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A Biologist And A Psychologist Square Off Over The Definition Of Science

A Biologist And A Psychologist Square Off Over The Definition Of Science

Jul 17 2012 | comment(s)

Is psychology a science?  

Increasingly, the respect of science (and scientists) by the public has been dropping and a part of that reason is because the line of what science is has become fuzzy. If economics calls itself science, well, the public knows they don't know what they are talking about, so maybe it applies to climate science too. Is sociology science?  What about parapsychology?

If the definition of science becomes relative, then so does acceptance of science, in a slippery slope world, so we can't expect people will accept FDA findings as science if political science is funded by the National Science Foundation and the public knows that isn't scientific at all.
Nocebo Effect - Warnings About Side Effects Of Drugs May Be Making Us Sick

Nocebo Effect - Warnings About Side Effects Of Drugs May Be Making Us Sick

Jul 17 2012 | comment(s)

How many times have you seen a commercial for some medication to alleviate some pesky condition, and the bulk of the ad spot is someone droning on about all of the side effects?

And what's up with that print at the bottom that always says, "See our ad in GOLF magazine"?  GOLF magazine must have the sickest readers on planet Earth.  And then those print ads are even scarier than TV commercials.

Writing at PLoS Blogs, Steve Silberman discusses a new report that says side effects may actually be increased by full disclosure of all the side effects.
 
Is DSM-5 Unscientific?

Is DSM-5 Unscientific?

Jul 17 2012 | comment(s)

Psychologist Roel Verheul and Psychiatrist John Livesley have resigned from the DSM-5 Personality Disorders Work Group, citing "major concerns about the Work Group's mode of working" and lack of a "coherent, evidence-based classification that would help to advance the field and facilitate patient care."

DSM stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

They explained in an email to Psychology Today's Allen Frances, M.D.:
Genetically Modified Apples And The Chilling Effect Of Anti-Science Propaganda

Genetically Modified Apples And The Chilling Effect Of Anti-Science Propaganda

Jul 17 2012 | comment(s)

While gullible anti-science progressives are against genetically modified foods because they don't understand what 'natural' means, it isn't just advocacy groups who need new things to fundraise about that are up in arms, it is also growers themselves.

Okanagan Specialty Fruits has created an apple that doesn't get brownish so fast after you cut into it.  That's it.  Terrific, right?

The U.S. Apple Association, which represents the American apple industry, is against this Arctic Apple, not because they believe that genetic engineering is dangerous, but because opponents will claim apples are not a 'natural' food.
Legislating Out And Suppressing Dissent Is Not A Liberal Trait

Legislating Out And Suppressing Dissent Is Not A Liberal Trait

Jul 17 2012 | comment(s)

Over the last year there has been increasing recognition that it isn't "the right" who are anti-science. The left has far more anti-science people; percentage-wise, there are more anti-vaccine people who vote Democrat than there are Republicans who deny evolution or global warming.  Ditto for anti-GMO stances, people who believe in psychics and UFOs, etc. The list of kooky positions that turn out to be held by people on the left is huge but you wouldn't know that from science media of the past decade.
A tribute to Professor Konrad Mengel who passed away on 12.07.2012.

A tribute to Professor Konrad Mengel who passed away on 12.07.2012.

Jul 17 2012 | comment(s)

When I received the message from Frau Christian Plachta an associate  at the Institute   yesterday “Pflanzenernährung mitgeteilt, dass Herr Konrad Mengel am 12.07.2012 im Alter von 82 Jahren verstorben ist. Die Trauerfeierfindet am Donnerstag, den19.07.2012 um 14:30 Uhr in der Kirche in Pohlheim-Watzenborn statt” meaning that “ Institut of Plant Nutrition informs that Professor Dr Konrad Mengel has expired on 12.07. 2012 at the age of 82 years and the “Trauerfeier”   assembly will take place  on 19.07.2012 at 14.30 in Church from Pohlheim-Watzenborn.

"Arctic Grape" Genetically Altered Fruit, Escapes Public Approval

Jul 17 2012 | comment(s)

We are currently witnessing the USDA public commentary period on the Arctic Apple, a transgenic apple that does not exhibit browning upon injury or cutting.  The anti-browning trait was installed by scientists at Okanagan Specialty Fruits. A copy of the apple gene for polyphenol oxidase (PPO) was overexpressed, which triggers a plant response to silence the over-expressed gene.  The same process also suppresses the apple’s endogenous PPO genes.  Without this protein, the apple flesh cannot brown. 

The Survival Software of our Nervous System as the Generator of Beliefs

The Survival Software of our Nervous System as the Generator of Beliefs

Jul 17 2012 | comment(s)

Since the unicellular creature, going through the evolution of the living organisms, until the recently ones, with complex and different kind of neurons, the nervous system has had only one purpose; to receive a particular change of energy of the environment, integrate it as an stimulus, and give a particular response to it. The stimulus can only be of two different types, harmful or beneficial, and they can have variations according the species and the particular state of the living creature.

Wikipedia’s Women Woes

Wikipedia’s Women Woes

Jul 16 2012 | comment(s)

Last year I wrote about somewhat silly claims that Wikipedia must be sexist because it had poor female representation. Wikipedia is an open, voluntary community, I argued, some people are just not going to do it.
Wheat That Needs No Fertilizer - Gates Foundation Bets Big On GMOs

Wheat That Needs No Fertilizer - Gates Foundation Bets Big On GMOs

Jul 16 2012 | comment(s)

New work at the John Innes Centre in Norwich is hoped to benefit African farmers who cannot afford fertilizer.

Fertilizer is essential, it has made it possible to feed billions, but it brings pollution and farmers in poor countries who can't afford seed and lots of fertilizer might be able to afford seed that needs no chemicals to turn into food.
Unilateral Dermatoheliosis - 28 Years Of Photoaging Due To Sun Exposure

Unilateral Dermatoheliosis - 28 Years Of Photoaging Due To Sun Exposure

Jul 16 2012 | comment(s)

Think too much of ol' Sol won't age you prematurely?

Here's an unintentional science experiment on the effects of sun exposure.  It's like a before and after picture, except it's the same face. 

A 69-year-old man showed a 25-year history of gradual, asymptomatic thickening and wrinkling of the skin on the left side of his face, the authors in NEJM write.  The circumstances were about three decades of truck driving where one side of his face got a lot more sun exposure. 
20,000 Year Old Pottery Discovered In Chinese Cave

20,000 Year Old Pottery Discovered In Chinese Cave

Jul 16 2012 | comment(s)

The date for domesticated kitchenware has just gotten pushed back. 

While it was believed that pottery dated back to 10,000 years ago, when humans changed from being hunter-gathers to farmers, the new archaeological findings push pottery well into the last Ice Age.  Archeology may have brought a new anthropology puzzle, like why in Asia pottery is so far out of sync with agriculture.

The fragments were discovered in the Xianrendong cave in south China's Jiangxi province. The team was able to determine the sediments in the cave were accumulated gradually, without disruption that might have altered the time sequence, so their radiocarbon dating is accurate, they believe.
Eugenics - Coming To A Rich Country Near You

Eugenics - Coming To A Rich Country Near You

Jul 16 2012 | comment(s)

Eugenics, the darling of elite, educated progressives 100 years ago in their quest to create Utopia, has been out of favor since those crazy Germans took it too far in the late 1930s, but there is one sound reason it found favor; why wouldn't we eliminate serious diseases beforehand instead of treating them after? 
Food Fear, Food Labels, And My Two Cents

Food Fear, Food Labels, And My Two Cents

Jul 15 2012 | comment(s)

If you want to scare somebody, convince them that there is a remote chance of danger in their food, water or medicine. Even if there is no evidence to back up the claim, people respond strongly to such information, causing them to abandon safe foods for alternatives. Today this fear factor is being played to influence food policy and politics, as activists realize they can change consumption with distortions of truth and perpetuation of food phobias and food anxiety. Because it works like a charm.

The Red Scare of 1976
Love Thy Neighbor Applies, Even When There's Money At Stake

Love Thy Neighbor Applies, Even When There's Money At Stake

Jul 15 2012 | comment(s)

Most people do not want war in their backyard.  In geopolitics, people claim to love their neighbor but they still prepare to fight; Switzerland, the home of neutrality, still has hundreds of forts built into their mountains and young men are required to own a gun(1). 
Figuring Out The Mind Of The Psychopath - Or Not

Figuring Out The Mind Of The Psychopath - Or Not

Jul 15 2012 | comment(s)

Are psychopaths made in a certain way and unable to change?

Perhaps, says Aina Gullhaugen, a psychologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, but there is a discrepancy between the formal characteristics of psychopathy and what she has experienced in meeting psychopaths - which is kind of like saying Stalin was not a psychopath if she had met him and he seemed different than what the DSM describes.
Blind Man’s Cane Sees DNA Double Helix

Blind Man’s Cane Sees DNA Double Helix

Jul 14 2012 | comment(s)

This is an almost verbatim copy of a press release from the London Centre for nanotechnology.

When Watson, Crick and Wilkins discovered the DNA double helix nearly sixty years ago, they based their structure on an X-ray diffraction image (courtesy of Franklin) averaged over millions of DNA molecules (derived from squid sperm, I understand). Though the double helix has become iconic for our molecular-scale understanding of life, thus far no-one has ever “seen” the double helix of an individual double-stranded DNA in its natural environment, i.e, salty water.
Uncanny Valley: Creepiness Gets Some Neuroscience

Uncanny Valley: Creepiness Gets Some Neuroscience

Jul 14 2012 | comment(s)

Why do clowns freak us out?  And why are robots cute until they look too much like people, and then then they creep us out?

It's our old friend the Uncanny Valley and it basically postulates that the more realistic something gets to a human likeness, the more repulsive it is.  I don't mean like realistic special effects as in "Wrath Of The Titans" - that giant, flaming lava hand of Chronos looks cool - but rather likeness when it comes to humanoids, be they zombies or robots.  
Bio-fuels and Climate Change Mitigation

Bio-fuels and Climate Change Mitigation

Jul 14 2012 | comment(s)

Global climate change has stimulated efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. Photosynthetic organisms use solar energy to generate reducing equivalents and incorporate atmospheric CO2 into organic molecules. Cellular phenotype is a manifestation of gene expression levels, metabolic demand, resource availability, and cellular stresses. The variation in raw material for production of biofuels ranges from hydrocarbon yielding plants, non-edible and edible oil yielding plant, corn ,sugarcane to lingo-cellulosic waste to algal biofuels.  Currently, cellulosic biofuels and algal biodiesels   are prominent biological approaches to sequeste rand convert CO2.
The Quote of the Week: Harrison Prosper, Why We Want To Be Sure

The Quote of the Week: Harrison Prosper, Why We Want To Be Sure

Jul 13 2012 | comment(s)

"Given that the search for the Higgs took some 45 years, tens of thousands of scientists and engineers, billions of dollars, not to mention numerous divorces, huge amounts of sleep deprivation, tens of thousands of bad airline meals, etc., etc., we want to be sure as is humanly possible that this is real."

 Harrison Prosper, Kirby W. Kemper Professor of Physics, Florida State University