How are the scientific method, free market, and natural selection related?
Read Sabine Hossenfelder’s blog post to find out. I particularly like this paragraph:
In science, the most relevant restriction is that we can’t just randomly generate hypotheses because we wouldn’t be able to test and evaluate them all. This is why science heavily relies on education standards, peer review, and requires new hypotheses to tightly fit into existing knowledge. We also need guidelines for good scientific conduct, reproducibility, and a mechanism to give credits to scientists with successful ideas. Take away any of that and the system wouldn’t work.
I write to try to undo the hype in a new scientific findings where a newspaper has lathered on too much hype. I also moderate the Science on Google+ community. So I often get comments about how we should question everything, that science is about challenging everything. If you don’t question everything, e.g., evolution, climate change, etc. then you aren’t doing science. Sadly, these comments often come from climate change deniers, believers in pseudoscience or conspiracies. So I often have to explain that skepticism is fine, however, when you have an extraordinary claim, you need extraordinary evidence. I’ve written about that before.
I’m not sure many people truly understand the scientific method and IFLS doesn’t help with catchy GIFs with no science or attribution.
Science is not about certainty. Science is about finding the most reliable way of thinking, at the present level of knowledge. Science is extremely reliable; it’s not certain. In fact, not only it’s not certain, but it’s the lack of certainty that grounds it. Scientific ideas are credible not because they are sure, but because they are the ones that have survived all the possible past critiques, and they are the most credible because they were put on the table for everybody’s criticism. […]
Can psychedelic drugs like LSD and MDMA help patients going through mental health therapy? These drugs began life as medicines, and yet psychedelic therapy is now on the fringes of both psychiatry and society. Intriguingly, new clinical trials are starting to reevaluate the impact these drugs can have in helping patients reconnect with their feelings and the difficult experiences in their life.
Join us for a Mosaic Hangout on air as we speak to Sam Wong about this mind-bending topic. Sam is a science journalist who has recently written an article for Mosaic about this topic. This HOA will be hosted by Dr Buddhini Samarasinghe. You can tune in on Saturday 27th February at 12 PM UK time. The hangout will be available for viewing on our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/mosaicscience) after the event.
Unless you live under a rock or you don’t care about science, you probably heard or saw tons of posts about the discovery of gravitational waves today. The video below was filmed in the facility that I manage. The 3D wall in the background is once again just an expensive prop. What you can’t hear or see out of the field of view of the video, is me, my boss, collaborators, and users of the facility, thoroughly annoyed by these people filming in the lobby.
Even though this is fantastic news and I had no idea that Northwestern University had any involvement, I’m still annoyed that I had no warning of the filming.
If the embedded video doesn’t play, you and read more here and find the link:
I’m looking forward to this HOA tomorrow. I meant to reshare this earlier. If you can’t watch it live, you’ll be able to enjoy it later.
Originally shared by Science on Google+
Menstruation and menopause are two fundamental biological processes in every woman’s lifetime. However, both these subjects are shrouded with secrecy, and it’s often difficult to have open conversations about them because of cultural taboos. But what are the consequences of silence? What are the economic impacts, the social injustices, and the health risks? Why is it so difficult to find consensus on what menopause is, and what its purpose is?
Join us for a Mosaic and Science on Google+ Hangout on air as we speak to author Rose George about these under-reported topics. Rose wrote two fascinating articles for Mosaic about menstruation and menopause, and we will be exploring these subjects in-depth.
This HOA will be hosted by Dr Buddhini Samarasinghe. You can tune in on Saturday 23rd January at 3 PM UK time. The hangout will be available for viewing on our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/ScienceHangouts) after the event.
I would be willing to do an MRI on this fish to confirm that it’s brain is small. The Ass-fish, Acanthonus armatus, is known for it’s small brain relative to its head size. It’s not clear where the name Ass-fish came from but it’s ugly appearance matches the name.
It’s part of the cusk-eel family. From Wiki:
The cusk-eel family (Ophidiidae) is a group of marine bony fishes in the order Ophidiiformes. The scientific name is from the Greek ophis meaning “snake”, and refers to their eel-like appearance. However, they can be distinguished from true eels of the order Anguilliformes by their ventral fins, which are developed into a forked barbel-like organ below the mouth in the cusk-eels; in the true eels by contrast they are never well-developed and usually missing entirely.
While trying to learn more about cusk-eels, I learned that the deepest known living fish is another cusk-eel. Abyssobrotula galatheae was taken from a depth of 8,370 m (27,460 ft) in Puerto Rico.
Which reminded me of a popular eel like fish that’s supposed to bring good luck in parts of Asia. The Silver Arowana is much better looking than the Ass-fish.
Each year the Edge Foundation invites scientist to answer their annual question. This year’s question is a bit mundane. However, Buddhini Samarasinghe’s answer is excellent. If you scan through the lists of top medical/scientific achievements from 2015 you probably won’t catch anything about the immune system. It’s so important but overlooked. It’s also often exaggerated, i.e., if only we’d eat more garlic or turmeric, then we could cure cancer without those pesky chemicals. BTW, that’s sarcasm.
As Buddhini carefully mentioned in the article, I agree that we are just scratching the surface. There’s so much we don’t know about the immune system. It’s not a panacea for fighting cancer (yet). If you perturb one part for cancer therapy, for example, it’s quite possible you may trigger diabetes. That’s a wild example, but I’m sure you get my point. Cautious excitement.
Originally shared by Buddhini Samarasinghe
The Immune System: A Grand Unifying Theory for Biomedical Research
Every year, the Edge Foundation asks a thought-provoking question (known as the Edge Annual Question) and invites scientists and intellectuals to contribute with essays. This year’s Edge Annual Question is a predictive one. It asks, “What Do You Consider The Most Interesting Recent Scientific News? What Makes it Important?”. I had the pleasure of being invited to submit a contribution again this year, and I really enjoyed writing this essay during the Christmas break 🙂
Edge solicits answers from people who are experts in a wide variety of fields, ranging from neuroscience to quantum physics, from psychology to sociology. For biomedical science, at first the obvious choice for a response would be something like CRISPR – indeed, many of the other responses have covered this fantastic ‘genome editing’ tool that allows us to manipulate our own DNA. But as I thought about the question, I realised that at the end of the day, CRISPR is still just a tool, much like gene cloning was several years ago. However, there are intriguing, broader discoveries within biomedical science, with exciting implications for human diseases; in my opinion these outshine the discovery of CRISPR.
I am talking about the immune system’s role in disease.
“Since 430 BC we have known of biological structures and processes that protect the body against disease; but even today we are just beginning to understand how deeply involved they are in our lives. The immune system’s cellular sentries weave an intricate early warning network through the body; its signaling molecules—the cytokines—trigger and modulate our response to infection, including inflammation; it is involved in even so humble a process as the clotting of blood in a wound. Today we are beginning to grasp how—from cancer to diabetes, from heart disease to malaria, from dementia to depression—the immune system is involved at a fundamental level, providing us with the framework to understand, and to better treat these wide-ranging ailments”
When it comes to ‘interesting scientific news’, our self-interest will guarantee that anything we can do to extend and improve the quality of our lives will always be news. The immune system provides a unifying framework for understanding nearly every major condition that affects us, and on that basis it will always be newsworthy.
The way the game works is that you tell me your guess for what the item(s) in the image below is/are, without saying the object. If you want to guess what the object(s) is, tell me something interesting about it but don’t say what your guess is. I’ll get annoyed if people don’t follow instructions and I’ll probably delete your guess. Yes, bah humbug. So please don’t blurt out the answer. In the past it has been fun to try to decipher the guesses as they were cleverly written by some.
If you don’t want to guess, you can tell me what science the image makes you think of.
In the link above, one of the clever guesses was humorous + a type of macaroni, which is great because the image was an elbow.
Since Google is pushing Collections towards new users, so I’m sharing this here even though it isn’t part of my science collection. Here’s some help to get the most out of G+ for new users.
Comment on the original post.
Originally shared by Chad Haney
Adding you back: December 2015
If you just added me based on one of my Collections being recommended, let me introduce myself. I also have a few tips if you are new to G+. My main interest on G+ is science outreach. I’m a scientist and my science posts are often related to medical imaging (my area of research, which is often a recommended Collection). However, since I’m busy with work (and all work and no play makes me a dull lad) I post a fair amount of silly stuff too. Please introduce yourself in the comments. Taking a page from Richard Green, I would suggest you also give a link to what you consider your “showcase” post. So I and others know what you are about.
Out of curiosity for the long time G+ users, when is the last time you circled a new person?
One of the reasons G+ is so awesome is that you can become friends with people across the globe who share a common interest/passion.
For the people new to G+, here are a few tips to help me and others add you back.
¤ Don’t Spam. If you create a Community, don’t send out invitations to everyone you have circled because a lot of them haven’t circled you back. It clogs up everyone’s notifications. Share public (see below) but don’t share directly with your circles all of the time. Again, this will clog up notifications. Sure, if something is important like an Amber alert but not every single post, especially if the recipient hasn’t added you back. People will mute or block you and that’s no way to start the great interaction on G+.
Please see the section
UPDATE about Google+ Community invitations: and Posting to Public and Notifying only certain people or circles:
¤ Fill out your profile. If you just have your gender in your profile, I have no idea what your interests are and which of my circles I should put you in. If you are concerned about privacy, I think it’s safe to at least list your interest. I can’t assume everyone loves the #detroitredwings and magnetic resonance imaging. If you look at the image below, Google has been letting spambots slip through their filters and they are spamming Communities a lot. Go to any decent size community, click on members and you’ll see a lot of blue heads with names that start with a punctuation mark.
¤ Don’t be a blue head, i.e., change your profile picture to something other than the default blue head. If you really don’t want to use your real picture, use a clever avatar. Personally, I’m not a big fan if you don’t use some type of portrait but I don’t hold it against people.
¤ Post a few things Public. If people can’t see what you posted, they have no idea if they would like the kinds of things you post. Again, they don’t know what circle to add you to.
¤ Interact! G+ (for me) is all about interaction. Engage other people. Comment on their posts. + 1 a post or picture if you can’t think of a comment but find the post/picture interesting. + 1 if you like or agree with a comment. Leaving simple comments like “cool” or “wow” are nice but aren’t really engaging. Try not to be shy, tell us what you really think.
¤ Don’t forget to credit people when you re-share. We all like a pat on the back right? For Chrome users, the Google Image search extension is super handy. http://goo.gl/M6yMd
¤ Please don’t be offended if I or others don’t add you back. Some of my G+nius friends have thousands of people circle them. It’s not possible to go through all of the profiles of people that have added them. If you follow the suggestions above, trust me, even some of the people that have reached the 5k limit for circled peoples, will make room for you.
¤ Finally, please don’t be a RAJEEV see link below. No body likes “hey how r u? want to chat?”
¤ The majority of my posts are public and I rarely post to circles. However, the few circles that I do share to specifically and sometimes limited, are dogs, hockey, formula 1, and beer. Let me know if those interest you.
¤ Have fun. I look forward to exchanging ideas, humor, knowledge, and more! (Don’t get carried away with the and more part)
