So, here are two videos that are making the rounds on the internet today. Although at first glance, they may be hard to distinguish, if you look closely, you will find that one is actually a video of two hamsters spinning insanely around an exercise wheel, while the other is Clint Eastwood speaking at the Republican National Convention.
I won't spoil the game by telling you in advance which is which. See if you can spot the difference yourself!
Friday, August 31, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
The President's IAmA on Reddit
So, you know how Reddit does this question and answer thing, where famous and/or knowledgable people log on and take questions from the Reddit community? Well, much to the delight of the internet, today at 4:30 Eastern, President Obama held one of these.
In case you missed it, here are a few of the highlights from the ensuing conversation.
In case you missed it, here are a few of the highlights from the ensuing conversation.
permalink parent
The Case for Independent Scholarship #3: On Workaholic Scientists
So, Sam Arbesman has a post up at Wired where he discusses a recent study on the work habits of scientists in around the world. As a proxy for "working," the authors look at the pattern of downloads of papers or book chapters from Springer. The work makes use of a cool real-time mapping of IP addresses accessing those papers. If you want to see what it looks like, check it out here: http://realtime.springer.com/map.
They do a more detailed analysis of the top three countries (in terms of total number of downloads in about a week's worth of data), the US, Germany, and China. Correcting for time zone differences, they find these patterns:
Wang, X. W., Xu, S. M., Peng, L., Wang, Z., Wang, C. L., Zhang, C. B., & Wang, X. B. (2102). Exploring Scientists’ Working Timetable: Do Scientists Often Work Overtime? Journal of Informetrics, 6 (4), 655-660 DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2012.07.003
They do a more detailed analysis of the top three countries (in terms of total number of downloads in about a week's worth of data), the US, Germany, and China. Correcting for time zone differences, they find these patterns:
On the left side, each line corresponds to a different day, with the more solid lines being weekends, and the thinner ones being weekdays. On the right, the weekends and weekdays are averaged.
A couple of things that will probably come as no surprise to most of the academics out there.
(1) the daily hump starts picking up around 9 or 10 in the morning, and carries on until nine or ten at night.
(2) the weekday hump is bigger during traditional "working hours", but evening work hours are pretty consistent throughout the week.
Interesting cultural differences pop out that might not be as predictable. It looks like China has longer and/or more simultaneous breaks for lunch and dinner. (Although, given the common practice, at least in the US, of eating lunch at your computer, maybe the lack of those dips in the top panel are somewhat predictable.) Americans seem to be working a lot more in the middle of the night compared with their German and Chinese counterparts, while the Chinese seem to show less of a difference between weekday and weekend work habits.
The authors' conclusion, and one that is echoed in Sam Arbesman's commentary, is that this work pattern is consistent with what most academic scientists would probably tell you. Academia is a full-time job. And not a full-time job in the sense of a forty-hour work week, but a full time job as in, you sleep, eat, and work.
So is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, on the one hand, you've got all of these highly trained, highly educated people working really hard and getting paid not a whole awful lot on a per-hour basis. Good deal, right?
On the other hand, it leads to a really crappy lifestyle, where the long hours come at the expense of time spent with family, hobbies, or even taking an interest in subjects outside of the very narrow range defined by your research. If you care about a broader definition of human happiness, one that treats people as an end rather than a means, this is not a great way to structure your industry.
Beyond that, it is important to remember that science, like all academic fields, is a fundamentally creative enterprise, and working longer hours does not necessarily translate into better results. Creativity has to be fueled by experience, and a broader range of experience can lead to asking more interesting questions and coming up with more original answers to those questions. The pressures that lead people to download papers from Springer from morning till night don't necessarily lead to the best science.
I should note that Sam's coverage also includes a plug for the Ronin Institute, because Sam is a freakin' rock star!
Friday, August 24, 2012
Lost in Transcription Exclusive: Mitt Romney's Comedy Routine
So, this morning, Mitt Romney came up with an interesting new strategy designed to divert attention from his quite possibly illegal tax history, his party's extremist abortion position, and general unlikability: he launched a stand up comedy routine. Speaking in Michigan, he cracked this gem straight out of the Birther Bathroom Jokebook:
So, what other bon mots can we expect from Romney as he takes his routine to Tampa? Here at Lost in Transcription, we've received this advance list of jokes, which were allegedly written by Dane Cook's racist brother, and will be dropped at the Republican National Convention next week to much hooting and cheering from the hungover and overstimulated delegates. Here are a few of the most hilarious:
How about you, readers? Have your inside sources uncovered any material? If so, please share it in the comments.
No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate.See, it's hilarious because he's white! And Obama is black!
So, what other bon mots can we expect from Romney as he takes his routine to Tampa? Here at Lost in Transcription, we've received this advance list of jokes, which were allegedly written by Dane Cook's racist brother, and will be dropped at the Republican National Convention next week to much hooting and cheering from the hungover and overstimulated delegates. Here are a few of the most hilarious:
No one ever arrested me in Arizona!
No one ever stopped and frisked me in New York!
No one ever renditioned me to Guantanamo!
No one ever questioned my right to stand my ground!
No one ever paid me 77 cents on the dollar to do the same job!
No one ever assumed I was the gardener!
No one ever put my grandparents in an oven!
No one ever questioned my right to get married!
No one ever put my family on a reservation!
No one ever held me down and cut my hair!
No one ever denied me health insurance!See, they're all so funny, because Mitt has lived a life of incredible privilege!
How about you, readers? Have your inside sources uncovered any material? If so, please share it in the comments.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Legitimate rape, seminal priming, and preeclampsia
So, as you are well aware, a couple of days ago, human-shaped pile of garbage Todd Akin articulated his belief that "legitimate rape" rarely leads to pregnancy, due to the magical uterine "shutting that whole thing down" properties of the uterus. Here at Lost in Transcription, we discussed the fact that there are some species that do, in fact, exhibit the capacity for "post-copulatory female choice." However, humans are not one of these species, unless you count the set of medical interventions that Akin is trying to outlaw (along with Romney, Ryan, and the official Republican party platform).
If you're interested, Kate Clancy wrote up an excellent summary of the actual science on the topic of pregnancy and rape.
Jesse Bering (an evolutionary psychologist who has been featured on this blog previously) also weighed in on the science, using twitter to point to an article that had recently written on "Darwin's Morning After Pill." In the article, Bering outlines an argument for the adaptive value of preeclampsia. The argument features "seminal priming theory," which Bering calls "criminally unread," and which has been promoted by Gordon Gallup (who, like a certain goat I know, has an adaptationist story for just about everything).
Roughly, the argument is this. Women don't want to let a man get them pregnant unless they are certain that the man is going to stick around for the long haul. So, you want to have a biological mechanism that prevents pregnancy from one-night stands, but encourages pregnancy when you are in a committed relationship. Preeclampsia is a convenient (if life threatening) way for mother nature to terminate your pregnancy when it would be better not to have a baby. Therefore, preeclampsia should be more common for pregnancies resulting from sex with an unfamiliar male. Preeclampsia should be less common when it is the product of a long-term sexual relationship.
The proposed mechanism is that exposure to a male's semen sort of habituates the female to the biochemistry of that particular male. Preeclampsia is associated with certain inflammatory features that share some similarities with an immune response. In that sense, preeclampsia is sometimes thought of as the mother rejecting the foreign body of the fetus, sort of like how one might reject a transplanted organ. The idea, then, is that through exposure to the male's semen, the female ratchets down this response, thereby allowing the pregnancy to move forward.
Jeremy Yoder has written a nice piece detailing how, even if we accept all of this, it is ridiculous to think of this mechanism as an adaptation. In particular, even under the most generous set of assumptions, natural selection acting on such a mechanism would be vanishingly small. And, of course, even to get there, you have to buy the typical evolutionary psychology assumption of an "environment of evolutionary adaptation" that looks an awful lot like the normative middle-class, suburban values of 1950s television America.
There are a few lines of evidence that are cited (by Bering, and in general) in support of the idea. The bulk of the evidence hinges on the observation that changing partners increases a woman's probability of preeclampsia. For example, if your second pregnancy has the same father as your first pregnancy, you are less likely to develop preeclampsia than if the two pregnancies have different fathers. This is a finding that has been replicated a number of times, and with very large samples, so that's pretty solid, right?
Actually, no. While the association between paternity switch and preeclampsia is true, it probably doesn't mean what Bering and Gallup think it means, and the relevant data doesn't actually support the seminal priming theory.
The problem is that a change in paternity correlates with time between pregnancies. So, if your two kids have different fathers, it is more likely that the two pregnancies were spaced farther apart. My reading of the literature is this: in every case where there is an association between paternity switching and preeclampsia, the study has not separately controlled for time between pregnancies. In each study where time between pregnancy is explicitly controlled for, the association with paternity switching vanishes. (See, e.g., this or this.)
In fact, controlling for time between pregnancies, if you have preeclampsia in your first pregnancy, switching partners actually makes you less likely to have preeclampsia in your second one. Don't get too excited though. The converse is also true. If you don't get preeclampsia in one pregnancy, switching partners makes you more likely to get it in the next one.
What that suggests (to me, anyway), is that some fathers are more likely to produce preeclampsia than others (or, alternatively, that the probability of preeclampsia depends on some interaction between the maternal and paternal genotypes). According to this explanation, if you don't get preeclampsia, it means that you and your partner are at low risk. If you switch partners, though, you go back into the standard risk pool. (This interpretation is also consistent with this study, which followed fathers.)
There are a few other lines of evidence, which are cleaner in their implications. One study on artificial insemination finds preeclampsia more often in cases where the woman was inseminated with a stranger's sperm than in cases where she was inseminated with her partner's. There is also a study that finds that frequent oral sex correlates with a reduced risk of preeclampsia. (That's her performing oral sex on him, not the other way round.) Does the frequency of oral sex correlate with the spacing between kids? I don't know. I'm hoping that some of you will weigh in on that in the comments.
The problem with these studies is that, unlike the partner-switching studies, we're looking at small numbers. Whether or not they will hold up under more extensive analysis it not yet clear.
My read on the whole thing? At the moment, the data just isn't there. All that exists in support of the seminal priming theory is an adaptationist fairy tale and a couple of small studies that have yet to be reproduced.
Oh, and also a whole bunch of studies that, if you cherry pick from among them, and ignore all of the studies that contradict them, support the theory. Of course, that's pretty much true of any theory, which is exactly why evolutionary psychology continues to be such a booming field.
If you're interested, Kate Clancy wrote up an excellent summary of the actual science on the topic of pregnancy and rape.
Jesse Bering (an evolutionary psychologist who has been featured on this blog previously) also weighed in on the science, using twitter to point to an article that had recently written on "Darwin's Morning After Pill." In the article, Bering outlines an argument for the adaptive value of preeclampsia. The argument features "seminal priming theory," which Bering calls "criminally unread," and which has been promoted by Gordon Gallup (who, like a certain goat I know, has an adaptationist story for just about everything).
Roughly, the argument is this. Women don't want to let a man get them pregnant unless they are certain that the man is going to stick around for the long haul. So, you want to have a biological mechanism that prevents pregnancy from one-night stands, but encourages pregnancy when you are in a committed relationship. Preeclampsia is a convenient (if life threatening) way for mother nature to terminate your pregnancy when it would be better not to have a baby. Therefore, preeclampsia should be more common for pregnancies resulting from sex with an unfamiliar male. Preeclampsia should be less common when it is the product of a long-term sexual relationship.
The proposed mechanism is that exposure to a male's semen sort of habituates the female to the biochemistry of that particular male. Preeclampsia is associated with certain inflammatory features that share some similarities with an immune response. In that sense, preeclampsia is sometimes thought of as the mother rejecting the foreign body of the fetus, sort of like how one might reject a transplanted organ. The idea, then, is that through exposure to the male's semen, the female ratchets down this response, thereby allowing the pregnancy to move forward.
 |
| One way of thinking about preeclampsia is as the rejection of an alien body by the mother |
Jeremy Yoder has written a nice piece detailing how, even if we accept all of this, it is ridiculous to think of this mechanism as an adaptation. In particular, even under the most generous set of assumptions, natural selection acting on such a mechanism would be vanishingly small. And, of course, even to get there, you have to buy the typical evolutionary psychology assumption of an "environment of evolutionary adaptation" that looks an awful lot like the normative middle-class, suburban values of 1950s television America.
There are a few lines of evidence that are cited (by Bering, and in general) in support of the idea. The bulk of the evidence hinges on the observation that changing partners increases a woman's probability of preeclampsia. For example, if your second pregnancy has the same father as your first pregnancy, you are less likely to develop preeclampsia than if the two pregnancies have different fathers. This is a finding that has been replicated a number of times, and with very large samples, so that's pretty solid, right?
Actually, no. While the association between paternity switch and preeclampsia is true, it probably doesn't mean what Bering and Gallup think it means, and the relevant data doesn't actually support the seminal priming theory.
The problem is that a change in paternity correlates with time between pregnancies. So, if your two kids have different fathers, it is more likely that the two pregnancies were spaced farther apart. My reading of the literature is this: in every case where there is an association between paternity switching and preeclampsia, the study has not separately controlled for time between pregnancies. In each study where time between pregnancy is explicitly controlled for, the association with paternity switching vanishes. (See, e.g., this or this.)
In fact, controlling for time between pregnancies, if you have preeclampsia in your first pregnancy, switching partners actually makes you less likely to have preeclampsia in your second one. Don't get too excited though. The converse is also true. If you don't get preeclampsia in one pregnancy, switching partners makes you more likely to get it in the next one.
What that suggests (to me, anyway), is that some fathers are more likely to produce preeclampsia than others (or, alternatively, that the probability of preeclampsia depends on some interaction between the maternal and paternal genotypes). According to this explanation, if you don't get preeclampsia, it means that you and your partner are at low risk. If you switch partners, though, you go back into the standard risk pool. (This interpretation is also consistent with this study, which followed fathers.)
There are a few other lines of evidence, which are cleaner in their implications. One study on artificial insemination finds preeclampsia more often in cases where the woman was inseminated with a stranger's sperm than in cases where she was inseminated with her partner's. There is also a study that finds that frequent oral sex correlates with a reduced risk of preeclampsia. (That's her performing oral sex on him, not the other way round.) Does the frequency of oral sex correlate with the spacing between kids? I don't know. I'm hoping that some of you will weigh in on that in the comments.
 |
| Males ingesting female gametes also has well documented health benefits. |
The problem with these studies is that, unlike the partner-switching studies, we're looking at small numbers. Whether or not they will hold up under more extensive analysis it not yet clear.
My read on the whole thing? At the moment, the data just isn't there. All that exists in support of the seminal priming theory is an adaptationist fairy tale and a couple of small studies that have yet to be reproduced.
Oh, and also a whole bunch of studies that, if you cherry pick from among them, and ignore all of the studies that contradict them, support the theory. Of course, that's pretty much true of any theory, which is exactly why evolutionary psychology continues to be such a booming field.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
The case for independent scholarship #2: Administrative bloat
So, welcome back to installation #2 in The case for independent scholarship, the new series where I explain why you should quit assuming that scholarly research needs to be limited to the university system. In fact, independent scholarship provides a number of advantages over the standard model.
Today, we're going to focus on the administrative bloat that has overcome the university system. Specifically, I want to draw your attention to statistics on the California State University system. These data have been collected and written about by Ralph Westphal, a Professor in the Computer Information Systems Department at California Polytechnic University, Pomona.
Before I show you the statistics, though, I want you to ask yourself, how many administrators and other, non-academic professionals does a university need for each faculty member? What would be a reasonable ratio of academic to non-academic employees?
Clearly, there is a certain amount of support required to maintain facilities, to manage offices and accounts, and so on. But how many, would you say? Here are the numbers (from this document) for the entire California State University system for the 1975-76 academic year:
So, what do you think? Does this seem reasonable? Roughly speaking, for every four faculty members, there are three non-faculty employees doing all of the jobs that keep the university running smoothly, and therefore allowing the faculty to pursue the fundamental goals of the university: teaching and research.
Note:
Today, we're going to focus on the administrative bloat that has overcome the university system. Specifically, I want to draw your attention to statistics on the California State University system. These data have been collected and written about by Ralph Westphal, a Professor in the Computer Information Systems Department at California Polytechnic University, Pomona.
Before I show you the statistics, though, I want you to ask yourself, how many administrators and other, non-academic professionals does a university need for each faculty member? What would be a reasonable ratio of academic to non-academic employees?
Clearly, there is a certain amount of support required to maintain facilities, to manage offices and accounts, and so on. But how many, would you say? Here are the numbers (from this document) for the entire California State University system for the 1975-76 academic year:
- Faculty (all ranks): 18,406
- Service and maintenance: 3,260
- Skilled crafts: 883
- Technical and paraprofessional: 3,246
- Clerical and secretarial: 6,920
- Managerial and professional: 3,800
So, what do you think? Does this seem reasonable? Roughly speaking, for every four faculty members, there are three non-faculty employees doing all of the jobs that keep the university running smoothly, and therefore allowing the faculty to pursue the fundamental goals of the university: teaching and research.
What about now? Well, if we fast forward thirty-some years to the most recent data provided in the same document, we find that, in the faculty increased to 23,581. That's a 28% increase in the size of the faculty. This goes along with a 54% increase in the number of full-time student equivalents (as per Westphal). Clearly, that means there are fewer teachers per student, but, you know, times are tough, budgets are crunched, and so on.
- Faculty (all ranks): 23,581
- Service and maintenance: 2,170
- Skilled crafts: 1,045
- Technical and paraprofessional: 3,105
- Clerical and secretarial: 4,145
- Managerial and professional: 12,183
Note:
The "skilled crafts" category has grown roughly in proportion to the number of faculty.
The "service and maintenance," "technical and paraprofessional," and "clerical and secretarial" categories have all actually shrunk in absolute numbers.
The big winner, of course, is "managerial and professional," which increased to 3.2 times its 1975-76 size.
So, what we see is a faculty that has failed to keep pace with the growth in the student population. We see support staff that not only has failed to keep up with the growth in faculty and students, but has actually been slashed. In contrast, the administrative ranks have become bloated beyond belief, to the point where there is nearly one "managerial" or "professional" employee for every two faculty members.
Westphal also points out that while the administration is willing to cut academic programs, there is little hope of reversing the administrative bloat. This is from the LA Times, quoting Cal Poly Pomona's Provost, Marten L. denBoer:
He said administrative functions will be reviewed and probably pared, but he rejects the argument that significant cuts can be made in that area. "The lights have to stay on, and someone has to maintain the computer system," he said. "These are people who work very hard and have to be properly compensated."
Note that the people who, say, keep the lights on, are not the problem.
Fundamentally, the problem is that people in administration see a valuable role for administrators, and devalue everything done by everyone else. So, when cuts have to be made, and you leave those cuts up to administrators, it is no surprise that administration is the last thing on the chopping block.
So, here's a question for you. If you are a donor, or a taxpayer, or a funding agency, why would you allow your resources to get eaten up by institutions that devote less and less of their effort to the research and teaching that you want to support?
Monday, August 20, 2012
From Talking to Doctors Tumblr
So, you're doubtless already well versed in the intellectual train wreck that is Todd Akin, the Missouri Republican who thinks that "legitimate rape" can not lead to pregnancy. More specifically, here's the money quote via TPM:
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”Well, good news, internet! Akin now has his own Tumblr (fromtalkingtodoctors.tumblr.com), filled with all the other things he's learned from talking to doctors. Here are a few samples for you.
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