I always just assumed I was getting lazy. Sex is very fun, and so I try to do it a lot. But at some point in my life, two things happened.
The first was that I filled the quota of 'male friends who are not trying to get into my pants'. This is key. This means that you now have a stable, non-insane (read non-female) influence in your life. These are the people I go to when I need actual advice, not just a sounding board to bitch at. If they were trying to get me into bed, I couldn't trust their opinion.
This means you can now NOT categorize anyone else you meet into the friend zone. And they are now by default in the sex-zone. Nice guys AND bad boys would now be fair game.
Then you try stuff. Lots of stuff. Hopefully you get a good sampling, and develop a good enough grasp of what you want, what you don't like, what you can't stand.
Now that you've got that, you look for those qualities. Like I mentioned, sex is fun, but it can be a lot of work. I'm not going to bother going out specifically to look for sex. I'm too lazy to do that unless I really want sex (and in my particular situation this is almost never as issue... I suppose that some people will continue to have no way to feed the normal sex need easily without working at it... sucks to be them) This is where the 'bad boy' will cease to succeed. Now I restrict my dealings to people I find pleasant to be around (which hopefully does not include crappy people, if I performed the previous steps with any kind of intelligence). I would sleep with them if prompted and didn't have any reason not to. And when you find one that has enough of the things you want to keep you happy, you stick with them.
If you're too ignorant to know what you want, then you continue to date the people who sell you the hardest. Have fun with that.
I've learned that the person who will keep my attention and make me blissfully happy will be brilliant, funny, and probably be frequently mistaken for a homeless man. I'm comfortable with it. I have no time to bother with bad boys. They really aren't that good in bed, unless you nice guys can't get it together to be a LITTLE aggressive at least. most of us really do like to be tossed around and man-handled.
Come on. Give me a LITTLE credit. Not all women are drawn strongly and inexplicably to "bad boys".
I will point back to the numerous posts about confidence. If you are too nice to ask someone to have sex with you, and too shy to do it in a suave and confident manner, you're not going to convince someone to sleep with you. Here you can blame women all you want. We sit back and wait for you to do all the work. If you wait for some signal or hint (which they are probably sending and you're not getting) then someone else will wander into the room and say "Hey, wanna do it?". Then we say yes, and shrug, assuming that you weren't interested. Maybe we have sharp knees.
Sex is not a long term commitment in this day and age. Whether you want to date someone or just try them out once or twice, you really do have to ask, and actually have some confidence. If it's any consolation, what with the rampant use of condoms, we may yet outbreed the assholes. Until then, start asking. Most women I know are waiting impatiently for the geeks to ask them out.
The first assumption you make is that with extra money, all that will happen is the amount of funding each research group receives will increase. This is insane.
Right now, I work on a project that is completely funded by the NIH and a private foundation grant. We recently applied for a second NIH grant to start up another section of our project. The current funding rate is 10%. When you submit a grant proposal to the NIH, they make a blanket decision on whether or not to consider you. If not, you get triaged out immediately. Then they take the remaining proposals and rank them, the highest rankings (in theory) going to those projects where they have the best laid plans with the best chance for meaningful success.
Once you make it past triage, you can already assume that your preliminary science is decent quality. Let us assume that an extra $300 million will double the NIH funding budget (it won't, but for the sake of argument). Of the already decent proposals, you will now need to make it into the top 20% to get funded, not the top 10%.
More science will get done. It will still be very high quality science. Maybe it might offset some of what I call the "Ribbon Effect", where big, loud causes who pass out a lot of ribbon get a lot of money (breast cancer funding versus lung cancer funding for example)
Sure, maybe the NIH would decide to just give everyone twice as much money. But in the research field, that would not be like giving the department of defense extra money and telling them to use it or lose it.
My lab has an RO1 grant (a high level of funding, spread over 4 years) from the NIH. If they gave us some ungodly amount of money, we would immediately use it to buy all of the long term equipment we need, but can do without because we have no other choice. Like an AC unit for the laser room, so that I can still get my work done during the summer. Half of the groups in the entire hospital shut down a few days a week all summer because the laser doesn't work if it's more than 80 degrees, and no one has the funds to buy an AC. Or how about replacing the centrifuge cover that's held together with tape. Sure it's a safety hazard, but they want $200 for a new one. Or maybe I could clean out the hazardous chemical closet and actually have the money to pay the disposal fees instead of just hiding stuff in the back and hoping no one notices and nothing explodes.
Unlike government, science has learned to do without for a very long time. Labs make do with broken equipment, bad infrastructure, doing things poorly, whatever they need to do to keep alive. It makes some of them go crazy and bare their teeth if people get too close to their paperclips. It isn't as though they would have even the slightest difficulty spending the money. It's sort of like arguing that we shouldn't give the starving kid too much food, because he won't know what to do with it. Sure if you stuff him full of bacon and french fries, he might throw up. But giving him three times as much food as he's used to is still only 1200 calories a day.
And don't even start about salaries. A friend of mine currently makes twice what I do for a starting salary as a temp worker in the tech field. He has a GED. Don't get me wrong, he's brilliant. But I have two four year degrees and at least 6 years of experience and I make about $30k a year, and I'm REALLY lucky to get that. You could easily double my salary. Really you could. No problems whatsoever. I'd buy a car. And maybe move into a place that doesn't have acoustical tile ceilings. Or possibly (gasp) OWN a home.
Hey DOD... us science types have an idea, lets just pool our resources, and split the budget 60/40. 70/30? 80/20? And we'll make you some nice superbug to wipe out half the planet with. Come on, you know you've always wanted one. I'll bet I could design some virus that only likes brown people. Wouldn't you like that? Come on now. Just try it.
but in all honesty, i think that as a taxpayer in a non-tornado zone, it costs me much less to get them new houses occasionally than it costs me to help water every lawn in southern california, new mexico, and arizona, especially once you factor in the cost of repairing the damage done to the middle of the country when you steal all their water.
i am very anti-grass. sorry, but if you live in a desert, you should not have a pool. just my opinion.
I work in neurosurgical research, and live about 10 miles from my job, too far to use anything but a car, especially taking into consideration the route I'd need to take for a bike.
The most road rage I have ever experienced is flipping the bird at reckless drivers who almost caused an accident. And I think that happened twice in the ten years I have had a driver's license.
I am a very safe driver, overall. I do speed, but not at a level that *I* would consider excessive. I always use my turn signal. ALWAYS.
I have bumper stickers. Lots of them. I get bored sitting at red lights or in traffic, and I enjoy watching people be amused or horrified. I was once pulled over by a cop because he wanted to tell me he liked my stickers. I was once followed around the city until I found a parking spot because the driver behind me wanted to say he liked my stickers. I have also been spoken to in disappointed terms by more conservative types.
I have stickers saying things such as "I 3 MASTURBATING", and "THINK: it's not illegal yet" as well as "Auntie, Hate you. Hate Kansas. Taking the dog. Dorothy" and "I have animal magnetism. When i go outside, squirrels stick to my clothes." I think of them more as a gauge to see how uptight the people around me are.
My car is far too old to worry about the paint when I live in a state that pours salt and beach sand on the road three months a year. Let me tell you, the stickers are nothing in comparison to that.
Cars for me are utilitarian objects. I use them because I need to. And the stickers don't really interfere with that. Not even a little bit.
As a whole, I can see that many people might use stickers as a territorial thing. For me it's more to make people uncomfortable. Comfort encourages stagnation.
I, with all my bumper stickers, in all my pacifistic glory, would challenge you, who assumes there is a correlation between my sense of humor and my IQ, to a battle of wits any day.
I also have vanity plates. but they are relatively classy, compared to the rest of me.
Like I said: it wouldn't be a GOOD way to differentiate between species. My point was simply that the traditional qualifier could theoretically still be considered since they can "mate".
In addition, just to be a nitpicker, interkingdom conjugation HAS to occur between individuals of different genera and species. Interkingdom conjugation could not possibly occur between species in the same genera. That would imply that there could be one genera in two kingdoms. The entire taxonomic structure as we know it would cease to exist! What ever would we do?!
In all seriousness, species barriers are fairly arbitrary. They get seriously crazy when you consider animals that are separate species because they look different and we assumed they were actually different, or those that just don't interact geographically. True they can't mate, but that's mostly because they haven't yet learned how to meet a mate on the internet yet. Give it time.
Yes. And no. Those antibacterial gels and foams are alcohol based, so that you can spread them around on your hands and get good contact with your skin, but then they dry quickly. They usually (maybe always... I'd have to look more closely than I'm willing right now) contain an antibacterial ingredient. Like triclosan. Bacteria with resistance to the common antibacterial agents are much more likely to kill you and everyone you know.
That being said, all of the research I've seen still says that the cleanest you can get your hands is by washing well with soap and water. It's the mechanical scrubbing, with no need for chemicals. Do we do this? Hell no. We'd prefer to spray everything with Lysol and let the bugs race the cancer.
I, for one, prefer to regard everything on the planet as being covered in a thin fecal veneer. It's good for you.
"Why" in the context you refer to is not really the realm of science. "How" is really all science can do. That is all it should ever be used for.
Likewise, religion, philosophy, spirituality... those fields can basically be restricted to the "Why" end of the spectrum. Those genre need not apply to the "How" question. It isn't their strong suit.
Science has nothing to say on the existence or lack of a deity. We scientists just explain HOW the deity, who may or may not exist, did the observed action.
I don't disagree with you there. It sure doesn't help ME to hear you complain. But the research definitely shows that it does help YOU for me to hear you complain. I'm sure it helps you more if I seem to care a little.
I've been working a hellish schedule for the past month, and I have to admit, the thing that really seems to make it easier is a friend of mine who frequently points out "oh wow... you've been working so many hours, poor thing." Lame, I know. but it really makes it easier to work a month worth of 13 hour days.
Also, I don't really find it annoying to read all the comments, oldest to newest. I originally did it because I hated reading an intelligent response to a really heinous comment before I read the original comment. Now I do it because apparently my sense of humor is sick and twisted enough that I really can appreciate the humor value of most anything. Sure, it's not for everyone. But it is a proposed solution to the "moderation makes me feel like the geek in high school again" problem.
I probably should have started the series with an additional fourth step: Stop caring so much.
Step 1: set your filter to -1. Then no matter what the mods want to throw points at, you still see all the comments.
Step 2: set your account to display oldest comments first instead of highest points first.
These two steps will effectively negate any effect from popularity contest mods.
Step 3: METAMOD. They give you points to moderate the moderation. Use them. If you think someone's moderation was not appropriate, you get to say so. If people agree that a certain moderator isn't using their points well, they won't get more.
And I think the point of the article was that you writing that here on/. is a coping mechanism, like complaining. It might not fix anything, but it sure makes you feel better.
almost, but you misunderstand what they are saying. base pairing is what will allow two complementary strands of DNA to bind together into one single strand with the double helix we all saw in biology class.
they are demonstrating that in a random pile of DNA, the double stranded molecules with identical sequences are more likely to stay next to each other.
it IS due to the same SORT of thing, but the molecules are not base pairing with each other. each base has a particular charge, which allows them to base pair correctly with each other. and they think that this phenomena is because the pattern of those particular charges along the strands will make similar molecules more likely to be near each other.
you don't have a very good grasp of what science has to tell us about the origin of life. abiogenesis (the origin of life) is actually a relatively well researched topic. the premise, in the most basic of terms, is that the normally occuring chemical features of certain molecules cause them to behave in pretty amazing ways. for example, you can generate RNA from simple chemical compounds in the right conditions, and coincidentally, those conditions are almost identical to the conidtion of the earth billions of years ago. some RNA molecules can make copies of themselves. if you randomly generate enough RNA molecules, you're bound to randomly generate one that can replicate itself. there are proteins that can do similar things.
no one is suggesting that wholly formed cells as we know them today spontaneously generated. Yes, all of the biological molecules formed at some point. yes, they all eventually fit together. it is not reasonable to claim that life could not have occured in a random fashion because you don't grasp how it happened. it would have taken hundreds of billions of tries, but eventually, random chance will ALWAYS reach one specific instance.
besides this, where on earth do you get the idea that cells cannot survive outside of a multicellular animal body? not only is that blatantly false, multicellular life is FAR less diverse than single cellular life. by orders of magnitude.
the chicken or the egg issue is only as issue for someone not versed in evolutionary biology. for anyone educated in this manner, the answer is easy. the egg came first. something very-similar-to-but-not-quite-a-chicken laid an egg that hatched into what was indeed a chicken. this is a vast oversimplification. usually, the lines are not as clear cut as we'd like them to be to make it easy to delineate between one species and another, but that is the general trend. there is no biological dependancy, as you describe it.
and i will point out to you, as i point out ot so many others, that evolution is very well documented and researched. the evidence you claim is lacking is there, in relatively black and white terms. evolution is not simple enough to make very specific predictions that will bear out well in the natural world. this is not due to evolution being a poor explanation. it is due to the vast number of different factors that all play in, and the inherant unpredictability in many of the factors, as well as our own inability to quantify many of those same factors. how often is your weatherman spot on? is it because the things science tells us cause the weather are a load of crap? no. it's because it's a complicated system.
Occam's razor cannot apply to creationism, since creationism is not an explanation. creationism is only a justificiation for a lack of explanation, but it is NOT true that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is that there cannot be an explanation. the issue is that there ISN'T a lack of explanation, if you care to open your eyes.
yes. this used to be one of the first arguments dragged up against evolution: if natural selection is supposed to be breeding out naughty genes that make you unhealthy, why are there so many genetic diseases in the population.
as it turns out, many genetic diseases confer some benefit (or did, at some point in time) in the haploid, or "carrier" form.
i on the other hand, took the MCAT. it is four sections; Organic Science (biology and organic chemistry), Inorganic Science (physics and inorganic chem), Reading Comprehension (not as easy as it sounds) and Writing (two fairly involved essays).
it basically assumes you have at minimum: one year of standard biology, one year of inorganic chem, one year of organic chem, one year of physics, and a college level ability to read and write.
now, i went to a state school. not a great one, but not truly awful either. my experience was that those classes would barely touch on the material covered in the test. when they say it assumes you know organic chemistry, they mean if it was in your textbook you know it like the back of your hand. my trouble in this respect may have had a lot more to do with crappy schooling in my case. i opted for the 'teach it to myself out of the book' option before the test.
assuming you know all of the material well, the test should sift out those who have the capacity to do well in medical school. they are looking for good critical thinking, good recall, and excellence under pressure. if you don't know the material, you'll score poorly even if you HAVE those qualities. assuming you know the material, only having those qualities allows you to score in the upper ranges.
they don't have pass/fail levels for the MCATs, but i'm unsober enough to brag on the intertubes that i scored a 35. for reference, for the year i took my test, the average score of the students accepted at Tufts Medical School was about 31. that's right. i rock.
but bragging aside, there is, as far as *I* know, no standardized test for critical thinking ability that works regardless of education.
ok, with that definition of socialist, who WOULD want it. i meant only that the NIH needs to stop funding so much R&D, and focus of the basic research. since no commercial enterprise has the patience to start at the basics, all that happens is we reinvent the wheel, a little rounder evey turn. the pharmaceutical industry is a perfect example. they are willing to dump huge amounts of money into developing new drugs, but none into understanding how the disease works. you can't patent an understanding of a biological system.
peer review, while subject to the same political whims as any other playing field with people on it, is the best solution we can muster, i would say. in the NIH, there is no official government hand at play. sure that's great. but maybe let's tip the scales a little more toward understanding? 18%? come on. that's a joke.
on being neuro: i actually work in neurosurgery, so i play the brain surgeon card a lot. many kicks. i do usually explain that i don't do people yet (working up to it). in terms of altruism and masochism, why yes. apparently we HAVE met.:)
let me be more clear. i am not saying that Average Joe doesn't just take waht people tell him on faith, be it science or religion. what i am saying is that religion is not rational. it does not follow an observable pattern. your faith in religion is pure faith. your faith in science is statistical in nature. i do not simply "believe" that vaccine will keep my from getting sick. sure that's what i do on the surface, but there is a huge amount of evidence to SHOW that. i don't even have to see the evidence. i just have to understand the vigorous methodology used to produce it to know that the vaccine will work. you don't belive in god because you have been shown. you believe in god because it feels right, brings meaning to your life, or any other reasons that are completely internal. and there is nothing inherantly BAD or wrong. love fits into the same category. it's a comepletly different animal. so why on earth would you try to treat them the same? it does a disservice to both.
now don't get me wrong, i AM a scientist to the core. but i don't think for a minute that the people in question cared much about science OR religion as evidenced by these actions. i think they both have an agenda. the pope doesn't think science is crap and god put fossils there to test your faith. the professors don't think that the pope is out to get them. well, they probably don't. but you better believe that science and religion are at odds. they have the same customer base. science takes money. so does religion. to get money you have to have public support. science has produced data that education makes people more likely to turn away from religion. if you can muster up the faith to accept that the idea may have some validity, you have to understand that it would be in the church's best interests to portray science as anti-religion.
although i agree with your statement that science really has nothing to say about religion, nor should it, science as a system it is based on some critical thinking and rational thought processes that can be gained only through education. since statistically, education DOES keep people away from the church, it is natural for the church to think of science as an enemy.
of COURSE it's about power. thats the idea. it ISN'T about the validity of the statements, or the truth behind them. and THAT is where i think the folly lies. it should be.
although i do not know anything about this test (i am a biology dork) i suspect that, like the MCATs which are supposed to be testing your critical thinking skills, the test assumes a basic understanding of some subject matter. probably a decent handle on math and physics, at least.
first, the five year doubling of the NIH budget ended during his first term. it was started in 1997. and that was NOT a doubling of the budget for funding basic research. during the rest of his two terms, the NIH experience the smallest ever budget increase of 2%. they considered freezing the budget completely. all the growth they tried to achieve was negated by the snails pace of the rest of his time in office. even the current republican presidential candidates have said that we need to fund more science.
secondly, Europe gets a lot of shit for not spending as much as the US of research. my field is medical, and so i will stick to that for the moment. i work in the neuroscience field specifically, and so i will use that as an example. the US spends much more on research funding in neuroscience than Europe. not shocking, since there are more of us. the estimated cost to the government of neurological diseases is also more in the US than in Europe. again, pretty obvious. the sad part is when you compare the two figures. the amount Europe spends on research represents about 10% of the cost of the health problems. the US, less than 1%. so really, Europe spends proportionally more on research for the same issues when compared to how "bad" a problem is.
so you suggest that scientists should not look to the government for funding. what other options DO you suggest? find me a company that wants to pay me to publish the paper i have been working on for the past year, and i would be happy to give up the 1.2 million we got from the government. oh wait. remember to tell them there is no realistic chance of making the money back. ever. it really is important research, though. really.
what i see as most disturbing not only in the article, but in the responses, is that no one seems to worry about what is referred to as "basic" research anymore. basic research is the research you do to figure out what is happening in a system normally, figuring out how it's supposed to work. this is the first step in ANY major breakthrough, no matter the field.
but it's the least funded.
i work in basic research in the medical field. the NIH is currently funding between 9 and 10 PERCENT of the proposals handed to them. hopefully they are picking the cream of the crop. we don't lack the manpower. there are LOTS of capable people to do the work. it's funding. there is VERY little funding for research unless someone stands to make a great deal of money from it. the problem is, most of the important things we need to figure out are not going to make anyone a pile of money. they may, down the line. but it isn't that likely.
call me a socialist, but the government needs to get the act together and push their funding toward basic research, and let industry pay for R&D.
on your first point, "These two systems aren't all that different in rationality from the user or average person's perspective." i disagree. i agree, sure, that your average person does not understand the logistics behind most scientific discoveries. but the fact of the matter is that science deals with evidence and data. *YOU* may never have read the first published research into bacterial infection, or be able to fully grasp the organic structure of an antibiotic, but you would give them to your child if they were sick. you may be just taking their word for it, but with good reason. just because Average Joe doesn't look up the human trial results for a prescription, he COULD. and the entire system is set up so that you shouldn't have to. trusting science when it is done right is usually a good move. religion on the other hand, deals with comepletely different subject matter, and therefore cannot be dealtwith in the same manner as science. you can try to rationalize it if you wish, but in the end you are only trying to use logic to prove a bunch of assumptions and non-observable, non-objective things. i have no problem with religion. it just isn't a rational and evidence based subject. nor should it be. and when people try to treat it as such, they swiftly look clueless. it's like trying to describe the texture of your food using colors.
secondly, there is NO DOUBT in my mind that there was some other motive at work here. on both sides. in my mind, i suspect the pope wanted a platform to spout a lot of the non-scientific nonsense he's been known to spout. i highly doubt that this professor was simply worked up about the "wrongs" done to Galileo. most likely, that is a jumping off place to talk about the broader subject of the subjugation of science to religion, which is a big important thing that should not be ignored. it makes a good stepping stone since, as i understand it, this pope has refuted the claims made previously that the church handled it incorrectly. now i doubt the pope is dumb, and he realizes that many people will be able to see that the church is grasping at straws to take away speed from this scary intellect based movement called science. so he uses this protest, that has now gotten large enough to gain his attention, as an excuse to cancel. now science is the big bad guy, trying to do away with religion, disprove it.
in reality, this was a shot for attention by both sides. religion is run like any other business. they want more customers, and they are playing the victim card to get some. some people made a bad call, and now the field of science is "taking the hit" so to speak. but science has little to say about spirituality, outside of measuring its effects. no one said it did. my point was that people should take the upper hand, let them scream, and explain calmly why they are incorrect. don't get sucked into this stupid game of he said she said. science will "win" on it's own merits if you allow the evidence to speak for itself on this playing field.
i got the impression FTA that it was a small faculty thing, then some students got their fingers in it, and it got much bigger.
having a small demonstration when he was there would have acually made some sense. a few professors to point out that the church has spent hundreds of years trying to subjugate science, who would probably then want to listen carefully to everything he said so they could explain exactly where the fallacies in his reasoning were. it's what i would have done.
but it probably got huge when some angsty student types got ahold of the idea, and didn't realize that the plan wasn't to make him not come, just to point and laugh when his "reasoning" fell flat. but he had the out and took it. now the scientists who started it look like the assholes, who wouldn't allow the pope to make a speech.
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I always just assumed I was getting lazy. Sex is very fun, and so I try to do it a lot. But at some point in my life, two things happened.
The first was that I filled the quota of 'male friends who are not trying to get into my pants'. This is key. This means that you now have a stable, non-insane (read non-female) influence in your life. These are the people I go to when I need actual advice, not just a sounding board to bitch at. If they were trying to get me into bed, I couldn't trust their opinion.
This means you can now NOT categorize anyone else you meet into the friend zone. And they are now by default in the sex-zone. Nice guys AND bad boys would now be fair game.
Then you try stuff. Lots of stuff. Hopefully you get a good sampling, and develop a good enough grasp of what you want, what you don't like, what you can't stand.
Now that you've got that, you look for those qualities. Like I mentioned, sex is fun, but it can be a lot of work. I'm not going to bother going out specifically to look for sex. I'm too lazy to do that unless I really want sex (and in my particular situation this is almost never as issue... I suppose that some people will continue to have no way to feed the normal sex need easily without working at it... sucks to be them) This is where the 'bad boy' will cease to succeed. Now I restrict my dealings to people I find pleasant to be around (which hopefully does not include crappy people, if I performed the previous steps with any kind of intelligence). I would sleep with them if prompted and didn't have any reason not to. And when you find one that has enough of the things you want to keep you happy, you stick with them.
If you're too ignorant to know what you want, then you continue to date the people who sell you the hardest. Have fun with that.
I've learned that the person who will keep my attention and make me blissfully happy will be brilliant, funny, and probably be frequently mistaken for a homeless man. I'm comfortable with it. I have no time to bother with bad boys. They really aren't that good in bed, unless you nice guys can't get it together to be a LITTLE aggressive at least. most of us really do like to be tossed around and man-handled.
Come on. Give me a LITTLE credit. Not all women are drawn strongly and inexplicably to "bad boys".
I will point back to the numerous posts about confidence. If you are too nice to ask someone to have sex with you, and too shy to do it in a suave and confident manner, you're not going to convince someone to sleep with you. Here you can blame women all you want. We sit back and wait for you to do all the work. If you wait for some signal or hint (which they are probably sending and you're not getting) then someone else will wander into the room and say "Hey, wanna do it?". Then we say yes, and shrug, assuming that you weren't interested. Maybe we have sharp knees.
Sex is not a long term commitment in this day and age. Whether you want to date someone or just try them out once or twice, you really do have to ask, and actually have some confidence. If it's any consolation, what with the rampant use of condoms, we may yet outbreed the assholes. Until then, start asking. Most women I know are waiting impatiently for the geeks to ask them out.
There are a few problems with your scenario.
The first assumption you make is that with extra money, all that will happen is the amount of funding each research group receives will increase. This is insane.
Right now, I work on a project that is completely funded by the NIH and a private foundation grant. We recently applied for a second NIH grant to start up another section of our project. The current funding rate is 10%. When you submit a grant proposal to the NIH, they make a blanket decision on whether or not to consider you. If not, you get triaged out immediately. Then they take the remaining proposals and rank them, the highest rankings (in theory) going to those projects where they have the best laid plans with the best chance for meaningful success.
Once you make it past triage, you can already assume that your preliminary science is decent quality. Let us assume that an extra $300 million will double the NIH funding budget (it won't, but for the sake of argument). Of the already decent proposals, you will now need to make it into the top 20% to get funded, not the top 10%.
More science will get done. It will still be very high quality science. Maybe it might offset some of what I call the "Ribbon Effect", where big, loud causes who pass out a lot of ribbon get a lot of money (breast cancer funding versus lung cancer funding for example)
Sure, maybe the NIH would decide to just give everyone twice as much money. But in the research field, that would not be like giving the department of defense extra money and telling them to use it or lose it.
My lab has an RO1 grant (a high level of funding, spread over 4 years) from the NIH. If they gave us some ungodly amount of money, we would immediately use it to buy all of the long term equipment we need, but can do without because we have no other choice. Like an AC unit for the laser room, so that I can still get my work done during the summer. Half of the groups in the entire hospital shut down a few days a week all summer because the laser doesn't work if it's more than 80 degrees, and no one has the funds to buy an AC. Or how about replacing the centrifuge cover that's held together with tape. Sure it's a safety hazard, but they want $200 for a new one. Or maybe I could clean out the hazardous chemical closet and actually have the money to pay the disposal fees instead of just hiding stuff in the back and hoping no one notices and nothing explodes.
Unlike government, science has learned to do without for a very long time. Labs make do with broken equipment, bad infrastructure, doing things poorly, whatever they need to do to keep alive. It makes some of them go crazy and bare their teeth if people get too close to their paperclips. It isn't as though they would have even the slightest difficulty spending the money. It's sort of like arguing that we shouldn't give the starving kid too much food, because he won't know what to do with it. Sure if you stuff him full of bacon and french fries, he might throw up. But giving him three times as much food as he's used to is still only 1200 calories a day.
And don't even start about salaries. A friend of mine currently makes twice what I do for a starting salary as a temp worker in the tech field. He has a GED. Don't get me wrong, he's brilliant. But I have two four year degrees and at least 6 years of experience and I make about $30k a year, and I'm REALLY lucky to get that. You could easily double my salary. Really you could. No problems whatsoever. I'd buy a car. And maybe move into a place that doesn't have acoustical tile ceilings. Or possibly (gasp) OWN a home.
Hey DOD... us science types have an idea, lets just pool our resources, and split the budget 60/40. 70/30? 80/20? And we'll make you some nice superbug to wipe out half the planet with. Come on, you know you've always wanted one. I'll bet I could design some virus that only likes brown people. Wouldn't you like that? Come on now. Just try it.
as i say, mean plus funny still equals funny.
but in all honesty, i think that as a taxpayer in a non-tornado zone, it costs me much less to get them new houses occasionally than it costs me to help water every lawn in southern california, new mexico, and arizona, especially once you factor in the cost of repairing the damage done to the middle of the country when you steal all their water.
i am very anti-grass. sorry, but if you live in a desert, you should not have a pool. just my opinion.
I am a relatively intelligent person.
I work in neurosurgical research, and live about 10 miles from my job, too far to use anything but a car, especially taking into consideration the route I'd need to take for a bike.
The most road rage I have ever experienced is flipping the bird at reckless drivers who almost caused an accident. And I think that happened twice in the ten years I have had a driver's license.
I am a very safe driver, overall. I do speed, but not at a level that *I* would consider excessive. I always use my turn signal. ALWAYS.
I have bumper stickers. Lots of them. I get bored sitting at red lights or in traffic, and I enjoy watching people be amused or horrified. I was once pulled over by a cop because he wanted to tell me he liked my stickers. I was once followed around the city until I found a parking spot because the driver behind me wanted to say he liked my stickers. I have also been spoken to in disappointed terms by more conservative types.
I have stickers saying things such as "I 3 MASTURBATING", and "THINK: it's not illegal yet" as well as "Auntie, Hate you. Hate Kansas. Taking the dog. Dorothy" and "I have animal magnetism. When i go outside, squirrels stick to my clothes." I think of them more as a gauge to see how uptight the people around me are.
My car is far too old to worry about the paint when I live in a state that pours salt and beach sand on the road three months a year. Let me tell you, the stickers are nothing in comparison to that.
Cars for me are utilitarian objects. I use them because I need to. And the stickers don't really interfere with that. Not even a little bit.
As a whole, I can see that many people might use stickers as a territorial thing. For me it's more to make people uncomfortable. Comfort encourages stagnation.
I, with all my bumper stickers, in all my pacifistic glory, would challenge you, who assumes there is a correlation between my sense of humor and my IQ, to a battle of wits any day.
I also have vanity plates. but they are relatively classy, compared to the rest of me.
Like I said: it wouldn't be a GOOD way to differentiate between species. My point was simply that the traditional qualifier could theoretically still be considered since they can "mate".
In addition, just to be a nitpicker, interkingdom conjugation HAS to occur between individuals of different genera and species. Interkingdom conjugation could not possibly occur between species in the same genera. That would imply that there could be one genera in two kingdoms. The entire taxonomic structure as we know it would cease to exist! What ever would we do?!
In all seriousness, species barriers are fairly arbitrary. They get seriously crazy when you consider animals that are separate species because they look different and we assumed they were actually different, or those that just don't interact geographically. True they can't mate, but that's mostly because they haven't yet learned how to meet a mate on the internet yet. Give it time.
Yes. And no. Those antibacterial gels and foams are alcohol based, so that you can spread them around on your hands and get good contact with your skin, but then they dry quickly. They usually (maybe always... I'd have to look more closely than I'm willing right now) contain an antibacterial ingredient. Like triclosan. Bacteria with resistance to the common antibacterial agents are much more likely to kill you and everyone you know.
That being said, all of the research I've seen still says that the cleanest you can get your hands is by washing well with soap and water. It's the mechanical scrubbing, with no need for chemicals. Do we do this? Hell no. We'd prefer to spray everything with Lysol and let the bugs race the cancer.
I, for one, prefer to regard everything on the planet as being covered in a thin fecal veneer. It's good for you.
"Why" in the context you refer to is not really the realm of science. "How" is really all science can do. That is all it should ever be used for.
Likewise, religion, philosophy, spirituality... those fields can basically be restricted to the "Why" end of the spectrum. Those genre need not apply to the "How" question. It isn't their strong suit.
Science has nothing to say on the existence or lack of a deity. We scientists just explain HOW the deity, who may or may not exist, did the observed action.
Bacterial Conjugation.
Here. I wiki'd it for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterial_conjugation
That being said, this may not be the best way to differentiate species in bacteria. But you can still use it, none the less.
I don't disagree with you there. It sure doesn't help ME to hear you complain. But the research definitely shows that it does help YOU for me to hear you complain. I'm sure it helps you more if I seem to care a little.
I've been working a hellish schedule for the past month, and I have to admit, the thing that really seems to make it easier is a friend of mine who frequently points out "oh wow... you've been working so many hours, poor thing." Lame, I know. but it really makes it easier to work a month worth of 13 hour days.
Also, I don't really find it annoying to read all the comments, oldest to newest. I originally did it because I hated reading an intelligent response to a really heinous comment before I read the original comment. Now I do it because apparently my sense of humor is sick and twisted enough that I really can appreciate the humor value of most anything. Sure, it's not for everyone. But it is a proposed solution to the "moderation makes me feel like the geek in high school again" problem.
I probably should have started the series with an additional fourth step: Stop caring so much.
I take three steps to counteract this.
/. is a coping mechanism, like complaining. It might not fix anything, but it sure makes you feel better.
Step 1: set your filter to -1. Then no matter what the mods want to throw points at, you still see all the comments.
Step 2: set your account to display oldest comments first instead of highest points first.
These two steps will effectively negate any effect from popularity contest mods.
Step 3: METAMOD. They give you points to moderate the moderation. Use them. If you think someone's moderation was not appropriate, you get to say so. If people agree that a certain moderator isn't using their points well, they won't get more.
And I think the point of the article was that you writing that here on
she was clearly a ninja. they're easy to miss.
thank you. i thought i had read the wrong article.
in other news, stimulants makes you lose weight?!? shocking.
almost, but you misunderstand what they are saying. base pairing is what will allow two complementary strands of DNA to bind together into one single strand with the double helix we all saw in biology class.
they are demonstrating that in a random pile of DNA, the double stranded molecules with identical sequences are more likely to stay next to each other.
it IS due to the same SORT of thing, but the molecules are not base pairing with each other. each base has a particular charge, which allows them to base pair correctly with each other. and they think that this phenomena is because the pattern of those particular charges along the strands will make similar molecules more likely to be near each other.
you don't have a very good grasp of what science has to tell us about the origin of life. abiogenesis (the origin of life) is actually a relatively well researched topic. the premise, in the most basic of terms, is that the normally occuring chemical features of certain molecules cause them to behave in pretty amazing ways. for example, you can generate RNA from simple chemical compounds in the right conditions, and coincidentally, those conditions are almost identical to the conidtion of the earth billions of years ago. some RNA molecules can make copies of themselves. if you randomly generate enough RNA molecules, you're bound to randomly generate one that can replicate itself. there are proteins that can do similar things.
no one is suggesting that wholly formed cells as we know them today spontaneously generated. Yes, all of the biological molecules formed at some point. yes, they all eventually fit together. it is not reasonable to claim that life could not have occured in a random fashion because you don't grasp how it happened. it would have taken hundreds of billions of tries, but eventually, random chance will ALWAYS reach one specific instance.
besides this, where on earth do you get the idea that cells cannot survive outside of a multicellular animal body? not only is that blatantly false, multicellular life is FAR less diverse than single cellular life. by orders of magnitude.
the chicken or the egg issue is only as issue for someone not versed in evolutionary biology. for anyone educated in this manner, the answer is easy. the egg came first. something very-similar-to-but-not-quite-a-chicken laid an egg that hatched into what was indeed a chicken. this is a vast oversimplification. usually, the lines are not as clear cut as we'd like them to be to make it easy to delineate between one species and another, but that is the general trend. there is no biological dependancy, as you describe it.
and i will point out to you, as i point out ot so many others, that evolution is very well documented and researched. the evidence you claim is lacking is there, in relatively black and white terms. evolution is not simple enough to make very specific predictions that will bear out well in the natural world. this is not due to evolution being a poor explanation. it is due to the vast number of different factors that all play in, and the inherant unpredictability in many of the factors, as well as our own inability to quantify many of those same factors. how often is your weatherman spot on? is it because the things science tells us cause the weather are a load of crap? no. it's because it's a complicated system.
Occam's razor cannot apply to creationism, since creationism is not an explanation. creationism is only a justificiation for a lack of explanation, but it is NOT true that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is that there cannot be an explanation. the issue is that there ISN'T a lack of explanation, if you care to open your eyes.
yes. this used to be one of the first arguments dragged up against evolution: if natural selection is supposed to be breeding out naughty genes that make you unhealthy, why are there so many genetic diseases in the population.
as it turns out, many genetic diseases confer some benefit (or did, at some point in time) in the haploid, or "carrier" form.
see, we're scientists. we don't like to use that word.
we call it a 'prediction'. it's less scary.
faith is what we have that our predictions will be correct. but only in secret.
i on the other hand, took the MCAT. it is four sections; Organic Science (biology and organic chemistry), Inorganic Science (physics and inorganic chem), Reading Comprehension (not as easy as it sounds) and Writing (two fairly involved essays).
it basically assumes you have at minimum: one year of standard biology, one year of inorganic chem, one year of organic chem, one year of physics, and a college level ability to read and write.
now, i went to a state school. not a great one, but not truly awful either. my experience was that those classes would barely touch on the material covered in the test. when they say it assumes you know organic chemistry, they mean if it was in your textbook you know it like the back of your hand. my trouble in this respect may have had a lot more to do with crappy schooling in my case. i opted for the 'teach it to myself out of the book' option before the test.
assuming you know all of the material well, the test should sift out those who have the capacity to do well in medical school. they are looking for good critical thinking, good recall, and excellence under pressure. if you don't know the material, you'll score poorly even if you HAVE those qualities. assuming you know the material, only having those qualities allows you to score in the upper ranges.
they don't have pass/fail levels for the MCATs, but i'm unsober enough to brag on the intertubes that i scored a 35. for reference, for the year i took my test, the average score of the students accepted at Tufts Medical School was about 31. that's right. i rock.
but bragging aside, there is, as far as *I* know, no standardized test for critical thinking ability that works regardless of education.
ok, with that definition of socialist, who WOULD want it. i meant only that the NIH needs to stop funding so much R&D, and focus of the basic research. since no commercial enterprise has the patience to start at the basics, all that happens is we reinvent the wheel, a little rounder evey turn. the pharmaceutical industry is a perfect example. they are willing to dump huge amounts of money into developing new drugs, but none into understanding how the disease works. you can't patent an understanding of a biological system.
:)
peer review, while subject to the same political whims as any other playing field with people on it, is the best solution we can muster, i would say. in the NIH, there is no official government hand at play. sure that's great. but maybe let's tip the scales a little more toward understanding? 18%? come on. that's a joke.
on being neuro: i actually work in neurosurgery, so i play the brain surgeon card a lot. many kicks. i do usually explain that i don't do people yet (working up to it). in terms of altruism and masochism, why yes. apparently we HAVE met.
let me be more clear. i am not saying that Average Joe doesn't just take waht people tell him on faith, be it science or religion. what i am saying is that religion is not rational. it does not follow an observable pattern. your faith in religion is pure faith. your faith in science is statistical in nature. i do not simply "believe" that vaccine will keep my from getting sick. sure that's what i do on the surface, but there is a huge amount of evidence to SHOW that. i don't even have to see the evidence. i just have to understand the vigorous methodology used to produce it to know that the vaccine will work. you don't belive in god because you have been shown. you believe in god because it feels right, brings meaning to your life, or any other reasons that are completely internal. and there is nothing inherantly BAD or wrong. love fits into the same category. it's a comepletly different animal. so why on earth would you try to treat them the same? it does a disservice to both.
now don't get me wrong, i AM a scientist to the core. but i don't think for a minute that the people in question cared much about science OR religion as evidenced by these actions. i think they both have an agenda. the pope doesn't think science is crap and god put fossils there to test your faith. the professors don't think that the pope is out to get them. well, they probably don't. but you better believe that science and religion are at odds. they have the same customer base. science takes money. so does religion. to get money you have to have public support. science has produced data that education makes people more likely to turn away from religion. if you can muster up the faith to accept that the idea may have some validity, you have to understand that it would be in the church's best interests to portray science as anti-religion.
although i agree with your statement that science really has nothing to say about religion, nor should it, science as a system it is based on some critical thinking and rational thought processes that can be gained only through education. since statistically, education DOES keep people away from the church, it is natural for the church to think of science as an enemy.
of COURSE it's about power. thats the idea. it ISN'T about the validity of the statements, or the truth behind them. and THAT is where i think the folly lies. it should be.
although i do not know anything about this test (i am a biology dork) i suspect that, like the MCATs which are supposed to be testing your critical thinking skills, the test assumes a basic understanding of some subject matter. probably a decent handle on math and physics, at least.
first, the five year doubling of the NIH budget ended during his first term. it was started in 1997. and that was NOT a doubling of the budget for funding basic research. during the rest of his two terms, the NIH experience the smallest ever budget increase of 2%. they considered freezing the budget completely. all the growth they tried to achieve was negated by the snails pace of the rest of his time in office. even the current republican presidential candidates have said that we need to fund more science.
secondly, Europe gets a lot of shit for not spending as much as the US of research. my field is medical, and so i will stick to that for the moment. i work in the neuroscience field specifically, and so i will use that as an example. the US spends much more on research funding in neuroscience than Europe. not shocking, since there are more of us. the estimated cost to the government of neurological diseases is also more in the US than in Europe. again, pretty obvious. the sad part is when you compare the two figures. the amount Europe spends on research represents about 10% of the cost of the health problems. the US, less than 1%. so really, Europe spends proportionally more on research for the same issues when compared to how "bad" a problem is.
so you suggest that scientists should not look to the government for funding. what other options DO you suggest? find me a company that wants to pay me to publish the paper i have been working on for the past year, and i would be happy to give up the 1.2 million we got from the government. oh wait. remember to tell them there is no realistic chance of making the money back. ever. it really is important research, though. really.
it should go over well.
what i see as most disturbing not only in the article, but in the responses, is that no one seems to worry about what is referred to as "basic" research anymore. basic research is the research you do to figure out what is happening in a system normally, figuring out how it's supposed to work. this is the first step in ANY major breakthrough, no matter the field.
but it's the least funded.
i work in basic research in the medical field. the NIH is currently funding between 9 and 10 PERCENT of the proposals handed to them. hopefully they are picking the cream of the crop. we don't lack the manpower. there are LOTS of capable people to do the work. it's funding. there is VERY little funding for research unless someone stands to make a great deal of money from it. the problem is, most of the important things we need to figure out are not going to make anyone a pile of money. they may, down the line. but it isn't that likely.
call me a socialist, but the government needs to get the act together and push their funding toward basic research, and let industry pay for R&D.
on your first point, "These two systems aren't all that different in rationality from the user or average person's perspective." i disagree. i agree, sure, that your average person does not understand the logistics behind most scientific discoveries. but the fact of the matter is that science deals with evidence and data. *YOU* may never have read the first published research into bacterial infection, or be able to fully grasp the organic structure of an antibiotic, but you would give them to your child if they were sick. you may be just taking their word for it, but with good reason. just because Average Joe doesn't look up the human trial results for a prescription, he COULD. and the entire system is set up so that you shouldn't have to. trusting science when it is done right is usually a good move. religion on the other hand, deals with comepletely different subject matter, and therefore cannot be dealtwith in the same manner as science. you can try to rationalize it if you wish, but in the end you are only trying to use logic to prove a bunch of assumptions and non-observable, non-objective things. i have no problem with religion. it just isn't a rational and evidence based subject. nor should it be. and when people try to treat it as such, they swiftly look clueless. it's like trying to describe the texture of your food using colors.
secondly, there is NO DOUBT in my mind that there was some other motive at work here. on both sides. in my mind, i suspect the pope wanted a platform to spout a lot of the non-scientific nonsense he's been known to spout. i highly doubt that this professor was simply worked up about the "wrongs" done to Galileo. most likely, that is a jumping off place to talk about the broader subject of the subjugation of science to religion, which is a big important thing that should not be ignored. it makes a good stepping stone since, as i understand it, this pope has refuted the claims made previously that the church handled it incorrectly. now i doubt the pope is dumb, and he realizes that many people will be able to see that the church is grasping at straws to take away speed from this scary intellect based movement called science. so he uses this protest, that has now gotten large enough to gain his attention, as an excuse to cancel. now science is the big bad guy, trying to do away with religion, disprove it.
in reality, this was a shot for attention by both sides. religion is run like any other business. they want more customers, and they are playing the victim card to get some. some people made a bad call, and now the field of science is "taking the hit" so to speak. but science has little to say about spirituality, outside of measuring its effects. no one said it did. my point was that people should take the upper hand, let them scream, and explain calmly why they are incorrect. don't get sucked into this stupid game of he said she said. science will "win" on it's own merits if you allow the evidence to speak for itself on this playing field.
i got the impression FTA that it was a small faculty thing, then some students got their fingers in it, and it got much bigger.
having a small demonstration when he was there would have acually made some sense. a few professors to point out that the church has spent hundreds of years trying to subjugate science, who would probably then want to listen carefully to everything he said so they could explain exactly where the fallacies in his reasoning were. it's what i would have done.
but it probably got huge when some angsty student types got ahold of the idea, and didn't realize that the plan wasn't to make him not come, just to point and laugh when his "reasoning" fell flat. but he had the out and took it. now the scientists who started it look like the assholes, who wouldn't allow the pope to make a speech.
passion really can be overly abundant.
just my two cents.