Letters to a Young Scientist by E.O. Wilson

Part memoir, part mentoring, and part history of science, ecological icon E.O. Wilson offers up this series of 20 letters of advice to those beginning - or thinking of beginning - a life in science. 

Wilson examines how to choose a path to follow, the widely variable creative process, what a life in science entails, and bigger picture dynamics. Along the way he provides insights from his own path and the field on which he is a renowned expert - ants. 

His final letter concerns the scientific ethic, in which he emphasizes a scientist's relationships with other scientists. His final advice reminds me of Abraham Lincoln's counsel to "if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer." Wilson's version for scientists is "But never, ever will fraud be forgiven. The penalty is professional death: exile, never again to be trusted."

There are many wise words from this most accomplished and wise man. While designed to inspire and advise young scientists, the book is well worth reading for scientists at any stage of their career.


[NOTE: This is part of a series of reviews for books related to science, science communication, and/or specific science topics such as climate change. To read reviews of other books, click Book Reviews.]

President Obama "Stands With" the EPA

President Barack Obama made his first visit to the USEPA to thank them for their service.  The visit comes during a time when two of EPA's most visible leaders - Steve Owens and Paul Anastas - have recently stepped down to return to private and academic careers.  According to his remarks:

The main reason I’m here is simple:  I just want to say thank you.  I want to say thank you to each and every one of you, because the EPA touches on the lives of every single American every single day.  You help make sure that the air we breathe, the water we drink, the foods we eat are safe.  You protect the environment not just for our children but their children.  And you keep us moving towards energy independence. 

Over the last 3 years the EPA has faced considerable political attack on its ability to carry out its functions, with Congress voting to cut its budget severely and blocking needed regulatory efforts to constrain greenhouse gas emissions to fight man-made climate change.  Obama countered the artificial argument offered by some in Congress that human health and the environment must be sacrificed for economic reasons, saying:

Safeguarding our environment is also about strengthening our economy.  I do not buy the notion that we have to make a choice between having clean air and clean water and growing this economy in a robust way.  I think that is a false debate. 

Finally, the President indicated he would stand up for the EPA so that they can do their jobs.  He noted:

So all of you, and all of those who served before you, have made a difference.  Our environment is safer because of you.  Our country is stronger because of you.  Our future is brighter because of you.  And I want you to know that you’ve got a President who is grateful for your work and will stand with you every inch of the way as you carry out your mission to make sure that we’ve got a cleaner world. 

The White House press release is available here.

The full text can be read here.

A video of the President's speech can be seen below.

Head of Royal Society Says Freedom of Information Laws are Being Used to Harass Scientists

Sir Paul Nurse, president of the prestigious Royal Society in London, says that freedom of information (FOI) laws are being misused in organized attempts to harass climate scientists.  While emphasizing that FOI laws are important tools needed to ensure transparency, Nurse, the Nobel Prize winner for Medicine in 2001, argues that anti-climate science lobbying groups have orchestrated an organized campaign of requesting "data and other research materials" for the primary purposes of intimidating climate scientists and slowing down both research and legitimate communication of the science.

According to The Guardian online, another scientist, Bob Ward of Grantham Research Institute, complained that FOI requestors weren't interested in the science but rather the requests were "being used in an aggressive and organized way" to look for problems and errors.  And according to Chris Mooney in relation to another FOI fishing expedition involving Michael Mann in the US, the climate science deniers will twist whatever they receive into whatever they need it to be to confirm their predetermined belief.  Just as they did for the infamous climategate emails, which despite six separate investigations exonerating all the scientists involved, yet the climate denial industry continues to treat as a condemnation of the science (which it wasn't).

The UK FOI requests have been overly burdensome on researchers, as requests have included "among other things, all drafts of scientific papers prior to their publication in journals, with annotations, explaining why changes were made between successive versions."  Again, the intent isn't to understand better the science or the research. According to Nurse, the net result is that which the organized campaigns intended - intimidation and time taken away from doing research.

Scientists, of course, need to be more open and transparent, but then they, like all of us, produce many emails a day on things that aren't particularly interesting or controversial.  To have to organize them for FOI release even though they have no meaning limits their ability to do research.  To have to spend even more time correcting the often intentional misinterpretation (or disinterpretation) of their words by climate change deniers is a burden no professional should have to bear. 

FOI is important for transparency, and the Royal Society and others are looking for ways to bring the process up to speed with modern technology.  But unfortunately there are many who are abusing FOI, not to improve transparency, but to harass climate scientists and disinform the public.  The harassment has to stop.

Chris Mooney -Are Scientists Ignorant About Ignorance...When It Comes to Understanding How Climate Denial Works?

Many have probably heard of Chris Mooney, the columnist, blogger and author of several books including "The Republican War on Science" and "Unscientific America" (co-authored with scientist Sheril Kirshenbaum).  He has in the past said that scientists need to get out and talk to the public more.  But today in his column in the blog called Desmogblog Mooney suggests that scientists have to have a better understanding of how climate denial, and science denial in general, works.  It isn't so much about ignorance.  He notes:

As anyone who reads DeSmogBlog knows very well, the top climate skeptics are, you know, scientists. They are not ignorant of the scientific method. They may cleverly twist and abuse its findings, perhaps, but they all learned it, and were awarded advanced degrees for doing so. These are not “poorly educated people” we're dealing with. Not remotely.

I think he may be giving too much credit to "skeptics" as opposed to "denialists," but he makes the case that there are actually skeptics who are scientists and they are most certainly not ignorant of how science works. Mooney goes on to say:

And as for the nonscientist citizens who encounter the climate debate, and don’t know what to think? They may be confused, but it doesn’t make them ignorant about the scientific method. They also may be deflated, uncertain about what’s true—because the media is not doing its job of adjudicating.

Mooney makes a good point, but may also be conflating separate issues here.  As he suggests, there are non-scientists out there who do have enough of an understanding of the scientific method to be able to intellectually understand the scientific principles.  That, however, doesn't mean there aren't also people who have no clue about science, method or otherwise.  Still, one must assume that those who are capable of understanding must intentionally have chosen not to understand the science.  Or perhaps more likely, to simply have chosen to deny the science.

Which presents scientists with the problem facing many scientists, i.e., "frustrated not only by the persistence, but by the powerful resurgence of climate denial, many scientists are outraged."  Outrage in itself rarely succeeds in winning over the public.  And yet scientists must ensure that the science isn't misrepresented by those in denial either, as this carries over to honest, hard working, yet non-scientific members of society who want to do what is right but truly can't separate the wheat from the chaff.

Hopefully Mooney in future columns will explore this issue further.  It will definitely be a topic of this blog in the future.

Read Chris Mooney's full Desmogblog article here.

White House Names Two Nanotechnology Scientists as 2009 Presidential Early Career Award Winners

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has named two scientists from the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory as 2009 Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) winners.  According to Argonne National Labs, the PECASE awards are "the nation’s highest honor for researchers in the beginning stages of their independent research careers."  The two are materials scientist Dillon Fong and nanoscientist Elena Shevchenko, who "were selected by the for their contributions to meeting America’s scientific and technological missions and the country’s economic, energy, health and security needs."

Shevchenko heads "the NanoBio Interfaces Group in Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials." Nanoparticles (also called nanoscale materials or simply nanomaterials) "are small assemblies of particular materials that have special properties."  According to Argonne National Labs, "Shevchenko’s work specifically examined how nanoparticles self-organize to form more complicated materials."

Fong "works in Argonne’s Materials Science Division, where he investigates the formation and structure of complex oxide thin films." In his research, he asks "questions like how these thin film crystals grow, and how much of this growth can we control?" And "do these materials behave when they are only a few nanometers thick?"

Read more about their achievements at the links and in the Argonne press release.  Both scientists will receive their awards later this year at the White House.

China - The New Science Superpower (Sorry, USA)

In 2009 researchers in China produced 120,000 research articles, second only to the 350,000 produced by the US. Ah, the US is still pretty far ahead, you say. Not so fast, because China's annual output is about 50% more than it had been just 3 years before (compared to about a 30% increase over the last decade for the US). And the trend is for increasingly rapid gains in output by the Chinese as the country puts more and more emphasis on developing the higher education and Universities that used to be where the US led the world.

And whereas the research budgets in the US and Europe have been rather flat for many years, China's investment in research and development has grown at about 18% per year, putting it third behind the US and Japan.

So what does this mean? Well, according to Jonathan Adams, Director of Research Evaluation at Thomson Reuters, writing in the journal New Scientist, "China's emergence as a scientific superpower can no longer be denied, and it is a quesiton of when rather than if it will become the world's most prolific producer of scientific knowledge."

He adds, "The question for the EU and the US as we enter the new decade is no longer about whether we should collaborate with China, but what we can bring to the table to ensure that China wants to collaborate with us."

In short, while some hold up our own scientific advancement with ideological gamesmanship, China is passing us by.

Read the full article by Jonathan Adams here.

Book Review – Am I Making Myself Clear? A Scientist’s Guide to Talking to the Public by Cornelia Dean

A much needed book for scientific and non-scientific communities alike. Written by science writer (and former New York Times editor) Cornelia Dean, the book makes the case that scientists need to make “their work more accessible to the media, and thus to the public.” This doesn’t come naturally to most scientists, and so the book gives some practical tips on how scientists can accomplish this goal.

Dean starts with “an invitation to researchers” to put aside their natural reticence and distrust of the media and help themselves and journalists get the key messages of their science across to the public. Because there are plenty of people out there who don’t hesitate to misinform the public about the science in order to protect their own interests (e.g., the climate change debate). In ensuing chapters she provides some insights into how scientists can better “know your audience,” help educate and work with journalists, and how to get the message across on radio and TV, online, and in the courtroom. She also offers tips on writing books, writing Op-Eds and letters to news outlets, and writing about science and technology in other venues.

Two of the most valuable chapters actually have to do with how journalists cover science issues. In “Covering Science,” Dean notes some of the differences in style and communication between journalism and scientific writing. These differences set up an inherent conflict. Scientific researchers view journalists as being superficial, insufficiently concerned with accuracy, focused on controversy, and even “ignorant.” In turn, journalists view researchers as boring, “caveating things to death,” prone to incomprehensible jargon, and incapable of drawing a definitive conclusion. In “The Problem of Objectivity,” Dean discusses the limitations of journalistic “balance” in which one opposing voice is given equal weight to the thousands of proponent voices because both sides are represented. This journalistic trait is exploited by, for example, climate change deniers, who know that TV interviews with one scientist and one naysayer (even if he is a non-scientist) looks to the public like “two sides” of a debate, even when the science is overwhelmingly in favor of one view. Given that it is often difficult for a journalist to know the state-of-the-art of the science, this opens the door for imbalance in an effort to provide balance.

Perhaps the most valuable chapter to scientists is “The Scientist as Source.” Here Dean provides some practical hints as to how scientists can best interact with journalists. Again she encourages scientists to put aside their hesitations to speak to the press and to embrace the opportunity to get out a message that accurately reflects both the research itself and the ramifications of that research to the public.

“Am I Making Myself Clear?” is quite readable, as one might expect from a science journalist. I recommend reading this book along with Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum’s “Unscientific America” and Randy Olson’s “Don’t Be Such a Scientist.” All three books are useful to the scientist to help him or her relate better to the public, and to the public at large to better understand how science works.

Other science-related book reviews here.

Scientists Need to Talk to the Public - It's Time to Speak Up!!

So says Chris Mooney in an opinion piece in the Washington Post this weekend. Mooney is co-author with marine scientist Sheril Kirshenbaum of "Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future." Mooney warns us the the deniers of science, for example those that deny climate change and evolution, are highly organized and experienced in getting their message out. Even if it is false. Or perhaps especially because it is false.

Scientists do their science in labs and the field and communicate through journals and scientific conferences with their peers, but traditionally have left the communication to the public of that science to others. If it was communicated to the public at all. It doesn't help that scientists often distrust the media's ability to get it right. According to Mooney, "[r]ather than spurring greater efforts at communication, such mistrust and resignation have further motivated some scientists to avoid talking to reporters and going on television."

He further notes that scientists "no longer have that luxury. After all, global-warming skeptics suffer no such compunctions." And with "traditional science journalists who have long sought to bridge the gap between scientists and the public" being let go by the struggling media outlets, "[i]f scientists don't take a central communications role, nobody else with the same expertise and credibility will do it for them."

Quoting Scripps Institution of Oceanography marine biologist Jeremy Jackson, who teaches a summer course that introduces young scientists to the media, blogging and even filmmaking:

"Traditionally, scientists have been loathe to interact with the media," Jackson said in a recent interview. But in his class, "the students understand that good science is only the beginning to solving environmental problems, and that nothing will be accomplished without more effective communication to the general public."

So Mooney suggests, "[s]cientists need not wait for former vice presidents to make hit movies to teach the public about their fields -- they must act themselves." To teach scientists how to do this, he recommends two recent books: Randy Olson's "Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style" and Cornelia Dean's "Am I Making Myself Clear?: A Scientist's Guide to Talking to the Public."

Here is my earlier review of Mooney and Kirshenbaum's Unscientific America. Ironically, I just finished reading Dean's "Am I Making Myself Clear?" and a few months ago read Olson's "Don't be Such a Scientist."

Other scientific book reviews can be found here.

More Americans Win Nobel Prizes

It's that time of year again...Nobel Prize week. Each day the Nobel Prize committee will announce the winners of this year's awards for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma, and a cash award.

This year the first three announcements have involved a lot of Americans, something that isn't always the case for this international award.

On Monday, three Americans shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase." Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Grieder and Jack W. Szostak each get 1/3 of the prize.

On Tuesday, 1/2 the Nobel Prize for Physics went to Charles K. Kao "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication." The other half was split between Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor."

And today, two Americans and an Israeli share equally in the Nobel Prize for Chemistry "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome." They are Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz, and Ada Yonath.

The remaining prizes will be announced in the following days.

It is important to keep in mind that the Nobel Prizes are given for work that may have been done decades ago, only after the significance of their achievements have become clear. It is critical that we continue to provide support for scientists in various fields for both basic and applied research. Without it our innovation for the future is sure to suffer.