack of technical grounding in these subjects can be jarring."

  Pinker says that Gladwell provides "misleading definitions", and furthermore, he mistakenly calls an eigenvalue an "igon value." The criticism may seem idiosyncratic to the lay person, but subject area experts see things differently. They're more likely to believe that imprecise definitions and simplification lead to public confusion. What's interesting is that such criticism comes from Pinker, who, being a popularizer like Gladwell, must certainly recognize the necessity of selectively choosing what to include in rhetorical writing for huge non-science audiences.

  Gladwell responds that Pinker "is unhappy with my spelling (rightly!) and with the fact that I have not joined him on the lonely ice floe of IQ fundamentalism." Clever defense and countercharge - in other words, "Igon value" was a typo not a misunderstanding, intimates Gladwell; and Pinker is more or less an intellectual pariah. Gladwell also denigrates Pinkers' sources for being bloggers or online denizens: "our differences owe less to what can be found in the scientific literature than they do to what can be found on Google." Ouch, ouch and ouch.

• Fantastic FOXP2 - The Speech Gene? David Shenk provides his blog at The Atlantic as a forum for a scientist and a New York Times journalist to spar about the journalist's presentation of science. Shenk posts a letter from University of Iowa neuroscientist and Behavioral Neuroscience Editor-in-Chief Mark Blumberg, to Nicholas Wade's about his New York Times story, "Speech gene shows its bossy nature." Blumberg takes Wade to task for calling FOXP2 the "speech gene".

  "the distinct possibility that the mutation influenced a myriad of other brain and body functions that, in turn, affected speech. Indeed, given all that we know about how genes work - as well as our sad history with grandiose claims about single-gene effects on behavior - wouldn't it be wise for all of us to be more cautious when communicating these findings to the public?

  In turn, Wade writes:

  "The role of this article was to update readers on a new finding, not to review the history of ideas about FOXP2. So there's no space to go into the argument about the gene's precise involvement with speech and language, much of which we have covered in earlier articles."

  Of all our notes, and all the other dust-ups in play in the news recently, I really enjoyed this presentation by Shenk because it gets to the heart of challenges with science communication and the work that scientists and writers must do to get science across to non-scientist audiences without generalizing or leading readers astray. Definitely worth reading.

• Do Names Portend Profession? Yes, we're joking. But if you're into astrology and anti-vaccination, if you think global warming is a giant hoax, you may steer clear of certain girls' given names. "Isabella", for instance, is a pretty name, second in popularity for girls in 2008, but, like Arabelle, Anabelle, Belinda, Elizabeth, Isabel, Isabella, Mirabel, Rosabel, Sybil or Mabel, it comes with troublesome nicknames, like "Bella"" or "Belle", which can also stand alone. Bella is the wan female protagonist of new popular movie, "The Twilight Saga: New Moon". Bella loses her mind (according to reviews) when her vampire boyfriend goes missing. OK there may be worse things then your daughter mooning around for months over her missing vampire boyfriend...but what are they again?

  "Belle" of course, was the nom de plume of the anonymous British scientist, named after the movie, not the name "Isabelle", who blogged about her second life as a prostitute. News of the scientist blogger outed as "Belle de Jour" elicited delighted and scurrilous musings online and in real life. Online, BoingBoing posed a "takeaway debate", asking: "Is this good or bad for scientists/science bloggers?" In real life one scientist acquaintance told me that he'd read that women with Asperger's syndrome were often "loose" because they could compartmentalize (we didn't check his source). He then continued, thinking aloud, that "of course they might be scientists too", and his eyes lit up at his connection and all the potential relationships he would have previously discounted. So in that case, to BoingBoing's question, it might be good for scientists.

  But "good or bad" is not necessarily the only takeaway, as British columnists tell us. Rowan Pelling wrote: "Interviewers have been asking me breathily what I thought of Belle when I met her, as if my eyes must have been out on stalks at the idea of a PhD student turning tricks." Actually, it wasn't her "trade", but the excellent "quality of her writing", that "shocked" Pelling.

  To be honest, the parts of Belle de Jour that I read I found about as captivating as reading a Martha Stewart description on how to stuff pillows with barley husks, so clearly I'm not the best judge of this sort of thing. But columnists babbled on and there seemed to be no debate about her "writing" prowess. Clive James of the BBC gushed:

  "And what a female...she was Ernest Hemingway...a woman of outstanding beauty and brilliance...student of informatics, epidemiology and forensic science...a student of military strategy...the thinking man's dream girl...There is nothing this woman can't do, and you can tell by the history of her blogging...She knows everything. She even knows what informatics is. I looked it up, and basically it means information theory.

  Yikes. Chill, pal. Perhaps they edited my Scribner Classics Hemingway edition, but I don't recall Hemingway writing such doozies (albeit rare) as Belle's 'my pussy makes men cry'. So now then, (and speaking of names, we won't even go into the name "Brook[e]), back to BoingBoing, what's the takeaway for scientists? Actually, I would debate, not much with this flash in the pan story.

  But here's my takeaway from Brooke Magnanti. Magnanti works for the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health and studies toxicology, most recently on organophosphate chloropyrifos (CPF) used in pesticides. An abstract in Toxicology Letters by Magnanti et al, (Volume 189, Supplement 1, 13 September 2009, Pages S268-S269) suggests the EU policies on CPFs be changed to the more restrictive one of the US which limits indoor use. I find this interesting. Many people, myself included, tend to think of US policies for environmental hazards as laxer than EU policies -- but be careful about generalizations. Acronym Required wrote about US and EU policies, and the EU's REACH protocol here and here and here, and here. I know, science, far less interesting, sigh.

Maher Still Loco on Vaccinations:

As he has for years, Bill Maher continues to spread disinformation about vaccines. Over countless news cycles Maher has infuriated doctors, public health officials, and responsible citizens with bizarre warnings about letting governments "stick a disease into your arm".

Challenged to get a word in edgewise between his fusillades about "mercury" and "diet" and natural "immunity", doctors and scientists nevertheless patiently correct his errors. They explain that a vaccine is not "a disease" but a disabled virus that looks to the immune system like a live virus or bacteria and therefore prevents infection by the actual deadly virus or bacteria¹ like polio, measles, diphtheria, or influenza.

But the talk show host persists, as is his habit. Last month, Bill "I'm also not f-king my interns" Maher baffled panelists Alec Baldwin, Chris Matthews and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley by rehashing his concerns with vaccines. Yesterday, Maher continued with a rambling column at The Huffington Post titled "A Conversation Worth Having", saying he aimed to

"clear up a few things about my beliefs concerning the flu shot, vaccines, and health in general...I will admit, I have gone off half cocked on this issue sometimes, and often only had time on my show to explain a fraction of what needed to be explained, and for that I am sorry...I agree with my critics who say there are far more qualified people than me"

Mea culpa? Unfortunately, and spoiler alert for the 2800 word article: no. I didn't say "anyone who gets a flu shot is an idiot", Maher said, "it was twittered...my bad". Then, "vaccination is a nuanced subject, and I've never said all vaccines in all situations are bad..." Nuanced? "All vaccines"? Cagey creepy crapola -- bring it on, Maher.

Discerning Maher's Health Prescription -- When "Sometimes It's OK to Fuck with Nature"

Maher writes "I'm not a germ theory denier" and he claims "I do understand the theory of inoculation", exuding all the candor of a intelligent design proselytizer putting quotes around "the theory" of evolution. To the helpful doctor who corrects him, Maher retorts snidely "Thanks, Doc, I thought there might be a little man inside the needle. Yes, I read Microbe Hunters when I was eight." (Doesn't think the conversation is worth having?)

Cocksure and funny, Maher acts as though he's arguing about some scrutable line that any eight year old can see - you don't need to be a doctor or scientist. To the left of the line there are the OK vaccines, except, he hedges, vaccines are unproven. To the right, there are the not-OK vaccines that we should be debating, like flu vaccine. But actually, if you can't already tell, there is no line or margin, because Maher is arguing the same old run-of-the-mill anti-vaccine/medicine/science schtick you've (yawwwwnn) already heard. He allows that "sometimes it's OK to fuck with nature" and prescribe medicine, but listen to enough Maher and you realize he maligns all medicine, all vaccines.

Casting Aside Science

Sure, at first you may be confused because he mixes recognizable words into gobbledygook. Do doctors ever ask patients what they eat, he asks rhetorically? No, he answers, "and a lot can be cured with diet and a healthier lifestyle" -- then Maher adds in parentheses -- "And a lot can't [be cured]. I also understand the role of genetics and generations of artificial selection".

Despite his unassailable understanding, lets review. The risk of some diseases, like diabetes Type II, can be reduced with healthier lifestyle. Some conditions, like obesity can be prevented with diet, and losing weight concurrently reduces the risks of morbidity and mortality associated with conditions like heart disease. This isn't just semantics. Diet won't prevent crippling polio, or a flu pandemic or death of a pregnant woman, or stop a kid from succumbing to weeks of illness and a 105 degree influenza fever. And typical of Maher's machinations on science, medicine and disease, he jumps down the rabbit hole with "genetics and "generations of artificial selection". Scientists use artificial selection to breed products like corn by selecting for certain traits. Humans are not hothouse flowers, subjected to "generations of artificial selection".

How Does Maher Distinguish Himself From Dr. Beetroot?

In cajoling his audience to exercise skepticism and caution and arguing for "debate", a word that should tip anyone off to incoming falsehoods; Maher says:

"Someone needs to be representing the point of view that says the preferred way to handle flus is to have a strong immune system to begin with..."

Actually, we can think we recognize this "point of view". Take, for instance South Africa's former health minister, Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, (known derisively as Dr. Beetroot), who spent years telling South Africans to boost their immune systems against the AIDS virus with diet, beetroot and lemon.

In a familiar refrain, the South African Mbeki government insisted that Western drugs were too profit oriented and dangerous. As a result of this decision, hundreds of thousands of South Africans died from AIDS, and the dying isn't over, since infectious disease pandemics gather momentum over time. Newly elected President Zuma recently warned that the death rate from AIDS may overtake the birthrate in that country.

How is Maher's argument different than that of Tshabalala-Msimang's? Where does he draw his invisible line de-marking greedy Western medicine from essential life-saving medicine? How does this board member of the "Reason Project" (Wikipedia) dedicated to scientific and secular knowledge, identify good medicine?

How is Maher's Position Different Than A Mennonite's?

Instead of agreeing with scientists and doctors, Maher chooses to listen to Barbara Loe Fisher who he finds "extremely credible", because

"after devoting her life to studying this, she says that flu vaccines aren't proven and...points out that what we need, but do not yet have, are studies of vaccinated vs unvaccinated children."

Fisher is not a scientist or a doctor, and that's ok, anyone can educate themselves about vaccinations, eight or older. Based on her experience parenting and in public relations Fisher can certainly start a vaccination information center, appear on talk shows, testify at events like the "Vaccine Policy Analysis Collaborative: A U.S. Government Experiment in Public Engagement", and give lectures to naturopaths, chiropractors, and groups like "Body by God". Who's to say she can't?

But given that Maher says she's devoted her life to studying vaccinations, you'd think she'd understand that vaccinating some children against polio, but not others, would be medically unethical. You'd think that Maher would also see the moral quagmire.

Furthermore, unfortunately, there's lots of evidence to prove that what Fisher and Maher say is the untested theory of vaccination is flat out false. As the NYT reported in 2003:

"The last two American polio outbreaks were in Amish and Mennonite communities in 1979 and in a Christian Science school in Connecticut in 1972. Measles killed 3 students of 125 infected in a Christian Science school in 1985, and a similar-size outbreak among the Amish in 1987 and 1988 killed 2 people. In 1991, 890 cases of rubella, leading to more than a dozen deformed children, hit Amish areas."

Since then, Africans who believed rumors that vaccinations are an attempt by Westerners to spread the HIV virus or sterilize Nigerians, started a polio epidemic. The Amish also suffered polio outbreaks. Mennonites, who don't believe in vaccination but do believe in travel caused outbreaks of measles in Minnesota, then South America. Like the Amish, Mennonites don't believe in vaccinations or insurance, but do believe that hospitals should cure them for a discount, once they get sick.

How is Maher's position different then that of a Mennonite? Can we have this conversation? How does Maher square his position on vaccines with his libertarian views when people end up demanding hospital bailouts because they didn't take it upon themselves to prevent illness?

The Dredged Up "Under-reported Point of View" is Often Wrong, Concludes A Bright Person

The consequences of not vaccinating become graver and more frequent as more people refuse vaccinations. The value of vaccinations is not "debatable". Vaccinations have saved millions of lives, saved millions of dollars by keeping people out of hospitals, and boosted productivity of nations. But Maher ignores all this and calls for some cost benefit analysis, more familiar anti-science denialism.

Maher appeals to all of those who eschew facts and take solace in unpopular views.

"I'm just trying to represent an under-reported medical point of view in this country, I'm not telling a specific pregnant lady what to do...[I]t's just that mainstream media rarely interviews doctors and scientists who present an alternative point of view..."

Pregnant women and kids are most susceptible to dying from H1N1 virus. Pregnant women have decreased lung capacity that increases the threat of pneumonia, and they have decreased immunity due to their pregnancy. The reason the media doesn't interview doctors and scientists with "alternative points of view" on the subject, is because doctors and scientists agree that vaccines save lives, and that pregnant woman and parents of children shouldn't die because they've been convinced by talk show hosts to doubt the CDC, the doctors, and the scientists.

Maher's is not selling an "under-reported medical point of view", rather he's latched onto a non-medical, non-science point of view. Hmmm....why does he persist?

Bill Maher's Mainstream Media Profit Motives

Unbelievably, after flogging his point of view for years, Maher says he has no motive and expects no outcome: "[M]y audience is bright, they wouldn't refuse a flu shot because they heard me talk about it...." But his audience claps when he talks non-scientific hokum -- perhaps only because they're prompted? Either they're not thinking at all, or they're confused about science, or they're easily swayed by paranoid views, or they think they're at a gladiator show - in which case they will eventually be disappointed by the "debate." Can such folks be considered "bright" in the 21st century?

To the point, though, if Maher's especially non-bright, non-medical, non-scientific point of view weren't selling, weren't rewarded with clapping and viewers and advertising dollars, would he still be ranting on? Maher's anti-vaccination position has populist appeal that draws viewers and boosts ratings. His refutation of "mainstream media's profit motives" sells well. But lets be clear. HBO's Real Time, with millions of viewers each night, is mainstream media. What's not? Acronym Required, for instance, is not "mainstream media".

And why pick on science? Scientists are a remarkably easy target, as we noted before when John McCain chronically made fun of science research. When Maher chose to accost religion, at least 50% of Americans are quite religious, and that's a lot of potential audience members to insult. Plus, religious people can get dangerous. Other Maher campaigns have also backfired, like when Maher's remarks about military recruiting spurred one Congressman to demand that Real Time be canceled.

Considering his options then, and the groups he's already alienated, scientists make a good target. They're pretty tame, therefore easy to pick on safely, and a select target for a large potential audience, since everyone's thinking of getting the flu vaccine. Maher can perhaps equivocate about good vs. bad vaccines and fool a lot of people. So Bill Maher and his mainstream media show try to expand his audience by maligning science to become more mainstream? So they forsake scientists, but also pregnant moms and kids in the process? Is this the conversation? More or less? Bravo, talk show host!

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Photo from Wikipedia under a Creative Commons license.

¹ 11/19 Added "bacteria"

Acronym Required wrote on vaccinations previously, for instance in Vaccinations, Why the Worry? we wrote about the long history of rebellion against vaccinations. We also wrote about vaccinations here and in various posts and vaccines for specific illnesses.

Bill Maher's shenanigans have been will covered by scientists like Respectful Insolence here and here, by Pharyngula; by Aetiology here and here here and by many others.

Superfreakonomics authors Levitt and Dubner make it out like solving global warming is no more complicated than cooling off on the patio on a hot summer day. First, someone else puts up the umbrella, then they unwind the hose and spray all the kids so they stay cool. This may sound good to you, but it's not logical, despite what the Superfreaks insist. They're appealing to your laziness, your ennui, your fear, and your cynicism, all in the name of books and businesses that you don't hold stock in. Do you but it?

Daily Show Economics

When Steven Levitt appeared on the Daily Show to talk about their new book and the giant umbrellas that could be used to ward off climate change, Jon Stewart apologized for the collective response by scientists to Levitt and Dubner's unscientific treatment of climate change. Not only unscientific, dismissive too: Levitt told the Guardian "We could end this debate and be done with it, and move on to problems that are harder to solve", (hat tip Curious Capitalist).

Stewart commiserated to the criticized Levitt: "I'm sorry you're taking so much shit for it". But Stewart let his Daily Show audience down. For one, "Superfreakonomics" disappointed Freakonomics fans, especially those devoted libertarians and contrarians, who, though often delusional, generally manage at least a modicum of realism about climate change. Daily Show fans were also surprised that Stewart was so sympathetic to Levitt.

But if people were dismayed with The Daily Show's dismissal of climate change, they haven't been paying attention. Stewart isn't always smarter 'than that', if smarter doesn't fit the particular formula-funny he runs. Note how Stewart barely batted an eye when Levitt offered his other offensive assertion, that prostitutes should retain pimps in order to earn more money. It's true, shrugged Levitt, as if nothing can to be done because the invisible hand has sealed womens' fates the world over -- as if he didn't just twist up that statistical interpretation to get people tittering and buying books.

"The heroes turn out to be the pimps", he said. Shrug. "Get rid of the moral part" he insisted, and you have pure unadulterated economics, that's what we're about. Jon jested. Hahaha, heeheehee. Levitt shrugged again. Then the two entertainers moved on to climate change and the irrationality of environmentalists.

When Your Advertisers Are Auto Companies?

And trashing "environmentalists" isn't new territory, either, for Levitt or for Stewart. The Freakonomics blog has argued repeatedly that recycling makes little sense. The Daily Show host has previously criticized actions to lower carbon emissions, for instance "Auto-Neurotic Gas Fixation", May 20, 2009. At the time, Obama had just announced his intention to set new, ambitious CAFE standards for gas mileage. Stewart chastised him for it: "Dude...Obama...don't blow your load on mileage baby, save it for when the Chinese invade."

Stewart said that gas efficient cars, being smaller, put people "in harm's way because they're in a lighter vehicle", that "safety" was a "valid", "reasonable concern". A nod to all the automobile companies that advertise with Comedy Central perhaps? Or ignorance? You decide. We thought that this ancient Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) argument died back in 2007, once people thought through their elementary math and physics and realized that yes, if you run your Prius into a Hummer, you may get hurt, but the more Priuses on the road, and the fewer Hummers, the less likely you will be to run into a Hummer, therefore less likely you'll get hurt. Alas, there we were in the spring of 2009 and Jon Stewart was giving us his schoolboy version of the old auto industry fueled CEI argument.

Coincidentally, at the time -- April/May 2009 -- car sales had recently dropped to their lowest point in thirty years. A flurry of editorials pronounced the danger of small vehicles and so Stewart fit right in with The Wall Street Journal which droned on about about the "lethal effects" of CAFE standards and light vehicles. Lesson? Comedy Central is not always all that "progressive" people - really.

Just When You Thought Superfreak was Finally Gone

So Jon Stewart's accommodation to Levitt's argument isn't a surprise, nor is Superfreakonomics' bid to attract attention by rousing populist appeal. As the sequel to Freakonomics (which admittedly never did it for me), SuperFreakonomics seems to run aground the way many movie sequels do -- Rocky V, Clerks II, Caddyshack II... While maintaining sufficient audiences to grind through talk-shows, stimulate blog chatter, and generate pay-out, the authors deeply disappoint fans.

Here's a collection of about 90 blog links that criticize Chapter 5 of the book. They call the authors on many points, for instance:

• Of distorting the science and misquoting scientists - From an atmospheric scientist (Ken Caldeira) in response to the book's quote - "Carbon dioxide is not the right villain": "I don't believe I said anything remotely like that...we should be outlawing the production of devices that emit carbon dioxide...I do see CO2 as the problem...it's like if you got shot by a bullet and you said, well, it wasn't really the bullet that was the problem, it was just that I happened to have this hole through my body..."

• Of distorting science consensus - From many economists: "it is terribly misleading that the two scientists you quote are BOTH skeptics. What are the odds of that? Probably a billion to one, so my unavoidable conclusion is that you are deliberately trying to cast doubt on the scientific consensus."

• Of presenting facile, improbable solutions to climate change like pumping SO2 into the atmosphere with a giant hose - From scientists: "'..thinking of geoengineering as a substitute for emissions reduction is analogous to saying, 'Now that I've got the seatbelts on, I can just take my hands off the wheel and turn around and talk to people in the back seat.' It's crazy.'"

• Of deceiving the American public - From a congressman: "We have seen a similar effort to hoodwink, defraud, and deceive the American public now to cover up the toxicity to the world environment...I want to note a book...that basically said or asserted we don't have to control CO2..They purported to quote a scientist named Ken Caldeira from Stanford...Which is an absolute deception."

Like the Daily Show, the Superfreakonomics authors have a history of distorting reality.

Stripping Away Moralism and Giving You Freedom: The Ruse

As I wrote above, what Levitt claims, is that he simply "strips away the moralism" - then, all you have is the economics and prostitution, or economics and climate change. Glib. This is not uncommon rhetoric in economics, politics and public policy -- the ultra-rational, just do the math approach. It's used, for instance, to justify radical cost-benefit-analysis, where people argue that you can put a monetary value on everything - the price of one member of an endangered species, the price of the life of an old person, the price of the life of an infant, the price of a chemical to an industry - and otherwise complicated policy decisions fraught with difficult ethical choices can be reduced to simple math. Voilà.

The problem is, when the authors decided to write that prostitutes are better off with pimps then dug up some statistics to support that assertion, they made a moral decision. First Levitt and Dubner had to decide that this particular slant on prostitution was what they wanted to focus on, then they had to cherry pick some "data" to support it. Similarly, as we wrote in an earlier post, deciding that a male mule deer is worth $525.50, whereas a female mule deer is worth $163, while a just plain deer is worth $1, is not a decision without "moralism".

Moral sentiments are part and parcel of human decisions. Numbers and words that appear in print on a piece of paper or screen in front of you came from a formula or process derived by a human, based on that human's views, perceptions, expectations and desired outcomes. It didn't come from some superior amoralistic all-knowing power, intent on providing answers and comfort to confused humans beings -- despite what people may try to convince you.

Ironically, by asking his audience to "strip away the moralism", Levitt is appealing to ethos or pathos, but certainly not logos. He's saying -- be logical like me, I'm being logical. Shrug. But he's dismissing tons and tons of scientific proof of climate change and the need to decrease emissions as pathetic "moral" arguments (ethos), when those scientific studies are actually the logical ones (logos). He's appealing to his audience's laissez-faire tendencies, their desire to do nothing, their habits not to change, their pathos.

The Ploy: Technology will Suffice in Lieu of Action

Then, offering the equivalent of the old, chintzy plastic prize at the bottom of the box of Crackerjacks, he gives the audience something to grasp on to in the impending and threatening flood of unpleasant scientific reality, although again, it's not logical. Levitt insists that there's a simple scientific solution to solve the problem. Of course, there is no technological solution. The authors offer untested pie-in-the-sky idea that many, many scientists find problematic.

But this is what we all want to hear, right? The irrational, busy, lazy or pathetic side of all of all of us wants to be assured that electronic records will solve healthcare failures, that tsunami warning systems will prevent catastrophic losses, that ankle bracelets will prevent recidivism, that massive fences along international borders will prevent terrorism and drug trafficking, and that electronic surveillance will prevent crime. But giant garden hoses suspended up in the sky, are not even in the realm of feasible technical solutions. Yet we're so happy to slough off responsibility that Jon Stewart, although he's a modern icon of cynicism, doesn't even bother to ask questions.

Levitt plays to the audience's sentiments perfectly, first by laughing off science and scientists who present scary ideas as flimsy moralistic hogwash, then by presenting his very own special version of "science". I'm the logical one, he says, but I'm not dorky like a scientist.

His flavor of rhetoric is commonly used by those who oppose scientific evidence because it presents the type of science society likes, that which solves our problems, but is seemingly stress-free, simpler to understand than Tivo, and doesn't require you to have liked high school science. Therefore Superfreakonomics presents magic "technology solutions" in terms your average barbecuing Joe (if there is such a thing) will know and like.

According to them, solving global warming is no more complicated than cooling down on a hot summer day on the patio. First someone else puts up the umbrella to shield you. Then a kindly neighbor unwinds the hose and sprays away, and all the kids stay cool. Sound good? But its not logical. It's doesn't strip away moralism. It doesn't give you freedom. You do have to worry about global warming, you may have to change your lightbulbs. Superfreakonomics appeals not to your logical side but to your laziness, your ennui, your fear, your cynicism, all in the name of books and businesses that you don't hold stock in.

The Solution

This isn't to say that we don't need technology, quite the opposite, technology is imperative to global warming attenuation. But it's not the only effort we need, we need to conserve and to decrease emissions also.

Underlying Superfreaks' argument is the contention that people won't change. And true, people tend to squirm and stall when pressed to adjust, as we noted in "Sea Change or Littoral Disaster", Cars: Buying Cognitive Dissonance", Science Communication, Communicating Climate Change, and Climate Change, Fueling the "Debate", "Curvilinear Thinking on Climate Change", and other posts. But Real Climate's good point is that - people will change with the right incentives. People can work collectively for the better, they don't need a solution to be imposed from nigh. They do have a long history of employing morals as well as logic to solve problems, both are good, both are necessary. And given all that, it may simply be immoral for Superfreak authors to distort the truth of climate change and insist on selling implausible solutions.

Now, at PNAS Three Papers in Question:

The science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) offers special publication privileges to members of their Academy, a group of elite scientists chosen by other esteemed scientists based on their unique contributions to science research. Now the editorial board has retracted some of those privileges in light of papers that recently appeared in the journal.

Nature News reported on a "row" caused when PNAS published research that didn't meet the journals' standards for peer review. The dispute is now heating up. The controversy began in August when one article published on-line at PNAS forwarded a theory by author Donald Williamson, all about what he called "larval transfer hypothesis".¹

Williamson suggests that the process of metamorphosis, whereby larvae turn into butterflies, arose when butterfly Leptidorae larva "mistakenly fertilized their eggs with sperm from velvet worms", as Scientific American put it (funnily twisting agency). Velvet worms Onychophora look like larvae but have completely different life cycles -- they don't turn into butterflies. According to Williamson, evolutionary transfer of genetic material causes butterflies to have essentially two lives, one as a worm-like larva, and one as a butterfly.

But there are problems with the theory. First, he offers no proof, just a "testable" hypothesis. And while interspecies fertilization is not unheard of within the animal kingdom, velvet worms are too distinct from butterflies to make this feasible, say scientists. The sperm could not fertilize such a distantly related egg and produce a viable embryo, and even if it did, it wouldn't "explain the process of metamorphosis".

Less charitably, scientists said that the paper was better suited to a a tabloid than to a science journal, and called the paper "absolutely ridiculous". They also scoffed at his attempt to show the "superficial similarity between adult velvet worms and larval moths and butterflies" with "very poorly reproduced line drawings that really need to be seen to be believed".

In short, the August PNAS paper brought a torrent of harsh criticism for the octogenarian's ideas. Moreover, while some people tolerated Williamson's submission as an attempt to generate discussion, nobody thought that PNAS should have published such a speculative paper. Scientific publishing is very competitive and many scientists who produce worthy research with real results are summarily rejected from high profile journals like PNAS. So how did the research get published, they asked, incredulous? The tale gets even more interesting.

When Push Comes to Shove

Shortly after Williaimson's PNAS article saw daylight, Scientific American published an interview with evolutionary microbiologist Lynn Margulis, an editor at PNAS who shepherded Williamson's work through the peer-review and publishing process. In recounting her story of how the paper got published, Margulis mentioned that she had been trying to publish the work for twenty years. After convincing Williamson answer how the worms fertilize caterpillars -- rather than the more conceptually challenging idea that worms breed with butterflies, she told SA it took 6 or 7 peer reviews before she got 2 or 3 that were positive enough to push the paper through to publication. More eyebrows raised in the science community.

It turns out that Lynn Margulis "communicated" Williamson's paper to PNAS, a method of publishing offered to Academy members that differs from "submissions". Via this method, members can suggest for publication papers by non-members, along with reviewers selected by the member. PNAS recently announced it will eliminate this "Track I" publishing in 2010. In the meantime PNAS editors will not publish Williamson's paper in print edition pending further discussion with Margulis about the review process.

But now it's not just that paper. Another PNAS paper by Margulis and co-authors that's being questioned apparently proposes a treatment for Lyme disease that's "800" times more effective than doxycycline -- "it is very important to get this paper published", co-author Oystein Brorson told Nature.

A third paper in question is a computational biology paper by an adjunct professor of the Margulis lab. PNAS has asked Margulis to withdraw that paper because of problems with the methods. Margulis told Nature she would do no such thing, and when asked in turn for comment, PNAS told Nature: "We don't want to respond to any questions or complaints she [Margulis] has through the media." Sounds like more entertainment is forthcoming.

The three PNAS papers all circle themes that Margulis has been pursuing for decades -- Spirochetes, desiccation, spores, symbiosis and more symbiosis than you'd ever believe, and disease. Is the recent spate of publishing from the Margulis camp a final push for these ideas? And even more controversial ones?

Another 2009 paper has been published on-line in the (less well-known) journal Symbiosis (another journal that Margulis edits), by the same authors -- Hall, Brorson, Margulis and others. This "position paper" proposes that antibiotic treatment of Lyme and Syphilis, both caused by Spirochetes, induces the formation of cysts, or "round bodies", that then revert to their original Spirochete form in a favorable (antibiotic free) environment, causing secondary infections, long-term human symbioses, and compromised immunity.²

Although the abstract is pretty straight-forward, the paper quickly leaps out on a limb to suggest that AIDS is not caused by HIV but by Spirochete round bodies. Again, there's no evidence. The authors draw tenuous connections between quotes made by public health officials after a 2007 HIV vaccine trial, and their own round body theory of AIDS. They reason that HIV seems not to infect heterosexual partners as much as men who might be infected with syphilis but not fully treated with antibiotics even though medical professionals say they are. So the authors have an idea:

"Is the situation [AIDS] better described as an obligate and ancient symbiosis where the bionts (spirochetes and humans) are integrated at the behavioral, metabolic and genetic level rather than a new viral infection such that HIV equals AIDS? ...We urge that the possible direct causal involvement of spirochetes and their round bodies to symptoms of immune deficiency be carefully and vigorously investigated."

So then HIV might not be caused by a virus but by Spirochete round bodies. See? Someone test this right away.

Forget Crabs, Look Out For Round Bodies and Symbiosis

Margulis told Nature her attitude about the three PNAS papers in question: "If they definitively reject these papers I will make it very clear to the reading public (because they make it clear in their anonymous letters) that, as usual, they don't like my ideas." Two years ago, we posted on Margulis's controversial ideas and public relations skirmishes. Our post followed her debut on PZ Myers blog, where unchallenged, she forwarded her idea that HIV didn't cause AIDS. If HIV causes AIDS than why doesn't NIH write back to me, she asked? We wrote:

"Margulis relishes controversy and slings mud far better than most people, a well-honed and essential skill....[but] famously, despite her formidable offense skills, she forever portrays herself as someone who has been pushed in a mud puddle."

The PNAS controversy is interesting, although it wouldn't leap out at everyone so much if the papers in question weren't so blatantly ludicrous. PNAS's publication "favoritism" is far from unusual in the science world. And really, Margulis has been publishing these ideas for years, drawing connections based on thin research (often foreign, often Russian, somehow lost on Americans), and asking the science community to run some experiments to test her ideas. In our previous post we talked about her theory of Spirochete symbiosis forming nerves (remember "behavior" from the quote above?):

"Think of the nerve as coming from what had formerly been a bacterium, 'trying' but unable to rotate and swim. Thought involves motility and communication, the connection between remnant spirochetes. All I ask is that we compare human consciousness with spirochete ecology."

"All I ask". That was in 1991. But the gulf between what she "asks" and a warm reception from scientists has grown as science has advanced. Williamson is an 87 year old retired scientist, who himself is no stranger to forwarding controversial ideas. Sketched drawings weren't so ludicrous 60 years ago when he was starting. But now, the idea that a paper could simply describe what you see, like generations and generations of cell biology papers before us, seems ridiculous. As an educator at Princeton said recently, "The days of sort of naturalistic walking around and looking at flowers are long gone". (Look at the emphasis on clinical description in this excerpt from a ptomaine poisoning paper from the early 1900's. Williamson was a scientist not too long after that.)

Margulis has always published in PNAS. Some of the labs' older papers have similar themes and a little research. But it's a different world now. Margulis still has the prestige to gather a cast of characters around her in symbiotic relationships, to continue to push ideas out, and to entertain admirers like PZ Myers and his followers. But while her fame draws admirers and moths it also draws vipers, many of whom are now online.

PNAS claims they were going to change their Track I policy anyway. OK, sure, but no doubt the deluge of online criticism didn't tempt them to tarry with the announcement. Just as high tech science has redefined what a good science paper looks like, online science criticism has become blood sport. And that's a good thing, don't get me wrong. But imagine what would we'd learn if all papers and journal publication policies got such a thorough raking over?

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¹ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Caterpillars evolved from onychophorans by hybridogenesis Donald I. Williamson, Communicated by Lynn Margulis, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, July 24, 2009 (received for review May 19, 2009)

²SYMBIOSIS Vol. 47, No. 1 (2009) Position paper. Spirochete round bodies. Syphilis, Lyme disease & AIDS: Resurgence of "the great imitator"? L. Margulis, A. Maniotis, J. MacAllister, J. Scythes, O. Brorson, J. Hall, W.E. Krumbein, and M.J. Chapman

Better than Chicago 2016: ""Who will win?", they wondered: "Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zimbabwean opposition leader; two Chinese dissidents, Hu Kia and Wei Jingsheng; Afghan: Human rights activist Seema SamarSo; Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan; the Western-educated Islamic scholar; Eighty-year-old Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quang Do; Colombian senator Piedad Cordoba?"

Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. The reaction, needless to say, was mixed, with the Taliban, Syria and Hamas weighing in, and praises from folks like the Mandela Foundation and Desmond Tutu. And where are the photos of the Weekly Standard staff members, who cheered when Obama's entreaty to the Olympic Committee failed to bring the games to Chicago? Snapshots of them crying into their coffee cups?

We think it's all working out for the best though. Olympics in Chicago would have no doubt snared and infuriated millions of people at the O'Hare airport we know and hate. Chicago 2016 would not have been peaceful.

Nobel Prize To Push the World In a Direction We Norwegians Can Endorse

But if you're feeling like Nicholas Kristof, who thinks that perhaps a prize for Obama would be more apt at the end of his eight years, "after he has actually made peace somewhere", whereas someone else should have won this year, know that all those left out are in good company. Foreign Policy lists other deserving candidates who failed to win in the past.

One committee member said that the prize should be viewed as "support and a commitment for Obama." In a way, the Nobel Peace Prize given to Al Gore and the IPCC in 2007 was a similar statement in its overt political support for one side of the contentious arguments about whether climate change was real.

Obama, charming, said:

"Malia walked in and said, "Daddy, you won the Nobel Peace Prize, and it is Bo's birthday!" And then Sasha added, "Plus, we have a three-day weekend coming up." So it's good to have kids to keep things in perspective"

He said he doesn't see the prize as recognition for his accomplishments, rather as recognition for the goals he's set. The committee therefore rewards Obama for being very Obama...and nudges him to do more?

• In the Beginning...Mini-T: Before Homo sapiens, before meteors annihilated Tyrannosaurus rex, before that massive dinosaur bounded over the earth, a smaller, similar looking dinosaur existed. Raptorex kriegsteini had 1/90th the body mass of the ~2.5 ton T.rex and lived about 65 million years earlier. A raptorex fossil found in China had the same body features as T. rex and scientists think that the specialized predatory morphology -- large jaw, small front legs, powerful back legs -- grew larger in future generations, evolving to become T. rex. The photo is of a T. rex is from Wikipedia Commons.

New Science Journalism: Futurity formally launched September 15. Futurity, not to be confused with "Singularity", is a collective on-line publication effort by leading research universities. The universities will promote their science accomplishments and fill the gaps of dwindling newspaper science coverage. Articles will be submitted by members of the Association of American Universities (AAU), with Stanford, University of Rochester, and Duke leading the effort. Critics point out that aggregating news generated by University PR departments (20% fact, 80% big story?) won't provide readers the same unbiased perspective as proper journalism coverage. True, but we can't ignore the fact that a significant amount of science coverage consists of press releases anyway.

• Swine Flu Fallout: The H1N1 pandemic not only causes havoc for humans who fall ill, college campuses trying to manage the illnesses, and health workers. The pandemic effects society and economy in ways you don't necessarily think of. Consider, for instance:

  1.) Egypt can't keep up with its street garbage. As we wrote earlier this year, Egypt set out to kill all the pigs in the country, an unwarranted action. Many belonged to Christian herders whose pigs cleaned the streets of millions of tons of organic waste per year. Now parts of Cairo are knee deep in garbage.

  2.) Pork belly futures, which fell from 89 in April 2009 to 40 in August 2009, have now rebounded to their previous high.

• A Chance To Recalculate the Bush Ozone Ruling?: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced last week that it would reexamine the standard set by the Bush administration for ozone which had motivated states to sue the EPA. Ozone is a health hazard at certain levels, and in 2008, the agency set a new standard at 75 parts per billion (ppb), down from 84 ppm. The EPA heralded this as a life-saving improvement, but according to science advisors of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), only 60-70 ppm will prevent deaths.

  Susan Dudley headed the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in 2008 when the Bush administration decision was made. OIRA influenced the outcome of Bush's ozone ruling by sending a series of memos to the EPA impeding the ozone ruling and killing a secondary standard which would have triggered certain safety measures in some weather conditions. We wrote last year how Susan Dudley had argued on behalf of industry prior to her tenure at OIRA, that "smog was beneficial because it protected individuals from ultraviolet radiation, and that since asthma rates were associated with poverty, a smog ruling would have the 'perverse effect' of costing communities money, which would in turn increase poverty and asthma." Her's was a twisted cost-benefit analysis.

  Now Cass Sunstein heads OIRA. According to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the EPA has calculated the benefits to society from the now thriving environmental industry and determined that those monetary benefits outweigh the costs of the standard. So is cost-benefit ok when the outcome favors the politics you prefer?

• Team Players: Researchers at Oxford University published a paper in Biology Letters reporting that more elevated endorphin levels associated with team sports like rowing than single player activities.

• Justice Department On Proposed Google Books Settlement The Justice Department said Friday that the settlement needed changes to address copyright, class-action and antitrust issues, and urged the Federal Court to reject the settlement. However, the government added that current discussions between the parties were productive and should continue.

• EPA and NHTSA, Together At Last, Overlapping: The EPA also proposed new carbon dioxide emissions this week, in concert with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The new rule would lower fleet standards to 35.5 mpg by 2016. As well, cars would be allowed to emit 250 grams of CO2/mile by 2012, as opposed to the current rule of 265 grams of CO2/mile. The Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, Inc. (AIAM), and Senator Markey praised the agencies for their collective effort.

  A coordinated effort from the two agencies that oversee automobile emissions and mileage efficiency has long been a goal of industry and policy makers, though a goal sometimes cynically pursued. We also wrote about EPA/NHTSA overlap here and here. The standards will cover model years 2012 through 2016, and as the Obama administration bills it: "the automobile manufacturers would be able to build a single, light-duty national fleet that satisfies all federal requirements as well as the standards of California and other states."

• Migraines: McCain's Bane: Cindy McCain is heading to Congress, reports the New Yorker, to lobby for money to study migraine headaches. And you thought perhaps you'd heard the last of McCain science research jokes? She told the American Headache Society (AHS):

  "For the first time in my life, I'm going to go to Congress, and I'm going to be tenacious and be forceful and be honest and tell them that it's time. If you can give five million dollars to study flatulence in cows and its effects on the ozone layer, you can give me some money for migraine research."

  Migraines are, of course, a debilitating problem -- that's no joke. As McCain details in her talks, migraine headaches are sometimes set off by "triggers" -- foods like chocolate, or particular odors or chemicals. McCain reports that her company's beer, Stella Artois, contains sulfites "out the wazoo" that trigger her headaches. Travel is full of trouble. Sometimes a perfume bottle breaks and the debilitating noxious fumes cause her to repack her bags and fly home. Foreign food smells prove treacherous too, she says: "...like...forgive me, but the scent of cooking dog"

  She didn't say which countries serve the offensive "dog", often a subject of nasty rumors, or how one can tell that it's not chicken, water buffalo, or frog. But fortunate she is then, that her role is the ambassador of headaches not the ambassador of smoothing international relations with her would-have-been President husband.

• HRT Therapy Evidence Ghostwritten: The New York Times reports on a joint effort by the Times, "PloS Medicine, and the Washington DC law firm Public Justice, to compel the Federal court to release documents showing that medical research papers bylined by respected researchers were actually written by a firm hired by the pharmaceutical giant Wyeth. The "ghostwritten" papers promoted the benefits of using the Wyeth estrogen product Prempro to prevent wrinkled skin, dementia and other effects of menopause. However the papers didn't give adequate attention to the risks of HRT treatment: stroke, heart attack, blood clots, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Once these risks were revealed, doctors stopped recommending hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to menopausal women.

• They Got The Same Results We Did!(?): In a recent editorial, Nature Medicine provides a warning about scientists who plagiarize previously published science articles. Nature refers to a recently published paper in a journal they magnanimously refer to as "Journal B", which had appeared in Nature six years earlier.

  Why would a research scientist so plagiarize? One reason, Nature suggests, is that plagiarism could boost a scientist or student's academic profile in a down economy. The journal provides a how-to:

  "use a solid paper as your base; carry out a parallel set of experiments in your favorite model; tweak the data so that the numbers are not identical but remain realistic; and, when you're ready to write it all up, paraphrase the original paper ad libitum. Last, submit your new manuscript to a modest journal in the hopes that the authors of the paper you used as 'inspiration' won't notice your 'tribute' to their work..."

  Nature also lists less obvious forms of plagiarism, such as lifting sections of text that adequately express ideas in a language that's not the scientist's primary one, lifting and rephrasing result sections, or scientists' misunderstandings about what is and isn't plagiarism.

• When Bad Apples Fall Near The Tree: Talking Points Memo challenges lobbyist Jack Bonner's statement that some "bad employee" sent the forged letters to Congress opposing climate change legislation. The letters were supposedly sent from minority groups, but as it turns out, Bonner's firm was working on behalf of the coal industry. As TPM reports, this was not an isolated incident from a temporary employee but modus operandi for the firm where each employee works first as a temp.

• Stem Cell Research Doesn't Always Get Retracted: Really. But lately the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis isn't helping prove the point. New Scientist recently raised questions about research from several stem cell labs at the institute. One scientist reprimanded for academic misconduct had so many papers containing errors that three had to be corrected and one retracted.

  The journal then decided to look at all the papers coming out of the lab that that former student worked in and found possible duplications in seven papers from another researcher affiliated with the institute. Stem cell scientists made comments to New Scientist, expressing discouragement about the spate of problems at the one institute that happened to be under the spotlight. Given the pressure in the field, these scientists wondered how widespread the problems elsewhere could be.

Googley Economic Indicators

Lawrence Summers addressed the Peterson Institute for International Economics today, with upbeat comments about the economy. While it had been in "free fall" at the start of the year, he said, with "no apparent limit on how much worse things could get", optimistic statistics were now starting to pour in.

We'll take Summers word that there are positive signs -- other economists agree. Summers lost us though, when he said that the number of people searching on Google for the term "economic depression" has "returned to normal levels". Is this the best statistic he could come up with? I think you could present an alternative theory which said that at the beginning of the year people were curious about what "depression" would feel like, so they Googled it. Now, they know, they don't really need to Google it.

Waking Up From Free Fall: A Recurring Dream

We also note that you would see the same optimistic trend by searching for the term "free fall" (as in economic, not parachuting). Four months ago the expression littered the papers. Now, not so much, perhaps because Summers has eased up on his "free-fall" rhetoric. Summers has been saying the free-fall is over for months:

• April 3, 2009 (Wall Street Journal) Lawrence Summers talked to the Wall Street Journal about the economy, saying that: "this sense of free fall will give way before too long".

• April 9, 2009 (Reuters) Lawrence Summers told the Economic Club of Washington: "I think the sense of a ball falling off the table -- which is what the economy has felt like since the middle of last fall -- I think we can be reasonably confident that that's going to end within the next few months and you will no longer have that sense of free fall".

• April 19, 2009 (Fox News Sunday) Summers told viewers: "You have a sense of a more mixed picture in terms of consumer spending, and "not the kind of free fall that you saw, in part, because the stimulus that the provided in the recovery and reinvestment act is coming into people's paychecks, and that's putting a little more energy into the--into the consumer."

• April 26, 2009 (Washington Times) Lawrence Summers: "But I think that sense of "unremitting free fall that we had a month or two ago is not present today," he said. "That's something we can take some encouragement from."

• May 16, 2009 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. "economy is no longer in free fall" Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, said today in a pre-recorded video shown at a forum in Shanghai.

• June 12, 2009 (Associated Press) In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Summers said the government had acted as necessary to avoid dire outcomes: "While we still have a long way to go, the sense of free-fall that surrounded any reading of economic statistics a few months ago is no longer present"

Of course some economists argued vehemently that the economy never was in "free fall", but that was back in October, 2008. Summers has long been bullish on the effects the economic stimulus package had on halting the "free fall", although economists point out that the stimulus money is only just now starting to filter in now. Summers didn't dwell too much on the abysmal unemployment rate, a less positive economic indicator, in his speech today. Nevertheless, we think Summer's is pulling his weight trying to bolster consumer confidence.

This morning my "non-science" reading included Paul Helmke's observation a few days ago that Obama habitually says he's "deeply saddened" when gun brandishing people kill citizens, but has yet to move beyond condolences.

After a gunman in Oakland, California shot and killed four policemen, Obama said:

"I was deeply saddened to learn of the tragic loss of Sgt. Mark Dunakin, Officer John Hege, Sgt. Ervin Romans, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai. Michelle and I hold their families and your community in our thoughts and prayers."

After a gunman killed 13 people in Binghamton, NY, Obama said:

"Michelle and I were shocked and deeply saddened to learn about the act of senseless violence in Binghamton, NY today..."

After a US soldier killed 5 US soldiers at Camp Victory in Iraq, Obama said:

"I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear the news from Camp Victory this morning..."

After a gunman killed one soldier and wounded another in Little Rock, AR, the president released a statement:

"I am deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence against two brave young soldiers...."

Then today, following the killing of a guard White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that President Obama was of course "saddened" to hear of the Holocaust Museum shooting.

College Roomate Questionaire -- Please Check The Appropriate Boxes: Are You a Vegetarian? A Smoker? A Concealed Gun Carrier?

The US has long accepted criminal on criminal killing, but now guns are moving into more and more areas like parks and classrooms. The US government is doing little to stop it. Microsoft Encarta advises that "Choosing a college roommate is like a game of Roomie Roulette". Indeed. Despite the spate of college gun violence, including the 32 people killed at Virgina Tech, neither the US government or the states are dedicated to preventing people from getting guns and using them to kill.

Following the Virgina Tech tragedy, not only did Virginia vote down a law that would make it more difficult for potentially deranged people to buy guns, other states also started easing gun restrictions. Last month the Texas Senate approved a law that would allow students to carry concealed weapons on campuses. Recently the Senate passed a law making it legal to carry guns in National Parks.

Helmke noted that although Obama is very busy, he's been unwilling to forge ahead with new rulemaking but instead repeats "gun lobby rhetoric that we should just "enforce the laws on the books"'. Helmke say that Obama is "sidestepping the fact that there are only a handful of Federal laws which make it harder for dangerous people to get guns."

Gun Lobby Rhetoric

As gun violence becomes routine and Obama becomes saddened, the gun lobby uses each and every sad episode as a marketing opportunity. Following a shooting the gun lobby doesn't even pause for the funerals before regaling us with stories of how innocent people were killed because they didn't have a chance to protect themselves by carrying a weapon.

So when the congregation was kneeling down murmuring, "Our Father, who art in Heaven...", the NRA scenario would have five parishioners spring up from their prayers, reveal their concealed weapons and shoot through the shoulder to shoulder church-goers praying in the pews thus saving the abortion doctor. You see?

Are you a woman who wants to feel safe riding her bike? Carry a gun, so that when your doing 20mph on the bike path and a criminal jumps out of the bushes, you can whip the gun out of your pannier and stop 'em in your/their tracks. Are you a frail senior citizen afraid of purse snatchers? http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/04/road-rage-among-seni.html">Carry a little gun in that purse and criminals will know better than to target you. A teacher afraid of school violence? Carry a gun and if a wayward student threatens math class violence lift up your shirt and show class whose boss.

Despite the perception propagated by hundreds of blog commenters across the US, all who have a friend who stopped a potential mass murder by a crazed gunman by carrying a concealed weapon, it's a real simple equation: More guns in a dog eat dog half crazed world, equals more deaths from guns. Europe and Canada have crazy people too, but a fraction of US gun homicides.

Arms Control Starts At Home

On the positive side for some people, more guns also equals more NRA subscriptions which means more lobbying dollars to politicians, which means more guns and -- oh wait -- more deaths....no that's ok -- which means more guns, etc.

Some of the most steadfast orators for gun control in the legislature buckle under the pressure. When Congress passed the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2009 (H.R.627), Senator Boxer said "Congress has taken historic action to protect consumers". She of course omitted to mention the concession to allow concealed weapons in national parks and monuments (and of course omitted mention that Congress refused to imposing an interest rate cap). For anyone who doesn't wrack up credit card debt but likes to walk in nature this is not "consumer protection". But Boxer said she had voted with her "conscience", and that she if she didn't bow to NRA pressure nothing would get done in the legislature. Now that's sad.

As Goes America...

Now I will argue that the US government's inability to stand up to the gun lobby effects not only American citizens but international relations as well. Senator Boxer recently commended the choice of California Representative Tauscher to be Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, saying Tauscher was a "constant advocate for stopping the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons across the globe." (Notice she omitted mention of arms manufacturers -- but lets talk about it.)

US arms manufacturers have demonstrated for decades an excellent business model that just happens to result in global weapons proliferation. The US doesn't expect anything less of a business model from allies like France, but acts surprised when countries that give us the jitters like North Korea try to muster their economic independence by advertising their own special brand of missile development progress. North Korea has gone down this paht, dramatically marketing their missiles to rogue buyers across the world, while the US stands by flexing weakly.

Likewise, if we can't control our own gun manufacturers and their lobbyists, who at the end of the day, encourage rogue American citizens to buy guns for the purpose of shooting innocent people, how is the US proposing to urge the world to disarm? If some of the finest rhetoricians in the world can't beat the gun lobby's rhetoricians when they insist that more guns will make citizens safer, as Democrats stand by while the gun lobby successfully convinces half the US population that the Second Amendment protects automatic weapon buying at gun shows, how will those fine orators disengage belligerent leaders from their weapons of choice, be those conventional, nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons? How?

How Will They Deal?

The Holocaust Museum shooter published racist vitriol and hate speech on the internet. Some would implement a policy to monitor such speech. But he started the pattern of threatening federal officials with weapons decades ago, before the internet. Some would argue for a better database to track such potential criminals. But we have that technology and it isn't working. Some would say people who shoot people with guns would otherwise use other lethal weapons, knives for instance. A knife is not a automatic machine gun, thank you.

Some would say anything to get us to buy their product -- their cigarettes, their oil, their guns.

Where's the logic? For this state of affairs, US gun violence and weapons proliferation demands both moving rhetoric and conscientious objection to both the arms and gun lobbies. If you want to climb a tree at 4AM on a November day with a pot to pee in and wait for a deer to wander through your neck of the woods, well that's your choice. But gun violence demands federal legislation that makes in tougher, not easier, to purchase the weapons used for homicides.

Reposted as single post 10-07 from 03-26 Notes

But Papers Won't Be Paper

In our last post ("Yotta-Yotta-Yottabytes: Content Makes Kings, Print Dies") we touched on themes in ongoing conversations all over the web and in newspapers about the seeming demise of reporting -- not just science reporting -- any reporting. We mentioned copyright and aggregators, and questioned trends towards online aggregation that mimic print monopolization. Clearly aggregators add value by collecting in one accessible place news for all the readers. Aggregators also fulfill their own business goals by collecting more advertising revenue than, say, two person online content generators. But lots of unresolved issues need to be ironed out.

To me a key question is intellectual property -- I know, so yesteryear. But consider the site that collects all the free Creative Commons lectures from Universities like Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley, and posts these under a non-Creative Commons site license with prominent use of the Ivy's names (to establish the site's credentials). "Academic Earth", not to be confused with LexisNexis's "Academic Universe", now promises that they will "try" to keep the content as "open as possible". In another move bound to endear AE to the professors whose lectures they use, the site owners "grade" the lectures, starting with "B".

Last week, I saw another site with text and photos from older works (before 1921) released into the public domain, with warnings that the company had "added value" (imperceptibly), so that now all the works were copyrighted and needed to be purchased. ¹ These are two examples in the wide open arena where creative content producers try to eek out a living, copyright protection flounders under the ubiquitous ease of internet infringement, and sites that recycle, remix, or analyze content, navigate sometimes unclear boundaries.

This week Google removed thousands of videos from its YouTube site, based on a Warner's demand to removed all of its copyrighted songs, even including those obscure videos where your aunt Milly sings her favorite 60's tune while your uncle plays the piano. As of last week, every video was taken down, robotically removed.

In another case, last week BoingBoing posted a note submitted by site "Apartment Therapy" about a take-down notice the NYT sent to the home decorating site. A.T. said:

"We are shocked & disappointed their [NYT] first contact with concerns about our use of their images (in posts about their stories!) was a threatening letter & DMCA takedown notice to our ISP who have warned us they will disable our servers if we don't comply with the NY Times request." (emphasis ours)

But to be fair, it's not the first time NYT contacted Apartment Therapy. BoingBoing wrote another post five years ago excerpting another AT protest about the New York Times, who in that June, 2004 situation, contacted them by phone to again request they take down copy-righted content. Was that the "first" time? Who knows.

BoingBoing had one take on the Apartment Therapy/NYT mediation: "Pop quiz: You're a troubled media dinosaur struggling to find your way on the Web. What steps can you take to actively discourage people from linking to you, thus reducing your pageviews and revenue?" BoingBoing readers weighed in on whether that was a fair assessment. Some BoingBoing commenters observed that the decorating site actually posts all the photos and content from NYT articles, making the link to NYT several clicks in totally meaningless. While AT may come to some agreement with NYT the larger issue of copyright is less likely to sort itself out prettily.

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¹ I stumbled on several sites like this last week -- unknown name.

Reposted as single post 10-7. Already posted in Notes 03-26

When Banks Will Be Banks

As background for current events, authors write and publishers publish, eager to meet the demands for new knowledge. Name the event -- 9-11, terrorism, the Chinese economy, global warming, one banking crisis or another -- each motivates its own little publishing industry. The financial crisis got people thinking about recessions, depressions, credit default swaps, mortgages, and financial markets, and now you can read any number of best sellers, "The Subprime Solution..", and "The New Paradigm for Financial Markets..", "The Trillion Dollar Meltdown..","The Forgotten Man", "The Ascent of Money..", "The Return of Depression Economics.." -- more titles everyday. These new books are intriguing and fun, and hopefully help the floundering publishing industry keep its head above water.

But really, when it comes to banking, you don't have to buy a new book, you can just as well read an older one such as John Galbraith's 1975 "Money: Whence it Came and Where it Went". The book works its way from the Mississippi Bubble to the Bank of England, through the history of the American monetary system up until 1971, with plenty of applicable insights. Many people have heard of the Mississippi Bubble and its architect, John Law, but I especially like Galbraith's telling.

John Law moved to France in 1716, fleeing a murder charge after dominating a duel in England. Law had inherited a fortune and won even more as a gambler. In France, Law set up a bank and began to issue guaranteed notes, something that France appreciated. The country found Law's entrepreneurial effort a great solution to its fiscal insolvency, having gone broke under the reign of Louis XXVI. With Law's notes, which he instituted in lieu of gold, which was the standard at the time, France paid its bills and Law's bank flourished. His bank issued more and more notes issued.

Law then decided to issue notes for a land bank in what was the large land mass of Louisiana. Rumor had it that America's southern swamps were filled with gold. Buoyed by the fame his bank brought him, Law also turned his efforts to economic and social reform. He lobbied to get rid of tolls and tariffs and rallied the clergy to give unused land to peasants.

Wrote Galbraith (28):

"The miracle of money creation by a bank, as John Law showed in 1719, could stimulate industry and trade, gave almost everyone a warm feeling of well-being. Parisians had never felt more prosperous than in that wonderful year."

Law's economic plan began to unravel along with this first bank, when one day one of his note-holders decided they wanted their gold. They cashed in their notes. Then others cashed theirs. Then more and more people got nervous about whether the bank had enough gold to meet all its obligations.

To restore confidence, the government recruited slum-dwellers to march through the streets of Paris with picks and shovels, as if gold really had been found in Mississippi and France was dispatching miners to ships which would sail to America and cart gold home. No sooner were folks were paraded to the docks, however, then they were found back at home in the ghettos, and people got wise to the ruse. The giant scheme caved, leaving note-holders with nothing but songs and bitter ditties to sing. As Galbraith writes (p28):

"...Here, in the briefest form, was framed the problem that was to occupy men of financial genius or cupidity for the next two centuries: How to have the wonder without the reckoning?"

Some people think this version of Law's story is to harsh, and modern bibliographies are much more flattering to John Law's legacy then John Galbraith. Calling Law a forward thinking economist, Antoin E. Murphy wrote in a recent book, "John Law: Economic Theorist and Policy-Maker". Murphy cautioned against leaping to judgment: "just as Napoleon cannot be judged by his defeat at Waterloo, so also the theory and policy of Law should not be judged by the financial crash of 1720." See?-- Napoleon historians would no doubt dispute that comparison too.

Galbraith was a Keynesian, and it's not clear that his opinion of John Law, which fit with his opinion of bankers in general, would have been changed by the recent, more favorable bibliographical accounts. Here's his 1970's impression of the banker community (p302):

"[I]n money matters as in diplomacy, a nicely conformist nature, a good tailor and the ability to articulate the currently fashionable financial cliche have usually been better for personal success than an inquiring mind....failure is often a more rewarding personal strategy than success."

His judgement derived from the belief, simply, that economic and monetary systems can be well managed.

"There is reluctance in our time to attribute great consequences to human inadequacy -- to what, in a semantically less cautious era, was called stupidity. We wish to believe that deeper social forces control all human action....But we had better be aware that inadequacy --- obtuseness combined with inertness --- is a problem..."

How would he have felt about the current crop of bankers (p303)?

"It will be no easier in the future than in the past for layman or the lay politician to distinguish between the adequate individual and the others. But there is not difficulty whatever in distinguishing between success and failure. Henceforth it should be the simple rule in all economic and monetary matters that anyone who has to explain failure has failed. We should be kind to those whose performance has been poor. But we must never be so gracious as to keep them in office."

He would most likely not have been any more charitable to those who architected our current economic mess, then he was to the bankers of his day. There's no substitute for his insights though.

Reposted as a separate entry 10-06 from an earlier "Notes" post.

Gulled?

Once upon a time, kids had very little to play with. Video games were not yet invented and children no longer had to herd farm animals, so they amused themselves by playing jacks, and red-light/green-light, and games like "telephone", also known as "Gossip", or "Chinese Whispers" and other ethnocentric names. Have you heard of this game? Children sit around a circle and whisper a message one to another and then at the end marvel and laugh at how distorted the message turns out when the last child announces what he heard. You probably don't remember, I don't, but that's what they say. The point is, this happens in science too.

An essay by Carel ten Cate in the journal Animal Behavior criticizes a foundational study of animal behavior, ethology, one that scores of biology textbooks feature. In ten Cate's "Niko Tinbergen and the red patch on the herring gull's beak", she closely reads Nikolaas Tinbergen's Nobel Prize winning research, which describes how herring gull chicks beg to be fed by pecking on the red dot on the adult gull's beak. Tinenberg found that the baby gulls will peck at a red spot, rather than black or other colors, and called the red dot phenomena "signal stimuli". In response to the chick peck the adult bird regurgitates half-eaten food for the chick to eat. You can read the essay in Animal Behavior Volume 77, Issue 4, April 2009, Pages 785-794 (via Nature, and see the experiments graphically summarized in this textbook here.

(Photo: Herring Gull Chick, by John Haslam, via Wikipedia licensed under Creative Commons 2.0.)

When ten Cate looked over the research she found that Tinbergen never did the definitive experiment to prove his theory, rather he extrapolated from data collected in various of his experiments, then in a series of retellings, came to an abridged tale of his actual research experiments which he printed in own books and which has been subsequently retold incompletely in many textbooks.

The latter version makes his experiments look much more clear cut then they actually were. Ten Cate's assessment of Tinbergen's research contradicts what the Nobel Prize Committee wrote in 1973:

"One of Nikolaas Tinbergen's most important contributions is that he has found ways to test his own and other's hypothesis by means of comprehensive, careful and quite often ingenious experiments."

Of course all the history books have it that Tinbergen did the research, but ten Cate not only vigorously questions her subject's methods, but then helpfully points out that "mostly undergraduate students" did the work.

But wait. Ten Cate's lab actually repeated Tinbergen's experiments and found that his theories did hold true, that is herring gull chicks do peck at red more than other colors. Bottom line, he took some shortcuts that make modern scientists blanche? Or blush? Or nothing?

Why the ta-do? The experiments have been proved, behavioral psychology and ethology are solidly established as branches of science -- decades of pigeons pecking at red and green lights, mice running through their paces. Before ten Cate's analysis of Tinbergen's post-experiment data analysis, other scientists had also pointed to various experimental flaws in Tinbergen's research. But many scientists say that criticism of experiments from 50 years ago is unfair and unwarranted. What then should we make of the results? Can scientists use ten Cate's sort of analysis, or will such revelation just languish about until some creationist tries to use it as the next peppered moth experiment?

Should we examine more closely the work of priests and their peas, or experiments done by neurobiologists in their lonely labs? Should we comb through all the textbooks with all those way too neat, way too definitive descriptions of historically worthy experiments? Would that benefit the science endeavor? Or should ten Cate's findings be incorporated into science learning for how not to follow-up with data?

US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) talked to Rachel Maddow Tuesday, and she asked him about the bonus cap provision that disappeared from the spending bill.

"When something gets through the United States Senate, it doesn't happen by osmosis. It got done because Senator Snowe and I spent a lot of time. We got a legal opinion. We knew Wall Street was going to come out and fight this aggressively. Now, I think, we'll finally get it done, but unfortunately, it's a little late."

Here's osmosis:

The Huffington Post also wrote about Wyden's¹ statements, but HuffPo quoted him as saying about the missing language: "it didn't die by osmosis." [Emphasis mine]. This is more difficult to demonstrate on video, but YouTube does have a video on reviving wilted lettuce. It's not death by osmosis, rather, in the time lapse video the sad dying lettuce is put in water for a second life -- sort of. The end result is speeded up 720x.

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¹ Senator Wyden maybe has osmosis on his mind. His office has proposed a forward osmosis water purification to be developed in Oregon. Wyden's office posted a list of 2010 Defense appropriations bill projects. The water purification system would allow soldiers to hike farther in the dessert.

This is a continuation of our last post "The Galt Gestalt". Not that Ayn Rand hasn't been memorialized enough. Quite the opposite. Companies like the demolition contractor at the World Trade Towers site proudly name themselves John Galt this or Fountainhead that. Companies also name themselves after John Galt or Howard Roark, and at least one architectural design firm in Minneapolis named a imaginary "Howard Roark" as a senior partner of the firm (in charge of marketing). Thousands of books and hundreds of institutes all over the world celebrate her ideas -- among them the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, the Ayn Rand Institute, Ayn Rand Society, RebirthofReason.com, Liberty Institute, AtlasShrugged.com, The Atlas Society, The Objectivist Center, Objectivsm 101, Objectivism Reference Center, ObjectivistAcademiccenter.org, AynRandInstitute.ca -- to name a few.

With all that, who needs more Ayn Rand verbiage? Well, the recent outpouring of Randism would never suffer for more "balance". The gushing accolades over "Atlas Shrugged" at FOX News and cable news channels -- by announcers who Americanize Rand's name to "Ann" instead of "Ayn" rhymes with "all mine", or "swine" -- as Rand would say, could use another look.

In our last post we talked about modern day Ayn Rand acolytes -- those who didn't have the opportunity to write books with her like Alan Greenspan, but who still forward her ideas and writing. True, we read her books -- in high school -- as fiction -- so we are as surprised as anyone that full grown adults actually say that Rand's half a century old books foresaw America's current economic state. In our last post we reviewed the movie "The Fountainhead", with its fallible characters Howard Roark and Dominique, set among quarries and "modern" 1940's buildings -- all his "creations". We challenged Rand's portrayal of Roark as a "creator" and questioned how such daft writing by could be misinterpreted for 2009 economic wisdom. We observed that Rand's coterie of admirers pick and choose the parts of her philosophy they like and disregard the bits that don't fit their political agenda -- like her intolerance of mixing religion with politics.

Some executives say that "The Fountainhead" is their favorite work. Yet in "The Fountainhead" Howard Roark blows up buildings with explosives then defends his crimes by telling a jury some fantastic gobbledygook about great "creators" who stood up to all the men. Each individual scientist or inventor, he intones

"lived for himself. And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement..."

How can a novel where the demi-god Howard Roark dynamites buildings be seen as a blueprint for America, by a nation that claims to revile the tactic of blowing up buildings? There's some irony to the fact that former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, who is a respected as a professor and Chicago community service leader, is labeled a "terrorist", while fictional Howard Roark is revered by Ayers' same detractors as a "hero".

Everyone, including us, capably cherry-picks their evidence, and just as Rand's most fervent admirers cherry-pick her ideas, she cherry-picked her evidence, her ideals, and her followers, scorning even those who most fervently embraced her ideas. She dismissed libertarians as "a random collection of emotional hippies-of-the-right who seek to play at politics without philosophy." But still, they loved her, just as Howard Roark pined for Dominique in the quarry in the "The Fountainhead" and made statutes in her image when she married other men.

Why the enduring adoration? Why are sales of "Atlas Shrugged" still booming, aside from the fact that it's impressively thick but vapidly light read -- a delirious combination of Harlequin romance and "For Dummies" -- perfect airplane reading?

Americans Testy About The Flimsy Enterprising Spirit Myth

Is it the myth of the rugged individual? Historically, the US had some very hardy Americans, Teddy Roosevelt, for instance. But the US and its corporate economy hasn't been a wunderkind of noble individualists recently. In 1984, Roger Rosenblatt wrote about this strange phenomenon, asking in Time magazine's ("The Rugged Individual Rides Again"): "Why the pretense--why the evident pleasure--in seeing the country as a collection of loners?"

Now, twenty-five years later, the myth may be less intact but politicians still pimp it. It has served the GOP well since Ronald Reagan rode in with "Morning in America." Reagan came up in Hollywood at the same time as Ayn Rand, and seemed to be acting out his part as the rugged individualist, with his ranch, the his far-away look and his mythical powers -- "Tear down this wall!"

Two decades later GW Bush didn't ride horses around a ranch like Reagan but he acquired that dried out piece of land in Texas, and he would gamely pull on gloves -- Ironclad Icon Series Extreme Duty^TM gloves no doubt -- over soft hands and hack at brush and joke to the rolling cameras. The American male image is very particular, you see, and can't be properly projected from the decks of a Kennebunkport yacht.

If the whole American rugged individualism was seen as "hypocritical" by the mainstream magazine Time, over two decades ago, and was even more far-fetched as played out by GW Bush. Then when Bobby Jindal took a stab at the iconic myth the other day the whole premise jumped the shark. Talking about how he went down to the docks after Hurricane Katrina and saved some people threatened by bureaucracy Jindal deadpanned:

"Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and go start rescuing people. There is a lesson in this experience: The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and the enterprising spirit of our citizens."

It took mere hours, if not minutes, for people to uncloak Jindal's lies. You see, for Americans "enterprising spirit" has been exploited and tested and now it's seriously testy.

Interestingly though, while everyone attacked the Katrina survivors part of Jindal's story because Jindal wasn't on the scene, the larger myths that his tale served stayed preposterously intact. First, despite his claim, there is no bureaucracy in the US that holds up enterprising spirit. There is bureaucracy without a doubt, and some of it may encroach on certain individuals. But it largely enables business and corporate benefits, and occasionally, like with the Clean Air regulations, protects individuals. As well, needless to say, Jindal is not the rugged leader leading all the rugged individuals, that's his fantasy world.

Rugged Individual or a cog in the Machine

We're a long time from the Cold War era in which Rand became a political fixture. Nevertheless the rugged individual myth is one that the American people are less willing to tear down. The myth matters because GDP and production and fairly docile citizens who go to work matter. If you drive off to your job in your SUV everyday, thinking how "rugged" you are, you might get through eight hours in a cubicle without cracking up. Politicians push the conceit since its certainly an easier populist sell than all the proceeding political-economic models -- monarchy, colonialism, feudalism, slavery, etc. But the myth is outdated.

A global economy needs global leaders, and individuals who work together. Today, the enemy is certainly not "the collective", although that might have been a believable enemy for someone who immigrated from the Soviet Union half a century ago. Nor is the enemy "the government", which has secured property laws, patent law, corporate law, free trade, privatization, and an entire infrastructure to the service of capitalism and private enterprise. There is no salient enemy.

Of course that is not what we hear from media because there would be no television news if not for enemies and wars, and if the market did not first go up, then come down, and if there were not Democrats who opposed Republicans and Republicans who opposed Democrats. How could we go to all our boring jobs day after day if we did not have network news to break things up, with their histrionics, their drama, and their enemies? This breaks the boredom and it helps us feel whole and human even as so much of what humans do is totally dehumanizing. But lets separate entertainment from information and policy.

Prophets on Profits, Work, Nature

I previously described how Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, like many Rand fans, thought the fiction of "Atlas Shrugged" was "eerily similar" to today's events.

If you too, think Rand was predicting the events of today half a century ago, than read more carefully to see how many predictions she made that were plumb wrong. Shift your gaze or tilt your head differently and Ayn Rand can seem like any cheap novelist. Sure, her books advocate capitalism. But her ideas were bounded by her experience, that is, Bolshevik history and the Cold War. Some people see Lenin in her work. You can even see Marx, whose philosophy Rand opposes. Both Karl Marx and Rand ruminated on the higher purpose that humans sought through fighting nature with labor. Compare Marx to Howard Roark in "The Fountainhead".

• Karl Marx said: "He [man] opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces. in order to appropriate Nature's productions in a form adapted to his own wants."

• Howard Roark said: "The creator's concern is the conquest of nature".

Sixty years ago humans were still ensconced in what we would dub today "a war on nature", and indeed their life hung in balance everyday as they farmed and fished, although their fate was not as precarious as their pioneer ancestors. But now in the 21st century, when humans have decimated so many species and environs, how can people doubt we have the upper hand? In fact, our domination is so complete that the poles are literally collapsing back on us. Paradoxically, nature still challenges, but global warming is our Frankenstein, and the fight is against ourselves. The reality is vastly different than what Rand and Marx knew. We don't need individuals who feel compelled to prove their worth in big highway cruisers.

Marx and Rand shared other constructs. Marx had his class struggle. Today the internet swirls with talk about "Going Galt", the folly that professional workers should walk off the job if the tax rate increases.

• Karl Marx, writing on how bees build intricate hives noted, "...what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own..."
• Howard Roark said: "Throughout the centuries, there were men who took first steps down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision...His truth was his only motive. His work was his only goal. His creation...gave form to his truth. I am an architect.

If there is a class struggle, its not against the government, which is printing money to save large corporations as we speak. Most Americans work for these corporations, and even if they're a self-employed electrician their income is completely entwined with the banks. There are few "creations" to speak of unless the making of financial instruments count, and as we've learned, cowboys in finance do real harm. It is not the government that got us to this place.

Ayn Rand and CEOs -- She Completes Them

While economics departments don't include Rand in their curricula, everyone outside of academia acknowledges how much Ayn Rand influences politicians and businessmen. Apparently it doesn't matter to her fans that "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" are cheap potboilers. In a 2007 article, the New York Times interviewed John A. Allison, CEO of BB&T, one of the largest banks in the US, who said of "Atlas Shrugged".

"I know from talking to a lot of Fortune 500 C.E.O.'s that 'Atlas Shrugged' has had a significant effect on their business decisions...It offers something other books don't: the principles that apply to business and to life in general. I would call it complete."

And there I was thinking all that math I learned in economics and business classes was so important, when all I needed to read was an overly thick Harlequin romance?

In January, 2009, the Times reported that BB&T profit fell 26% in the 4th quarter of 2008, and so the bank accepted $3.1 billion in government money". Poof? Just like that? Rand out the window? To hell with "principles"? Mr. Allison can you comment? Should we shelve Rand next to Marx, now that it's 2009?

The American Image Dilemma

Worshipping the individual and the market may be what business leaders say they like to hear, however, it doesn't make Rand's ideas successful policy. A few years ago Americans strongly believed in their rugged individualism, as they flipped houses and extracted equity and took out big mortgages from aggrandizing lenders. Now they're feeling a little chastised and mad. Americans are caught up in the throes of a financial behemoth of their collective making, generated by private banking and enterprises they don't understand. But they'd probably like to feel like rugged individuals again.

Although "rugged individualism" is evidently music to emasculated workers ears, it's hard to buy. The USA is, after all, a country where 30% of the people are obese. Rugged doesn't usually come in size 3X stretchy pants. As well, Rand preached "reason" not religion, but 50% of the people believe in the Creator, not the "creator", and will tell you that humans roamed the earth with dinosaurs 6000 years ago. In 2009 a political party that tries to lead by encouraging this level of intellectual rigor from its citizens doesn't bode well for the nation of "knowledge workers".

But the GOP seems unable to become anything else. The party seems superglued to the rugged individual image and in it's service, they've forwarded the most unlikely series of messengers, Joe the Plumber, Bobby Jindal, Michael Steele, Sarah Palin. Nice try, attempting to be the party for "one-armed midgets" and the party of rugged individualists a la Reagan? Seriously Republicans, America -- the individualists, the midgets, and everyone else -- deserves a more up to date and congruous image.

Of course in the frightening series of public relations debacles by the GOP and their media, Rand actually plays a tiny role. The rugged pioneering individualist myth is a strained fictional construct. But unfortunately, Rand fans and some in the GOP do have one winning strategy, which is to promote the facile idea that far, far less government is better (except military and police). It's a winning strategy because the US (and every other state) will never have no regulation. Government regulation is what ensures "free markets". Therefore Ayn Rand fans have a permanent platform.

Like the unlikely longevity of the myth of the rugged individualist, now it's painfully obvious that deregulation is not the answer. But it's child's play for Randians to argue that George W. Bush was no Ayn Rand, and we need still less regulation. When we examine the notion however, it's clear that this too is part and parcel of old plot lines from outdated fiction. Mid-century may be fine for furniture, if orange plastic chairs and aqua blue polyester are your thing, but it doesn't work for economic policy.

The Rand Rage

Everyone's reading Ayn Rand. Have you noticed? The other day the Freakonomics blog wrote about a "recession icon of sorts emerges, wrapped in a Snuggie, puffing on a pipe -- and now with a copy of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged on his lap." Back in January, Stephen Moore fantasized in the Wall Street Journal:

If only "Atlas" were required reading for every member of Congress and political appointee in the Obama administration. I'm confident that we'd get out of the current financial mess a lot faster.

Sure enough, two months later, look! As books sales went up, the stock market rose, purportedly because Citi's living richly again. Is it Rand? Another sucker rally? Moore explained his rationale for the Ayn Rand reading assignment: "Some years ago when I worked at the libertarian Cato Institute, we used to label any new hire who had not yet read "Atlas Shrugged" a 'virgin.'"**

The Movie is Better

I 'd last read "Atlas Shrugged" (1942) and "The Fountainhead" (1957) one summer in high school and found Rand entertaining. I wasn't an conservative, ideologically precocious teenager. I'd probably just finished up the Hardy Boys series and I wasn't submitting essays to her namesake institute's high school writing contests, -- I read Rand as pure fiction.

My recent dilemma was how to refresh my adult mind on Rand's ideas without adding another 1000+ page book to my staggering reading list. Sure, I could have skipped the book and read the reviews. But then I would have risked misinformation, like those who regurgitate PJ O'Rourke's interpretation of "The Wealth of Nations" thinking they're reading the real thing.

I reasoned that I could reread the "The Fountainhead" faster. It's a fraction of the size of "Atlas Shrugged" and although its written a decade earlier, it's laden with the same notions. I then stumbled upon "The Fountainhead", the movie -- even better. At 113 minutes, you save days of reading, and you can multitask while you watch, because it's pablum for simpletons.

Eerily Similar?

Beyond efficiency, there's another reason to watch the movie. When you read, your mind puts you in the story. You're standing at the quarry described in "The Fountainhead" (1949) in your 2009 shoes and 2009 hairstyle, with your 2009 global attitudes and 2009 cultural disposition and intelligence. You end up thinking what readers of Atlas Shrugged think these days -- Wow! Atlas Shrugged is just like 2009 -- wasn't Rand clever? You're perhaps predispositioned to the same specious comparisons that Stephen Moore made in his WSJ article:

"In one chapter of the book, an entrepreneur invents a new miracle metal -- stronger but lighter than steel. The government immediately appropriates the invention in "the public good." The politicians demand that the metal inventor come to Washington and sign over ownership of his invention or lose everything."

This, Moore says, is "eerily similar" to the banks' dealings with Paulson last year when they "signed a document handing over percentages of their future profits to the government". Really? No, actually it worked the other way. The government gave the banks the public's money, and the government isn't likely to gain much from those banks.

Consider many other examples that throw doubt on Moore's conclusion, for instance scientific research. Like many federal institutions, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), funds research at public universities and eventually those advances get transferred to private industry, which can develop, patent, and profit from research paid for by government. Arpanet, developed by the Department of Defense, is now the internet and quite lucrative for businesses. As Rand once said:

"When you look for the source of an historic idea, you must consider philosophic essentials, not the superficial statements or errors that people may offer you. Even the most well-meaning men can misidentify the intellectual roots of their own attitudes."

You can avoid this type of historical misinterpretation by watching "The Fountainhead" yourself. Rand wrote the script and was heavily involved in the editing so you should have an authentic experience.

Homeland Terrorism and Bodice Rippng

As you watch the movie you can ask yourself: Despite what Moore and others say, is this a story we want to claim as influential to our economic foundation? --Alan Greenspan was an acolyte? Is it weird that US Congressmen present "Atlas Shrugged" to departing staff? Is the USA circa 1957 relevant to the USA circa 2009?

The female protagonist of the "The Fountainhead" (1949), "Dominique", rides up on her high white horse while Howard Roark mans his drill in the quarry, all testosterone and biceps and brawn and pride. Sparks fly from the dysfunctional male/female tension typical of Harlequin romances. Like any bodice ripping potboiler-romance paperback, Dominique and Roark are each other's quarry -- but Rand goes the extra mile and sets the story in a quarry too.

Roark is an outcast architect who chooses manual mining labor rather than sacrifice his ideals as an architect who designs aesthetically unpopular buildings. In one scene Roark lets a fellow architect take credit for his drawings. Then Roark finds out the builder altered his plan, gets mad and dynamites the entire complex. So the 2009 message is...teamwork is for sissies?

How about when Roarke throws the high falutin' Dominique to the ground in violent, mad lust? 2009? Or when Roark stands up in front of the jury after his dynamiting spree and delivers his big speech on the superiority of "creators". Roark says of himself and his hero "creators" :

"The great creators -- the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors -- stood alone against the men of their time. Every new thought was opposed; every new invention was denounced....He held his truth above all things and against all men. He went ahead whether others agreed with him or not, with his integrity as his only banner. He served nothing and no one. He lived for himself. And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement..."

Roark is not so much noble creator, as he is a one man Weather Underground". His narcissistic speech does nothing to explain how anyone benefits from rampant vandalism, how misrepresentation of authorship is good business, or how societies would sustain themselves with such rampant selfishness. In reality, we would lock this man up as a felon. But alas, in the movie, the jury acquits him.

Harlequin Potboilers Founded our Global Economy

Just as Adam Smith proponents rarely mention the "Theory of Moral Sentiments", politicians who adopt Ayn Rand's ideas selectively pick points that they find useful and reject other significant sections of her philosophy, hailing her wisdom only when it supports their agendas.

Rand, a Russian immigrant, thought America's founders had made a big mistake in the Declaration of Independence by saying that men were "endowed 'by their Creator' with certain unalienable rights." So she had Roark redefine "creator", banish the big "C", and make each individual his own "creator", little "c".

In 2009 at least 50% of the population believes in the Creator, big "C". Rand was intolerant of this, and of Reagan and the "New Right", who she criticized for mixing religion with politics. She predicted dire consequences for Reagan's embrace of religion in his campaign:

"[R]eligious zeal is merely a variant of irrationalism and the demand for self-sacrifice--and therefore it has to lead to the same result in practice: dictatorship... While claiming to be the defenders of Americanism, their distinctive political agenda is statism....."

"[C]hildren, we are told, should be indoctrinated with state-mandated religion at school. For instance, biology texts should be rewritten under government tutelage to present the Book of Genesis as a scientific theory on par with or even superior to the theory of evolution..."

"What we are seeing is the medievalism of the Puritans all over again, but without their excuse of ignorance....The New Right is not the voice of Americanism. It is the voice of thought control attempting to take over in this country and pervert and undo the actual American revolution....."

Those who see all the parallels between "Atlas Shrugged" and today's banking aren't saying anything about Rand's predictions for teaching religion in schools, a practice that GW Bush was strategically equivocal about and that conservatives continue to embrace.

Helping is Futile and Other Anomalies

During the Cold War, the US fought Communism and Socialism, so it seems natural that her writing was popular with politicians and citizens. Marginalized conservatives half a century ago naturally embraced her virulent opposition to Communism, since it fit into the narrative they were building. Now the Randian movement (and conservatives) drudge up other enemies. One such enemy is altruism.

The Simpsons satirized Ayn Rand in "A Streetcar Named Marge" -- where one poster in the "Ayn Rand School for Tots" declares "Helping Is Futile". It's no joke.

When the Asian Tsunami wiped out over 200,000 people across Asia, the Ayn Rand Institute urged western governments not to give aid. Ayn Rand criticized altruism because she predicted in was a slippery slope to Communism.

"the New Right is leading us, admittedly or not, to the same end as its liberal opponents. By virtue of the movement's essential premises, it is supporting and abetting the triumph of statism in this country--and, therefore, of Communism in the world at large."

Ayn Rand ranted about the "New Right" movement that ascended into politics with Reagan, and charged that by accepting of the "New Deal", the Marshall Plan and social programs they were destroying the USA.

Twaddle to Live By?

By the end of the movie I realized my high school memory of Rand was too complimentary. I'm not movie critic, but "The Fountainhead" would dissuade most of delusions that Rand has anything to offer 2009. Do we really need to recruit "high-priced twaddle" to support modern day economics or policy?

At first we thought that since "The Fountainhead" was old, the age might be clouding our opinion. But while her book was popular in its day it also had voracious critics, and the movie met with a lot of the same criticism. A 1949 New York Times review had only scathing words for the movie: "[A] more curious lot of high-priced twaddle we haven't seen for a long, long time"...."Loaded with specious situations"...."wordy, involved and pretentious"...."not the most brilliant demonstration of logic in pictorial form". The author thought Roark's "creations" were abominable: "his work, from what we see of it, is trash".

If you read PJ ORourke instead of "Wealth of Nations" to understand history, or Crichton instead of the IPCC climate change report report to understand science, you might also subscribe to Rand's philosophies and urge that for today's economy. But pundits and admirers of Rand's fiction sweep under a giant rug all the anachronisms and flaws of "objectivism".

Historians with Atlas Shrugged in their hands would convince you Americans are individualists and historical winners. They would trace a history that connects today to yesterday, wealth to happiness, to Reagan to Rand and the glorious defeat of Communism, to the Invisible Hand and to Jesus Christ himself. But these are gauzy, fatuous connections, built around tawdry tales like "The Fountainhead".

So why is everyone touting Rand? Perhaps so they can drive by all the food lines and spit on people with a clear conscious? Who knows. But if major constituencies in America turn now to embrace Rand's half-century old "philosophy", should we worry?

--------------------------------------

**Then what? (Rand's fictional women were routinely flung to the ground by her male heros and defiled or deflowered -- Ahhh, the good 'ole days?)

As most people have mentioned, there weren't a lot of surprise wins at the Oscar's. Even less exciting, if, like me, your home doesn't have TV you could go to oscar.com and view the backstage happenings, which are to the Oscars like burned toast is to Wonder bread. This gave me time to wonder, aside from actors, directors, producers, and other miscellaneous troublesome union members -- aren't there other people deserving of Oscars for their stellar 2008 performances?

I would give a prize to the heads of the auto industries who flew private jets to Washington to ask for more money, then when chastised, drove their company's cars most of the way before jumping into their energy efficient concept car's for the final miles. Or to oil industry or banking executives that sat before Congressional hearings and refused to be contrite or to apologize. That's American can-do spirit and fine acting to boot. Hearing committee members always approve, and they too deserve special awards, for acting like disappointed parents when they're actually chuckling to themselves, "each one of you CEO's owes me soooooo big time".

Barbarous Ethics

2008 was a ripe year for Hollywood style performances, but just like some years cinema serves up a slew of movies about dysfunctional families, or the "theater or war", this year's theme seemed to be ethics. For best performance as a bad guy, I'd choose Golden Boy, former Illinois Governor Blagojevich. For best performance as a good guy I'd choose Senator Roland Burris.

Blagojevich came off as though he were auditioning for the movie sequel to Casino, or Goodfellas, with braggadocio to spare and a prize winning four letter word vocabulary.

It was at first a simple tale -- a man of Bosnian descent lives his particular version of the American dream. The story then morphed into a jump the shark endless news that broke up the steady stream of economic bad news in early 2009. The most disconcerting parts, since we all quickly habituated to his prolific use of the word "f*ck", were comments from people who we thought seemed smarter then to be incredulous about the Governor's audacity? Prosecuter Patrick Fitzgerald started the trend, expressing shock that Blagojevich continued his shenanigans knowing full well he was being investigated:

"you might have thought, in that environment that pay to play would slow down. The opposite, happened, it sped up. Governor B. and others were working feverishly to get as much money from contractors, shaking them down pay-to-play before the end of the year."

Oh, surprise. But of course the Blagojevich scandal was always more than just a crazy hairdo, a weird Nike swish meets Chia Pet diversion. The tale unfolded over time, bloomed like fungus. Along came Roland Burris, smiling like a Cheshire cat, to secure his place in the Senate. His Senate peers smiled back nodding about what a fine controller he had been. But now of course, they're surprised at Burris's gall. And like all good family ventures, it's not just Burris, there's Son of Burris too. If the audience is still surprised we're either acting or in some starring denial role.

Ethics Piracy

Blagojevich ran on a platform of ethics, vowing to clean up the state and voters bought it. But his was a common theme. Bush ran on an ethics platform, promising no hanky panky in the Lincoln bedroom, and we saw how far his ethical standards got us. Take the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the series of ethics scandals uncovered in recent years. The department's ethics page was last updated before Christmas holiday season in 2007, and not too often before then.

During DOI Secretary Dick Kempthorne's tenure he said that he was routing out the bad apples. The apples were prolifically malignant -- "interfered with Endangered Species Act decisions; were convicted of lying to Congress; were discovered to have had sex with oil-industry executives and used cocaine and marijuana" -- and those were the ones that got caught. Second in command DOI "COO" and coal lobbyist sat in prison for collaborating with Abramoff. Kempthorne himself raised eyebrows with his bathroom remodel. I think the whole cast of DOI deserves an award.

Melting Caps and Visual Effects

For best visual effects as in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, we can imagine the picture George Will et al conjure in their heads of the melting polar caps regaining ice, when the commentators insist that global warming is a hoax. (Who pays them?)

As for the miraculous reverse aging process of Mr. Button that would be a fun theme park ride, I bet Al Franken wishes he had some of that so that when his term ends and he's still wondering what the inside of the Senate looks like, he can erase the worry lines and wash out the gray.

Many other awards are due, for instance Steven Johnson of the EPA, who drew out public comment periods longer then olympic water ballet performers stay under water, in order that the EPA most effectively thrwart environmental protection during the Bush administration. That's persistence. Not Slumdog Millionaire valor, but persistent award winning mulishness. When the Bush administration was over the entire cast of the EPA probably felt like the little kid who steps out of the outhouse covered in goo. Showertime.

• Globalization 3.0 -- Sneakers, Call Centers, Banking?

  When the Obama administration suggested a cap executive salaries for banks on national dole, news quickly bubbled up about all the loopholes behind the announcement. Bankers bristled at the mere idea of caps. It occurred to Bank of America that they really didn't need any federal money after all. Deutsche Bank cheekily predicted that US bankers would defect to Europe. But according to this news report, bankers don't earn as much in Europe or anywhere else as they do in the US. Not only that, excessive banker salaries are being criticized in Europe, Japan, and China, although in Japan and China bankers reportedly make about $400K per year. So far China's not recruiting US bankers, although they are recruiting scientists. Maybe someday soon, when bankers think the rules are too tough to grapple with in the US, they'll be able to seize the day in China.

• California Floods of the Future

  Rain may be causing consternation about flash floods in California, but scientists are thinking about even more intense flooding when global warming causes the seas to rise. A study by the U. of Oregon and University of Toronto published last week in Science, found that the melting Antarctic and resultant collapse of the ice sheet would cause sea levels to increase differently in different parts of the world.

  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the Western Antarctic ice sheet would melt and cause the sea level to rise 5 meters. However this uniform rise of sea levels may not happen. Instead the seas will rise more in some places, like North America and the Indian Ocean, than others, like Antarctica.

  The paper's authors discuss with the NSF three effects that will contribute to the uneven rise in sea levels. Now, because of the ice-water gravitational attraction, the Antarctic ice sheet draws water to it. But as the ice sheet melts, less water will be drawn to it and more will flow to North America. Second, the Antarctic ice sheet now sits in a hole, caused partly by the weight of the ice mass. As that mass melts, the depression will become smaller -- so more water will flow to North America. Finally, the melting ice sheet would alter the rotational force of the Earth, so the South Pole will move, shifting water away from the pole to other places, like the west coast of the United States.

  In California, $2.5 trillion in real estate assets is endangered by climate change.

• Dams for Water -- And Quakes?

  Speaking of water damage, was the earthquake in China hastened by the dam? Scientists are suggesting that the weight of water in the Zipingpu reservoir, created by the massive Zipngdu dam in the Minjiang river affected the seismicity of the Beichaun fault a mile away and perhaps contributed to the timing and dynamics of the 7.9 Sichuan earthquake. The excellent movie "Up The Yangtze" followed the dam building on the lives of one family.

• Worst Job -- Marine Biologist?

  Rising seas, more marine biology? It was my dream job as a child, but apparently it doesn't suit everyone. Unable the get a job for three years as a graduating economist from UC Davis, Daniel Seddiqui set out to try 50 jobs in 50 states. His best job so far, he says, was border patrol, tracking immigrants on the border. His worst? Working as a marine biologist in Seattle. "Boring", he said. At the moment you can't find out the details of his ennui on account of the 404, but a couple other scientific-ish careers seemed to please him more. See him on Fox News or wait for the book.

• A World of Cheaters and Crooks?

  Some of Obama's recent picks for leadership positions have stepped aside with tax payment problems. Tom Daschle will not head Health and Human services. Nancy Killefer withdrew her name as chief performance officer. And Friday the Senate committee reviewing Rep. Hilda Solis's nomination for Labor Secretary canceled their meeting because of outstanding liens -- some 16 years old -- on Solis's husband's business. Timothy Geithner managed to get through with his much larger unpaid tax obligations, that's before we understood how trendy tax evasion was.

  While Republicans rally for some populist rage around these tax missteps, one "senior Democratic official" told the Financial Times (Feb. 3, 2009): "In practice, you have to make exceptions for individuals. Very few people can withstand such scrutiny." Really?? I will never apply then. How embarrassing would it be to admit to some wealth-conscious senatorial committee that my only perk is an annual Medecin Sans Frontieres map of the world's trouble spots?

• The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act: Senators Sing, Dance, and Beg for Phthalates and Lead

  The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act that goes into effect Tuesday will make it illegal for stores to sell products for children under twelve that contain dangerous levels of lead, and products for kids under three that contain dangerous levels of phthalates that cause deleterious effects on development in babies. Consumer groups were denied their request to delay the law by federal Consumer Product Safety Commission last week.

  But some US senators chafe at the idea of losing toys like the Valentine's Day mechanical singing-and-dancing plush animals with red plastic guitars -- the toxic lead containing "Wild Thing Gorilla", "Ain't Too Proud to Beg Dog", the "Sing & Dance Puppy". The LA Times reported last week that Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) "introduced a bill Thursday that would postpone the law, and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) introduced a stimulus package amendment that would block the law.

The unraveling of the financial economy shocked many who predicted endless prosperous times for unregulated capitalism in its zenith. Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin scratched their heads with airs of befuddlement. However others weren't surprised. Some Chinese now recall how they compared derivatives to mirror images of mirror images of mirror images of a book as far back as 1999 (and perhaps amassed U.S. treasuries in anticipation.)

I'm sure you've heard the one about the word "crisis" in Mandarin being the same as the word for "danger" plus "opportunity"? It's a myth about the Chinese language that persists, famously forwarded by presidents like JFK in 1959. Ancient Eastern philosophy didn't predict today's New Age affirmations. But yet people from all sides of the political spectrum insist that crisis brings opportunity, brings change. True?

In August, the Financial Times wrote an article titled "Fannie and Freddie crisis is Paulson's big moment". According to the FT, US Treasury Secretary would "make use of the virtually unlimited powers he was given by Congress" to avert further disaster. Paulson et al. eventually architected a solution and after some finagling the banks got cash infusions, but the efforts failed to jumpstart or even stabilize the economy. Last week Paulson talked to FT about his lack of power, and what turned out to be his not so "big moment". The FT headlines tell his spin on the protracted tale:

• On December 30th:"Paulson rues shortage of firepower as battle raged".
• December 31st: "US lacked the tools to tackle crisis, says Paulson".
• January 1st and 2nd FT: "Paulson says crisis sown by imbalance" (version I), and version II: "Paulson says excess led to crisis". ¹

Often what looks like the silver bullet, the gold ring from a distance, is really tarnished nickel once you gallop into close range on your plastic merry-go-round horse. The first bailout round of $700 billion got grabbed up quickly, but still, banks don't lend, job losses accumulate and the economy sputters. Whose opportunity was this crisis? Who spews forth these dubious little ditties?

Sure, some cash rich people are traipsing around the suburbs cash in hand looking good deals, including Chinese tourists who set out of house hunting tours in Los Angeles. A few of the most cash rich institutions (the top four are: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and the Bank of China, ICBC and China Construction Bank) But as time goes on, more and more people people lose confidence in capitalism, monetary policy, even macroeconomics.

Paulson's plan didn't do the trick and there was no great "defining moment" for him, rather an ongoing crisis. Barack Obama warned yesterday that the financial crisis demands more government cash, which will further deepen the country's debt, accruing years and years of trillion dollar deficits. Grim.

Change In Crisis

But if opportunities look sparse don't crises still present openings for change? So they say. For some, like George Soros it's the end of a certain fundamentalist capitalism. For others, like the Cato Institute, it's a time to pursue greater deregulation. Cato blames government intervention for the crisis, saying government precipitated ruin by pursuing a bastardized version of laissez-faire economics.

Even scientists see an opening with the financial crisis. For Bruce Alberts, the Editor-In-Chief of Science the "financial meltdown", brings the hope for recognition of the "centrality of science and engineering for successful modern societies", and promise of a "new sense of reality". Everyone hopes for change.

Same, Same?

We're skeptical. Not of change necessarily. After the Asian Tsunami they built a warning system. After denying global warming for decades, the world woke up. After eight years of the Bush administration the world's a different place. Change happens.

But some thirty percent of the population approves of the job Bush is doing. And people who forecast or promise change are often plain wrong. After 9-11 we heard about "the end of the age of irony". After the Berlin Wall fell we listened to the folks at the US Department of State and scholars like Samuel Huntington (RIP) predict a "new" era, when tribal and religious strife would threaten the relevancy of states and a "clash of civilizations" would dominate politics.

We can't predict precisely what might change, or whether the future government and it's financial policies it will benefit more people than current policies, or less. But we should be alert to our own fatal collective tendency for hopeful thinking. Now is the time to speak up for change, about science, about laissez-faire, and most of all, about the evolving new government.

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¹ And is he engaged in a little what psychologists interviewed by the NYT called "ego protecting?"

• When All That's Left is Blogging:

  Fifteen shopping days left in a holiday season that hasn't been exactly cheerful. October unemployment rates came in at 6.7% nationwide. Not included in that number are hundreds of thousands of people per month who stopped looking for work or took part time positions but needed full-time jobs. In some states the situation is worse. Michigan and Rhode Island have 9.3% unemployment, California has 8.2%, South Carolina has 8.0%.

  While grabbing coffee yesterday, I noticed once-were-businessmen arriving, full of hustle bustle habits, who then sat and read the paper from end to end, no better place to go. One man began by pouring over the obituaries, which I guess is upbeat than a 7AM perusal of the business section.

  Fortunately, just in time for media business sections to be all about "severe recession", economists have now OK'ed the use of the term "recession". The soon to be bygone business section, that is. The Chicago Tribune recently reported layoffs at Citigroup, United, Wyeth, Allergen, 3M, Sony, at the NFL, in the travel industry, in the real estate and service sectors. The Red Cross even laid off people.

  Of course then the Chicago Tribune announced its own bankruptcy. Not altogether unforeseen, Sam Zell's highly leveraged takeover never did bode well for the news. I, for one, am disheartened by the financially plagued New York Times, the now bankrupt Los Angeles Times, the Tribune, and many others. Will we have to depend on "blogs"? I'm not sure I could get all my news online, even if investigative journalism in media hadn't significantly slipped recently.

  Ariana Huffington told Jon Stewart: that blogging is a "first draft". "First thoughts, best thoughts." She tried to get Stewart to blog (for her). "Why should I give you...?" -- Stewart started. Then he got a hold of himself to politely demure that whatever was left in his brain after TV was "dreck". Not a blogger, or won't dilute his brand? Arianna's also recruiting unemployed bankers to "blog the recession."

  Huffington's blog definition reminded me of those written by Andrew Sullivan, who explained the appeal of blogs in the The Atlantic magazine recently: "For bloggers, the deadline is always now. Blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud."

  Cool, but still -- no newspapers? Ugghhh...

• Meanwhile, In the Land of Too Big to Fail:

  Lawmakers publicly chided the automakers for their arrogance and forced them to drive to Washington in their own vehicles, albeit "concept cars". Congress is now rewarding such good behavior by unfolding their hands from behind their backs to reveal a $15 billion dollar gold star and a "car czar".

  Usually the media labels the manager of a state's auto fleet a "car czar", or they dub Lee Iaccoco, or some Nascar race car driver a "car czar". But back in 1992 Automotive News actually clamored for President Clinton to hire a "car czar" to oversee "clear policies", and to "coordinate regulations". To sum it up, the magazine wrote: "Like it or not, we always have an industrial policy; right now, it is chaotic, to the great harm of the industry and of the economy." Of course that idea didn't fly, as one reader wrote in "Depend on market, not a car czar":

  "...you'll never hear Washington intellectuals admit the marketplace is superior to federal meddling because that would mean admitting their own superfluousness (Nov. 30, 1992)

  We're all real clear about superfluousness 15 years later. Or are we? In the current deal, automakers and Republicans have insisted on removing one important measure the Democrats tried write into the law. The measure would have barred automakers accepting federal loans from suing states seeking to impose tougher auto-emission standards.

  California and more than a dozen other states tried to pass stricter emissions rules this year, and were rebuffed by the EPA, auto and oil industries. It was too tough they said, the technology was unavailable. Now, two of those auto manufacturers claim in their business plans that they could surpass the California standard ASAP.

  Since Barack Obama would probably allow California its waiver, the automakers aren't quite as technically challenged as they were earlier this year when they fought tooth and nail against CAFE standards.

  Thomas Friedman tells us that electric cars will upend this nonsense.

• Recession Proof Banks:

  While many business sink in the economy, some still do fine. Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, find themselves the belles of the talk show TV circuit. The Financial Times still publishes its glossy magazine "How To Spend It" for all the princesses and dukes in its audience, just as if it were 2005. The Financial Times hasn't declared bankruptcy.

  Still other institutions pull out all the stops for lavish holiday parties. First Republic Bank, owned by Merrill Lynch, which was bought in a fire sale by Bank of America, apparently threw a lavish holiday spread over three floors of the San Francisco Symphony last weekend. The blow out party has been the talk of the west coast. Sushi stations, prime rib and lamb stations, tuxedoed violin players on spiral staircases, a cookie making station and "7 or 8 bar stations with a wonderful high end selection of wines and champagne". Hearing it all described so gushingly, it was hard not to think -- Titanic.

  Hard to believe that Bank of America, one of the "too big to fail" financial institutions, is now strapped for equity and analysts have now downgraded the stock to "underweight".

  Of course institutions who squander taxpayers money once, will do it again. We're reminded of A.I.G., who once their bailout was assured, sponsored a lavish hunt in England. (As in animals running hither and thither, and guns) As Maureen Dowd noted:

  "In an astonishing let-them-eat-cake moment, the A.I.G. big shot Sebastian Preil held court at the bar and told an undercover reporter, "The recession will go on until about 2011, but the shooting was great today and we are relaxing fine."

  Perhaps it's a disease.

• Reminiscing About The 60's?:

  Quite a few commentators look at the future Obama presidency and ask us to harken back to the sixties of our imaginations if not our memories. During his campaign they compared Obama to the Kennedy brothers, saying he orated like John or Robert. Bill Moyers and Charlie Rose commented during that there hadn't been a leader who so inspired up and coming politicians since Kennedy. Lately people comment on Obama's leadership picks, saying he's chosen people who were brainy or savvy, often educated at Harvard. The "best and the brightest", they say.

  But other commentators, including Frank Rich in the New York Times, point out that David Halberstam's use of the phrase as the title of his book "The Best and The Brightest", was ironic. Even though he chose the smartest from business and academia, the Vietnam War proved disastrous.

  The shortcomings of the Kennedy team were especially pronounced in Halberstam's depiction of Robert McNamara, whose flawed hindsight was also illustrated in the excellent movie The Fog of War. Halberstam describes McNamara's approach to leading Ford, all numbers and predictions. Of course this characteristic outlook -- educated but somehow all cold calculation, was also evident in some of the Bush picks too. We hope the comparison is paranoid.

  Speaking of the 1960's, the Economist also reminds us of that era with its series of recent covers. In quick succession the magazine published covers asking "Where Have all The Savings Gone?", and "All We Need is Loans". I bet you don't have an endless and getting annoying loop of another generation's anti-war hippie dippie songs like Pete Seeger's "Where Have all The Flowers Gone", and The Beatles "All We Need is Love" running through your head now -- right?

Outsourcing: Not Just Call Centers. Shocking.

Back in 2005, Esquire editor A.J. Jacobs wrote in "My Outsourced Life".

"Call centers do it. IT firms do it. Manufacturers are doing the hell out of it. Even the CIA does it. So why can't I?"

That 2005 piece was followed by articles and books by others who raved about personal outsourcing. "The 4-Hour Workweek", forwarded the idea that outsourcing would open up free time in our calendars and allow us to frolic as we wished -- drink lattes, go kite-surfing, or create like Rembrandt.

When he wrote his article, Jacobs was reading the first of Thomas Friedman's Flat series¹; "The World is Flat", and he wanted to test the outsourcing theory for himself. He ended up outsourcing not only the usual research and writing duties but calls to his parents, apologies to his wife, bedtime reading for his kid, and autobiographical Wikipedia entries. Neato.

But Jacobs got a little nervous when "Honey", his Bangalore personal assistant, started sending him feature ideas for Esquire. India wasn't just a place to hand-off tedious chores to free him up for creative leisure, it dawned on Jacobs:

"the Indian workforce can be just as innovative and aggressive as the American, so the "benefits" might not be so beneficial. Us high-end types will be as vulnerable as assembly-line workers.

Friedman predicted that outsourcing would be more prevalent in the future. Companies outsource because it's cheaper and that's "what shareholders want". Americans workers go along more reluctantly than businesses, but corporations convince them they'll all get better jobs when all the 'low level' jobs go offshore. The secret to success is education Americans are told, over and over again.

The Tin Cup Corps

Americans protest outsourcing in fits and spurts, but resistance seems futile. Outsourcing is facilely explained as a natural phenomenon, 'the nature of economics'. So Boeing moved many operations overseas when it moved from Seattle to Chicago, and of course automakers outsource as much as possible. But while US manufacturing capability moved offshore and hungry off-shore workers always look for more work, American workers sink, over their heads in debt and unemployed.

Today, at a time when the US population is faced with a caving economy, people are furious at corporate automakers' malfeasance and insouciance and have come out vigorously against bailing out the auto industries. People seem too befuddled to protest en masse about the banks, the obtuse details of the Fed's bank bailouts are confusing and frustrating. So they seem to seek revenge for the whole mess by throwing the auto industry into the dumpster. ²

Of course the auto CEOs, like the banks on bended knee before them, are not too proud to grovel, as they do now with "concessions". They're relentless like the Salvation Army Kettle Drive man at Christmas, except the "cause" is less appealing. Whatever comes of the stand-down Americans won't want for cars. Imported cars back up in dry dock, just in case, if not just in time.

But what about jobs? What about manufacturing? If everything is cheaper overseas why bother? American cars guzzle oil and our air suffers for it. Last April Acronym Required wrote "The EPA: Mulish Days, Staring Out to Pasture", about the clout the auto industry used to try to keep emissions standards status quo. Our post discussed the industry assertion that any emissions standards must (as in 1970), preserve the "health of the industry", and we wrote:

"...We need to evolve policy to preserve the auto industry. In 1975, the Chevy Chevette got 40mpg highway, 28mpg city. Surely we can do better with mileage and emissions? Otherwise, if the health of the American auto industry is truly still a goal, maybe the government's kindest move would be to shoot it, or drown it in the bathtub, or whatever libertarian types do these days with ponderous, surly sectors they want to put out of their misery."

We wrote our acid response after the auto and oil industries successfully lobbied for another anemic CAFE standard. But we didn't really mean get rid of manufacturing. We didn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, just the bums. Last spring, congress didn't stand up to the auto industries to force them to change. Now the executives fly hither and yon on private jets seeking recompense for their habit of fiscal abandon. They've learned lucrative lessons in the past 30 years.

The question now is, would the US really consider letting the auto manufactures sink? Or is this the usual charade before they write the check? But no solution on the table today bodes well for America's manufacturing tomorrow.

Where Once a Country Stood, Now it Sits

If those jobs were lost would they morph into more creative consulting positions like Friedman suggested they would? We're skeptical. America was founded by craftsmen. I grew up with the lore of Paul Revere the silversmith, of clockmakers and furniture makers, pewterers and braziers and potters and glass blowers and iron casters, professions so antiquated my spell check tells me all these words aren't in the English language.

We need none of these materials now. (We have plastic.) And anyway, why make these products anymore, we're all hip economists who can outsource anything because of how "efficient" it is? But who will Americans be then? Folks of some gentle arts movement who construct Martha Stewart inspired husk pillows to stand in for manufacturing? Still, we're told, this is the way it's meant to be. (Economists announced today they found a recession as if they were biologists announcing a new species after an arduous jungle trek.)

Friedmans "Untouchables" (Pun Probably Intended)

According to Friedman, those who survive the flattening world with their livelihoods intact will be "synthesizers, explainers, leveragers, and versatilists". Friedman recommends that schools build right-brain skills that can't be computerized. A few years ago Friedman assured one audience of the the American advantage while trying to ease fears about China's quick economic rise: "I think this right-brain stuff is very culture-bound and hard to teach", he said.

A Harris poll in 2005 found that 71% of polled people agreed that "the long term success of the U.S. economy requires that we have a highly educated workforce who do highly skilled jobs here which cannot easily be done abroad." Only 13% disagreed with the statement.

If these jobs require sophisticated special-culture-delineated educational techniques, is that why schools tried and failed to outsource some teaching tasks to India? Or was that just parental outrage? Is that why Americans are moving overseas to go to school? Education is not so sacred, as it turns out, in the US. To believe that American has some cultural superiority that makes it more capable of the superior "right-sided thinking" is not only arrogantly condescending, its riskily short-sided.

This "flat" world is not only a world of opportunity but also of disparity, with gaps and canyons, and mountains of inequality. The world is not "flat" when some countries have no education, no health care, and 50% unemployment. The world is not flat when some people make .20 cents an hour and live in a dirt hut, and their counterpart in the West makes $80,000K/year.

This enables companies to arbitrage and profit mightily from the unflatness. If the world was truly flat then there wouldn't be an endless pool of cheap labor to exploit. If you're a business, don't worry, the change won't happen soon. India and China have not only outsourcing prowess but business chops to flourish even more. But how will the American autoworker, journalist, lawyer and doctor fare?

And what about other untouchable skills? Lawyers outsource legal tasks. Doctors are outsourcing test interpretation. A company called Wellpoint started a trial sending patients to India for treatment.

Maureen Dowd wrote about a company in Pasadena that outsources news reporting to India. The writers glean information about the story on the internet. One of Jason Blair's crimes as a reporter for the NYT was that he lied about places he claimed to visit and cover with live reports. Now we're paying people to do this type of reporting. The company's owner James Macpherson told Dowd: "'I pay per piece, just the way it was in the garment business,' 'a thousand words pays $7.50.'" Said Macpherson: "the newspaper industry is coming to a General Motors moment -- except there's no one to bail them out."

Maybe Maureen can walk over to Tom's desk and ask, who are these "synthesizers, explainers, leveragers, and versatilists"?

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¹ Thomas Friedman ("The Lexus and the Olive Tree), wrote "The World is Flat" (2005), "The World is Flat: Expanded Edition" (2006), "The World Is Flat, 3.0" (2007), and "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" (2008). We look forward to a sequel in 2009, something along the lines of, "The World is Hot, Flat, Crowded, in Recession, with Rising Disparities on all Planes -- but Flat Damn It!"

² Photo by Craig ONeal, or Florida, who risked his life to take it. Used with permission under the Creative Commons Licence 2.0 Attribution, Share Share-Alike.

Some recent news:

• Plastic Bombastic In Everything You See -- In Your Soup, In Your Turkey Dinner, Even In Your Tea:

  Like the San Francisco Chronicle before them, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal recently sent some plastic products to the lab for independent testing. In 2006, the Chronicle reported the bisphenol A and phthalate lab analysis results for a couple of dozen toys it had tested at an independent lab.The Chronicle's lab found that toys like a rubber duck, a Baby Einstein rattle, and a Goldberger doll had high levels of phthalates or BPA.

  The Milwaukee Sentinel sent products labeled "microwave safe" to a lab to see if the plastic products leached BPA. They did. The American Chemical Council denied the results of this study (and hundreds of others), saying there's no research whatsoever that shows anything bad about BPA.

• Plastic Classics:

  900,000 pounds of Lean Cuisine frozen chicken dinners will be recalled by Nestle Prepared Foods Co. because customers found chunks of blue plastic in Cafe Classics Pesto Chicken with Bow Tie Pasta, Spa Cuisine Chicken Mediterranean and Dinnertime Selects Chicken Tuscan. A USDA spokesperson warned that "a piece of plastic could cut your mouth, it could scratch your throat."

  Consumers are left to speculate about what happened as they toss their TV Dinners and pull into the Old Spaghetti Factory. Did someone on the assembly line pull the blue dye lever instead of the green one that gives that authentic look to the oregano and basil flecks? Nestle traced the plastic to one mean Lean Cuisine facility but hasn't divulged what piece of machinery dissassembled into their cuisine.

• Melamine and Me:

  While the US lambasts China for a regulatory system that allows melamine into the food chain, the New York Times reports that melamine is all around us in products made in the US, cleaning products, plywood, plastics, ink and paint all contain melamine. However yes, the author concedes, "[t]o be sure, in China some food manufacturers deliberately added melamine to products to increase profits."

• FDA in China: "An Ant Standing Against a Flood":

  That's what one company executive told the Washington Post in response to news that the FDA is opening offices in three cities in China to more closely oversee some of the regulation functions. The agency will post thirteen inspectors to the country this week.

• There's Research...Then There's "Research":

  The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia surveyed 51 economic forecasters who unanimously conclude that the United States is in a recession. The gloom and doom predicted by economists however, isn't matched with by stock analysts research according to a report by Thomson Reuters Starmine.

  US analysts rated 48.6% of the stocks they cover as "buy", compared to 49% last year. Only 6.7% of US analyst ratings were sell, the lowest of all countries surveyed, and the rest -- about 45% were "neutral" or "hold." According to the Financial Times article which reported on the overly "rosy" predictions, William Herkelrath, StarMine's US sell-side specialist said: "'the use of the word 'neutral' here really does mean: 'stay away.'"

Palin's Future Amongst Us?

Last week it seemed like we turned towards a new, less dark era. In the US, about 62% of the population voted on Tuesday the 4th. However fleeting, the optimism invigorated us like a fresh, ocean breeze on an improbably bright day after a Nor'easter. The New Yorker captured the feeling with its weekly cover. A long tunnel-ish hall painted dark red commanded most of the page, and at the end of the vast red hall was a very small bright blue door. (Perhaps I'm supposed to be all PC purple now, I'm just not quite there yet.)

The end to the long presidential campaign finally came. Contender John McCain gave his concession speech, drawing out his time at the podium with a global audience looking on. As he told the Financial Times "You can't imagine, you can't imagine the excitement of an individual to be this close to the most important position in the world...I'll never forget it as long as I live. From his penultimate place, he savored those last moments than drove away in his own car.

Sarah Palin, disallowed from making her own speech, departed in a long convoy of limos and security forces, promising that she'd return as a uniter. She also said she'd like to improve journalism. If the secession plan her husband had brewin' doesn't come to fruition, some people chant for Sarah in 2012. Uniter, 2012? Given the scandalous rumors about outrageous clothes budgets and miscellaneous improprieties, such forward looking statements about 2012 seem presumptuous right now -- perhaps preposterous?

Or Back To The Frontier?

Robert Lang from Virginia Tech writes about Sarah Palin's image and asks -- despite how much McCain wished it were so, was Palin ever a "typical suburban voter"? Was she was ever "quintessential Everywoman"? Or just a "cultural alien"?

The whole hunting thing for instance -- suburban mom's never related to that. Palin tried a little too hard to connect with the moose hunters in New England, considering how small the constituency was, Lang observed. Furthermore, Palin was "openly hostile to the popular furry animals, such as polar bears and wolves, that populate Alaska's wilderness". The problem with shooting wolves from helicopters, says Lang, is that wolves look too much like Huskies, which a US population of exurb voters see as "the stars of the dog park". To this GOP target group "Palin goes from a goofy, fun-loving mom to a brutalizer of man's best friend".

Palin is too "frontier" for lower forty-eight states, Lang writes, citing Frederick Jackson Turner. Turner formulated the "frontier" thesis in the 19th century, proposing that America consisted of the "civilized" heartland, and the "frontier". He applied his idea to the 1896 election which saw Democrat William Jennings Bryan run against Republican William McKinley. Lang comments on the outcome:

"Turner described Bryan, who hailed from the then-barely settled Nebraska, as representing the frontier. By contrast, McKinley came from the heartland state of Ohio. McKinley of course won the election, as did a string of fellow Ohioans in the late 19th century."

The lesson, Lang says, is "stick with the heartland", appeal to what David Brooks dubs the suburbanites -- the "Patio Man". The only thing "Patio Man's" going to be hunting is "parking spaces in the mall", Lang says. (Sarah does like to shop though.)

Speeches? Or Shoppin'? So Little Time 'til 2012

Lang puts forward an optimistic view of things vis a vis the future of Palin as it mirrors William Jennings Bryan. But Bryan's first presidential campaign was in 1896 and Jenning died in1925, giving the man over a quarter of a century to wrack havoc. We can't underestimate that influence. Even though he never made it to president, even though quite a few people thought he was nuts, his populist ideas won him audiences all over the country.

William Jennings Bryan lost not only one presidency but two more after that. He was Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson. He had a not all bad legacy, supporting women's suffrage for instance -- but helping push through Prohibition. Bryan famioulsy opposed evolution in favor of Christianity. The movement that he spearheaded culminated with the Scopes trial and he died in 1925 following his defeat in the trial. But he mobilized a lot of inanity in the meantime. He spent years writing syndicated columns and toured the country giving up to 15 speeches a day, delivering perhaps tens of thousands of spoken words each day.

Granted, Palin might tie herself in knots trying to reach the kind of 15,000/day word count Bryan may have attained. But 25 years is a century of high cost makeovers in 21st century time, especially for "frontierswomen" like Palin. This election showed us that we shouldn't underestimate the American voter. But we've also learned harsh lessons about not overestimating him either.

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Acronym Required writes occasionally on science and religion, including Evolution vs. Not Evolution on the historical Scopes trial and its modern counterparts.

Autism's Dubious Research

They're back with an updated theory!! In "Autism, TV, Precipitation: Dismal Science", we wrote a farcical post about a study by economists Waldman et al. at Cornell, who posited that television watching and rainfall caused autism. The lead author attempted to stoke interest in a theory he developed while raising his autistic son by publishing a study. The team collected sketchy data sets and resolved the gaps with statistics, achieving tenuous results and conclusions.

Mark Waldman's paper caused the stir he probably wanted, eliciting ample coverage from the press, lay audiences, and patient families. But some scientists and economists felt the study was not properly rigorous or peer-reviewed. ¹ Joseph Piven, director of Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center at the University of North Carolina, said of the study and underlying data, "It is just too much of a stretch to tie this to television-watching...[W]hy not tie it to carrying umbrellas?"

So a year later, Waldman did exactly that. Instead of linking autism to television and rain, the authors linked autism only to rain, using data presented in their original report. This version is called "Autism prevalence and precipitation rates in California, Oregon, and Washington counties". It was published it in the medical journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine -- a nice coup for the authors.

Stay Tuned

Noel Weiss, MD, wrote the accompanying editorial in, titled "Precipitation and Autism: Do These Results Warrant Publication?". Yes, said Weiss, even though in "my opinion that this observation may well not lead to any insights into the etiologies of autism". He added: "the authors' analysis and the editor's decision to publish it are to be lauded, despite the uncertain ultimate contribution of this work and the possibility (likelihood?) that nonprofessionals are going to misinterpret and misuse it." The research isn't for parents, he indicated, who only need to "stay tuned" -- it's for researchers. Apparently over 100 news media who published the findings to the public didn't get the message.

Someone on the Huffington Post recently embellished Waldman's thesis by adding the discounted mercury theory of autism to the dubious rainfall theory, then proposing that the rain pulls the mercury out of the atmosphere, causing higher rates of autism.

Adjust your antennae for updates.

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¹ We also wrote "Autism Research Revisted", commenting on a a Wall Street Journal article that asked if economists were qualified to study autism. We suggested this was the wrong question.

YAY!

It's a new day.

"...His triumph was decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens. He offered a government that does not try to solve every problem but will do those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world..." (NYT)¹

Yes, there's work to do. Yes, it will be difficult. But today we recognize how much America's just accomplished.

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¹Obama won despite warnings about possible GOP ballot fraud stemming from information dribbling out of the Ohio trial concerning 2004 Ohio ballot fraud. In the latest episode, Michael Connell, a consultant whose firm has been accused of computer manipulation, denied knowing anything about GOP rigging the 2004 Ohio election results. Connell works for Randy Cole. Cole owns 15 companies that work simultaneously on GOP election campaigns (Bush/Cheney 2000/2004, McCain 2008, many others), anti-Abortion groups and churches, GOP mass mailings, government contracts, etc. Stephen Spoonamore, a key witness in the trial brings the allegations, explains in a multi-part series starting here.

Stud's Terkel passed away October 31st at the age of 96. Robert Ebert, who had known him for years, described him as a man of "boundless curiosity and bottomless memory" -- a great listener. He was blacklisted during McCarthyism along with his wife -- Hoover thought he was subversive. In turn, Terkel suspected that Hoover "had a lifelong suspicion of those who thought the Constitution actually meant something". As Ebert put it:

"Was he the greatest Chicagoan? I cannot think of another. For me, he represented the joyous, scrappy, liberal, generous, wise-cracking heart of this city. If you met him, he was your friend. That happened to the hundreds and hundreds of people he interviewed for his radio show and 20 best-selling books. He wrote down the oral histories of those of his time who did not have a voice. In conversation he could draw up every single one of their names."

Ebert writes on Terkel here. Studs Terkel's recorded conversations with people across the U.S. bringing poignant humanity to subjects that many people would have just as soon dodged. He wrote books -- Division Street , on Chicago and immigration; Hard Times, on the great depression; The Good War, on World War II, Race, Coming of Age, Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times, and more. His radio show ran for 25 years, and each night he signed off "Take it easy, but take it."

Terkel was always up to something. Last year, among many activities, he joined a suit against telecoms for wiretapping done at the bequest of the Bush administration. Acronym Required commented on his commentary in the New York Times concerning granting the companies immunity from lawsuits. We quoted his comment about living in the last century: "nothing much surprises me anymore. But I always feel uplifted by this: Given the facts and an opportunity to act, the body politic generally does the right thing." As Ebert said, he missed the upcoming election, but he didn't miss much else.

Happy Halloween. Over 23 million people have voted in early elections across the United States. People are now driven to distraction by the election, even Acronym Required at times. But we're also distracted by science topics.

• Decidin'

  For instance take the cartoon that accompanied an article in last week's New Yorker. It was a drawing of a TinTin looking character, eyes wide, eyebrows arched, finger to his pursed lips, puzzling over two choices on a wall chart. On the left I saw a rooster. On the right I saw a Drosophila.

  The accompanying article "Undecided", by David Sedaris, discussed the baffling group of supposedly undecided voters:

  "I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?"

  He placed the dilemma in terms of airline food (he probably flies in the class where the still have that):

  "The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?"

  It still took me a while to figure out that the cartoon character was standing in a voting booth. The choice was not a silly Rooster or Drosophila but "chicken" or "shit with bits of broken glass" in it. The Drosophila wasn't that at all, just a giant red-eyed other type of more fuzzy fly, standing on a small brown mound that represented Sedaris' subject, "shit". In an effort to explain my confusion, I'll just say I was writing about C. elegans at the time, another model organism, so perhaps that's why I saw Drosophila melanogaster.

• Buggin'

  It was a Drosophila kind of week. Scientists and many knowledgeable Americans (and French) were angry that V.P. candidate Sarah Palin dissed fruit fly research as waste. Of course she wasn't talking about Drosophila melanogaster, but olive fruit flies in a completely different taxonomic family. But the outrage over her perfunctory dismissal of California agricultural research is warranted.

• Poisonin'

  Updating our melamine coverage from previous posts, this week brought China and Hong Kong melamine contaminated eggs, thus widening the scandal. The culprit may be melamine laced grain which has spread the toxic chemical throughout the food chain. China is now culling chickens. The past year has seen the demise -- through culling and dumping -- of some major protein sources, pigs, milk, eggs, chicken -- hopefully there's some unadulterated beans and soy and rice around.

• Labelin'

  India passed the Prevention of Food Adulteration (Fifth Amendment) Rules, 2008, which will require food product labels starting in March, 2009. Fruit products cannot be labeled as such unless they contain fruit, etc. Cardiac conscious customers will now be able to identify transfats such as "vansapati", hydrogenated vegetable cooking oil which is commonly found in packaged food.

• Trick-or-Treatin'
  The cost of drugs to treat type 2 diabetes doubled between 2001 and 2007, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, from $6.7 billion dollars in 2001, to $12.5 billion dollars in 2007. The higher cost is due to new drugs, which can be 10 times higher than old drugs, as well as increased numbers of patients. The number of patient visits increased from 25 million in 1994, to 36 million in 2007.

  But today's Halloween. So here's a carbohydrate chart (PDF!) from "DLife" (For Your Diabetes Life!") For example:
  - 3 Musketeers 16 gram fun-sized bar: 12 grams
  - Gummy Bears 11 pieces: 30 grams
  - M&M's "Halloween" mini box: 10 grams
  - Tootsie Roll midgets 12: 30 grams
  - Heath Bar 1.4 oz. bar: 20 grams
  

• Cravin' Palin

  One of this year's most popular costumes is a Sarah Palin costume. This would be a challenging one to pull off for three reasons. One, it's just gonna' be an icky couple of hours sitting in that particular suit. Two, do you really have her style down? Sarah Palin is hot, according to, well, everyone, which may be hard to live up to. I recently got an explanation of this relative hotness -- it's "niche hot". Therefore if she doesn't win the vice presidency maybe she'll vamp through Playboy, with a "hot" politician theme, and if not that, then she actually already has her Palin calendar awaiting your purchase.

  But she's a tricky act to follow, which brings us to your third challenge. You might be able to cackle "you betcha!" with the best of them, you might be able to wink wildly, you might be able bend the elite right wing news staff of the Weekly Standard, the National Review, The Hill, and the New York Times to your side by leading them around by the front of their pants, as a recent New Yorker article describes¹.

  But do you really have her diction down? Can you remember to drop the "g" on pallin', and lyin' -- like Palin'? Maybe, but can you remember to leave the "g" on the word when necessary? Can you remember to say "cravING", as she does? As in, American's are craving that straight talk"? And Americans are craving something new and different..." You're not hearing "I'm Sarah and I'm cravin'". Americans are cravinG.

  Sure "it's genuine, not affectation", just like she's genuine in every other way, an outsider, didn't hire lobbyists to buff her image as Alaskan governor. I think it's a tough Halloween costume to pull off.

• Swoopin' & Spookin'
  Merriam Webster's Word of the Day is Chiropteran:

  "Chiroptera" is the name of the order of the only mammal capable of true flight, the bat. The name is influenced by the hand-like wings of bats, which are formed from four elongated "fingers" covered by a cutaneous membrane. It is based on the Greek words for "hand," "cheir," and "wing," "pteron." "Cheir" also had a hand in the formation of the word "surgery," which is ultimately derived from the ancient word "cheirourgos," meaning "doing by hand."

  Acronym Required wrote a little about bats in "Bats, Riddles, and Viruses."

• Mappin' not Spyin'

  The town of Molfsee, Germany, is rebelling against Google's "Street View". Google would dispatch vehicles with camera's to map the town's streets, but the 5,000 citizens have laid down the law. The company would need a special permit to photograph the city's streets, which the town politicians refuse to grant. The town's concerns about privacy are shared by state and federal privacy experts, according to Spiegel.

• Votin'

  As for the election, some, like Larry David, are pacing and suspicious. There's been a steady stream of alarming reports about voting machines, it's no wonder that everyone's a bit on edge.

  There's apparently a trend now, everyone's droppin' their g's. On the positive side, voting turn-out so far is great. Pray; no Hope; no Work for the most honest, cleanest result.

--------------------------------

¹ This article also contends that this one young Republican started a blog advocating Sarah Palin for Vice President, and that blog precipitated a lot of conservative enthusiasm: "In the month before Palin was picked by McCain, Brickley said, his Web site was receiving about three thousand hits a day". To put this in perspective Daily Kos gets about 2,604,779 page views a day, so if there's about 3-4 hits per page view, DKos gets about 6 million hits a day. Brickley was getting about 1000 pages a day -- not too much.

A UCLA study published in the Neurobiology of Aging found that age related decreases in myelin correlate to decreased motor function after the age of 39. The researchers suggest that sensory and cognitive processing speeds are also effected by the loss of myelin.

That would be problematic for scientists. The age at which U.S. researchers get their first NIH grant increased from 34.3 in 1970 to 41.7 in 2004, according to a recent paper on arxiv.org by Yves Gingras et al. The authors studied 13,680 university science professors and showed that productivity rises between 28-40, rises more slowly between 41-50 and decreases until 50-55 years old. Although it's a measure with limited value, the authors counted "productivity" as published papers. For multi-author papers the study credited one paper per listed author. In short, the study found that scientists still produce papers up through retirement, publish in well respected journals, and are cited more frequently.

Neither study is earth shattering, but there's value to aging. Motor processing does slow down, but other studies have shown that with some motor function, movement accuracy improves, compensating for decreased speed. For many reasons, lab dynamics, prestige, networking, etc., older scientists may not publish more, but their quality of production (by measures by which people judge, anyway) may increase.

Barack Obama and John McCain square off for their third debate. Sarah Palin draws predominantly males at "dude rallies". Obama surges ahead, but people are a little nervous, nervous about another GOP October surprise that's not an unlicensed plumber with a chip on his shoulder who doesn't pay all his taxes, a surprise that's not voter fraud accusations drummed up by the DOJ. On and on it goes. Here's news that's not about the election campaign.

• US Department of Justice eases up on Ranbaxy:

  A couple of weeks ago the FDA banned 31 Ranbaxy drugs imported by the Indian company after an unfavorable inspection. The Department of Justice became involved, and last time we reported, Ranbaxy had just hired Rudolph Giuliani to help them appeal to the regulators. This week the Department of Justice has decided not to pursue legal action against the company, causing Ranbaxy's shares to increase by 10%. The New Delhi Business Week reports that India's commerce department and chemicals ministry are saying the curbs weren't justified but the work of US drug lobbies. Typical international politics?

• Greening Your Lawn in Global Warming:
  

  In the US, many cities and towns have responded to global warming and water shortages by instituting voluntary water bans, especially on lawn watering. But this doesn't please everyone. Realtors chide people for not keeping their lawns watered, green, sellable. Global warming be damned. According to My Fox Tampa Bay, the man jailed for not keeping his sod attractive enough now faces court charges and fines, although he's out of jail. A home association in Florida had the man jailed because he didn't resod his lawn according to their specifications.

  The man, distracted from sod-care when his family was beset by hard times, spent his punishment time at the correction facility called Land O' Lakes (LOL) [this blog author adds the acronym, although its one I already intensely disliked]. The jail's homepage features a picture of prisoners sporting black and white striped prison-wear, bent over cultivating hydroponic lettuce. As LOL puts it: "This program joins the inmate garden and the aquaculture program, all designed to both reduce taxpayer's costs of funding the jail and to teach marketable skills to the inmates." There you go. Marketable skills to keep you eating in LOL and on the right correct side of your homeowners' association outside of jail.

  On the bright side, as with every problem faced by man LOL;) -- there's a promising technical alternative to back-breaking sod cultivation. In this case, LOL, a company that spray paints dead lawns green. Their business niche is foreclosed homes. LOL.

• Economics Nobel Laureate:
  

  Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his "analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity". In first year economics or political economics class most students learn the benefits of trade from comparative advantage. If one country sells bicycles, and the other cars, each will benefit from trade even if it intuitively seems like the car producing company could easily whip out a couple of bicycles. Students learn the simple math that proves this. However in real life sometimes countries with similar goods tend to trade a lot with each other, so one country that makes Volvos will trade a lot with one that makes Audis. Europe and the US trade extensively. Krugman's model from 20 years ago refined trade theory to explain why this apparent disparity occurs. He showed that there are economies of scale in industries that will make one city or country the best source of a particular specialized product and that these areas with similar capital and labor resources will preferentially trade. He extended this theory to explain how certain cities will become geographic centers of growth.

  Krugman's name didn't appear on the lists economist betting pools set up to predict the winner, but after all, leading economists sometimes make bad predictions. Greg Mankiw, for instance, detailed in Fortune, November 13, 2000 how Bush is a Leader The Economy Can Trust".

  Some reporters and economists took exception to Krugman's award in light of his vocal criticism on his "liberal" blog and newspaper column. However Krugman's economics practice and philosophy, people overlook, are quite "liberal", in the free trade - open market sense. Some commentators would like to see him change his work balance. For instance the Financial Times wrote last week:

  "It is not too late for Paul Krugman to return to what he does best: explaining how the economy works, why it matters, and what wrong-headed policies can do to it. In fact, that change may soon come. If so, it will not be because of the Nobel prize, but because the Republicans no longer hold the White House."

  But, but, but....isn't that what Professor Krugman is doing?

If John McCain called you a "Super-Trailblazer", You'd Feel.....?

Before we dove into more earthy science news in our last post, we wondered why Palin's handlers had canceled so many of her public appearances. A couple of days later Politico inadvertently answered our query. Apparently an "anonymous aid" to the McCain campaign "stressed" they weren't canceling her appearances, instead: "the finance calendar was planned before Palin was tapped...and it's being adjusted now to fit the nominee."

Unsurprisingly, the somewhat discomfiting explanation doesn't really mesh with history. Just a week or so earlier, McCain campaign officials bragged to reporters around the nation about the amazing reception for Palin's campaign events that kept forcing them to change to larger venues. In an article describing the Obama campaign's "urgency" for funding, the New York Times and other outlets reported that GOP fund-raising was especially successful after Palin's nomination and that "party Officials have also sketched out plans for Ms. Palin to do some 35 fund-raisers over the next two months."

Every time they talked to the press, and they often did, McCain's fundraisers gloated about how popular Palin was and how much money she was going to raise in those 30-35 scheduled appearances, with comments like: "I just think it speaks volumes that she is coming in here. I can tell you, it has generated great excitement. And it has reinvigorated, certainly, the Republican base".

In the spirit of things, GOP organizers upgraded the titles they would award fundraisers who raised another $100,000 or $250,000 to more glorious labels, "Trailblazers" to "Super-Trailblazers", "Innovators" to "Super-Innovators". Lavish words in light of their simple folksy targeting, words, come to think of it, that could more easily be attached to a Google product than to the McCain campaign -- but I digress.

In California, Palin was scheduled to star at an event at the home of software mogul Tom Siebel, "where the asking price for a snapshot of her and a seat at the headtable is $50,000." (Just think, your smiling face with the hot one at the head table. A $50,000 snapshot that you could place under your mounted fixed-eyed, six-point buck's head at the cabin. Who needs "spit parties"? Unanswered -- if you purchased two photo-ops could you be called a "Super-Innovator"?) Alas, Palin canceled.

Scintillating Starlet Strategies

However, Palin did re-appear on the Katy Couric show, according to the short clips released by CBS at carefully timed intervals. You can't say McCain oversold her international experience when he said: "Alaska is right next to Russia; Sarah Palin understands that". Still her re-debut must have been a blow to all her coaches. Canceled, canceled, canceled.

Even if the Couric preview was disappointing, Palin's cancellations still nagged, we haven't been so let-down since the projectionist abruptly stopped The Princess Diaries halfway through the movie. The McCain campaign probably told Sarah that it wasn't personal, and it now seems it wasn't. The campaign also canceled all of Carly Fiorina's upcoming talks, including the one scheduled at Iowa State. She was to speak on: "Tough Choices: Women, Leadership and Power". Now you're sorry. They canceled a Fiorina headlining GOP rally in Florida, canceled her television appearances, rallies and other events -- canceled, canceled, canceled.

As if cancellation were a disease, yesterday McCain himself started canceling -- the Letterman show, his debate, Palin's debate. And to note, since the VP contender and present executive of Alaska previously cued us in to the importance of blinking, we couldn't help noticing that McCain showed a disconcerting blinking pattern when explaining the necessity of the bailout and needing to be in DC.

Canceling seems to be McCain's new endgame. You dash a lot of hopes, so it seems like an odd vote-getting strategy but granted, its a real attention getter. It keeps the-media-on-its-toes too. Try it at home. You'll have to adjust his routine to take into consideration the fact that you're not tailed by paparazzi day in and day out, but if it works, you won't actually have to participate at events anymore. What you need to do is every time you get to a party, don't say anything, just walk out the door and slam it with loud, conversation disrupting force. Then turn around a while later and walk back in, leaving the door open so that everyone is freezing from the draft and begs you to close the door. Cell phones are a great decoy to keep you moving in and out the door as if you had something else more important to tend to. See how now all eyes are trained on you, waiting for your next move? Make everyone else blink -- gotcha. Results guaranteed.

McCain eventually flew to Washington, where apparently he sat on the sidelines during the meetings and said very little, then reported that he was there. See? Walk-in. Do nothing. Walk-out. Precisely the executive skills America needs.

How to Bail Out

Really, I didn't want to write about all this. I wish I could follow this game with anything but lurid fixation. I wish it were a joke, or a light movie that I could walk out of when I pleased. In my airy flick, Fiorina, Palin and McCain would be going around a bend in the back of the Straight Talk Express, talking about all they have in common and enjoying a glass of Chardonnay together, getting pedicures, when the ladies would convince John that he too needs to take some time off. None of it would really matter because would be a light movie. So I'd walk out. But the actual unfolding real-life scenario is tense, filled with suspense and innuendo. It feels ominous as if it could all end badly.

Why am I so fixated? For the past couple of decades we have desperately needed responsible, wise, smart, resourceful council and leaders in government. There are many excellent, dedicated public servants. But the louder voice heard from government and the media that represents it is that of a tremendously spoiled, petulant 13 year old. Now, as the headlines scream that the whole edifice is crumbling, the GOP has the gall to suggest to us a VP leadership solution that's 180 degrees opposite of what's needed, someone who presents herself as so vapid and un-informed, so incapable of putting a sentence together or formulating a cogent response, yet such a smart-ass. (Not to be uncharitable, but Palin's not my stage-struck friend trying to get over a phobia at Toastmasters, nor is she running for student council here.)

The GOP suggestion their VP pick even approaches a solution completely insults any remaining dignity of America. Palin makes me squirm because she's will be representing the US to the world. Yet at the same time the cynical choice is perfect, as it represents the apex of an ignorant, manipulative, self-indulgent leadership that's increasingly excused, if not celebrated. How can this even begin to create a better vision for the country? [That's my bi-partisan opinion.]

Squaring the Circle

And that's not even touching Palin's talking points on the $700 billion dollar bailout. As the FT explained it a couple of days ago in "Bernanke logic reveals route to square a virtuous circle":

"the US government would fix the problem of procyclicality embedded in the mark-to-market accounting regime by the back door. It would use its purchases to establish new prices to which banks would mark their portfolios - prices based on expected cash flow rather than the prices private sector buyers would be willing to pay."

Supply, demand, you ask? Please don't garble on. Instead, we trust congress, a cadre of millionaires. We trust they won't sympathize too much with previous heads of banks who ran up debts with investors money and are now down on bended knee praying for their way of life to continue. And of course the de-regulators bay in the background for further concessions based on their own unique interpretations of research.

Personally, we hope that the government can negotiate down the "firesale price" and properly assess the "hold-to-maturity price", as its called. For now, the tentative bailout agreement is now apparently in disarray following the John McCain's little walkabout.

After their initial stunned silence at the news of the $700 million dollar proposal, it looked like the Democrat Party was staging a new episode of "They're Not Going To Get Away With This", but we harbor doubts about their gumption to negotiate any course they articulate. In examples from oil drilling, to military spending, to vetting Supreme Court appointees, to investigating the mushroom clouds of the Iraq War, the Democrats talk big then whimper submissively in the end, signing exactly what they vehemently said they opposed (but of course with all the right rhetoric).

Watching the Democratic Party in action can be like watching the occasional little league player who's assigned to right field. A ball's hit at them, they hike up their pants, scrunch up their face with can-do determination, run, run, run, plant their little legs, assure everybody "I got it", then the ball sails off past them, hits the wall and finally emerges from the flurry of mitts and dust. Meanwhile, the third base coach for the other team is circling his arm with rotator-cuff straining enthusiasm, yelling "go on home" to the hectic base-runners and the crowd covers their eyes.

Next, when the next player comes up, the bat cracks and another ball flies towards right field, the loyal fans will of course squint out in between their crossed fingers, as if imagining a time when their fielder might actually field the ball. Perhaps the Democrats will make it work. Or is all the fumbling around in the dust simply a populist charade?

The MPG Illusion -- Needing Math?

Now that gas is almost $5.00 per gallon many people seem to be more than a little worried, if not about global warming than simply about the price of gas. Of course some lobbyists and commentators continue their efforts to preserve status quo, whole hog energy use that exacerbates global warming. These efforts ultimately undermine independence from foreign oil and adaptation of measures that would stem to pace of global warming. In "Communicating Climate Change", last year I wrote:

"If we've moved beyond the climate change "debate", however, as I argue we have, we've only entered another stage. I'm not sure what to call it, but it if we appropriated something like the familiar five stages of dealing with catastrophe- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, then maybe people have moved on to some sort of denial/bargaining phase. People get ideas about how we can buy our way out, with some carbon credits, some alternative energy, or some prizes. Again, this is procrastination. If buying our way out doesn't work, at least we've bought some time."

Science published an article the other day in their Policy Forum section from a couple of Duke business professors. "The MPG Illusion" (June 20th) argued that people misunderstand the miles per gallon (mpg) standard. The authors ask the question, if you had a choice of upgrading one of two cars with a car with a better MPG rating which would you replace? Unlike Europe, where the mileage standard is expressed in liters per 100 kilometer, in the US, miles per gallon (mpg) refers to the distance a gallon of gas will achieve in a vehicle: 1000 gallons per 10,000 miles equals 10mpg. Not very many people understand that, according to their poll.

Increases in mileage are calculated so that 30% better gas mileage means 23% less gas used. 30% greater "mpg" means greater distance per gallon of gas, instead of traveling 100 miles you would now be able to travel 130 miles, so 100%/1.3 = 76.9, 23% less fuel. Most people assume the relationship between miles driven and gas consumed is linear, but its actually curvilinear. From there, the authors argue that small upgrades, say from a "10 mpg" rated car to a "20 mpg" car, may save the consumer more on gas than upgrading from 25mpg to 50mpg.

Their goal was to see whether people ranked choices in mathematically correct ways and so they structured their question carefully. But if their point is to illustrate that the standard is deceiving, as they say in the video, why do they need to publish an article in Science, and perambulate through all the math and graphs?

Promoting a clearer standard isn't their only goal. They open their Science piece criticizing a NYT columnist who questioned the sense of giving an IRS hybrid car tax break to people who buy "a hybrid Dodge Durango that gets 14 miles per gallon instead of 12 thanks to its second, electric power source."

But doesn't the NYT author have a point? Why would the government offer a credit? The authors acknowledge this: "The basic argument is correct: The environment would benefit most if all consumers purchased highly efficient cars that get 40 MPG, not 14, and incentives should be tied to achieving such efficiency." This hat tip to clear thinking is only 27 words of their Science article, versus 1708 words explaining calculations that in effect justify why upgrading from a 1978 Cadillac or your grandpa's farm tractor to an SUV is a choice that consumers should feel good about. While the question is carefully constructed around consumer choices about two cars driven equally and yields a conclusion showing that consumers don't understand mpg math, why this question?

In effect, the authors' piece would be brilliant in a Dodge Durango or Ford ad to boost those double digit sales drops. But back to the New York Times article. Why wouldn't a person upgrade from a 10mpg car to a 50mpg car? A 10 mpg car would use 1000 gallons per 10,000 miles, and a 50mpg would use 200 gallons per 10,000 miles. 800 fewer gallons of gas. That much less pollution. $5,000 of gas, versus $1,000. Why can't we shoot for that?

Consumers are making exactly these choices. Ford sold 55% fewer SUV's last month, and 40% fewer pick-ups then in the previous year. In our last post we quoted from the NYT article, America, Asleep at the Spigot", in which Congressman Dingell (D-MI) [correction, 11/07/08], told the NYT" "He likes it sitting in his driveway, he likes it big, he likes it safe". It seems that "He" is changing "His" mind about "Big" and "Safe", when faced with $150 per fill-up. "He" is choosing a Prius instead of a pick-up.

Global Warming: Too Much Evidence

There's a direct correlation between energy cost and use, just as there's a direct correlation between increased cigarette taxes, and decreased smoking. Lobbyists routinely argue the opposite in order to justify low taxes and minimal regulation. But the fact that car owners are switching to more efficient cars is a market coup for global warming as well as free-market advocates. This should please all of us who support liberal economic policies, as well as "let the market" commentators. But paradoxically, some of columnists are still stuck with in their delusional refrains from 2005.

A Wall Street Journal blogger now claims there's too much evidence on global warming, so much that it's not believable (WSJ July 1, 2008, "Global Warming as Mass Neurosis"). "What isn't evidence of global warming?" he asks. My favorite! For years it was, "there is not enough evidence". And now, simply invert the sentence to arrive at your next phase of denial. Last year when you pulled his string he said "Not Enough Evidence!!!" and alarms rang -- Whooop! Whooop! Whooop! This year they retooled, so yank the cord to hear, "Too Much Evidence!!! Whooop! Whooop! Whooop! American Girl could immortalize his likeness as the Denier Doll from the historical series "When Carbon was King" or "When the Air was Breathable". Of course next he instructs: "[s]o let's stop fussing about the interpretation of ice core samples from the South Pole". He will no doubt shuffle around in these arguments until the water's licking up around his ankles.

He insists that global warming is either a socialist, religious, or psychological affront to our way of life by those who believe that prosperity is corrupt. Last year we wrote in "Climate Change: Fueling the "Debate", "if you're crazy-dizzy snapping your head around to follow first the one side, than the other, simply follow the money for the truth." Perhaps our columnist hasn't invested in any emerging energy markets.

Sanity and Samsø

As last year and the year before, available at our fingertips, along with the woulda-coulda-shoulda crowd and the bloviators, is the full range of serious and interesting discussions. Consumers are making changes around global warming not only by buying Priuses, but by using alternative energy sources or cutting back their energy use.

In the New Yorker this month, Elizabeth Kobert wrote a great article called "The Island in The Wind". The first part of the article was about the residents of Samsø an island in Denmark that progressed from consuming enough oil and electricity to provide energy for 4,300 people, to generating enough renewable energy through wind turbines and other sources to produce energy for the whole island and sell some back to the grid. The island accomplished this with a combination of initiative, work, leadership and community investment, but with no initial motivating monetary reward.

While generating their own energy however, the islanders didn't reduce their consumption. For that part of the story Kolbert goes to Switzerland, where the 2,000-Watt Society aims to motivate people to reduce energy consumption to 2,000 Watts per person with only 500 Watts consumed from non-renewable sources. Scandinavians consume 6,000 Watts per year per person, and US citizens consume ~15,000 Watts per year per person, so the 2,000 Watt goal gives some populations room to grow while others should strive to cut back on energy use.

When we wrote "Sea Change or Littoral Disaster" in 2006 it seemed like we'd never turn a corner. We wrote "We need no more evidence. We have decades of studies indicating that our lives will change, but its easier to wait for another headline and hope a miracle intervenes, if nothing else than in the guise of government action." Times are decidedly more optimistic. Of course there the same gradient of action, inaction, denial, and procrastination, but when I reflect on the general attitudes of the past couple of years I'm amazed at all the change happening in 2008.

For years it seems, people have heard reports like the recent one by the Justice Department inspector general and the Office of Professional Responsibility, which found the Department of Justice hiring practices had discriminated against lawyers who were "leftist", identified by those who were members of Greenpeace, the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, or the American Constitutional Society. Others have felt helpless in the face of leadership on science, democracy, and the environment. Like when the Bush Administration refused to comply with the Supreme Court's order that the EPA must act to regulate emissions. And today the bad news continued on this matter when the D.C. Circuit Court refused to set a deadline for the EPA that the states had petitioned the court for -- leading us to wonder -- are the two connected?

With some end in sight perhaps, a few citizens are making it their mission to strike back, albeit symbolically (and perhaps emboldened by the imminent term end). There's the Bush Legacy Bus -- I'm sure you've heard -- which is touring 150 cities this summer, first stop yesterday in Dayton, Ohio. The group promises not to let memories of the presidency fade into the twilight of his last term and hopes to influence the outcome of the elections. Less bombastically, and no doubt by mistake, The New York Review of Books advertising arm has sent out a leaflet for "$80 SAVINGS" off the price of a year's subscription, and a "FREE GIFT", the book "The Consequences to Come: American Power After Busch"[sic].

As well, a San Francisco group launched a petition drive to put an initiative on the ballot that would rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. Some find it fitting, but not everyone thinks it's funny. Howard Epstein, chair of the San Francisco Republican Party promised to do everything in his power to stop the measure from going through, calling it "loony bin direct democracy." The spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission was also not too keen on the idea, because the the plant is highly efficient and award-winning: "If you are looking for a place to make a negative statement about the Bush administration's impact on the environment, this would be the last place to do it", he said.

Barack Obama has wide appeal. Democrats, Republicans, commentators, opponents, they find themselves tagging along, like he's the new cool kid on the block. Sometimes the support is overt. John Edwards endorses him, as does Senator Byrd, Congressman Henry Waxman, and the United Steelworkers. But sometimes an endorsement is more subtle.

When Barack pulled ahead of other Democrat contenders under the banner "Change You Can Believe In", Hillary Clinton decided to adapt his slogan as her own, calling hers "Change and Experience". Clinton promised voters that "change" would happen on "Day One". Same, same, but different.

After springing into "change" mode though, Hillary began leaving audiences around the world spinning with her own image defying change. She morphed from one character to the next, leaving people gasping in her wake. What accent? Southern y'all? Gravely, standing on a flatbed truck? What new activity?

When she was swilling beer and flipping back shots with some Pennsylvanians, she reminded Bill Moyers of Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again, specifically the song "Go see what the boys in the back room will have, and them I'll have the same." As time went on Clinton began to remind more people of more movie characters.

Hillary's Change

Hillary herself decided her image resembled the determined boxer in the movie "Rocky", but others had different ideas. To some, she was the Black Knight in Monty Python. To Scranton, Pennsylvania voters, she was the home girl, and then in West Virginia she was a West Virginia girl. But she's no coal miner's daughter, her victory speech in West Virginia reminded one reporter of the character played by Warren Beatty in Reds cheering for a revolution.

I found this tendency to compare Clinton to various movie characters fascinating, since for months I had found myself thinking she was a bit Reese Witherspoon in Election. Over time, I wondered whether she might be more like Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton. While mine were contemporary, human, female characters, however, other depictions were less flattering. Dana Milbank in the Washington Post recently compared the ongoing debate over Clinton's electability to the fate of the parrot in the movie "Monty Python's Flying Circus".

Customer: "That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not half an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it being tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk."

Pet-shop owner: "Well, he's, he's, ah, probably pining for the fiords."

Customer: (Takes parrot from cage, bangs its head on counter, lets it drop to floor.) "Now, that's what I call a dead parrot."

Pet-shop owner: "No, he's stunned! . . . You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian blues stun easily, Major."

Customer: "He's not pining! He's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! He's expired and gone to meet his maker! He's a stiff! Bereft of life, he rests in peace! . . . His metabolic processes are now history! He's off the twig! He's kicked the bucket, he's shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible! This is an ex-parrot!"

Why do so many of us compare Hillary to movie characters? Is it that we're so unaccustomed to a strong woman in the President role that we have no real comparisons we can make? She's not many female politicians we know, Margaret Thatcher or Nancy Pelosi for instance...Unlike countries where female presidents or prime ministers are the norm, we have few figures to cast from (aside from The West Wing). This is not the first time people have looked to the movies to reflect a reality they can't fathom. People exclaimed that being in lower Manhattan when the terrorists flew into the World Trade Towers was "like being a movie".

Baking Cookies, Making Tea, That's Just Not Me

Some people, like Bill Moyers, welcome the Clinton change, say she's found her voice. Clinton recently spoke on behalf of her gun-owning church-going supporters when Obama "insulted" her working class comrades.

But mere months ago she was hanging out with Bill in the country diner cheerfully wondering idly about Chelsea's whereabouts. Journey's 1981 "Don't Stop Believing" hummed nostalgically in the background. Not too far from Fleetwood Mac's, "Don't Stop", which Bill's theme song, the theme was no change. While the Clintons awkwardly but quaintly attempted to build edge-of-your chair suspense at the diner over her campaign theme, Celine Dion's "You and I", their spoof of the Sopranos seemed one drive-in away from On Golden Pond. After declaring her new change theme, every day forward left quaint 'ole Hillary-and-Bill-at-the-jutebox a little farther in the dust.

Perhaps Hillary has found her voice. Male working class voters are warming to strong women, and maybe women wouldn't be as indignant as they were when she mused back in 1992 on Nightline "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession". This prompted William Safire to offer advise: "You do not defend yourself from a conflict-of-interest charge by insulting a large segment of the voting public." He wrote that Clinton's remarks were: "elitism in action". 16 years later you can say she's absorbed Safire's patronizing lesson. Hillary went on to leap past her 'elitist gaffe' and has since been appeasing voters left and right.

But when she took the Obama change challenge last fall was her intent to prove herself more adept at corralling the "white non-college educated vote"? Is that what Democrats aspire to? Has the change helped her break through a glass ceiling? While some argue yes, other voters and superdelegates have veered over to Obama's side, and he's pulling ahead.

The question remains, why does Clinton remind everyone of fictional movie characters, while Obama reminds everyone of male presidents like John F. Kennedy, or Ronald Reagan (not in ideology, they quickly say), or George H.W. Bush? Hillary may have changed, from picking through old jutebox favorite with hubbie to being one tough bitch who'll obliterate anything in her way. But have we?

Star power

While Clinton strode defiantly, talked stridently, slagged Obama, and sank still lower with her the traveling hillbilly act, Obama coolly brushed it off. He refreshingly acts like he's being himself. An article in the New York Times yesterday quoted a publisher who said Obama's feat was to make millions writing autobiographies..."two books not based on a job of prodigious research or risking one's life as a reporter in Iraq. He has written about himself. Being able to take your own life story and turn it into this incredibly lucrative franchise, it's a stunning fact."

Perhaps Hillary could have taken away another Safire nugget before hiking up her pantsuits with such determination to wade into the rhetorical swamp. Safire's advice to the Clinton's in 1992 for what he gratingly labeled "The Hillary Problem", was a six step solution: "1. Hillary: Stop defining yourself by what you're not." Who is she?

Just as Safire raked Clinton across the coals in 1992, Maureen Dowd recently eviscerated Obama for making comments about arugula and bitterness which made him, in her eyes, a "charter member of the elite". However a lot of working class people I know know arugula quite well. Remind me about the working class cred of New York Times columnist? Aren't they the ones whose capital is hobnobbing with the ruling class in fine restaurants ? If Clinton has progressed to a more modern time, then perhaps media has not.

Republicans' Me-Too Change

As he accumulates endorsements and attracts 75,000 people to his stump speech in Portland, at times he even seems to have the Republican party skipping along after him acting for all intents and purposes like Democrats. The Republicans just launched their new slogan "Change You Deserve" -- hat tip to Obama's "Change We Can Believe In". [update: And an Effexor commercial apparently]

They're out to remind us to keep YOU in Republican, I guess. Do you see a "we" in Republican? Certainly not. If too many Republicans started saying "we", who knows the trouble it would cause? The whole country might slip into socialism, or worse. Would everyone's voice be important, would all votes count? That Obama "we believe" phrasing sounds like the U.S. is a team, like there's no decider in charge. Republicans can't have that.

Republicans may have deduced from polling that people feel like they "deserve" change. But which slogan would you bet on? People may feel like they "deserve" change after the last eight years but McCain will continue the tax breaks and war so what are the Republicans talking about? You know they don't mean "deserve" as in entitlement -- they're virulently opposed to Social Security, safety nets and all that. So then what does "deserve" mean? Anything? And looking at Hillary's record, will the Republicans lose themselves like she did by trying to emulate Barack Obama?

Not if some people can help it. David Brooks suggests that Obama is actually co-opting Republican politics. Brooks grilled Barack Obama after George Bush described the candidate's foreign policy statements regarding Hezbollah as "appeasement." Not grilled as in Chris Matthews and Mark Green, on Crossfire, mind you, but as in conservative NYT columnist grilled. Brooks writes in "Obama Admires Bush" that he wondered whether Obama would really consider approaching Hezbollah diplomatically as George W. Bush implied last week. If so, the pundit said, affably of course, "[h]e's off in Noam Chompskyland".

No, when they spoke, Obama "reaffirmed" for him that Hezbollah is "not a legitimate political party", but a "destabilizing organization...", supported by "Iran and Syria". Brooks goes on to explain some details of Obama's foreign policy before concluding (seemingly approvingly) that it reminds him of George G.W. Bush's approach to foreign relations.

So which brand will win? Will Barack Obama prevail by being "himself" as the Republicans dance around chanting "me-too" change? Or will the Republicans win by making it look like they have all the ideas?

There's an interesting side note in the credit fallout, with its subprime mortage scandal, Bear Stearns debacle, and complex financial instruments that no one, not even the experts understand. The nervous economists desperately try to whistle past a recession, and people talk and write endlessly about pros and cons of regulation, then in the midst of all these problems, some prominent financiers are suddenly pushing for financial education of the public. Experts like Donald Trump, (an exemplar of financial responsibility), are speaking out and establishing programs to teach finance in high schools, colleges, and communities.

The Economist quotes Niall Ferguson, a historian at Harvard University, who says that no one understands finance and that even MBA students don't know "'the difference between the nominal and real interest rate."'

Blackstone CEO Peter G. Peterson is among the crowd bent on relaying a message of fiscal prudence. Part of his goal for retirement is founding and leading organizations like the Concord Coalition, whose mission is educating the public on financial responsibility, for instance by producing learning modules to sell to high schools and colleges.

Peterson is also organizing "grassroot" movements around financial education, and buying films that teach young people about responsible finance. He's especially intent on warning people about the pending disaster of entitlements, particularly social security.

Peterson's first film is scheduled for release in September and he's optimistic about its box office prospects. He told Charlie Rose the other night he's been "energized by what Al Gore's experience was" with the "Inconvenient Truth". However he added, "...I wish we had polar bears, I wish we had ice caps" to "dramatize" the story.

Ahh...but then he'd have the real problem of global warming to worry about.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernacke, in the midst of financial meltdowns, struggles with federal monetary policy, or as bloomberg.com put it "Plays `Whac-A-Mole' With Turmoil in Markets". Meanwhile his predecessor Alan Greenspan pens oft-quoted editorials offering policy hints and cryptic foretelling of the economy's prospects. Today he looked in his crystal ball and wrote in the Financial Times the future looked "most wrenching".

Greenspan seemed dismayed: "Those of us who look to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder equity have to be in a state of shocked disbelief." Shocked, shocked shocked. Greenspan's own "self-interest", is as an adviser to Deutsche Bank, Pimco, and Paulson & Co, a hedge fund company that has "posted stratospheric gains" by betting on credit crises.

Throughout his tenure, as indicated by this speech back in 2005, Greenspan advocated deregulation, along with "innovation and structural change in the financial services industry", which were critical to "providing expanded access to credit". As he concluded in his 2005 speech: "this fact underscores the importance of our roles as policymakers, researchers, bankers, and consumer advocates in fostering constructive innovation."

Greenspan didn't shy from acknowledging his influence then, but now in 2008, he pops up with sage words but quickly scuttles away from responsibility. Using this tactic he also blamed the federal debt and the housing crises on aberrant circumstances. In today's editorial titled: "We Will Never Have a Perfect Model of Risk", Greenspan abdicates responsibility and lets "the model" take the blow. Once he accomplishes that neat abstraction, he rallies for more of the same, warning against regulatory changes in the market that would "inhibit our most reliable and effective safeguards against cumulative economic failure: market flexibility and open competition."

Krugman, writing in today's article "The B Word", doesn't buy it. "Between 2002 and 2007, false beliefs in the private sector -- the belief that home prices only go up, that financial innovation had made risk go away, that a triple-A rating really meant that an investment was safe -- led to an epidemic of bad lending. Meanwhile, false beliefs in the political arena -- the belief of Alan Greenspan and his friends in the Bush administration that the market is always right and regulation always a bad thing -- led Washington to ignore the warning signs." Krugman thinks a bailout is inevitable.

Art Tries to Imitate Science Tries to Imitate Art Tries to Imitates Science.....

Last year, Acronym Required wrote about the American Film Institute's Catalyst Workshop, which recruits scientists to train them in scriptwriting. "Science's Silver Bullet -- The Silver Screen?" described a Pentagon sponsored workshop that recruited "hard-core", "lab-certified scientists" to write scripts and portray "appealing" science protagonists.

The rational behind recruiting scientists? Back in 2005, the New York Times published a story on the Catalyst Workshop that explained Hollywood's demand for scientists: "They're compensated very minimally, they're going on blind faith that what they're searching for is going to pay off. And film making is exactly the same way". ("Pentagon's New Goal: Put Science Into Scripts", 08/04/05). An unflinching assessment indeed. We venture that "blind faith" is a slur to most scientists, no doubt filmmakers as well. As for the pay, true enough, most "lab-certified" scientists get paid pitifully. When we published the story we could only guess how scriptwriters fared.

Now with the writers strike, we have more information. According to the New York Times, some writers get paid significantly more than your average "lab-certified scientist". A recent article said that the "typical TV series writer may get $30,000 an episode, plus residuals". Movie scriptwriters get a million dollars in advance payment, according to studio executives. ("In Hollywood, a Sacred Cow Lands on the Contract Table", August 5, 2007 ). Of course sometimes the truth is found by reading between words, so we'll take that for the propaganda that it is.

While the top of the pay scale for Hollywood writers does seem like a brighter star than what scientists have to wish for, we know that only a few lucky writers get a stab at these choice positions. The rest of the labor force traipses gig to gig for what many consider menial pay: "More water sir?"

Sure, wink, wink, the writers are gouging the poor executives by asking them for residuals on digital works. The obvious question is: If the projected digital profits are such pittance, than why is the executive side of the contract table so apoplectic?

Is it "Over"?

In the case of the writer's strike, despite weekend rumors originating with a Fox News executive, claiming that the strike is over, we're waiting for the writers to make the call. We know that announcements like "it's over" are sometimes craftily used by those in charge of crisises to make the media go away.

Over or not, there's happy news from an unexpected source. Nature offers a proposal to the strikers. (Nature is a science journal.) The editors tell scientists to "saunter down to your local picket line, gather up a couple of film and television writers, and introduce them to the fascinations of the scientific life..." They add that plying them with drinks might help. ("A Quantum of Solace", Jan. 31, 2008). Who knows how the Hollywood writers will receive the offer, but I can't help thinking of the Anthony Burgess quote: "We all need money, but there are degrees of desperation."

Anyway, until we can truly cheer for the writers, we'll marvel at how the tables have turned. Last year, Hollywood sought out scientist scriptwriters, this year scientists seek out Hollywood scriptwriters.

I've just finished reading a fun book that I got at a book swap called How Proust Can Change Your Life, by Alain de Bottom. I liked it of course, although other reviewers who are more opinionated about incorporating Proust in a book title found it alternatively "clever"- "witty..funny..tonic" or "superficial..contrived..patronising".

Happily, I can stay in theme by reading a couple of new releases that not only include Proust but science too. In Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Jonah Lehrer writes about artists who, ensconced in their writing or cooking or painting, conceived of some aspect of sensory science ahead of the scientists. In Proust and The Squid, Maryanne Wolf writes about human development and reading.

On Proust's place in neuroscience, I didn't bring Proust along to fill in the empty moments between my neurobiology experiments as Lehrer did, and have yet to finish "In Search of Lost Time" -- I may not be the best judge. While Proust inspired books divert my attention, Proust stares down from the spines of seven unfinished volumes shelved up by the ceiling, mocking my frenzied schedule. Although some reviewers make it seem unique or iconically 21st century to mix literature and science, I contend that the pairing is natural. Scientists have always been a cultured lot to my mind, especially neuroscientists, and artists forever inquisitive about the natural world. Whatever the circumstances or pretenses Proust so often finds himself as muse, these two new books promise interesting reading.

"Art is What You Can Get Away With." -- Andy Warhol

Scienceblogs' scientist PZ Myers of Pharyngula, one of the first and most entertaining science bloggers, was recently sued for 15 million dollars by Stuart Pivar because Pivar did not like Myers' scathing review of Pivar's book. Myer's 2005 review of the book is here, and an updated review from last month is here. On behalf of Myers, Lawyer Peter Irons wrote a response to Pivar here. Pivar dropped the suit, but until then feverish speculation and analysis prevailed on some blogs. 'It will be dismissed' some said. 'It's groundless' everyone agreed. But there was also unexpected and deafening silences from other corners, as if a cold wind had blown through some warm cozy blogospheric goodness. Some just had no comment. But others asked, what if people start suing individual bloggers?

What if? Would all bloggers just go quiet? Really? No. If it weren't Seed and a famous blogger, would there be any point of a suit? No. So what the suit was really about. We conclude that from Pivar's history, he's merely seeking fame by suing, but what does Myers get? Well, fame from being sued. And interestingly, while Myers tears apart Pivar's book for it's non-sciencey ideas, how is it that he can welcome Lynn Margulis to his forum without challenging her anti-science ideas? How do fame and science mix and confuse science understanding?

Who The Heck is Stuart Pivar?

When I first tried to search for "Pivar" and "science" I came up empty-handed. Google asked me if I meant "Pixar", as in Pixar Entertainment? "Picar"? "Piper"? My search terms were wrong and as it turns out "science" was throwing off the results. Well-known in art and New York Society circles, Pivar is often associated with famous people, sometimes deceased -- like Andy Warhol and Diana Vreeland. He has been featured in popular magazines, like the New York Times "Public Lives" section, and in New York tabloids' "celebrities" sections for over 30 years.

In 1975, Newsweek profiled Pivar, who at the time was curating a show on "Schlock Art" (not an insult, apparently). In 1979 he paid $223,250 for a rare sabre-tooth tiger skull to add to his collection of skeletons and bones. Then he spent oodles of time and money delving into the provenance of a life sized statue called "Roman Bronze Boy" that may have been fake.

He strives to be the highest bidder: "'This is an excellent painting,'" Pivar exclaimed...a W.C.M. - a world-class masterpiece.'" (Boston Globe, March 22, 2000), referring to art painted by live elephants for a foundation that teaches Asian elephants to paint. The foundation also develops "an affordable line of non-toxic quality paints for use by elephants and caretakers as well as underprivileged children in developing countries". Claudia Steinberg once interviewed Pivar (NYT September 9, 2004), on decorating and noted his "'grand tone"', as if he mastered "'the effectiveness of pontification.'" Pivar pontificated:

"'Every time I see an example of something that is better than what I own, I buy it... otherwise for the rest of my life I have to live with the knowledge that someplace in the world something is floating around that is better than mine, and that's intolerable.'''

This is the artist who sued Myers. He sues frequently. He targets a variety of people and organizations and was once called "'an institutional stalker"' by the president of the New York Academy of Art. (The New York Post, June 20, 1998). After suing the Academy (which he had founded), he showed up one night at their "Take Home a Nude fundraiser", which the Post described as: "flesh-filled works". Since Pivar had sued the association, he was unwelcome, in fact "barred at the door, then thrown down into a puddle". "'Ass over teakettle'", Pivar told the Post. He slapped the Academy with a suit for assault. Then he dropped the suit.

Perhaps the culture of New York artistes differs from that of scientists'? Somehow PZ and Pharyngula figured into Pivar's marketing plan. But it's odd that someone who pursues fame so relentlessly, who has so many well-connected friends, can't simply get himself listed on Wikipedia...Why Pharyngula?

Pivar certainly must not have looked too closely at the articulate, analytical, opinionated, sarcastic, and biting Pharyngula blog. Gauging the landscape, I would think twice before submitting a book for review there. But knowing that Pivar lives with "wallcovering of rose-gold silk brocade" and hundreds of art objects ( NYT, September 9, 2004), I wouldn't solicit his opinion about some things either, like design or my attitudes towards pursuing fame. So Pivar expected a cordial reception from Myers? Although, true, Myers blog Pharyngula gave controversial scientist Lynn Margulis a very welcoming reception when he hosted her earlier this year.

Mastering Fame In Science -- Your 15 Minutes? Again?

Dr. Lynn Margulis is renowned for cell biology she did 15, 20, 30 or so years ago on endosymbiotic theory. She's earned plenty of street cred -- of the science type, both for her science and writing. But she's also well-known for putting forth "non-traditional" ideas, like:

"In the nerve cell, the axons and the dendrites that make the physical connections that allow us to communicate are latter-day spirochetes. Nerve cells, having long ago discarded the rest of the spirochete body, use the fundamental motility system of spirochetes. Think of the nerve as coming from what had formerly been a bacterium, 'trying' but unable to rotate and swim. Thought involves motility and communication, the connection between remnant spirochetes. All I ask is that we compare human consciousness with spirochete ecology."¹

You can imagine a simple schematic that suggests the relationship.

Of course all fame, whether it's in science, art or blogging, demands selective use of charm. And to her credit, when granted the opportunity by Pharyngula for an on-line chat forum, Margulis was charming and gamely mastered the medium, tutoring the likes of a participants with handles like "Hairhead" on her theories.

Be Charming, Claim You're the Underdog, "Don't Worry What They Write About You...."

While she's well-established and somewhat revered, Margulis doesn't hesitate to use the opportunity to forward her harebrained and controversial ideas. With PZ Myers moderating, Margulis insisted that HIV virus doesn't cause AIDS comments citing a Harper's article published last year. However the Harpers article was roundly dismissed by scientists, public health and policy experts as well as AIDS patients and activists around the world (PDF).

Margulis persisted though: If HIV did cause AIDS, than why didn't the CDC respond to her written demand for proof? This is a weak argument. The feigned helplessness from Margulis, who with tenacity, research skills, and balls unearthed obscure microbiology references from 19th century Russian publications, compared these against modern paradigms for cell evolution, then successfully challenged scientists to accept symbiosis theory -- is laughable.

Don't underestimate her feat in establishing symbiosis theory. But think, when listening critically to Margulis's argument about HIV now. The CDC has a very accessible explanation of HIV virus and AIDS here. The NIH explains everything here. Given her mastery of chat and her previous investigative work, do you believe her Google search skills are so lacking that she needs to resort to 1960's communications method of sending snail-mail letters?

When Science is What You Can Get Away With

Reading the Margulis post on the Myers blog and the chat that he hosted, it's hard to tell what would or wouldn't have gotten axed under PZ's "no-trolling" rule. These forums tend to go sideways anyway after hundreds of comments, not just because of trolls, but because people don't know basic science. The Pharyngula comments transcript was like watching a parade while a posse of kids fights in front of you to retrieve gumdrops that rolled on the ground. In other words, Margulis got off lightly with her anti-science ideas.

Myer's "moderated" forum enforced civility that drifted to intellectual stupor. While the subject was promising, Margulis ably chose what she presented and answered. It was certainly not a place where an open exchange would occur, rather it was a place where she could get coverage for her crazy ideas. Margulis is savvy and used PZ Myers forum well. Pivar, obviously, played his unique hand with Myers differently, with different results.

Margulis knows how to get her ideas across because she knows the rules of the game and isn't afraid to make her own. Scientists employ well established rules of engagement in academia. There is an old adage that the feuds are intense in academia because the stakes are low -- that is the financial stakes. Not true so more, but unlike art, apparently, scientists generally don't sue fellow scientists. It never made sense because there was nothing to gain -- " Watch out, I'll confiscate all your test tubes!" Science fame is achieved with intelligence and/or least creating that image (to the point of intimidation). Equally powerful tools are words, wit, aplomb, and most of all, renown from previous accomplishments -- all attributes that Margulis deploys with rigor.

Margulis relishes controversy and slings mud far better than most people, a well-honed and essential skill. Years ago she would malign molecular biologists (who she felt threatened her cell biology) for various things, particularly being reductionist. Margulis also criticized evolutionary biologists for ignoring chemistry and microbiology in evolution and chided developmental biologists for not understanding important components of evolution like geology. She refused to talk to journalists because she said they 'always misrepresent' her ideas. Nowadays she decries online sources who she claims distort her theories. Famously, despite her formidable offense skills, she forever portrays herself as someone who has been pushed in a mud puddle.

Scientists' methods of acquiring prestige are not to be underestimated because it's these skills as well as their research that make and break careers. Of course this is so, but stereotypes of scientists would have people doubt this. These skills help hold scientists and lay audiences in hypnotized sway. Clearly Pivar's background makes him pathetic at science combat skills. I mean if you attain fame by being the highest bidder on art made by elephants with their trunks, which you refer to with cute acronyms like "W.C.M." for "world class masterpiece", and if your biggest publicity stunt takes the form of a lawsuit, think again before messing with scientists. Forget the image of pocket-protectors -- modern successful scientists have overcome far more adversity in the lab and in the politics doing science than you ever will by falling in a mud puddle "ass over teakettle" at a art show featuring nude paintings.

Crackpot Science or Breaking Science? "It may not be Raining. They may be Spitting on Us." -- attributed to Warhol

Scientists can be eccentric, though, as can artists. When scientists mutter poetry or mismatch socks their it adds to their mystique. But than there are the cranks. So who's who? Eccentric? Or crank? Einstein was famously "eccentric". Margulis herself observes how "'it's easy to be dismissed as a "crank" or "on the fringe"'. Unlike the artist new to the science party, Margulis's past publications give her the leeway to tell us that what looks like "crank" is really a new breaking science theory. The ghost of Thomas Kuhn lingers in the background, throwing an inkling of doubt on all our rock solid reality-based paradigms. This technique of reminding people how often paradigms are shattered to reveal new truths seems especially effective used on non-scientists by someone with some status.

So if one is a lay-person, how do you tell science from pseudo-science? It's tricky. Obviously, if the person doesn't have an established biography in science, it's easy to doubt their credibility. But what about scientists? PZ might say the Margulis exchange was an open forum, and indeed some people asked pointed questions. But did the warm reception send a mixed message to those who don't know or who swoon before fame rather than examining each new science proposal with equal amounts of analysis or skepticism?

It used to be that scientists didn't so often enter the public forum. They obviously didn't blog. In 2000, James Glanz of the New York Times wrote in "Geniuses, Crackpots and a Grand Unified Theory" forwarding a false perception of scientists, but one that holds an iota of truth. He said that interactions between scientists and the public occur when the public tries to appropriate scientists' ideas, or when they try to engage scientists in their own crazy theories.

The awkward exchanges depicted in the NYT article range from dealing with "cosmic theorizers", to engagements with "superannuated, formerly fine scientists who late in their careers get bored doing bread-and-butter stuff". Then there were the cranks and crackpots, that scientists would treat with kid gloves:

"Once, as [Moyer] was discussing crackpot theorizing with a fellow physicist in his office, his colleague took out a file marked "public relations" that was filled with letters on off-the-wall theories. When Dr. Moyer asked why in the world the folder was so labeled, his colleague explained that the writers sometimes turned up in his office, "and they get really upset if you take out a folder marked 'crackpots.' "

Margulis herself contends that new-age Gaia people usually misinterpret the science behind her's and Lovelock's ideas. She uses her history of legitimate science to continue to push fringe ideas. This makes it near impossible for the layperson to doubt her. But do know, dear layperson, that the HIV viruses, not say, intergalactic forces, cause AIDS.

Artists and Bloggers, "...Measure [Criticism] in Inches." -- Warhol

Crackpot crank or breaking science? This gives science bloggers unique challenges. Scientist bloggers need to work, often in science, publishing, maintaining labs, and teaching. The current political climate, in which fear dominates politics, drives people to faith and speculative pie in the sky theories. But at the same time the fame culture drives bloggers to be somewhat "controversial" just to get an audience. Many science bloggers want to expose readers to solid science and give them some sort of arsenal to distinguish good from bad. Yet paradoxically, to attract an audience, blogs need to entertain. So Myers devotes himself to anti-religion, anti-alternative medicine, and anti-fringe science screeds, but welcomes someone who denies HIV causes AIDS? How is the public to make sense of this?

Conflict is entertaining, as those who seek fame know. Margulis has mastered this. Pivar has cultivated a combative image in the art world but fell flat on his face in science. And certainly PZ has gathered admirers of his skilled rhetorical obliteration of science "foes". So for Myers' own fame, it makes sense to engage cordially with Dr. Lynn Margulis, a famous scientist. He allows questions under a "no trolls" policy. But was a troll someone who challenged her theories? Myers interestingly and controversially doesn't challenge her anti-science ideas, although his entire blog is devoted to attacking religion, alternative medicine, and "anti-science" ideas.

And of course Pharyngula agrees to review the self-published book of Stuart Pivar, a famous art collector, and does so in a frank and comedic way. Pharyngula is popular, Margulis gets more than her 15 minutes, and -- Pivar? -- sorry.

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¹ Margulis, Lynn and Hinkle, Gregory, "The Biota and Gaia: 150 Years of Support for Environmental Sciences," in Schneider, Stephen Henry and Boston, Penelope J. (eds.), Scientists on Gaia (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991): 11-18.

Voting Machines Hackable

Electronic voting machines are famous for their susceptibility to hacking, as shown by several groups, including Ed Felten and his team at Princeton, who write the Freedom to Tinker blog. The group has repeatedly shown various problems with electronic voting machines. Last fall they published a widely read paper on multiple problems with the Diebold Accuvote-TS, which they also demonstrated in this short video posted at Google.

Last week, following more research on voting machine fallibilities, California's Secretary of State Bowen decertified several voting machines in use in the state and imposed new conditions on the machines based on the findings.

There has been some mixed press about Bowen's move. Most of the press seems positive, however a few reporters focused on the "high costs" of implementing the system. Of course "cost" arguments always cause public hesitation but in the end catch up with us.

Bridges Fallible

"Bridge Disaster Could Mean Gas - Tax Hike", the New York Times warns today, noting that the catastrophe "could tip the scales in favor of billions of dollars in higher gasoline taxes for repairs coast to coast". It probably sent shivers down the backs of politicians and citizens alike, from coast to coast.

Of course, inspectors had warned about the structural integrity of the Minnesota bridge for years. But fortunately the warnings were quieted by an outside bridge review in 2001, under Mr. Elwyn Tinklenberg, former Governor Jesse Ventura's transportation commissioner. Current Governor Tim Pawlenty and the transportation commissioner Helen Molnau, (known as "Ma"), say they "relied on experts" to certify the bridge. They have steadfastly resisted tax increases that would have paid for road improvement.

As levees sink and pipes burst, U.S. infrastructure grades fall to C's and D's. Environmental waste clean up "costs", as does implementation of carbon regulation or taking the bus. Education costs are exorbitant too.

And Democracy's Costs So Malleable

But interestingly driving an SUV -- this site we previously linked to guesstimates that about 30% of the cars in NYC are SUVs -- doesn't "cost" too much even though gas is $3.00-4.00 per gallon. Almost any city budget can accommodate a new baseball stadium, lobbying groups spare no cost in attaining 30 second spots promoting their measures, and politicians spare no cost at getting elected.

But it seems like venturing down a dark path to suggest that a certifiably honest and accurate voting system costs too much. Doesn't this cheapen our vote, or even suggest perhaps, with twisted logic, that our votes can be bought?

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Acronym Required posts regularly on government spending dilemmas, especially with regard to the federal role in oversight (for instance with health issues), and less frequently public infrastructure.

Flying Tedium

Sometimes you forget about the tedium of modern day air travel because the destination turns out to be so educational, enlightening, adventuresome, or fun. Your meetings, regardless of their purpose or outcome -- obligatory, joyful, fruitful, or entertaining -- redeem your travel efforts. But there's no denying that air travel can be tedious.

In previous eras travel at least required attention to your surroundings. Compared to a trek through the Amazon in the early 1900's, the riverboat tour today promising a piranha supper is no doubt cozier, but today's Homo sapiens vigor pales next to our swashbuckling, nature enduring ancestors. The intellectual or physical engagement once necessary for travel has been commercially scrubbed from most of today's mind numbing excursions.

U.S. airline travel offers the ultimate somnolent experience, with all the industrial efficiency required to fly 30,000 commercial flights a day in the US. Save the occasional blunder, air travel has been reduced from exotic to a mundane necessary evil. Sure, you don't want your flying experience to be "exciting". But we've been systematically trivialized to mindless beings who welcome the airline's beverage service with saucer eyed eagerness.

We put Pavlov's drooling dogs to shame with our anticipation of that one-ounce packet of salty peanuts doled out on a precise timetable; barring of course, the unforeseen "water landing" that would ultimately illuminate the utility or futility of grasping for our seats-cum-flotation-devices while the plane plummets towards the water at unfathomable speeds.

It's like being anesthetized during an operation -- you generally wake up alive, although there's a palpable risk that you may die -- but in that case you'll most likely succumb without too much of a fuss. Once we're sufficiently numbed for the flight, with all good fortune the plane will eventually bump us out of our induced coma by landing on the runway, whereupon everyone will finally breath in one deep, enlivening breath of recirculated oxygen.

No matter how much entertainment one arms oneself with, airline travel can bore you silly. My last flight was delayed for two hours before take off. The captain's associate wisely allowed the passengers to disembark and mill about "close to the gate", and so two hundred passengers promptly lined up at a nearby concession stand. A single employee tore his hair out trying to fill the espresso and lemonade orders of agitated passengers, one drop at a time. So those of us at the end of the line, unable to discern any progress at such a distance, abandoned our quest to quench our thirst and whiled away the hours on the plane devouring our scarce reading materials.

After take-off, non-advantageous wind patterns delayed our flight further. The Linux in-flight entertainment system crashed and the self-appointed IT guru/flight attendant stared, forever, plaintively, at the system console, not daring to reboot it for fear of irking those who were watching the movie. Time wasters like collaborative trivial pursuit were therefore out of the question and so eight hours into my flight, you might see how fighting off malaria and wild animals in the Amazon seemed preferable.

This may all have been an elaborate airline ruse to get passengers to purchase absurd items from SkyMall magazine (the link is to the amusing song, not the catalog), but instead I decided to dissect the contents of my eagerly awaited "snack pack". That offered, if not nourishment, an introduction to that mysterious subject of food science.

Snack Packs

Remember when airlines tried to "...distinguish themselves from other competitors and entice passengers with their in-flight cuisine"? I don't. I wasn't around when airplanes meandered to their destinations at a leisurely 100mph, when "pilots handed out boxed lunches to passengers as they boarded", or when airlines were so hard pressed for business they vied for customers with "sophisticated menus and elaborate meal service programs." But I've dabbled in the more recent meals of the last decade, the veal parmigiana barely identifiable from the chicken Provencale or the lasagna, all gray slabs of something with tomato sauce. These offerings, long a dependable topic for water cooler griping, are now also history, relative luxuries purged in recent airline budget cuts and operational restructuring.

The least promising part of the snack pack I was assigned was the "Pasteurized Process Cheese Spread Havarti-type Flavor" in the .75 oz plastic container. This is a substance from unknown sources that has the texture and look of condensed milk. It in no way resembles Havarti, even though they don't set the bar too high since Havarti itself, that semi-soft cheese developed on a 19th century "experimental farm", has few notable characteristics. These so-called "pasteurized process cheese spreads" generally consist of about 10-20 ingredients including various milk products like whey and skim milk, along with a smorgasbord of preservatives, and are usually of undefined nutritional value or detriment. A related product, "Tuscan" cheese spread, suggests that if you wish to know the nutritional content you can snail mail a company called "Lactoprot", in Blue Mounds, WI, for the information -- hope your not anxious for the news. In the meantime, go ahead, you adventure seekers, dip your crackers into the effluent if you dare.

The accompanying crackers in .5 oz plastic wrappers offer nowhere near the entertainment value of the runny, unspreadable spread, but do contain a miserly 60-80 calories. All of these plastic wrapped items are arranged in a square plastic container that is wrapped in yet another layer of plastic, along with a plastic bottle holding 8.5 ounces of water. A tiny box of 30 or so raisins is included on special days.

Airlines realize that although passengers may complain, they're excruciatingly bored, buckled in shoulder to shoulder in those knee binding seats. Therefore they'll alight with glee on any old plastic snack pack and gobble it down with the voracious enthusiasm of a squirrel eating an acorn on a telephone wire. Look down a row and you can see the line of passengers bent covetously over their snack packs, ripping into the plastic wrap, bits of plastic falling to the left and right of the meal tray. They dismantle layer after layer of plastic, eager prying fingers searching for a tiny little morsel of cracker buried in the plastic wrap. Then they quickly move on, deftly unearthing the next plastic encased scrap of processed food. When the passengers are done with the plastic unwrapping entertainment, the cabin crew circulates with plastic bags collecting the plastic wrappers and the plastic bottles.

Meal service used to require enduring the appetite arresting slurping and slobbering of tens of surrounding passengers. Now it sounds more like the packing area of a UPS mail room. The American Plastics Council has certainly captured the hearts and minds of the airline industry.

Airline Recycling

If you've flown recently you were no doubt concerned about the environmental impact of your flight. To eschew your guilt perhaps you offset your flight's carbon emissions, after all you can't go too far on the internet without bumping into an opportunity to do so. Less appreciated is the plastic waste we generate staving off hunger and boredom by gobbling up the 200-300 calorie snack pack. A tiny source of nutrients for a heap of plastic waste.

In December, 2006, the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC), released a report "Trash Landings: How Airlines and Airports Can Clean Up Their Recycling Programs", which documented the waste generated at airports and from flights. Did you know?

The airline industry threw out 9,000 tons of plastic in 2004, and enough newspapers and magazines to bury a football field more than 230 feet deep. Nationwide, U.S. airports generated 425,000 tons of waste in 2004 -- a figure expected to increase nearly 45 percent by 2015. Each passenger today leaves behind 1.3 pounds of trash, the researchers found. Seventy five percent of this waste is recyclable or compostable. Yet the industry-wide recycling rate is 20 percent or less -- one third less than the U.S. average as a whole.

The NRDC report suggests ways to revamp the recycling and waste programs of airlines and airports. You yourself can decline the snack pack. Trust me, this particular "Havarti-type" spread doesn't capture the very ordinary essence of the Havarti you may love, either the original flavor, or the cumin, dill, cranberry, garlic, jalapeno types valiantly introduced by flavor advocates. You would look so noble declining the snack pack. What if half the passengers on every flight declined the snack pack? How easy would that be?

Iraq: Media Spin

The Bill Moyers Journal premiered on PBS on Wednesday April 25, 2006, with the show "Buying the War", also available online in its entirety. Moyer's makes his thesis clear in one of the first shots. As Bush enters the briefing room for a press conference the White House press corps is standing. The press corps then sits down and as they're filmed from one side it looks like their taking one long, collective, sweeping bow. "Buying the War" then shows parts of scripted press conference, where everyone knows who will be called on, what they'll ask, and what Bush's answer will be, but they all play along with the charade.

Documentaries and books have already thoroughly analyzed the Bush Administration's sale of the Iraq war to U.S. citizens. "Buying the War" focused on the media's sometimes eager complicity in this goal. For many reasons, reporters from outlets like the New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, as well as major TV networks, supported the Bush Administration's march to war.

A Frontline show earlier this the year also focused on the role of the media in a four part series. That show portrayed a media diminished from its post-Watergate heyday to its present *beleaguered* state. The Moyer's show, in my opinion, provided a slightly more optimistic view (with a less ominous soundtrack). Moyer's focus was the ennoble, under appreciated role of reporting accurate news during the tense pre-Iraq atmosphere. At the time, there was intense pressure to dutifully report the Bush administrations' claims, and beneath the sheen of patriotism in the ranks of media, sycophancy and spin ruled the day. "Buying the War" featured a few reporters in the lead-up to the Iraq war who tenaciously (and correctly) reported evidence that contradicted the Bush administration's themes for invading attack.

Needless to say, the reporters who didn't find Bush's evidence compelling weren't the loud majority. Among others, Moyers interviewed Charles Hanley, and Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel from Knight Ridder (now McClatchy). Before the invasion the two Knight Ridder reporters churned out dozens of skeptical reports, based on research and information from sources within and beyond the upper echelons of the administration.

As Landay relayed in "Buying the War", the defectors who were providing "evidence" against Saddam weren't making sense. They gave questionable and conflicting accounts. Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, a Kurd, divulged Saddam's weapons caches to the CIA. Why would a sworn enemy of Hussein, a Kurd, Landay asked, "be allowed into to Sadam's top military facilities"? He continued;

"and....the idea that Saddam Hussein would put a biological weapons facility under his residence. I mean, would you put a biological weapons lab under your living room? I don't think so."

The reporters who got the facts relied on concerned Administration officials, unclassified documents, and scientists. Bob Simon of CBS News, talked to scientists who provided details about the aluminum tubes.

BILL MOYERS: "When you said a moment ago when we started talking to people who knew about aluminum tubes. What people-who were you talking to?"
BOB SIMON: "We were talking to people - to scientists - to scientists and to researchers and to people who had been investigating Iraq from the start."
BILL MOYERS: "Would these people have been available to any reporter who called or were they exclusive sources for 60 minutes?"
BOB SIMON: "No, I think that many of them would have been available to any reporter who called."
BILL MOYERS: And you just picked up the phone?
BOB SIMON: Just picked up the phone.
BILL MOYERS: Talked to them?
BOB SIMON: Talked to them and then went down with the cameras.

As it turned out, Saddam Hussein didn't possess nuclear weapons or biological weapons, had not acquired uranium ore from Africa, and was not sponsoring Al-Qaida in Iraq.

Iraq and the Facts, Tardy but Hardy

Those who supported the administration's push for war, and who also appeared on Moyer's show (many didn't), admitted they were mistaken. Some were contrite and almost all were apologists. They said they were under the gun from their corporations, and that large media had its insatiable political "needs". The reporters and anchors said they feared for their careers. Their patriotism was heightened after 9-11 they said. Some squirmed visibly under Moyer's pointed questions and elder gaze -- or was it a glare? Others seemed to light up under the challenge...books to sell maybe.

Many of those reporters fervently sold Bush's appeals to halt Al-Qaida in Iraq are now at plum reporting positions where they continue to hold forth as experts in their fields, despite the inaccuracy of their predictions of democracy, easy victory and flower leis.

The McClatchy's reporters note in via Q&A sometime after the show that their employers supported them. Other reporters who publicly expressed doubt were relegated to the back pages, or taken off the air (Phil Donahue). What are reporters supposed to do it their employer edits their stories, forbids them to report ideas ideologically out of sync with business or the administration, or fires them? How would they explain that to their mortgage lender and children? The illiberal face of liberalism lurks about, and no doubt reporters face tough decisions.

Bill Moyers noted in a speech to the "National Conference on Media Reform", some time after he left NOW....

"One reason I’m in hot water is because my colleagues and I at NOW didn’t play by the conventional rules of beltway journalism. Those rules divide the world into Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, and allow journalists to pretend they have done their job if, instead of reporting the truth behind the news, they merely give each side an opportunity to spin the news...

Faced with relentless spin, it's easy to see how counterspin might be the only answer. But in this example the facts prevailed because of the scientists, reporters, and administrative officials. The facts were resilient.

Bill Moyers new show is regularly scheduled Fridays on PBS.

Many scientists have an intimate relationship with deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). They analyze DNA extensively and see meaning in inscrutable patterns of As, Cs, Gs and Ts. They study the nucleic acid structure of gene sequences that code proteins and determine the organism's development. They manipulate code to understand the mechanisms by which DNA replicates, self repairs, and occasionally goes awry. They've cleverly devised DNA computing and nanotechnology and have discovered things like "Zinc-finger protein-targeted gene regulation: Genomewide single-gene specificity". But scientists might still be baffled by this:

"Remixed here by "cutting edge names" such as Planningtorock and Rex The Dog, the song's DNA is spliced crudely into four mutated clones that warp the spectral waltz of the original into demented disco".¹

That's because while scientists toiled away in their labs, night after day, the rest of the world moved on to synthesize its own DNA. We may know deoxyribonucleic acid, but everyone else is defining modern DNA. True, other terms attained fame outside the lab. "Symbiosis" and "chimera" and the most annoying "meme", all served multidisciplinary roles and fits of popularity, but the use of "DNA" has spiraled out of control.

Deoxyribonucleic acid was always exciting to scientists, but the rest of the world largely left deoxyribonucleic acid to labs and lurid murder trials. For years it was pressed between glass plates and painstakingly sequenced in one organism after another. Then one day deoxyribonucleic acid became DNA, that sexy, mysterious be-all-end-all, ubiquitous highfalutin cool stuff. Beyond biology, people suddenly began to use the term in ways that had nothing at all to do with deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA became central to everything and now when you see the acronym it may mean anything or nothing.

Reporters revel in the idea that DNA is the central component of life. They even manage to elevate its importance. Here's one reporter's take on deoxyribonucleic acid:

"Bulbs in spring epitomize the season. They are kernels of DNA-- collective memory -- sprouting into plants we already know but, always slightly different..."²;

As one reporter elevates DNA to a prima donna role in glorious springtime, another cavalierly plunges DNA to impossibly mundane lows:

"There's a reason no one ever waxes rhapsodic over "that new fridge smell." You open the doors and you're hit square in the nose with a hideous, DNA-perverting carcinogenic stink."³

From those off-hand nature/nurture interpretations of deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA can become much, much more in the hands of an able reporter, author, or marketing guru. Even in national and international politics deoxyribonucleic acid becomes a sort of anthropological bureaucratic key, a way to understand official decisions:

• "The attachment to Washington is embedded too deeply in the DNA of Britain's political establishment for a new prime minister to risk an open breach..."⁴
• "This wording stemmed from the commission's core DNA, which prompts it to act on behalf of consumers by embracing competition, localism and diversity deemed to be "in the public interest"....Now, after XM and Sirius have fought ferociously for 10 years, they come on bended knee before policymakers..."⁵

Deoxyribonucleic acid adds panache to corporate name, especially for creative or design companies like PixelDNA or DNA Creative. The latter espouses that "the function of DNA is to define the genetic information that forms your Corporate Identity".

There are probably fewer books about DNA in the "Science" section of Amazon then in "Business and Investing". There are books devoted to every sort of "DNA" imaginable popularized with DNA laden titles: Financial DNA, investing DNA, entrepreneurial DNA, trader DNA, organizational DNA, decision DNA, the DNA Selling Method, the DNA of Leadership,the DNA of Marketing....

Marketing, especially, has discovered this most ubiquitous, malleable acronym. As DNA encodes the genetics of sea urchins but also elephants, so marketing teams press it into diverse roles, from defining multinational banks to health food company philosophy.

• '"..It was part of our DNA and a great foundation,'' said Catherine P. Bessant, who introduced the ''Higher Standards'' tagline four years ago when she served as Bank of America's chief marketing officer."⁶
• "Wild Oats employees are in for an entirely new kind of CEO....parts of Mackey's bio are practically shared DNA in the natural foods industry - a philosophy major who dropped out of college, attire that includes Tevas...."⁷

You probably thought motor vehicles were all about metal and plastic and oil and new car smell and just in time manufacturing -- how wrong.

• "With the balance of rear-wheel drive and the availability of V-8 power, the G8 represents another step in Pontiac 's commitment to its performance DNA."⁸
• ".."The all-new Lancer GS will crush all the myths about compact sedans with its inherited Evo DNA."⁹
• ''Our competitor is really on a strategy of re-branding Daewoo, but we're consistent on the Ford DNA of great driving dynamics.¹⁰
• "...tempt[ing] the buying public by unveiling a prototype street motorcycle inspired by the spirit of Flat Track racing and the XR 750. This XR 1200 prototype, they claim, comes from DNA from the XR line"¹¹

Moving on to the world of entertainment, the acronym's truly twisted meaning becomes even more incongruous. Music, you know, is all about DNA, and in this context it defines a certain je ne sais quois....

• "The six-track collection of slicker-than-your-average-indie boasts hooks as chiseled as the band's jaw lines. It's glam-infused pop-rock that shares melodic DNA with the likes of Placebo and Bowie."¹²
• "But many watching the Chicks fall from country grace were not surprised by the backlash. Country music has conservatism in its DNA, right?"¹³
• "The songs contained on (`Meet the Beatles!')," he says, "are part of the collective DNA of the Smithereens."¹⁴

Even a diamond isn't what you think it is, a rock chipped out of a cave, without deoxyribonucleic acid: "the Montblanc logo, with a sprinkling of diamonds, takes centre stage in the design DNA... the intricacies..the complexity of the Montblanc Star diamond..."¹⁵

Scientists have been through the whole one gene coded one protein thing and and back again, but the media has internalized some central dogma about DNA. As one reporter put it in an article titled, "The Essence of Being¹⁶":

"Our tastes, styles, values and choices in careers, relationships, homes, cars, music, books, TV, movies, hobbies, loves, hates and interests all reflect our archetypes. We may have been unconscious of the fact that our archetypal DNA was making these decisions, but they do[sic] influence every moment. Becoming conscious of this information is transformational".

I confess, though always impressed by the powers of DNA, I underestimated its omnipotence. I missed that my "holistic" "archetypal DNA" was making these decisions on my behalf. How shocking -- am I transformed?

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1.) "Bad Jamie's rumor mill" The Boston Herald February 23, 2007 2.) "This Week" The San Francisco Chronicle, February 18, 2007 3.) "Modern fridges, explained - somewhat" Minneapolis Star, Tribune MN, February 23, 2007 4.) "The affair is over as history leaves Bush and Blair behind" Financial Times, February 23, 2007 5.) Reject their request, USA Today February 23, 2007 6.) "Bank of America Tagline Has Run Its Course" The New York Times February 20, 2007 7.) "Whole Foods CEO doesn't back down" Rocky Mountain News February 23, 2007 8.) "Pontiac and Saturn will add new models developed overseas" The Oregonian February 17, 2007 9.) "The Evolution of Mitsubishi" The Toronto Sun February 18, 2007, 10.) "Mondeo firms for a return" The Courier Mail, February 17, 2007 11.) "The shape of things to come" The Irish Times January 24, 2007 12.) "The Guide: music" The Guardian (London) February 24, 2007 13.) "When country went right: Country music wasn't always married to conservative politics. It happened in the Nixon era." (American Prospect) in Chicago Sun Times February 23, 2007 Friday 14.) Love them do: Frontman Pat Dinizio is psyched about the smithereens' new beatles project Chicago Sun Times January 7, 2007 15.) Power jewelery; Montblanc and Roberto Coin have launched their jewelery collections in Singapore recently. The Business Times (Singapore) February 24, 2007 16.) Sunday Mail (South Australia) February 18, 2007

Colleges Ban Wikipedia

The New York Times published the story this week about colleges encouraging students to use sources other than Wikipedia as references for academic work. A professor in Middlebury College's history department initiated the policy after several students wrote on an exam that "the Jesuits supported the Shimabara Rebellion in 17th-century Japan". The professor noted that there were few Jesuits in Japan at the time and they were "in 'no position to aid a revolution'". Middlebury College is not the first to forbid references to Wikipedia¹, it's a growing trend.

Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, said he didn't consider Middlebury's decision "negative". Of course the definition of "encyclopedia" (or -"paedia"), is "course of general education" not, as some would have it -- 'a collection of definitive answers to all questions'. Others point out that Wikipedia is a tertiary source, not a secondary or primary source suitable for college essays.

The New York Times writes that the problem with Wikipedia is accuracy, however others aren't as critical, for instance the courts. Another New York Times article found that, "100 judicial rulings have relied on Wikipedia, beginning in 2004, including 13 from circuit courts of appeal, one step below the Supreme Court". Several studies have concluded that Wikipedia's information is comparable to other sources like Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Nature devised one of the studies, an "expert-led investigation" of 50 entries about scientists and scientific concepts. ("Internet encyclopaedias go head to head", December, 2005. Nature 438, 900-901). The journal appointed experts who deemed 42 of 50 articles surveyed "usable". The unusable articles included four each from Britannica and Wikipedia, which contained inaccuracies like "misinterpretations of important concepts". The review also found articles with "factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively".

Internet Time vs. Britannica Time

Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, responded to the results, telling Nature he wanted to recruit more "experts" to write the articles. One reviewer said people would find it "shocking" to know how many errors were in Britannica. Britannica, lifeblood apparently draining, wrote a charged rebuttal (.pdf) to Nature's study. It began: "Everything about the journal's investigation, from the criteria for identifying inaccuracies to the discrepancy between the article text and its headline, was wrong and misleading." Over the next 20 pages it vilified the report as "poorly carried out", "error-laden", "without merit", and "without value". Britannica published the defense on its website three months after Nature's original story and took out an ad in a London paper demanding a retraction.

By the time Britannica got around to it's rebuttal people in and out of the media had digested Nature's results. A few questioned them, for instance one New York Times writer asked one of Nature's experts why he had flagged a fact in an article as inaccurate when his own book contained the same fact. ("The Nitpicking of the Masses vs. the Authority of the Experts". January 3, 2006). Other reporters distilled the results less analytically under titles like this: "'Nature': Wikipedia is accurate" (USA Today Dec. 12, 2005).

Nature wholeheartedly defended its methods and conclusions and refused to retract its article. For whatever reason, the journal was in the middle of an encyclopedia war -- and strangely -- on the open access side. Its article helped convince people that Wikipedia was more than just World Wide Web whimsy.

For its part, Britannica fought the perception that it was seeing its life flash before its eyes like a door in the face of an encyclopedia salesman. The Wall Street Journal (September 12, 2006) hosted an email forum between Mr. Wales of Wikipedia, and Dale Hoiberg, senior vice president and editor in chief of Britannica. Wales cited some links to articles critical of Britannica data. Hoiberg replied that there was ample criticism of Wikipedia too, but he didn't have it handy. Wales emailed back a Wikipedia.com link containing the entire body of criticism on Wikipedia, and took the opportunity to pedantically explain the joys accessing information instantaneously. Hoiberg cited Britannica's "trained editors and fact-checkers" and "more than 4,000 experts", processes, and strict editorial control. Wales taunted that those words were "fitting for an epitaph".

How do we Know?

Is it important that so called tertiary sources are squaring off about who's more accurate, or that colleges are urging students to use primary and secondary sources? Some commentators virtually shrugged. But important questions about how people verify information, what information is trusted, who can publish information and who controls information are at the heart of these debates. When bloggers began producing content, newspapers ranted on and on about how worthless blogs were. Many still do, although they also incorporate blogs into their online content. The PLoS publishing model motivated scientific publishers to hire PR firms who coined deceptive one line: slogans like"Public 'access equals government censorship'; 'Scientific journals preserve the quality/pedigree of science'; and 'government seeking to nationalize science and be a publisher'"

Wikipedia claims that anyone can publish information (with some limits). Many people criticize this model. The New York Times published a piece last month, titled "Anonymous Source Is Not the Same as Open Source". In it, the author said that employing "secondary epistemic criteria" is necessary to verify sources. "Once upon a time, Encyclopaedia Britannica recruited Einstein, Freud, Curie, Mencken and even Houdini as contributors.The names helped the encyclopedia bolster its credibility." The author's quote speaks well, if inadvertently, to the inherent problem. Who's an authority? Houdini may be a font of information but should he be plunked so close to Einstein? Should Freud be slipped next to Curie -- with only a comma separating them? The author continued: "The egalitarian nature of a system that accords equal votes to everyone in the ''community'' -- middle-school student and Nobel laureate alike -- has difficulty resolving intellectual disagreements." To the author perhaps Houdini is an authority to reference. To some he may be an authority on magic tricks of yore but nothing else. But Houdini may also had some insight up his sleeve on some other subject that would be a very valuable addition to Wikipedia. Wikipedia users could judge.

The author says we need to proxies for authority to assess information. Health and science data is especially daunting to assess, therefore we often rely pedigree. So credentials become the proxy for assessing knowledge, occasionally to a fault, as in: Nobel Laureate trumps Professor trumps Associate Professor trumps Assistant Professor trumps MD/PhD trumps Lecturer trumps Resident or PostDoc trumps PhD trumps MS trumps BS trumps Harvard Dropout trumps BA (or something like that). In science the gold standard for research is redoing the experiment, but such testing is usually impractical. These judgments often work, obviously, we will trust our doctor over a spam mail advertising the benefits of herbal health enhancers, but if we put too much faith in credentials or publishing record, we can unwittingly cede our power to evaluate information.

Government as Information Arbiter?

There's some literature out there on this subject and we stumbled across this paper titled: "The problem of online misinformation and the role of schools". The author proposed a two part solution for schools. One was to teach skills to help students assess data, which he fleshed out considerably. Secondly he suggested assigning "intermediaries" to vet sites and "promot[e] reliable sources of online information". For this, he proposed "government-sponsored Web portals and librarians". As far as I know, librarians already do this, so we focused on what he meant by "intermediary". He used medical information as an example of information difficult to evaluate for validity. He cautioned about the potential drawbacks and biases of many types of information sites even those from trusted government sources. He recommended MedlinePlus, part of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) as a good source for students because it was free of bias, amply funded, a well organized, and carried the right pedigree, which he defined as: "18,000 staff, including thousands of physicians and scientists in white lab coats, 106 of whom have been awarded Nobel prizes."².

It's certainly a sound enough recommendation, but nothing is this simple. Frederick Seitz probably wore a "white lab coat". He is a very credentialed PhD physicist, the recipient of the National Medal of Science, the Franklin Medal, the Herbert Hoover Medal, the Defense Department Distinguished Service Award, as well as two NASA Distinguished Service Awards, and The Compton Award. He is a President Emeritus of Rockefeller University Former President of the National Academy of Sciences, Recipient of the Fourth Vannevar Bush Award and the R. Loveland Memorial Award of the American College of Physicians, former President of New York City Commission for Science and Technology, Former Chair of the United States delegation to the U.N. Committee on Science and Technology for Development, as well as over 20 honorary degrees.

Seitz used his stellar credentials to obtain a job working for tobacco companies', and on their behalf he argued for several decades that cigarette smoke was benign. He also used his credentials to rally scientists against climate change evidence. He cited his awards to establish a foundation used to advocate "sound science", that bolstered political positions in order to undermine real scientific evidence. He often inserted himself and his impressive credentials in between business and public health, especially when business interests seemed in conflict with public health risks.

Reference Regulation

This isn't to denigrate the expertise of scientists and doctors and lawyers, but upon occasion experts are as fallible, capable of bias or deception as non-experts. In science and medicine, sycophants to pedigree have enabled huge sweeping, expensive catastrophes and personal tragedies. Renowned scientists have produced false data, and a recent study found that 44,000 to 98,000 Americans a year die from medical errors, many from credentialed doctors.

Nevertheless, everyday as consumers of information we must make decisions; judge the validity of a medical study funded by pharmaceutical companies, learn why science facts are excised out of government science reports, and try to figure out whether the "man on the street" is being candid about the technology or astroturfing while we live our busy lives.

Banning Wikipedia may rightly force students to find alternative sources of information but what data is reliable? Are professors guiding students, elaborating about how history books can be slanted? Do they explain that newspaper articles can distort the facts, as can the evening news? What biases do they bring to their lectures? Are we saying that primary sources don't have opinions, that their value systems are not intermingled with their accounts? We can hopefully vouch for the fact that primary sources said what they said, if they're speaking on camera, but do we know they meant it? Marketing and public relations have altered the landscape and many people have no compunction about standing up and lying on camera. Scientist who do primary research recognize the myriad challenges to designing and conducting experiments to generate and report accurate, relevant data. Pedigree is a very imperfect standard for assessing truth, as is the internet.³

The skill of assessing sources should be honed in college by practice not rules. A professor can be the arbiter of sources for a semester, and a college or librarian may serve that role for a few years, but our future depends on students mastering these skills for life.

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¹We're biased. We like encyclopedias (in general). We love Wikipedia's mission and are forever impressed with the information we find. We often link to Wikipedia to give readers background to subjects we editorialize. We also choose not to link to Wikipedia when articles about controversial medical procedures or public health/policy issues understate risks or read more like product literature.

²Suggesting that the government sanctioned sources is different than the proposed Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (FRPAA) which would require federally funded researchers to post papers online after six months.

³ There is a book on this called "Who Controls The Internet?" that's well-argued.

Back to the 70's

PBS "Frontline" airs the first of a four part series tonight, called "News Wars: Secret Spin and The Future of News". According to the show, in the aftermath of Watergate journalists enjoyed a level of respect in a touted "watchdog" role. That role and the respect attached to it has now diminished under political, economic, and legal pressures. The show will cover a lot of ground, but one question it ponders is whether American media can continue to be withstand these current pressures without morphing into insignificance, or becoming a compliant agent of state and corporate interests.

Some people might not care about these issues. I'm sure some believe that news and its demise or survival is irrelevant or even beneficial to blogging and that the print news and its future have little to do with science. However for years people have complained that mainstream news more often delivers pablum then news. Most of us readily question that which is called "news" is, as does the show. Even this site, Acronym Required, was partially spurred into existence by the fact that science in mainstream news was incomplete, misleading, and often inaccurate. What actually put us over the edge was a television news story that presented Lyme tick arthritis as a threat comparable in scope and severity to the AIDS epidemic. We've hardly remained faithful to the original purpose, and now there are hundreds of science blogs that cover these issues succinctly, as well as blogs on history, economics and politics that do also.

Jon Stewart has been addressing quality of news issues on The Daily Show for ten years. Academic studies and even the mainstream media acknowledge that the Daily Show is a more comprehensive compendium of current events and politics as a "fake" news show than most evening news shows. A contingent of independent journalists, citizen journalists, and bloggers fill in the gaps of traditional media. When the New York Times writes front page articles supporting the war in Iraq based on unquestioned "leaks" that reporters receive from White House officials, as they did during the build-up to the Iraq war, or publishes a front page story supporting administration's agenda against Iran, as they did yesterday, independent journalists and bloggers step in to take a stand.

Not content with accepting obsequious news for information, many readers seek out independent journalists whose writing, observations, protests and collective blogospheric activity fits their own world view or satisfies curiosity not met on the evening news. Journalism that is not mainstream has become increasingly important. Lowell Bergman and Steve Talbot of "Frontline" spoke to the influence of the internet in their talk about the upcoming "Frontline" show back on January 11th. While recognizing the web as a disruptive force on traditional media, they also stated that 85% of new information is delivered via traditional reporting. They seemed to acknowledge that new media is a force to be reckoned with while at the same time questioning whether it is capable of the challenge it sets for itself. Or whether in the end it would be subsumed by traditional media. To wit, they reported (and we don't know what's happened since) that "The Daily Show" was being courted by the Washington Post to cover the 2008 campaign. This is the same Washington Post that asked just last year whether Jon Stewart was "An Enemy of Democracy?"

Other than to mention the web's sometimes beleaguered image, we won't dwell on this theme now except to note that blogging or its approach has a place on most mainstream papers, albeit after much kicking and screaming by those same papers. Even some major editorialists like the New York Times' Frank Rich have incorporated the online style by including hyperlinks to outside sources within recent Times editorials. Why shun sensible technology?

Going To Jail

What is potentially more threatening to independent bloggers and citizen journalists than being incorporated into traditional media, are the new strong armed tactics of the government. While science bloggers aren't necessarily writing contentious topics that would prompt government crackdowns, censorship will have a widespread effect on many independent journalists.

To this end, "Frontline's" "News Wars" also addresses the issue of who has the right to publish. The show notes that the Judith Miller case established the prerogative of government to demand a journalists' sources, something that since the 1970's has been completely off limits. The government is now using this precedent to prosecute other journalists who try to protect sources. Documenting this history, the show contends that we haven't seen this type of encroachment on journalistic freedom for 35 years.

Again, independent journalists and certainly not scientist journalists might not feel an immediate chill from these developments. However citizen journalists and independent journalists potentially have the most to lose. Large, established media outlets, like the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, can afford to hire lawyers to protect their journalists from the types of legal demands that the government is making. However independent journalists who try to cover news not covered by traditional media don't necessarily have the legal and institutional resources to back them up.

Josh Wolf is one such journalist, imprisoned for the last six months in a Dublin, California federal correctional institution for refusing to share his sources with a federal grand jury. He was interviewed for the Frontline show, and was also interviewed from his jail cell for the show Democracy Now yesterday. As an independent journalist, Josh filmed a G-8 protest in San Francisco. The Federal government became aware of the footage via his site, and claimed that he had more film footage that federal prosecutors could use to investigate whether crimes were committed during the protest. They also wanted to use him as a witness against protesters. Josh refused to turn over the footage. The state of California affords journalists the right to protect sources. However federal prosecutors are circumventing California State law in order to imprison Josh Wolf.

Furthermore, in a January 29th document, according to Democracy Now, federal prosecutors stated that it was in Josh Wolf's "imagination" that he was a journalist. Asked by "Democracy Now" to comment on the characterization, Wolf questioned the right of the state to designate who was and who wasn't a journalist. The Society of Professional Journalists named Josh Wolf Northern California 2006 Journalist of the Year and awarded him the James Madison Award for Online Journalism.

Wolf noted that newspaper journalists faced with similar charges are threatened with imprisonment based on circuit court decisions, whereas he was imprisoned immediately after his hearing, and has been incarcerated throughout ninth circuit court proceedings. Martin Garbis, Wolf's lawyer, notes that the grand jury is a thinly veiled attempt on the part of a joint terrorism task force to identify and persecute people who are hostile to the Bush administration.

These new rules on how journalists are allowed to report could continue to frame how independent journalism is or isn't allowed the freedom to contribute to how citizens think about pertinent issues, matters of science, history, politics, or international affairs. The Frontline show will address these and many other themes central to today's journalism. Based the January 11th presentation the shows seem like they'll be really compelling. The third hour deals with the fate of the Los Angeles Times, which has been pressed by it's nonlocal corporate owners to discontinue investigative reporting, and has also faced significant and destructive reorganization. The fourth hour was outlined in January by Bergman and Talbot, they thought it might cover a South Korean site called OhmyNews.com. However the show wasn't completely edited at the time and the current Frontline website suggests that the final hour might highlight the role of Arab media in influencing politics and news.

The non-science world reels with bad news -- national, international, all of it. We shudder and shut our eyes tightly as we pass the news stands, we cover our ears when we hear a radio or TV. But while much of the bad news emanates from Washington, Washingtonians have mastered an uncanny ability to forget it all. Have you noticed? Famously forgetful the Bush administration jeopardizes world affairs with its amnesia. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, when asked why the U.S. invaded Iraq when Korea posed an imminent nuclear threat, said that "North Korea was sui generis", a particular case. Veterans of the Korean War, stunned by Korea's bellicosity, plea that we don't forget North Korea's aggression in the "forgotten war". But the Secretary of State can't seem to even keep track of recent wars. Asked about why the U.S. invaded Iraq, she recalled spuriously: "We actually went to war against Iraq in 1991 because they invaded and tried to annex Kuwait...", as if she forgot when and why the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 and by declaring events this way could distort her listeners memories too.

Not long ago, when reports suggested that Rice might have had a meeting with George Tenet before 9/11 when he warned her of possible Al Qaeda attacks, she morphed into apoplectic horror. She declared herself appalled by the allegations, she would remember the event she insisted. Has Rice merely perfected the scrunched up insulted expression of a prim goody two shoes in order to glibly side step reality? If we were to take the act at face value, the idea that Rice "does not recall" -- seemingly, anything -- alarms us. Is she afflicted by a rare disease, previously disregarded -- like chikungunya, but that affects neural cells? Has she caught a virus endemic to "Foggy Bottom"?

Unfortunately Rice can't be described as "Sui generis" in this way. Donald Rumsfeld scratches his forhead through every interview, squinting into the distance and wending and winding his way around various outcomes of his decisions. Shouldn't the leader of the Pentagon be mentally sharp as a tack? Reportedly he had only the "vaguest recollection" of warnings by top brass on the ground in Iraq about his strategy. In his 'fruit in a fruitbowl' analogy, he compared escalating insurgent attacks in Iraq incongruously to apples and bananas and oranges.

Congress, of course, epitomizes the symptoms of the affliction. In the latest in a long string of scandals, key Republicans knew about Mark Foley's flagitious ways but forgot to oust him, or, alternatively, lost the facts in the legislative shuffle. No one informed Senator Hastert of Foley's messages to pages, or perhaps Tom Reynolds told him but "brought it in with a whole stack of things". Our elected legislators find too multi-tasking onerous, apparently. Foley on the other hand, takes a break from harrassment to "remember" that he's an alcoholic, an abused child, a gay and in need of rehab -- thus maligning and misrepresenting all who are abused, gay or alcoholic. We're nervous, scared maybe, to watch Washington come apart into a billion little pieces.

The forgetfulness afflicts news reporters too. Millions of Americans protested the Iraq invasion 3 years ago and have kept up the chatter ever since, but some pundits didn't seem to know that Iraq policy was amok. Only now do they declare Iraq policy officially a disaster, now that Bob Woodward says so in his book. Woodward himself didn't realize the gravity of Iraq for two whole best-selling books, despite his experience in Vietnam and the sleuthing skills he honed in the 1970's. It's obvious, he now declares amnesiacally in State of Denial, that Mr. Bush isn't measuring up as the great president he was a year or so ago.

These memory glitches may help legislators forge ahead to their next crisis, but it seems detrimental to the world's welfare. How could so many Phi Beta Kappas be so forgetful? We've previously chalked up these lapses, these failures to keep apprised of the truth, to willful mendacity. But if we weren't convinced that this is a case of crooked, decietful, greedy and cavalier leadership, we would think that such rabid forgetfulness is disease based (not really their fault). Scientists often feel beseiged by politics and politicians, but if we were to treat this like a disease, we would brush that chip off our shoulders and reach across the aisle. Science can help. We'd start low tech -- rest, relaxation, exercise, simple nutrition. Perhaps if all of Washington were to eat yellow curries containing curcumin they would remember more -- or at least be less prone to amyloid plaque formation which can lead to Alzheimers disease. If they despise curry they could follow a simple Mediterannean diet, which reduces inflamation of the brain and may also protect against Alzheimer's. No Freedom or French Fries, no ketchup, etc.

If the forgetfulness persisted then we could apply more high tech solutions. Drugs could help, maybe, although doctors question their efficacy. Drugs that increase levels of protein kinase A may benefit the hippocampus but may harmfully affect the prefrontal cortex, which is also involved with memory. Anti-psychotic drugs, already disputed by psychologists for their inefficacy for other conditions are not recommended by doctors for treatment of memory loss, but perhaps desperate times require desperate measures. Finally technologists like to remind politicians that fact checking becomes easier with the internet, they could check their facts, or the voters will check for them. Google *Truth* could remind politicians and citizens what's fact and fiction. Finally, there's always elections, the ultimate surgical but low-tech cure.