An excellent idea, and Dr. R.W. has a list of some things that every medical journalist should know. My favorites? These:
Outline the scientific method. (I'm betting there are a lot of journalists out there reporting on medicine who can't outline the scientific method.)
Explain why consideration of biologic plausibility is important in the evaluation of health claims and why evidence based medicine often fails when biologic plausibility is not taken into account. (This one is hard, but knowing the answer would eliminate a lot of truly ignorant articles like the one Parker-Pope wrote yesterday.)
I was surprised that Orac picked teaching the scientific method as one of his favorites. I don't think there's any such thing as a "scientifc method" that garners majority support among scientists and/or philosophers. This led to a discussion in the comments section of his post.
What do you think? Is there a "scientific method"? If so, what is it?
Jonathan Wells made an announcement that sets my heart all aflutter. I just can't wait for his new book to appear Zombie Genes?.
Richard Dawkins, Douglas Futuyma, Michael Shermer, Philip Kitcher, Kenneth Miller, Jerry Coyne and John Avise have also written recent books in which they argue that much of the human genome consists of "junk DNA" that provides evidence for Darwinian evolution--and evidence against intelligent design.
But the notion of "junk DNA" owes more to the historical contortions of neo-Darwinian theory than to biological evidence. In fact, there is now a large and growing body of evidence that Collins, Dawkins, Futuyma, Shermer, Kitcher, Miller, Coyne and Avise are dead wrong on this point--as I will show in my forthcoming book, The Myth of Junk DNA.
I teach a course that analyzes the "science" behind Intelligent Design Creationism and the book we use is Icons of Evolution. Problem is, the students have already written over 100 essays on this book and there's little more they can say. The book has been thoroughly trashed.
Next year we'll have an entirely new Jonathan Wells book to kick around. Yeah!
Chad Orzel is bored so he asked his readers to Tell him something he doesn't know. It's lot's of fun reading the comments on his blog so I though I'd ask for more.
Can you tell me something I don't know? I can assure you that there's plenty of opportunities.
That got me thinking about how many professors our students need. It depends on which courses they take but a typical biochemistry student encounters lots more professors in their required biochemistry/molecular biology courses. How many? ....about 25-30!!!
Is that because biological sciences are so much harder than physics? :-)
Some people are enamored with the idea of collecting blogs together into some kind of consortium. Several of these people, Anton Zuiker, Bora Zivkovic and Dave Munger, were so traumatized by the defections from ScienceBlogs they decided to create a new site bringing together all the science blog groups [scienceblogging].
Summer of 2010 saw a rapid reorganization of the science blogging community. Where once ScienceBlogs reigned as the most important network of science bloggers, in the wake of many noted bloggers’ departure from ScienceBlogs, a new ecosystem arose in which many different networks were founded, or grew, and became much more visible and prominent.
While the change from a system in which a single network dominates to a system in which many networks, aggregators, and services are somewhat equally represented is a positive one, leading to a healthier overall ecosystem, this development posed a new difficulty for readers: how to keep track of all of these networks and blogs?
There is now no one-stop-shopping place for a daily fill of science and culture – instead, there are dozens of such places. Thus a need arose to aggregate all these networks in a single web page as a starting point leading to all of the diverse places where science is discussed online.
Is your blog part of a "network"? Mine isn't. If you don't belong to a group of science bloggers then you don't count as far as scienceblogging is concerned. Isn't that strange?
Don't bother with scienceblogging unless you share their opinion that independent science blogs aren't worth reading.
In Ontario there's been a bit of a kerfflufle lately over WiFi in public schools. It started when some parents in a town north of here claimed that their kids were getting sick in school because of radiation from WiFi networks. One parent (Patricia Naylor) claimed the she and one of her children were very sensitive to radiation. She formed the "Safe School Committee" to lobby for a ban on WiFi.
The claims have received considerable media attention leading to the inevitable spread of the problem as more and more parents "recognize" that their children suffer from nausea and lethargy in school and it must be due to radiation. A group of teachers almost supported a ban on WiFi in response to these parents.
The latest round occurred at a conference of The Ontario Elementary Teachers Federation where they voted down a resolution banning WiFi [Teachers not joining Wi-Fi fight].
The money quote comes from a trustee ...
Collingwood/Clearview Trustee Caroline Smith said the board must balance free speech with science, education and access to technology.
"In this case, a very small group of people came forward and actually one person brought forward a concern. Normally a school board can say ‘thank you’ (and stop at that). We said thank you and asked staff to do additional research. We brought in a scientist," she said.
"We allowed a second series of deputations (including Naylor in April) to come forward and we listened again," she said, adding she then put forward a motion asking for the education and health ministers for advice.
"We want our children to have the most modern pathways to education. We don’t want to tie their hands (by not giving them access to the technology that’s available)," she said.
The board’s program committee chairman, Trustee Rob North called the Safe School Committee’s stance "bizarre" in a blog, and criticized the group for relying on studies by a botanist which have not been peer-reviewed.
"It’s time to shut this down, folks. Junk science simply cannot be allowed to influence public policy decisions. Wireless technology, installed and operated correctly, is perfectly safe. The World Health Organization, Industry Canada, Health Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Health and countless others who have access to people who are experts in the fields of biology, electrical engineering and so on have deemed it to be safe," said North.
"I can tolerate people’s eccentricities for a while. I can wait while people vent about perceived injustices for hours on end. I can sit by and let some folks try to salvage their long lost credibility for a bit. But at the end of the day, sometimes you just have to look people squarely in the eyes and tell them, ‘I’m sorry, you’re wrong.’"
Socrates (~469 BC - 399 BC) was a teacher in Athens. Most of what we know about him comes from the writings of his students and contemporaries. Let's assume that Plato's depiction of his methods are accurate.
Here's a brief description of the Socratic Method from Wikipedia,
The Socratic method (or Method of Elenchus or Socratic Debate), named after the Classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas.[1] It is a dialectical method, often involving an oppositional discussion in which the defence of one point of view is pitted against the defence of another; one participant may lead another to contradict him in some way, strengthening the inquirer's own point. (Think about the question before you speak.)
The Socratic method is a negative method of hypothesis elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those that lead to contradictions. The Socratic method searches for general, commonly held truths that shape opinion, and scrutinizes them to determine their consistency with other beliefs. The basic form is a series of questions formulated as tests of logic and fact intended to help a person or group discover their beliefs about some topic, exploring the definitions or logoi (singular logos), seeking to characterize the general characteristics shared by various particular instances. To the extent to which this method is designed to bring out definitions implicit in the interlocutors' beliefs, or to help them further their understanding, it was called the method of maieutics. Aristotle attributed to Socrates the discovery of the method of definition and induction, which he regarded as the essence of the scientific method. Perhaps oddly, however, Aristotle also claimed that this method is not suitable for ethics.
The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
—attributed to
Socrates Why is this relevant? It's relevant because we've been discussing university education and whether it can be replaced by surfing the net. Whenever we talk about university education I want you to imagine what it SHOULD be like and not what it IS like. Imagine that university education actually focused on critical thinking. Imagine that students could learn like the pupils of Socrates.
Raise your hand if you actually think that modern students of Socrates could learn just as much on the internet as they could by engaging in dialogue? Everyone with their hand in the air is part of the problem and not part of the solution to what's wrong with university education.
Here's an interview with Don Tapscott where he tells us what's wrong with universities and why they need to become more student focused [The future of education: reboot required]. The main theme is that today's students are wise in the ways of the internet and that will force universities to change.
I think the net generation will be a key driver for change. They have the knowledge and tools to challenge the existing model, and I see a growing generational clash.
I also think some administrations will recognize that the writing is on the wall.
If students can pass a course by never attending class and watching the lectures online, why should the student be restricted to only those courses available at that university? If it's online, why not choose from the courses offered at other universities. I also see a lot of the old guard faculty retiring soon. That will help generate fresh thinking.
There are several issues in this debate. They need to be sorted and clarified. First, many of the "old guard" faculty are among those who are most upset with the current system. At my university, they are the ones who are advocating change. Younger faculty in science departments just don't care about undergraduate education. They have much more important things on their minds. The situation isn't much different in the humanities except that there's a somewhat higher percentage of younger faculty calling for change. Many of them are postmodernists and the changes they're advocating aren't necessarily desirable.
Who is Don Tapscott and why is he an expert on university education? Here's what Wikipedia says [Don Tapscott].
Don Tapscott (born 1947) is a Canadian business executive, author, consultant and speaker based in Toronto, Ontario, specializing in business strategy, organizational transformation and the role of technology in business and society. Tapscott is chairman of business strategy think tank New Paradigm (now nGenera Insight), which he founded in 1993. Tapscott is also Adjunct Professor of Management at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.
This brings me to a second point that needs clarification. People whose main concern is business and management aren't necessarily qualified to have an informed opinion on university education. That includes 99% of the faculty at the Rotman School of Management, here at the University of Toronto.
The third point that needs to be made is that there is widespread agreement that current university education is in bad shape. It should not be possible to skip lectures and still get an "A" in a course. It should not be possible to graduate with a degree when you have never physically attended a university. The fact that we are doing a bad job of teaching students how to think does not mean that we should abandon that goal and make it even easier for students to avoid intellectual challenges. We need to fix the problem, not surrender.
The fourth point concerns technological change. Tapscott is apparently one of the true believers when it comes to the internet and how it's going to change everything. I think he's wrong but that's not the point I want to make. The thing that annoys me the most is the assumption that universities are behind the times when it comes to technological change and that professors are luddites who don't know anything about computers and the internet.
There may be professors like that, but not in science or engineering departments. I suspect that they're rare in the humanities as well. This may come as a bit of a shock to Don Tapscott but some of us old fogies have been using computers for over forty years. We've been on the internet for thirty years. We know about electronic databases, listserves, social networks, webpages, and blogs. Some of us even have cellphones, iPads, and GPS—and we know how to use them. We have HD televisions, stereo systems that will blow your socks off, laptops, and—believe it or not—power windows in our cars.
We've been incorporating these technologies into our courses for over two decades. (That's before our entering class of students was born.) Our children, and the current crop of students, may be the first generation to grow up with personal computers and the internet but when they come to university they will be meeting the generation that invented those technologies.
Give us a bit of credit. We've been experimenting with new technologies long enough to know how they are affecting university education. We are not stupid. If they were capable of totally transforming university education then we would have discovered that by now. Fact is, these technologies have been around for decades and, while they are very useful supplements to education, they are not a panacea and they cannot replace everything that happens on a university campus.
Students need to be provoked, challenged, and stimulated. They need to be thrust into an environment that's outside of their comfort zone. They need to hear things they don't want to hear, even if it makes them angry. They need to see for themselves what kind of scholarship goes on at a university. They need to do a research project and that requires a mentor.
They need to meet graduate students and postdocs and professors who aren't teaching one of their courses. They need to play varsity sports, join the debating team, attend meetings of the student Secular Alliance, meet students from different cultures, protest, volunteer at the local hostel, play in the school orchestra.
This is all part of a university education and you can't do it by sitting in your bedroom at home staring at your monitor.
The article on the CBC News site makes reference to two videos. I'm including them here in order to provoke discussion. The first one is a classic example of the kind of superficial thinking that passes for knowledge among today's generation of students. Although that's not its intent, it illustrates perfectly what's wrong with university education. There's no evidence of critical thinking. The students are holding up sound bites of meaningless phrases.
The second one is similar except that the students are much younger. It's an example of brainwashing. They are "digital learners"—but what the heck does that mean? It doesn't mean a damn thing.
I lived in America for six years and I'm passionately interested in American politics and culture. But I don't think I'll ever understand America. If a commercial like this were ever shown in a Western European country, the candidate would be doomed. I'm not sure it would work even in Alberta or the conservative parts of Australia.
I had lunch this summer with a prospective graduate student at the evangelical college where I teach. I will call him John, because that happens to be his name. John has done well academically at a public university. Nevertheless, as often happens, he said that he was looking forward to coming to a Christian university, and then launched into a story of religious discrimination.
John had been a straight-A student until he enrolled in English writing. The assignment was an “opinion” piece and the required theme was “traditional marriage”. John is a Southern Baptist and he felt it was his duty to give his honest opinion and explain how it was grounded in his faith. The professor was annoyed that John claimed the support of the Bible for his views, scribbling in the margin, “Which Bible would that be?” On the very same page, John’s phrase, “Christians who read the Bible,” provoked the same retort, “Would that be the Aramaic Bible, the Greek Bible, or the Hebrew Bible?” (What could the point of this be? Did the professor want John to imagine that while the Greek text might support his view of traditional marriage, the Aramaic version did not?) The paper was rejected as a “sermon” and given an F, with the words “I reject your dogmatism” written at the bottom by way of explanation.
It's religious discrimination. John didn't get an "F" because he was incapable of presenting a rational argument. He failed because he's a Christian.
This is a serious problem for IDiots and fundamentalists. They are, for the most part, incapable of learning how to think without abandoning their dogmatic religious views. In an ideal world, that would make it very difficult to graduate from university while maintaining their faith. (Unless they can fake it by pretending to be tolerant and rational.)
Fortunately John has found the solution—he's going to an evangelical college for his graduate degree. Now he won't have to deal with the problem of being challenged to think rationally.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) sponsors a program called DoSER (Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion). As you might imagine, it's basically a cover for presenting the accommodationist position. There's very little "dialogue" going on.
On June 16th they held a forum to honor the new director, Jennifer Wiseman, an astronomer, a Christian, and a member of the American Scientific Affiliation. In order to belong to this group you must agree to the following statement ...
I believe in the whole Bible as originally given, to be the inspired word of God, the only unerring guide to faith and conduct. Since God is the Author of this Book, as well as the Creator and sustainer of the physical world about us, I cannot conceive of discrepancies between statements in the Bible and the real facts of science.
William Phillips was awarded the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics. Here's his talk from the June 16th meeting.
The main theme is civility. A good example of civility is when Phillips accuses New Atheist of saying that Francis Collins was unfit to be director of NIH solely because he believes in God. Like many accommodationists, Phillips is confused about the difference between civility and dialogue. If you oppose religion, then you are uncivil. If you are religious, then you can say anything you damn well please about atheists without being uncivil, as long as you say it with a gentle, soothing, voice.
Intelligent Design Creationism is struggling to maintain scientific credibility. The movement claims to be scientific, not religious, and it's strongest defense is that it offers credible scientific explanations of biological phenomena.
Most of us don't see it that way. All we see is a bunch of people who attack science in general and evolution in particular. They publish lots and lots of stuff that raises questions about standard scientific explanations—some of the criticisms are valid but most are nothing more than wishful thinking. What we never, ever, see is a true explanation of how intelligent design creationism actually works.
This video was published on the Evolution News & Views (sic) blog [Stephen Meyer on Intelligent Design: What is the origin of the digital information found in DNA?]. Watch it to see if Meyer1 explains the origin of information according to the Intelligent Design Creationism Model. Wait right 'till the end to make sure you don't miss the explanation of how an intelligent creator put information into DNA. Learn who the creators(s) is/are and why they did it. Find out when she did it. Wait to see how this accounts for life as we know it today.
Folks, this is the best they have to offer. It's why we call them IDiots. There's nothing there but obtuse rhetoric about the origin of life and information. They have nothing to offer but criticism of evolution.
1. Stephen Meyer is one of the founders of the Discovery Institute in Seattle. He has a Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University (UK).
"Five years from now on the web for free you’ll be able to find the best lectures in the world," Gates said at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, CA today. "It will be better than any single university," he continued.
This is nonsense on many levels. First, who's going to determine whether any given lecture is the "best lecture in the world?" Second, why will it be online? (Most professors don't want to put their lectures online.) Third, who says that listening to a lecture is the only thing that a university has to offer?
One particular problem with the education system according to Gates is text books. Even in grade schools, they can be 300 pages for a book about math. "They’re giant, intimidating books," he said. "I look at them and think: what on Earth is in there?"
According to Gates, our text books are three times longer than the equivalents in Asia. And yet they’re beating us in many ways with education. The problem is that these things are built by committee, and more things are simply added on top of what’s already in there.
In the interests of full disclosure, I am a textbook author. That means I have more of a stake in this debate than Bill Gates. (Of course, it also means that as a textbook author and a university professor, I'm probably more of an expert than the former chairman of a software company.(1))
When they are well done, a textbook is like the best lecture you could ever get. If you want to learn about evolution, for example, then you could hardly do better than reading EVOLUTION by Douglas Futuyma. I can't imagine any series of online lectures that could compete with a such a good textbook.
Textbooks are collaborative affairs that undergo considerable review by experts before publication. Most online lectures are the work of a single individual and they have not been reviewed for accuracy.
The most important goal of a university education is to teach student how to think and a major component of that process is critical thinking. Unfortunately, sitting in front of your monitor reading a lecture is not the best way to learn how to think and it doesn't give you any practice in critical thinking. There's a reason why students need to interact with other students and scholars in a university setting and it's very sad that people like Bill Gates don't get it.
On the other hand, if Gates is correct then it might be a really good thing for universities. The standing joke among professors is that universities would be wonderful places if only we could get rid of the students!
1. How did we ever get ourselves into the situation where executives from for-profit companies are thought to be experts on education? They are not. They are just about the last people on Earth I would ask for advice on university education.
Last night we watched the first two episodes of The Pillars of the Earth. They were fantastic. The story takes place in England during the time after the death of Henry I (1068-1135) and the civil war between Stephen and the Empress Matilda (Maud).1 This is near the end of my favorite period of history—the so-called dark ages.
Judging by the first two episodes, the show does a pretty good job of capturing the flavor of the era except that everyone looks far too healthy and beautiful. They all have good teeth.
Here's a brief history.
Henry I (1068-1135) is the King of England [Henry Beauclerc] who dies at the beginning of the series. He was the youngest son of William the Conqueror and took the throne of England (and the Duchy of Normandy) from his older brothers after much fighting.
Henry had two surviving legitimate children: Matilda (1102-1167) and his heir William Adelin (1103-1120). William died when he was only 17 years old when The White Ship sank on Nov. 25, 1120 during a voyage from France back to England. The sinking of the White Ship is the opening scene of the movie. (The ship set sail at night and smashed into a rock. Most of the crew and passengers were drunk. Everyone died of exposure.)
Matilda married Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, when she was 13 years old and she became known as Empress Matilda at that point. She returned to England when her husband, Henry V, died in 1125. In the movie she is depicted as a young girl who is present when the King learns of his son's death on the White Ship. In fact, she was already 18 years old and married to the Holy Roman Emperor when the ship went down.
Empress Matilda, known as Maud in the movie, married Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou in 1128. They had a son who eventually becomes Henry II of England and founds the Plantagenet dynasty. (Oops, I just gave away the ending! )
Henry I tried to ensure that his daughter Empress Matilda (Maud) would become Queen of England on his death but that didn't work out. The Norman aristocracy were not prepared to accept a woman as ruler and they helped install Stephen of Blois (1096-1154) as King of England in 1135. Stephen was the son of Adela of Normandy, daughter of William the Conqueror.
Henry I had about two dozen illegitimate children by many different women. Several of them drowned when the White Ship went down. His oldest "bastard" son was Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester (1090-1147). Robert is depicted in the movie as a strong supporter of Maud right from the beginning but the real history is much more complicated. He initially supported Stephen but later on he was the most important leader of the civil war that became known as The Anarchy.
Elizabeth, Princess of England is another of Henry's illegitimate children. She married Fergus, Lord of Galloway, ancestors of the Stewarts of Scotland.2.
1. I love it when they make movies of my relatives! I am a descendant of Andrew Ward (1597-1659) of Fairfield Connecticut who traces his ancestry back to William de Longespee (1152-1206) the illegitimate son of Henry II of England (1133-1189). [My Family and Other Emperors]. Henry II is Maud's baby in the opening episodes of the movie. UPDATE: Turns out I am NOT related to Andrew Ward after all! But I do count Geoffrey Plantagenet and Matilda as ancestors through Henry II to my Scottish Stewart ancestors.
2. I am also a descendant, via the Stewarts of Perthshire, from Elizabeth.
On the drive back from Reims to Brussels we stopped for dinner in Bouillon. We had a wonderful meal in a restaurant on the bank of the river. Here's me and my three "girls."
Zoë and her grandmother (Mamère) went off in search of the prince. The "prince" is Godfrey of Bouillon (~1060-1100) one of the leaders of the First Crusade. He was the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099). Bouillon was an important place in the Middle Ages. The ruins of the castle attest to its glory days.
Eustace I and Matilda are Zoë's direct ancestors via their other son Lambert II, Count of Lens (1025-1054). We descend from his daughter Judith of Lens whose mother (wife of Lambert II) was Adelaide of Normandy, sister of William the Conqueror.
The majority of people reading this blog are also descendants of these people. You just don't know it.
