Category Archives: media

Science 2.0? New data, but not new methods

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In a Perspectives piece in this week’s Science, Ben Shneiderman argues that we need a new kind of science [subscription] to deal with human interactions via the Internet. He calls this “Science 2.0”:

The guiding strategies of Science 1.0 are still needed for Science 2.0: hypothesis testing, predictive models, and the need for validity, replicability, and generalizability. However, the Science 2.0 challenges cannot be studied adequately in laboratory conditions because controlled experiments do not capture the rich context of Web 2.0 collaboration, where the interaction among variables undermines the validity of reductionist methods (7). Moreover, in Science 2.0 the mix of people and technology means that data must be collected in real settings (see the figure). Amazon and Netflix became commercial successes in part because of their frequent evaluations of incremental changes to their Web site design as they monitored user activity and purchases.

Good evolutionary ecologist that I am, I read this and said to myself, “Science 2.0 sounds like what I already do.” Biologists have been using methods beyond controlled laboratory experiments and collecting data in “real settings” to test hypotheses since Darwin’s day and before (see Jared Diamond’s discussion of natural experiments found in “real settings” [subscription]).

As an example of Science 2.0 methods, Shniederman shows a chart mapping collaborations between U.S. Senators, a version of which is available here. It’s an informative picture – you can see immediately that “independents” Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders are a lot more connected to the Democrats than the Republicans, and that a relatively small number of senators act as “bridges” between the two parties. But it’s not clear to me why this represents a new method (apart from the visualization technology behind it) – couldn’t the same graphic have been compiled from paper voting records in 1920? It might be easier to produce now, but I don’t think the diagram represents a new scientific method. (An analogy: it might be really easy for me to do ANOVAs now, but these statistics pre-date my laptop and R.)

Shniederman also suggests that Science 2.0 will be interested in different kinds of things than hoary old Science 1.0:

Science 1.0 heroes such as Galileo, Newton, and Einstein produced key equations that describe the relationships among gravity, electricity, magnetism, and light. By contrast, Science 2.0 leaders are studying trust, empathy, responsibility, and privacy.

He cites a “fivefold growth of research on privacy and trust,” based on a literature search, but doesn’t elaborate on how these topics require truly new methods. Again, I’d suggest that Science 1.0 was interested in human interactions, too (just ask a Sociobiologist), but it didn’t have the data provided by the Internet until, well, about 10 years ago. I’d wager that none of the studies turned up by Shneiderman’s lit search do anything radically new, methods-wise.

It’s certainly true that the growth of social networking through the Internet allows scientists access to data that can answer questions we weren’t able to deal with before. For instance, we have real-time records of people interacting with their friends thanks to Facebook (momentarily pretend this doesn’t creep you out). But the actual methods we’ll use to analyze those data are nothing radically new. On that count, Science 2.0 looks a lot like a Microsoft product upgrade – a new interface “skin” on top of the same basic mechanism.

References:
Shneiderman B. 2008. Science 2.0. Science 319:1349-50.

Diamond J. 2001. Dammed experiments! Science 294:1847-8.

Christian schools: win Ben Stein’s money

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In the wake of the victory for common sense that was the Dover Trial and Michael Lynch’s trouncing of their only paper to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, the Intelligent Design movement has refocused its efforts on propaganda. Specifically, the documentary Expelled, in which none other than Ben Stein will apparently argue that evil atheist scientists have “expelled” ID “theory” from its rightful place in the science curriculum. I first heard about Expelled when the New York Times reported that Richard Dawkins and NCSE’s Eugenie Scott were interviewed for the film under false pretenses.

Now, ERV (SA Smith) points out a scheme to bribe Christian schools to take their students to Expelled. How pathetic is that? The producers aren’t even sure that their assumed core demographic (Christian teens) will show up to this movie if they don’t institute “mandatory field trips.” It’s also maddening to me: I went to a Mennonite high school, where I actually got a pretty good grounding in biology, and where I took the class that inspired me to pursue graduate study of evolution and ecology (Thanks, Mr. Good!). Which is to say that, even though many do, there’s no reason that Christian schools have to teach pseudoscience. This Expelled initiative tries to provide exactly such a reason.

An aside: Who exactly is making Expelled, anyway? According to the Times article, the production company that arranged the interviews with Dawkins and Scott called itself Rampant Films – but it turned into Premise Media when the real nature of the project was revealed. Premise Media has a website [mind the creaky flash intro on your way in], the contents of which are concerned only with Expelled. Anyone want to bet it’s a front for the Discovery Insitute?

Electronic matchmaking for voters

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Glassbooth lets you take positions on a variety of political issues, then compares them with the positions taken by every Democratic and Republican presidential candidate. I think it was Time magazine that set up something like this in 2004. My results: I’m best-matched to Dennis Kucinich (91% similarity), followed by Mike Gravel (85%) and John Edwards (75%). Barack Obama, who is actually my (current) preferred candidate, only scores 69%.

Via Wired.

Open-source journal on evolution education

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Via Wired Science: the new journal Evolution: Education and Outreach aims to connect working biologists with elementary and secondary science teachers to provide a resource for teaching about evolution. And all its articles will be freely available online.

The inaugural issue includes an essay by John N. Thompson, one of the leading names in my own sub-field of coevolutionary ecology, which points out that the popular press frequently fails to use the word “evolution” when it covers such concrete examples as antibiotic-resistant bacteria and host shifts by disease organisms. I’ve noticed this myself, and I think it’s a very relevant issue: without calling evolution by its name, idiotic disconnects like the one between President Bush’s “teach the controversy” position and his spending for bird-flu preparedness aren’t as obvious.

“Hacking” Campaign Finance Law

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On Wired.com: Ron Paul Supporters Hack Campaign Finance Law to Send Blimp Aloft

Would this “end run” around campaign finance law be “hacking” (which implies good-hearted mischief) if the Swift Boaters did it? I don’t think so. Regardless of what I think of Ron Paul (and he does seem like the sanest man in the Republican primary), this is kinda dodgy.

See also coverage from this week’s On the Media.

Googlepedia will have experts!

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Google recently announced its response to Wikipedia, a collection of webpages called “knols,” so called because they’ll be discrete chunks of knowledge. The announcement on the official Google blog puts a lot of emphasis on the way in which knols are not Wikipedia with a link to Gmail in the top corner: expert authors. Knols will be written by people who already have a reputation connected to the relevant subject, with prominent attribution for contributors.

It’s an interesting idea. First, it should prevent people and organizations from tweaking entries to suit their PR preferences (unless, of course, the Pentagon gets to write its own knol). Second, it could be a great opportunity for academics to make their work accessible to the lay audience that doesn’t have university-provided access to the journal sites. Disseminating your work to the unwashed masses looks good on grant applications (filed under “broader impacts”), and lord knows we can all use the practice at explaining our work in common sensical terms.

At this early stage, knols contributions are invitation-only. Hey Google! Want a knol about Joshua trees?

The “science” of criminal profiling

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Malcolm Gladwell takes on criminal profiling in this week’s New Yorker, tying the discipline’s pseudo-scientific methods into a neat narrative knot. Gladwell directly compares the practice to the tricks used by fortune-tellers, but only after destroying profiling’s fundamental assumptions (i.e. that crimes encode information about those who commit them). It’s good reading.

Classical music’s online renaissance

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New Yorker music critic Alex Ross notes cautiously that classical music is doing quite well in the dot-com age, propelled by the long tail effect, greater ease of entry via music blogs and iTunes, and more communication between classical nerds. In the course of it, he links to a variety of classical blogs and resources – I’m going to spend some time following up.