Crime and Punishment

 
True to their ideology, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have introduced another "get tough on crime" bill. This one increases the jail sentences for gang-related killings.

There's only one problem. It won't work. Everyone with an IQ over 100 knows that you can't stop gang violence by just increasing prison terms for the ones who get caught.

Today's Toronto Star has two articles on the topic. The first one, Tory gang approach too little too late: critics, explains the consensus opinion of leading criminologists.

The punitive response may play well to citizens who fear gun battles erupting on city streets. But that get-tough approach lards the Criminal Code with redundant laws that haven't worked in other countries, says criminologist Irvin Waller.

"This is yet again a debate about penalties when it's very clear from looking south of the border that these penalties do not make a lot of difference to the number of people killed," he said.

"It's not a debate about what will actually stop them from happening."

Waller, a professor at the University of Ottawa, wrote the book Less Law, More Order to educate politicians on prevention and smart policing practices that have worked in other countries.

The second article, Critics say more jail time won't help curb violence, goes into more detail about what the experts are saying.

Criminologists predict tough sentences won't be effective in preventing gun and gang violence

Proposals to slap first-degree murder charges and tougher sentences on gangsters and police assailants will have little practical effect on curbing gang crime and gun violence, criminologists and other critics say.

More front-line officers, more intrusive investigative police powers and more resources for crime prevention are needed, they say.

Ross Hastings, director of the Institute for the Prevention of Crime at the University of Ottawa, joins other criminologists in arguing there is no evidence tougher sentences deter criminals, but the "certainty of being caught" is more likely to do so.

Nonetheless, amid an alarming rise in Vancouver's gang violence, politicians of all stripes rushed yesterday to endorse federal proposals to label gang killings first-degree murder offences, and to stiffen jail terms for drive-by or reckless gang-motivated shootings and assaults on police.

All three federal opposition parties promised to fast-track the measures proposed by the Tories.

I'm disappointed in all four political parties. Most of our MP's have IQ's above 100 and they know the rational response to gang violence. They know that this bill will be completely ineffective.

The only reason for supporting it is to pander to voters who don't understand the problem. There are far too many voters whose knee-jerk reaction in the face of any crime is to call for "justice" by increasing jail time. A majority of those voters probably support the Conservatives so there's nothing to be gained by the opposition parties' lack of fortitude.

Shame on Stephen Harper for his (probable) hypocrisy. Shame on Michael Ingatieff, Jack Layton, and Gilles Duceppe for being even more hypocritical. They should know better.

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Darwin Stamps

 
A few days ago I got a letter from the Royal Mail. It was a complete set of Darwin stamps issued by the Royal Mail in the UK to honour Charles Darwin. You can see some of them on the right. They are stunning. Thank-you Ms. Sandwalk for arranging to have them sent.

I also got a postcard from Kate. She mailed it from London on Darwin's birthday. It was addressed to someone called "The Nutty Professor" but for some strange reason it ended up in my mailbox anyway. Thank-you Kate & Mick.

Great Britain, especially London, was the intellectual capital of the world back in Queen Victoria's time. Most of the world's top scientists were there and the number of scientific advances that came out of that environment was truly amazing.

Much of it was due to the wealth of the British Empire (science loves money) but also to the intellectual freedom, individualism, and entrepreneurship that was characteristic of that society. It was the same society that created the industrial revolution and sustained it for one hundred years.¹

What's amazing is that not only did Victorian England nurture and support men like Charles Darwin but that today, 150 years later, Great Britain is still proud to celebrate the scientist whose name is most closely associated with evolution.

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1. Eat your heart out, Ken Miller (Only a Theory). :-)

Matt Nisbet Chooses Sides

 
Carl Zimmer has posted another article on the Geroge Will affair [Unchecked Ice: A Saga in Five Chapters]. Recall that George Will made a number of scientifically inaccurate comments in his Washington Post article last week. He defends himself in another column today.

Carl dissects the issue in order to set the record, straight. Any decent science journalist should be concerned about accuracy and I'm pleased that Carl has made an effort to stand up for the truth. The Washington Post takes the brunt of the blame.

What has kept me hooked on this saga is not George Will’s errors. Errors are as common as grass. Some are made out of ignorance, some carefully constructed to give a misleading impression. What has kept me agog is the way the editors at the Washington Post have actually given their stamp of approval on Will’s columns, even claiming to have fact-checked them and seeing no need for a single correction.

Chris Mooney has also attacked the newspaper for it's lack of integrity [George Will Lies; His Editor Does Nothing].

Many of the column's incorrect factual assertions were challenged, and as Will is revisiting the column due to the response it has garnered, it's inconceivable that he doesn't know that. For God's sake, Will claimed that "according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade." That's false. And Will doesn't even address the issue at all in his latest column.

Meanwhile, the Post's editorial page editor Fred Hiatt has made himself look terrible over all this. He should have held Will to the truth and thereby upheld his paper's standards. Instead he tells CJR this:

"It may well be that he is drawing inferences from data that most scientists reject -- so, you know, fine, I welcome anyone to make that point. But don't make it by suggesting that George Will shouldn't be allowed to make the contrary point. Debate him."

All of this is good. It is highly appropriate that science journalists reestablish their credibility by criticizing amateurs who don't know what they're talking about.

Where is Matt Nisbet in all of this? Here's what Nisbet says in In the Clamor Over George Will, Pundits Win But Public Loses.

The same observation currently applies to the clamor over George Will's recent syndicated column on global warming. As I detail in a cover article at the March/April issue of the journal Environment, Will's column is part of a decade-old message playbook on climate change, effectively (and falsely) framing the problem in terms of lingering scientific uncertainty.

The irony of this latest netroots clamor is that dozens of bloggers are just feeding the George Will beast, sustaining and amplifying attention to his false claims about climate science while providing easy cues to the public that the issue can be readily interpreted through the lens of partisanship and ideology. (Sound familiar? As I wrote at Skeptical Inquirer, the same thing happened in the initial response to Ben Stein's anti-evolution doc Expelled.)

The conflict and heat generated not only focuses more attention on Will's preferred uncertainty interpretations, but it also distracts from the narratives and frames that are actually likely to build broad-based support for action. As I note in the Environment article, these frames include an emphasis on the moral and religious imperative to action along with a focus on the public health and energy innovation dimensions of climate change.

Over the past two years, many of us have been pointing out the conflict between "framing" and scientific accuracy. Now Nisbet makes it perfectly clear. If you criticize the scientific accuracy of an article in the main stream media then you might be hurting the cause.

The implication is that you should let scientific errors go unchallenged because challenging them give them credence. The more insidious implication is that scientific inaccuracy may be okay as long as it advances the cause.

It seems to me that Nisbet's view and Chris Mooney's recent claims are not compatible. I look forward to seeing how Mooney replies to Nisbet. Chris has already tried to distance himself from Nisbet last Spring over the Ben Stein affair [see For Once, Chris Mooney Talks Sense].

Internecine framing wars, what could be more fun than that?

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The Atheist Ad Campaign on The Agenda

 
TV Ontario (TVO) has a daily program called The Agenda with Steve Paikin. It's usually very good.

Last week they had a show on the atheist bus campaign featuring Justin Trottier of the Center for Inquiry and Robert Buckman, a well-known Toronto atheist. Here's the entire show. I don't think any one of the participants is particularly proud of their performance. But see below ....


At one point in the show, the Christian woman, Kathy Shaidle, brings up the "Stalin, the atheist, killed 30 million people (therefore God exists)" argument and Robert Buckman tries to answer in a reasonable manner. He doesn't do a bad job (excerpt below) but Canadian Cynic has a suggestion: What Robert Buckman should have said.

I caution Sandwalk readers that CC's language can be a bit crude ... but it sure is funny.

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Nobel Laureate: Kary Mullis

 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1993.

"for contributions to the developments of methods within DNA-based chemistry: for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method"


Kary B. Mullis (1944 - ) won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the polymerase chain reaction technique. This technique is used to amplify a given stretch of DNA by repeatedly copying it several dozen times. The technique has been honed and modified and it's now a standard tool in every biochemistry and molecular biology laboratory.

Mullis shared the prize with last week's Nobel Laureate, Michael Smith, who developed the technique of in vitro mutagenesis. I'm not a big fan of awarding Nobel Prizes to those who develop a new technique. I'm much more comfortable with awards to scientists who directly advance our understanding of how life works. That's why my personal favorites are Nobel Laureates like Jacques Monod, François Jacob, Ed Lewis, Otto Warburg, Linus Pauling, André Lwoff, Barbara McClintock, and Peter Mitchell (plus many others).

Fortunately, it usually turns out that the winners of "technology" prizes are very good scientists who have also made a significant contribution to advancing our knowledge of fundamental concepts. That's certainly true of Michael Smith, Walter Gilbert, and Fred Sanger, to name just a few.

Kary Mullis was an unusual recipient in many ways. You can get a flavor for his personality by reading his Autobiography and, especially, his Nobel Lecture. There has never been a speech like that in the history of the Nobel Prize and, chances are, there will never be another.

Read about Kary Mullis on Wikipedia to see what he's been up to since he stopped being an active scientist in 1988. By the time he was awarded the Nobel Prize he was concentrating on being a writer. (This might explain the speech!)

Here's the Press Release describing Kary Mullis' contribution.

THEME:
Nobel Laureates

The "Polymerase Chain Reaction" (PCR)

The PCR technique was first presented as recently as 1985 but is nevertheless already one of the most widespread methods of analysing DNA. With PCR it is possible to replicate several million times, in a test tube, an individual DNA segment of a complicated genetic material. Mullis has described how he got the idea for the PCR during a night drive in the Californian mountains. Two short oligonucleotides are synthesized so that they are bound correctly to opposite strands of the DNA segment it is wished to replicate. At the points of contact an added enzyme (DNA polymerase) can start to read off the genetic code and link code words through which two new double strands of DNA are formed. The sample is then heated, which makes the strands separate so that they can be read off again. The procedure is then repeated time after time, doubling at each step the number of copies of the desired DNA segment. Through such repetitive cycles it is possible to obtain millions of copies of the desired DNA segment within a few hours. The procedure is very simple, requiring in theory only a test tube and some heat sources, even though there are now commercial PCR apparatuses that manage the whole procedure automatically and with great precision.


The PCR method can be used for reduplicating a segment of a DNA molecule, e.g. from a blood sample. The procedure is repeated 20-60 times, which can give millions of DNA copies in a few hours.

As has site-directed mutagenesis, the PCR method has decisively improved the outlook for basic research. The sequencing and cloning of genes has been appreciably simplified. PCR has also made Smith's method of site-directed mutagenesis more efficient. Since it is possible with PCR to perform analyses on extremely small amounts of material, it is easy to determine genetic and evolutionary connections between different species. It is very probable that PCR combined with DNA sequencing is going to represent a revolutionary new instrument for studies of the systematics of plant and animal species.

The biomedical applications of the PCR method are already legion. Now that it is possible to discover very small amounts of foreign DNA in an organism, viral and bacterial infections can be diagnosed without the time-consuming culture of microorganisms from patient samples. PCR is now being used, for example, to discover HIV infections. The method can also be exploited to localise the genetic alterations underlying hereditary diseases. Thus PCR, like site-directed mutagenesis, has a great potential within gene therapy. Without the PCR method, the HUGO project, with its objective of determining every single DNA code in, among other things, the human genetic material, would hardly be realistic. In police investigations PCR can give decisive information since it is now possible to analyse the DNA in a single drop of blood or in a hair found at the scene of a crime.

Another fantastic application is that it is possible to mass-produce DNA from fossil remains. Researchers have, for example, succeeded in producing genetic material from insects that have been extinct for more than 20 million years by using the PCR method on DNA extracted from amber. This possibility has already inspired authors of science fiction. The very popular film "Jurassic Park" is about the fear that arises when researchers using PCR recreate extinct giant reptiles.

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The images of the Nobel Prize medals are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation (© The Nobel Foundation). They are used here, with permission, for educational purposes only.

[Photo Credit: Geschichte der PCR]

Congratulations Carl Zimmer

 
It's often said that "real" science journalists are passionate about presenting accurate science [see Chris Mooney].

Strangely, in spite of this passion, they've tended to remain very silent when a major newspaper publishes inaccurate scientific information—at least in the fields I'm interested in.

That changed a little bit with the George Will affair in the past week. George Will is a Pulitzer Roze winning journalist (not a science journalist). He wrote about global climate change in The Washington Post. Apparently there's another piece in the press.

Carl Zimmer takes him on: George Will: Locked In Ice!. Congratulations Carl! This is why you are one of the best science journalists.

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Teaching the Controversy: Astrology & Genesis

 
Here's how Neil deGrasse Tyson teaches us about astrology. The idea is to get people to realize that astrology is bunk.



My daughter's teacher (with an M.Sc. in chemistry) used this technique on her Grade 5 class. I dare say it did some good in promoting critical thinking.

Why can't we do the same with some other pseudoscience topics, like Young Earth Creationism? Why can't we teach critical thinking by getting young students to think about the consequences of a deluge that wiped out all of humanity in 2600 BC?¹ They could discuss why the Egyptian records failed to notice that every single Egyptian lost their life sometime during the third dynasty when the pyramids were being built. They could do a simple calculation to see how you get from Noah and his family to 45 million people in the Roman Empire. (And possibly 300 million people in the world at about the time when Julius Caesar was born.)

Why can't we do that? Because religion has special protection from this kind of critical analysis. You can attack astrology but you can't attack anything religious no matter how silly it might be.

We should try and change that. Let's have more classroom discussion about the conflict between science and some religious beliefs. The well known seminar by Ricky Gervais (below) shows how you could do it. It should be required viewing in all Grade 5 classrooms!

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1. They could also think about the kind of God who would do this.

[Hat Tip: Friendly Atheist: The Quick Astrology Test]

It's Good to Blog

 
Today's editorial in Nature declares, It's good to blog.

Indeed, researchers would do well to blog more than they do. The experience of journals such as Cell and PLoS ONE, which allow people to comment on papers online, suggests that researchers are very reluctant to engage in such forums. But the blogosphere tends to be less inhibited, and technical discussions there seem likely to increase.

Moreover, there are societal debates that have much to gain from the uncensored voices of researchers. A good blogging website consumes much of the spare time of the one or several fully committed scientists that write and moderate it. But it can make a difference to the quality and integrity of public discussion.

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[Hat Tip: Chance and Necessity]

Is the bus ad campaign working?

 
The atheist bus campaign is being run and organized by a small group of individuals who have put a lot or work into it. Most of them are members of Freethought Association of Canada whose President is Justin Trottier.

I support the campaign to put atheist ads on city buses for the following reasons.

1. It supports other atheists and encourages them to "come out of the closet" and discuss their atheism openly.
2. It stimulates debate and discussion within our society, often raising questions that many have never seriously considered.
3. For those who get it, it injects a welcome note of humor into a subject that really needs it.

The campaign will be a success if it attracts attention and gets people talking about rationalism and superstition. That discussion has already been kick-started by several best-selling books in the past few years and this ad campaign will keep the discussion going.

Up until recently, atheism was rarely mentioned in the main stream media and atheists were never interviewed on television. All that has changed in recent years and now you can hardly do a story on religion without getting the "other side." That's remarkable progress in a very short period of time. Today, it looks like more that 20% of Canadians are atheists and that number is growing rapidly in spite of what religious leaders might tell you.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. The atheist bus campaign is worried because Global TV calls Atheists ‘Fanatics’?, but that's missing the point. The point is that a show like this would have been unheard of ten years ago. Look at how Christian, Muslim, and Jewish leaders are now obliged to defend their belief in God.

There's a remarkable segment in this video beginning at 4:30. The head of Toronto's Transit Commission is asked whether the TTC would approve some religious ads written up by the host of the TV show. The TTC head says, "These, would be more than welcome." That's the correct answer. Game on.

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Atheist bus ads are up and running in Toronto

 
I'm told that buses with the atheist ads are on the streets of Toronto, although I haven't seen one yet. If you spot one, you are asked to take a photo and post it on the official website of the Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign [Photos of the Atheist Bus ads in Toronto].

I'm pleased to report that so far there haven't been any reports of people fainting in the street and crime levels have remained steady in spite of the threat to Toronto's morals.

Meanwhile, the ads have been turned down in Ottawa and Halifax. We're waiting to hear from Calgary. Check atheistbus.ca for the latest updates. While you're there, donate some money to the cause. I gave them $100 and that's just a beginning. The campaign has raised $45,500 so far.

Click on the image below to see the fine print. It says "www.atheistbus.ca This advert was paid for by public donations." I'm really proud of the fact that the Canadian campaign doesn't shy away from using the word "atheist." After all, that's what it's all about.

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Monday's Molecule #109: Winners!

 
UPDATE: The molecule is the Klenow fragment of E. coli DNA polymerase I. It's the part of the enzyme that's missing the 5′→3′ exonulcease activity. The Nobel Laureate is Kary Mullis, one of the most eccentric scientists ever to win a Nobel Prize—and that's saying a lot because Nobel Laureates are a very unusual group.

The winner is Guy Plunket III from the University of Wisconsin. There was no undergraduate winner this week so I awarded the second prize to Deb McKay, who is currently teaching in a Toronto high school. Her answer wasn't perfect but she offered me a bribe I couldn't refuse.¹

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Today's molecule is actually two molecules but we only care about the protein. You need to identify this protein, being as specific as possible. A general description of the type of protein won't do because the image clearly show a particular version.

There's are several possible Noble Laureates associated with this molecule. One of them was Michael Smith—last week's Nobel Laureate. The person I'm looking for was never a Professor. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it just helps you narrow down the field of possible prize winners.

The first person to identify the molecule and the Nobel Laureate wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first won the prize.

There are seven ineligible candidates for this week's reward: John Bothwell from the Marine Biological Association of the UK, in Plymouth (UK), Wesley Butt of the University of Toronto, David Schuller of Cornell University, Nova Syed of the University of Toronto, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin and undergraduate Alex Ling of the University of Toronto, and James Fraser of the University of California, Berkeley.

John, David, and Dima have offered to donate their free lunch to a deserving undergraduate so I'm going to continue to award an additional free lunch to the first undergraduate student who can accept a free lunch. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you came make it for your free lunch (with a friend).

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Laureate(s) so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow. I reserve the right to select multiple winners if several people get it right.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

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1. A sneak peek at the new science curriculum for Ontario schools. Were you thinking of something else, perhaps?

Short Term Gains at NIH (USA)

 
Alex Palazzo highlights the shortsightedness of the stimulus package when it comes to NIH funded projects [NIH & the Stimulus in the NY Times].

I agree with him 100%. Science doesn't work that way. We once had that problem in Canada. A temporary increase in funding of the granting agencies lead to compounding the pain of the inevitable budget cut a few years later.

At least Alex won't have to deal with that problem when he arrives in Canada this summer. This time our government avoided the problem by starting with the budget cuts! What a relief not to have to worry about how to spent all those extra dollars....

Thank-you Stephen Harper. And thanks also to our Minister of State (Science and Technology), Gary Goodyear. Dr. (sic) Goodyear (above) is a chiropractor. It's nice to know our science policy is in such good hands.

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Why We Immunize

 
Normally I don't write about the people who oppose immunizing children. I leave that to Orac and others. There are so many crazy people out there that the average skeptic simply doesn't have time to fight them all.

Here's an article by Jim Macdonald that Orac linked to: Why We Immunize. Everyone should read it.

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Do You Have Biblical Morals?

 
Oops. I thought for sure I'd do better than PZ Myers.

Your morality is 0% in line with that of the bible.

 

Damn you heathen! Your book learnin' has done warped your mind. You shall not be invited next time I sacrifice a goat.

Do You Have Biblical Morals?
Take More Quizzes

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The Future of Science Journalism

 
Chris Mooney warns us that science journalism is in trouble. He notes that many newspapers are firing their science writers and he warns of the dangers [The Death and Strangulation of Science Journalism].

What's disturbing, though, is to see a meta-discussion of the "trouble" with the practitioners of science journalism without any discussion of the real "trouble": the economic realities that are killing them off, one by one.

Memo to scientists: If you don't like science journalists, you're going to like even less what you get once they're gone.

I responded by saying ....

Not to worry. We'll figure out some way to frame it so that it sounds like a good thing!

:-)

Seriously, most of what passes for science journalism is so bad we will be better of without it.

Maybe the general public would have been more interested in science if science journalists hadn't been writing so much hype about "breakthroughs" for the past twenty years. Maybe the public would have been more interested in science if so-called "science" journalists hadn't been confused about the difference between science and technology.

Science isn't about what the latest discoveries can do to make your life better. It's about learning how the natural world actually works. It's all about knowledge and not application or politics.

Science journalists have let us down. I say good riddance.

Now Chris has started a separate thread in order to disucuss this point [Science Journalism: When Things Get Rough, You Find Out Who Your Real Friends Are].

My post last week about the death knell of science journalism prompted some incredible responses. Here's Larry Moran, putting it more bluntly than I expected, and enunciating an opinion we'd better hope does not prevail:

...

Breathtaking, huh? I seriously hope opinions like this are not very widespread in the scientific community.

Well Chris, I hate to tell you this but there are plenty of scientists who share my opinion, even though they may not have put it so bluntly.

And you know what, Chris? You and Matt are partly to blame for this sad state of affairs. I know you don't want to talk about framing because you have "moved on," but your criticism of scientists didn't do a lot to inspire our confidence in science journalism.

But let's move on and look at what you have to say today.

Honestly, based upon the foregoing, I have to question whether Larry Moran knows what a science journalist is--or at least, whether we're talking about the same thing. For it seems to me that virtually everything he's complaining about, a real science journalist would complain about as well.

Take the media slights against science described above--the hyping of "breakthrough" findings, the confusion of science and technology, and the swapping of serious science coverage for "feel good" or "news you can use" infotainment fare. Although you will certainly find exceptions, in general these aren't the fault of dyed-in-the-wool science journalists, of the sort that proudly claim membership in the National Association of Science Writers (as I do). In fact, you can bet that within their respective media organizations--when they still were working within them; most of NASW today is freelance--science journalists have fought against many such calls over the years.

And you can also bet that they frequently lost out in those internal battles.

I don't believe you.

But, for the sake of argument, let's assume that you are correct. Let's assume that most science journalists know full well that science doesn't produce weekly breakthroughs (all evidence to the contrary). Let's assume that most science journalists know the difference between science and technology. Let's assume that what they really want to do is write about how science leads to advances in understanding of the natural world instead of sensationalizing the subject by writing about, .... oh, let's say, "hurricanes, politics, and the battle over global warming."

Even if everything you say is true, the bottom line is that science journalists failed to make their case and were "forced" to do the bidding of senior editors—or whoever it is you blame.

If that's case, why should we support the status quo and stand up for the people who have (according to you) failed to deliver the goods?

The point is that nobody loves science more than science journalists--and nobody more devoutly wishes to see it covered accurately and widely, so that the "general public" thereby benefits, and comes to appreciate science more thoroughly. So how is it that now, a scientist like Larry Moran won't stand up for these science evangelists in the media, and blames them for a host of failings that, in truth, they themselves most assuredly abhor?

I gave you my answer. It's because I don't believe you. Is George Johnson one of your examples? How about Graham Lawton?

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that every science journalist is doing a bad job. I've tried hard to pick out the good ones and give them the credit they deserve. What I'm saying is that, from my perspective, the majority of science journalists do not behave in the way you describe. It's all too easy to find articles that get the science wrong and articles that are more hype than reality.

Face the facts Chris, science journalists have not been very successful at finding allies among scientists. There's a very good reason for that. Try reading about the kerfluffle over the New Scientist cover to get a feeling for the problem.

Here's another exercise for anyone who cares about the quality of science journalism, as I do. Read the press releases on ScienceDaily. You won't find very many scientists who are impressed with that kind of science journalism.

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