Just A Theory

I’ve just read a piece by Richard Dawkins about the possibility of a “hybridisation between a human and a chimpanzee”, and how such a creation could effect our world. It was originally published on Edge.org as part of their What will change everything? series. I saw it on the Guardian, where you’ll also find some other comments. Here are mine:

Dawkins makes the very true point that, currently at least, the division between humans and animals is an absolute. He uses the example of pro-lifers, who in actuality are pro-human-life - after all, “Abortion clinic bombers are not known for their veganism”. In some way, humans are seen as completely separate from other animals, perhaps simply because we are the ones making the distinction.

This idea, however, runs completely counter to evolutionary theory. Go back far enough in the evolutionary chain, and you will find a female who was mother to two offspring. One would eventually lead to humans like you and me, and the other to modern day chimps.

Dawkins thinks that a “practical demonstration” would change everything, and presents four possible scenarios that would challenge the status quo:

1. The discovery of a long lost tribe of Homo erectus. Unlikely, given our extensive knowledge of the world.
2. Successful hybridisation between a human and a chimpanzee, described by “a distinguished biologist” as “the most immoral scientific experiment he could imagine”.
3. A chimera, creating in a lab and consisting of an equal number of human and chimp cells. Chimeras, named for the mythical creature, are made by physically mixing the cells of two different species. Human/mouse chimeras are already being created as part of normal genetics research, but are destroyed long before they develop beyond a bundle of cells
4. We know the full human and chimpanzee genomes. It wouldn’t be too difficult to look at the two and create a sort of “average” genome, though using this genome to create a living organism would be much more difficult. Dawkins believes it will be possible during the lifetimes of those alive today.

Dawkins doesn’t make it clear either way if he would support any of these endeavours, merely stating that it “would require further thought”. For myself, although I find the concept of such a hybrid to be inescapably interesting, I hope never to see such a being created.

The reason is simple: the feelings of the poor creature itself, if it were capable of human emotion. A hybrid would either spend its entire life in secret captivity, doomed to a lab-bound existence, or else if exposed to the world it would be subject to an endless media frenzy and calls for its destruction. Either would sheer misery.

Science can give us wonderful solutions to seemingly impossible questions about the world, but there are some questions that should not be answered. I feel that this is one of them.

For today’s post you’ll have to head over to Alom Shaha’s “Why is science important?” blog. Alom kindly asked me to contribute, along with many other scientists and science communicators. Apologies for the utter pretentiousness of my photo - I didn’t realise Alom was going to ask me for one, so I took a bunch of self portraits and it was either that or a horrible gurn!

I was wondering when the first “science-of-Santa” story would appear this year, and the only one I’ve spotted so far is this university press release. It’s the usual fare: a mix of special relativity and nanotechnology with a bit of genetic engineering.

...because he's coming soon.

Larry Silverberg, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University, told the news agency that Father Christmas “exploits the space-time continuum,” in order to visit millions of homes in just one night.

In a new twist, it turns out that FC doesn’t actually carry any presents on his sleigh - rather, he uses nanotechnology to reorganise the molecules of snow and soot in order to construct gifts for girls and boys. Neat trick.

Finally, his reindeer are “genetically bred” in order to fly (without wings, mind - are they perhaps gas powered?), stand on rooftops, and see in the dark. Presumably a genetic marker similar to the Nobel winning green fluorescent protein is also used to make their noses glow red.

“This is our vision of Santa’s delivery method, given the human, physical and engineering constraints we face today,” Silverberg says.

“Children shouldn’t put too much credence in the opinions of those who say it’s not possible to deliver presents all over the world in one night. It is possible, and it’s based on plausible science.”

I’m not sure how I feel about these types of stories. Yes, its silly Christmas-themed fun, but should Father Christmas really be explained in terms of science? You never see press releases about the gene-splicing involved to allow the Easter Bunny to lay chocolate eggs - pre-wrapped in foil, no less. Yet, the “science-of-Santa” makes an annual appearance in the media.

It’s the quote at the end that I find particularly troubling. It might be “plausible science”, but it’s not really “science”. Stories such as these dilute the public impression of what science really is, as much as those bloody formula stories I was ranting on last week. Perhaps, however, I should just bite down on my Humbug and enjoy the festivities.

Oh, and I’m not in any way saying Father Christmas doesn’t exist. He does. And he’s watching.

It seems that CNN has decided to completely axe their science, space, environment and technology unit - for editorial, not economic reasons, apparently. CNN argue that it’s no longer needed:

“Now that the bulk of our environmental coverage is offered through the Planet in Peril franchise, which is part of the AC360 program, there is no need for a separate unit,” said CNN spokesperson Christa Robinson.

Environmental issues being the only news covered by a science, space, environment and technology unit, hmm…

CNN are really dropping the ball here. Yes, science is increasingly entering into other parts of the news: politics, business, and so on. It’s important to see these aspects covered as part of the main story, but for dedicated science stories you really need a dedicated science unit. Now of course, I would say that, but would you axe the sports unit and let general journalists comment on football scores? Of course not.

I don’t watch CNN, and I very rarely visit their website, but now I probably never will again. What’s the point? They clearly don’t care about covering the news accurately and in detail, so I’ll be steering clear in the future. As Tim said on the Sci Comm Facebook group: “In case you were thinking of working at CNN……don’t bother”!

What do you think we spend on science? Not just in the UK, but the whole world. People often complain about scientific expenditure, especially on grand projects such as the Large Hadron Collider and the International Space Station, asking whether the money could be better spent elsewhere.

It turns out that science actually costs very little, especially when you consider how much it contributes to our everyday lives. According to an article in Seed magazine, the world’s nations spend only an average 2.3% of their GDP on scientific research.

The exact figure is $994,424,038,000, or roughly one trillion dollars (no Dr. Evil jokes, please) per year worldwide. Unsurprisingly, the US contributes the most with $343,747,500,000, whilst the country that spends the largest percentage of GDP is Sweden - and even that is only 3.82%.

Now, one trillion dollars might sound like a lot to you and me, but let’s but that into perspective. To date, the Iraq War has cost the US around $576,262,000,000. We’re about 5 years in now, so it seems that America spends the equivalent of a third of its yearly science budget on just one conflict. And of course, who can forget the recent $700,000,000,000 bailout paid to US bankers - that’s nearly three-quarters of year’s worth of worldwide science!

If we calculate the cost per head, it works out around $150 a year for every person on the planet. Obviously this is quite a large sum for many people in the world, and I don’t mean to imply that this money is being taken from those less fortunate - clearly the economic cost is shared mostly by the more affluent nations. Using the figure as an illustration however, $150 a year is about 41 cents a day.

I’d say that is an absolute bargain price for everything science provides for us. So, the next time someone complains about expensive science, remind them that they’re actually getting quite a good deal!

So, I had been planning to write about Paul Drayson, the new UK science minister, and his recent comments about having a “sixth sense”, but it appears that my course mate Tim has beaten me to the punch in saying most of what I was going to. I guess I could use a sixth sense of my own…

Nevertheless, I still have a few comments to make about the propogation of Drayson’s comments through the media. If you haven’t seen the story, here’s the Daily Mail’s offering: “Science Minister has sixth sense“.

What did he actually say? Well, the quote arose from an interview in the Sunday Times, under the headline “Paul Drayson: He’s Buzz Lightyear of the cabinet“. Its a long interview, that ranges on topics from his policies to his private life.

Near, the end, talk turns to his personal belief in God, which leads on to a discussion about intuition. Drayson relays his thoughts on a book on the subject - Blink by Malcom Gladwell - and says “This struck a chord with me because in my life there have been some things that I’ve known and I don’t know why.”

Now, here’s the important bit. It is the interviewer Isabel Oakeshott that uses the phrase “sixth sense”, and she does so “half in jest”. Drayson replies: “Yes, like a sixth sense,” and that he believes “there’s a lot we don’t understand about human capability.”

Arguably, Drayson should choose his words more carefully. If he had spoken directly of “intuition” for example, rather than picking up on Oakeshott’s “sixth sense” phrase, the story probably would never have arisen. If you’re the government’s representative on science, referring to supernatural idea is going to be too hard for your typical journo to resist, and that was the case here. On the same day, the section of the interview was spun out into another article by Oakeshott: “I saw it coming, says minister of sixth sense Lord Drayson“, which is where all these other stories presumably arise from.

These stories include the Telegraph’s “‘I have a sixth sense’ claims science minister Lord Drayson“. The quote in the headline is, of course, incorrect.

Now it has to be said, I don’t think science or scientists are being directly harmed by this reporting. It’s Drayson (and by extension the Labour government) who are made to appear foolish, but on the other hand foreign scientists who read the story might be left with a bad impression of the UK. After all, if we’ve got a guy who can predict the future as UK science minister, what must UK scientists be like? Hopefully Drayson will learn from the incident, and think a bit more about just who he represents!

You may have seen a story last week about a link between rainfall and cases of autism - but not on Just A Theory. I had considered writing a full post on the story, before shunting it to the Weekly Roundup and then eventually dropping it all together. The link seemed so unlikely to me that I wanted to do a decent amount of background reading before posting anything, and unfortunately I didn’t have the time last week.

I’ve still not got around to it (between the course, blog research, and recreational, there is only so much reading I can do in a day!) but a course-mate did point me towards a comment piece in .

The credit crunch. Will it ever end? Everything costs more, we’re lending banks money so that they can lend it back to us, and I’m even beginning to tire of breakfast cereal jokes and Robert Peston impressions. Still, it appears that the dreaded crunch could be good news for science according to the news agency AFP.

Back in the heady days of the pre-crunch era, science graduates were often taken in by the high life and high pay a City job could offer. I certainly remember as an undergraduate the likes of Deloitte and KPMG throwing money all over the university campus in an effort to recruit.

Now that times are tougher, and firms are more likely to be firing than hiring, a number of people are leading the call for science over salary.

“The glamour of the Wall Street jobs is gone, and that leaves more room for science and technology,” said Georges Haour, a professor of technology and innovation management at the IMD business school in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“Although the salaries are not the same, the salaries (in finance) are zero because people are being fired,” he told AFP.

Haour has also noted that universities around the world are seeing an increase in the number of applications to study science. Institutions such as the University of Tokyo have seen a “big surge” in both engineering and science.

Elspeth Farrar, head of the careers service at my own Imperial College, also weighed in:

“Engineering companies who, in the past, have struggled to recruit the numbers they really want, this year might be a good year for them,” she said.

“Inevitably there are going to be fewer jobs directly in the finance and banking sector, so I think automatically that will mean more science and engineering students will be thinking about continuing in their sectors.”

I’m starting to worry about the Royal Society of Chemistry. Lately they’ve been acting a bit like an embarrassing school teacher - the kind who tries to be “down wid da kids”. Innit. Urgh.

Sorry. First of all, it was their competition a couple of months ago to suggest a new name for the Large Hadron Collider. They offered £500 to anyone who could come up with a better name than the current “contrived acronym”. The winner was “Halo” - in my opinion a far worse name than LHC, but there we go.

The point is, what was the RSC even doing running such a competition? Their own press release mentions that “Some reports say that the RSC is suffering from “professional jealousy”". I don’t think it’s that, but I’m stumped as to why the Royal Society of CHEMISTRY are getting involved with a particle physics experiment.

You might say that they were just jumping on the LHC bandwagon, hoping to ride the massive wave of publicity. It’s possible, but then how do you explain this latest development? The RSC are now “inviting the public to devise a successful ending to the greatest-ever cinema cliff-hanger to mark the 40th birthday next year of The Italian Job made in 1969.”

Sorry, what? The Italian Job? Sure, great film, no disagreement there. Fantastic ending, you’ll get no argument from me. But, and I say it again, why the Royal Society of C-H-E-M-I-S-T-R-Y? It turns out that 100 years before the film was the creation of the Periodic Table by Dmitri Mendeleyev.

Now, get ready for this.

There’s gold in The Italian Job. There’s also gold in the Periodic Table.

That’s it! That’s the link they’re going for! Bravo, RSC, on one of the most tenuous excuses I have ever seen. They’re trying to “draw attention to gold”, and by association, the Periodic Table. It must also be pointed out that the RSC “does not condone the fictional bullion heist and regards the competition only as a scientific and logical challenge.” (I like that they don’t condone fictional heists, presumably leaving the door open for real life ones.)

If you want to enter the competition (and aid the RSC in its descent to madness) the details are all in the link above. The prize is a three-night stay for two in Turin. Not a chemistry set in sight…

Well yesterday I said I didn’t want this blog to get too political, but after staying up until 5:30am to watch America elect Barack Obama, I can’t help but comment. You may remember the Science Debate 2008 project, in which both Obama and McCain gave some promising answers about the future of science in America. Watching the President-Elect’s speech last night, I couldn’t help but be excited, particularly about this part in which he spoke of a 106-year-old woman and America’s past:

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

Science and imagination. America is rich in both; let’s see it put to good use after 8 years of squandering. Go Obama!

And no, I don’t mean the falling sales of organic food in times of economic hardship.

In the past I’ve talked about the comparisons between the reporting of business and science, and discussed the economic effect of biodiversity loss. It seems that environmental campaigners are increasingly grasping hold of banking metaphors in order to engage with the public.

Today the WWF, in conjunction with the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, published their Living Planet Report 2008 under the banner of an “ecological credit crunch”. The phrase, now so engrained in the public mind, instantly conveys a message: we’re in trouble.

The demand the human race now places on global resources exceeds the planet’s “natural capital” by about 30%. If this rate of growth continues, we will need the equivalent of two Earths to sustain our lifestyles. In other words, more than three quarters of the global population are now “ecological debtors” - we’ve borrowed from the Bank of Nature and can’t afford the repayments.

“Continued ecological deficit spending will have severe economic consequences,” said the Global Footprint Network Executive Director, Dr Mathis Wackernagel. “Resource limitations and ecosystem collapses would trigger massive stagflation with the value of investments plummeting, while food and energy costs skyrocket.”

America and the United Arab Emirates are the biggest borrowers, with the largest ecological footprint. The UK comes in at 15th, but still uses the same amount of natural resources as 33 African countries put together. That’s 33, folks.

Something needs to change. Capitalism is based on the concept of eternal growth; if we’re not moving forward, we’re moving backwards. As these figures show however, we’ve already grown too much. You can’t reach for infinity by using finite resources - yet we’ve blindly ignored this fact since the days of Adam Smith.

“We are acting ecologically in the same way as financial institutions have been behaving economically - seeking immediate gratification without due regard for the consequences,” said Zoological Society of London co-editor Jonathan Loh. “The consequences of a global ecological crisis are even graver than the current economic meltdown.”

The banks are semi-privatised. Climate change denial is no longer seen as valid point of view. In less than one week from now, the most powerful nation in the world will elect a new leader. We have the opportunity to changed the way we work, to move away from the days of eternal growth and in to a more sustainable model.

It won’t be easy, but it must be done. I have no idea how though. Capitalism, like its partner democracy, prevails because it is the least worst system compared to the rest of them. How can we move away from that? Ultimately, the answer must be an energy-based economy. I’ll trade you five hydrogen-bucks for a cup of ethically and sustainably produced coffee, buying a product for the actual cost of the energy used to make it. Can it be done? The WWF believes so.

David Norman, director of campaigns at WWF said: “We humans have been very good at creating problems - but we can be equally good at solving them. A sustainable world is not an unachievable goal. As the world looks to restore its economies we must build in long term environmental as well as economic sustainability.”

Like many others I have been following the financial turmoil following the failure of the $700bn Wall Street bailout with a mix of horror over the sums involved, uncertainty about the future, and schadenfreude towards the “fat cats”.

It’s also got me thinking about the similarities between business reporting and science communication. I’d like to think I know a thing or two about science, but when it comes to the financial section my eyes are as likely to glaze over as the next person. This means that whilst I can tell you a great deal about mathematical derivatives, I’m pretty much in the dark about their financial namesake.

This lack of knowledge allows me to place myself in the shoes of those who believed stories about the Large Hadron Collider destroying the Earth. It is easy for me to see the current crisis as a group of mad scientists (bankers) who spent vast sums of money on an experiment (sub-prime mortgages) that even they didn’t really understand, and now that it has all gone wrong we are being sucked into a (financial) black hole. These mysterious bankers use jargon such as “leveraging” and “securitisation” that I don’t understand, so I turn to the media for explanation - and I find it lacking.

Where can $700bn be conjured from in a matter of weeks? Why aren’t the people who caused all this trouble being fined or thrown in jail? Why weren’t they stopped in the first place? These question aren’t being dealt with by the media, or if they are the answers aren’t easily accessible to the layperson such as myself.

How should I apply these thoughts to science communication, and my writing on Just a Theory? I think keeping in mind my misunderstanding and frustration towards business news can help me avoid those same feelings in readers wishing to learn more about science.

For example, it’s easy to make the mistake of assuming too much background knowledge on the part of a reader, and whilst it would be impossible (and frankly, boring) to explain every single detail from first principles, it’s important to consider the entry point for a typical member of the public.

This is especially true when dealing with high profile stories such as the LHC, where even people who might not normally read science stories become hungry for information. Normally I don’t really care if the FTSE or whatever is down a few points (because I don’t really know what that means), but if the government buy Northern Rock then I want to know about it, and I want to quickly be brought up to speed. The same goes for the general public, who hear that the world could be ending next Wednesday and want to know why.

Another thing to think about: the experts aren’t always right. For years the bankers have tinkered with their models and acted on their findings - often resulting in huge financial gains. Now, as it all comes crashing down, it turns out the models were wrong. The public want to know why these “experts” were so off the mark, but the truth is that to the best of their knowledge, the models worked.

The same goes with science. In the past I have called evolution a “fact” - but really, it isn’t. It’s our best model of how living creatures came to be, and if one day science comes up with a better model, evolution will be replaced by a new “fact”. I see this as a matter of semantics, because I will happily accept any alternative theory that falsifies evolution with its improved scientific reasoning - and no, intelligent design, that does not mean you. Until that happens, I’m happy to call evolution a fact.

This idea that “the model could be wrong” isn’t always well communicated to the public, many of whom see science as attempting to hand down absolute truths from on high. When scientists change their mind, or disagree with one another, people often draw the conclusion that science is worthless and lose confidence in the word of scientists - in the same way that the bankers’ broken models have lead to a loss of confidence on the stock market.

Apologies if you find this post a bit rambling compared to my usual style - hence the new category, “Musings” - but I’ve had these thoughts swimming around in my head for a while. They’re still not quite all joined up yet, but I think bashing them out on the keyboard has helped a bit. Don’t worry though, tomorrow will see a return to your regularly scheduled science blogging!