~a pineapple lily and insidiousness~

Sometimes there are days that are just plain stressful.

Today was one of those days.

The details are too boring to go into here, details that are common to an academic life in the research sector.  What is it that they say?  Money and space.  That's all it comes down to.

There is little thought of the pineapple lily, blooming away on a warm June day.  There is little thought of such a photogenic little flower - because it doesn't provide my lab money, and it doesn't provide any space.  It doesn't keep the lab stocked with PCR reagants and disposable and sequencing funds.

But this little flower - the pineapple lily's stalk of little flowers - is exquisite in everyway.

But enough of that.  The day ended better than I thought it may have.

~~~~~

And towards the end of such a stressful day, I received an email from my friend over at 3Dsound: Draggin' the Line about something that gives me chills.

It concerns a faculty member at my alma mater, Michigan State University, and at attempt by another to suggest that his studies on evolution are fraudulent.  You can begin this chilling tale by reading the article over at salon.com, and when you're done there - it is well worth your time to head over to here and read the exchange between Lenski and Andy Schlafly.  Of significance is the request by Mr Schlafly for Professor Lenski to make his data available.  From Mr. Schlafly's request, dated June 13, 2008 and posted here:

Submission guidelines for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science state that "(viii) Materials and Data Availability. To allow others to replicate and build on work published in PNAS, authors must make materials, data, and associated protocols available to readers. Authors must disclose upon submission of the manuscript any restrictions on the availability of materials or information." Also, your work was apparently funded by taxpayers, providing further reason for making the data publicly available.

Please post the data supporting your remarkable claims so that we can review it, and note where in the data you find justification for your conclusions.

I can only say that this sort of request from a non-scientist is chilling - perhaps even insidious.  As 3D mentioned in his email, you 'contact the author of a paper that you don't like', 'demand the author's data', and 'when the author fails to kowtow to your *every* possible request', well, the requestor can 'demand an inquiry into how public funds are being abused'.  It's pretty evident from the exchange that Schlafly had not even read Lenski's work.

It's really worth reading the exchange.  Lenski handled it well (and head over to Daily Kos to read an interesting post about his work - or to NewScientist to read a recent news blurb about Lenski and his research group's discovery -- or better yet, find the primary article if you have access). 

This kind of thing can give well-intentioned scientists nightmares.  Money, space...and now this.

~~~~~

Update, 1 July (morning):  Head over to 3Dsound for some additional comments and links.

Update, 1 July (evening):  Another post that I found interesting on the topic - from over at a Candid World.  Okay, and you've got to take a look at Conservapedia's entry on Richard Lenski.  Absurd.  Oh - and now there is the Lenski Affair (read towards the end - about the censoring). 

(Okay, I'm a week late about this.  But geez, I've been busy).

Comments

[John B.]

Hmm. I fully understand your unease about this, but I'll just say--from my own self-interested perspective, of course--that if this request-to-see-research business pops up in the humanities, a whole bunch of folks will be very nervous. But then again, it's not as though we're petitioning the government for research dollars, either, so maybe They'll leave alone people like me--at least for a while.

I'd also add that the sort of game described in this exchange is one that two can play: I dare say that ID folks would be just as reluctant to play, too.

Kinda related to this: there's an outfit out there akin to ratemyprofessor.com that's requesting that public schools (perhaps private ones as well) make available to them the grade distributions of professors' classes to be posted on their website. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't see how this could be, but apparently the argument this company is using to get schools to supply this info is that this information is or can be construed as a matter of public record every bit as much as a school's income, expenditures, salaries, etc.

I suspect my take on all this movement toward quantifying and accountability in academe that I keep hearing/reading about is in part anecdotal; maybe it's been part of academe for a long time, and I just happen to be in a place where it gets talked about a lot. But maybe not. If the latter, though, I hope colleges are thinking through the arguments for why some of this stuff will be bad for higher education.

[3D]

My view is that the aim is not accountability but intimidation.

I wrote it up this morning:

http://www.3dsoundblog.com/

[Pam]

John, thanks for your comment. All of this - even what you also mention, regarding making grade distributions public - makes me uneasy. Maybe this has been going on all along, but I do sense some kind of resurgence.

As for me - our publications contain our data, and a new trend is including 'Supplemental Data' with the publication, that is generally put online but not in the paper copy of an article. I'm not sure how I would respond if someone wanted to see our excel spreadsheets, or gels, or my laboratory members notebooks - it is just a slippery slope of accessibility that just seems...insidious. And I can't help but think that attacks on evolution science is just done to discredit the science (and alot of good science) in the public arena.

[Pam]

3D, I was hoping that you would post something.

This really is chilling - and you're right, it is about intimidation.

[Agricola]

Sounds like typical legal blustering from another attorney (Schafly) and thus should be treated as balderdash. He seeks to intimidate, but cannot as long as the other person refuses to cower. Lenski is on the right track. It will be interesting to follow the 'conservapedia' article on this.....

[Pam]

Ad, nice to hear from you. Balderdash, yes - but a good scientists reputation is being harmed. I agree that it will be interesting to follow. For Lenski's sake, I hope this just dies down quickly.

[Ames]

Thanks for linking to my treatment of Lenski :-) !!

And, I have to disagree with Pam. I think the more this stays in the headlines, the better Lenski looks. Andy's making a complete ass of himself, and proving once and for all, as if we needed the proof, that he doesn't *get* science. It's lovely :-)

[Pam]

Ames, you are quite welcomed. I guess I look at this two different ways. First, keeping it in the news could be a big headache for Lenski (I mean, doesn't he have other things to focus on...like science?) and then what you mentioned, that the longer it stays in the press, the more of an ass Andy makes of himself (and I'm all for that).