scientific writing

Dry. Boring. Niche Vocabulary words.

These are legitimate complaints about scientific writing, but not legitimate criticisms. The issue at hand is that when scientists write these articles and papers they are writing for an audience of other scientists, and thus assuming that the reader is bringing with them a base level of knowledge on the subject and is in all likelihood another scientist in the same field.

Also, the gruesome process of peer review removes most all shreds of "personality" from publication papers.

What is Peer-Review:?

Peer review is the evaluation of creative work or performance by other people in the same field in order to maintain or enhance the quality of the work or performance in that field.(linfo.org)

What this means in science is that once you submit your article or ideas for peer consumption you should be prepared to have every assertion, method, and idea criticized and analyzed to an extreme standard. Most professors and graduate students describe it as a "hellish" process. This is akin to having your dreams and goals deep fried and dunked in glitter.(thanks Patton Oswalt) The end result will be very sparkly and colorful, but your work won't resemble your original submission once the process is finished.

This is nothing personal or vindictive. Every assertion must be defended. Every statistic must be verified. Every test or procedure must be performable and the results able to be duplicated.

Important Concepts

1. Nothing is ever proven or dis-proven. A given hypothesis or proposition is either supported or contradicted by your observations.

Theory
The concept of supported or contradicted is illustrated by how scientists treat the idea of theory.

Theory: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another(Merriem Webster)
Notable Theories Include:

Germ Theory: We all accept that germs transmit disease. the body of observation and empirical evidence supports it. However, note that it is not referred to as germ law

Gravity: Referred to often as the Law of Gravity. A law is simply a theory that is given elevated after centuries of testing observation and analysis. Anyone who disputes the force of gravity has a lot to explain about how they get their Direct TV signal. Or how we did, or didn't get to the moon. (depending on how crazy you are). Muscles for Christs sake. Gravity is why we have them.

Atomic Theory: Again, not called Atomic Law. Yet our nuclear power plants function. And it's hard to argue against atomic theory in the face of an image like this:


Scientific Journal and Peer Review Writing

Contents of a Scientific Paper: (lifted from abacus.bates.edu)
| Title | Authors and Affiliation | Abstract| Introduction| Methods| Results| Discussion | Acknowledgments| Literature Cited

1. Abstract: An abstract summarizes, in one paragraph (usually), the major aspects of the entire paper. (5 pages)

2. Introduction: Establish the context of the work being reported. "What was I studying? Why was it an important question? What did we know about it before I did this study? How will this study advance our knowledge?" (5 pages)

3. Methods: explain clearly how you carried out your study. (5 pages)

4. Results: without interpretation, in an orderly and logical sequence using illustrative materials. (37 pages)

5. Discussion: Interpret your results in light of what was already known about the subject of the investigation, and to explain any new understanding. (2 pages)

I received an A for my paper and was told it was good work. Which means it would have been torn to pieces in the process of peer review.


A Morphological and Genetic Analysis of the Evolutionary Relationships between Select Species of Cetaceans

Abstract
Students in a Geology class at Georgia Southern University were instructed on basic mammalian skull anatomy and the concepts of cladistic analysis. A data matrix was constructed using morphological characters and combining them with base pair sequences of lactalbumin dna and 12s mitochondrial DNA. A tree is displayed hypothesizing the evolutionary relationships between 13 extinct and extant taxa of the aquatic mammal order cetacea. The examined evidence included 13 casted skulls.



What that means is I got to play with this bad boy who was hanging out in coastal Georgia waters about 45 million years ago. Yes, the data points toward, and it is accepted in the scientific community, that the above pictured Georgiacetus, is an ancestor of modern day whales. That's a cetacean.

I guess what I'm trying to impart is that the dry factual writing of a scientific publication can mislead a reader into thinking that the work is dull and tedious. Uncolorful.

This is what science is reads like:
The novel feature of the structure is the manner in which the two chains are held together by the purine and pyrimidine bases. The planes of the bases are perpendicular to the fibre axis. They are joined together in pairs, a single base from one chain being hydroden-bonded to a single base from the other chain, so that the two lie side by side with identical z-coordinates.
(Watson and Crick, 1953)

And this is what it looks like:

FREAKONOMICS

Freakonomics and its sequel Superfreakonomics are books written by economist Steven Levitt and Journalist Stephen Dubner.

The book works off the concept that people have perceptions of how they believe the world to work, and then the study of economics shows them how the world actually operates.

Questions explored include: (lifted from the book itself)
Which is more dangerous a gun or a swimming pool?
What do school teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?
Why do drug dealers live with their moms?
How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real estate agents?
How much do parents really matter?
and quite controversially:
How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?


For the sake of time(as this is actually an oral presentation masquerading as a blog post)I'll show some intriguing statistics from Freakonomics and after that explore one issue in some depth

First, the statistics:

This is a partial list of compensated pay schedule the state of Connecticut(embedded in the essay concerning abortion and crime rates) uses for work related injuries

First Lost Finger: 36 weeks of pay. Second: 29 Third: 21

For arms, hands, and thumbs it depends on which arm, right or left.

master hand: 168 weeks other hand: 155

Your Big toe is apparently worth nearly 30 weeks of pay, whereas as those other little spuds merit 9 weeks.





Crack Dealers Operate like Fast Food Franchises


Background: A graduate student in Sociology, Sudhir Venkatesh, was sent against his will by a professor into Chicago's poorest black neighborhood to collect responses to a question. That question:

How do you feel about being black and poor?
a. Very bad
b. bad
c. neither bad nor good
d. Somewhat good
e. very good

After gathering some responses Venkatesh realized that answer option "f" should be added to the survey:

f. Fuck You

At one point Venkatesh happened upon some teens playing dice. He was taken hostage by the teens who were low level drug dealers and were suspicious of Venkatesh and feared he was a cop or a rival gang spy. Long story short, after 24 hours of playing dice, having his survey questions ridiculed, and being offered "one last beer" after another he was allowed to leave.

Venkatesh was intrigued by the experience and armed with new questions sought out the the leader of the "Black Disciples". A man by the name of J.T.

J.T. happened to be a college graduate. He bad been a business major and held a legitimate job for a short time after college selling office equipment. However J.T. described the experience as having felt like "a white man working at Afro Sheen headquarters". He quit and moved into the drug business.

J.T. applied his business education to being the leader of a crack gang. He knew the importance of collecting data and was "always on the lookout for better management strategies.

Venkatesh was granted access. He lived with and studied the people in the area and the operations of the gang."


At one point Venkatesh received a holy grail of information from a member of the gang who wanted the details of the crack business to be known. "Booty" provided Venkatesh with four years worth of the gang's financial transactions contained in spiral notebooks. That's right. Crack Dealers keep ledgers.

HOW DID THE GANG FUNCTION?

According to freakonomics "An awful lot like most American businesses but perhaps none more so than McDonald's."

The gang Venketesh studied was one of about 100 branches. Essentially each gang was a franchise of the larger Crack Corporation which J.T. reported to. These higher-ups referred to themselves as "The Board of Directors." No joke.

J.T. paid the board of directors 20% of his revenues for the right to operate a crack franchise in a designated 12 block area.


J.T. had 3 assistant managers. A treasurer, who watched the gang's liquid assets, a runner who transported drugs and money to and from the supplier(Hmmm, sounds like a logistics man), and an enforcer. (security)

The rest of the gang's employees consisted of 25-30 "foot soldiers" who hoped to someday be promoted to an assistant management position. About 200 other men were attempting to get a job as a foot soldier. This was kind of like going to college or taking apprenticeship classes in an attempt to beef up their "resumes".

The gang's official business model centered around crack. However, one could sell heroin if they paid a "fixed licensing fee". Members of the gang also paid dues. Officers and Upper Management excluded of course.

The "franchise owner", J.T., made about 100,000 dollars a year. Untaxed.

Also, according the freakonomics, the crack gang worked like the standard capitalist enterprise. The average gang members wages were skewed in comparison to upper level members like burger flippers at McDonald's or shelf stockers at Wal-Mart wages compared to their corporate managers.

"The top 120 men in the Black Disciples Gang represented 2.2 percent of the members but took home over 50% of the profits."

THE DOWNSIDE

1.A street level crack dealer had a higher chance of death in a given year than an individual on death row in Texas.

2. J.T. was promoted to the Board of Directors. He was sent to prison soon thereafter.

Sociology of Reality Television

What is Reality Television?
MSN Encarta defines Reality television as:
Reality TV

re·al·i·ty TV

noun
Definition:

TV show observing real-life situation: television programs that present real people in live, though often deliberately manufactured, situations and monitor their emotions and behavior.

I remember being fascinated by survivor when it debuted. This fascination however, did not include watching the show. In fact, I have only ever seen two episodes. I have seen the finale of the inaugural season, and I once sat through an episode with my grandparents, nice people who swear by three things:

1. Blue paint, preferably stored in open containers in large amounts inside a basement dug out underneath their house via shovel
2. The Fox News Channel (did you know that they report and you decide, Eric?)
3. Survivor, and other reality television shows


The dynamic and motives of the contestants who clamor to appear on reality shows are of interest, but what initially fascinated me about reality television were the people who watched it, talked about it, and got emotionally involved with the contestants. Additionally, I was intrigued by what seemed to be the explosive popularity of watching others duke it out to stay on an island, marry a millionaire they've never met before, make a fool of themselves singing for music execs, or eat...well...things Joe Rogan hands to them.










So, why do we watch? What is the thrill, the attraction of watching other people?

In her academic paper entitled "Toward A Sociology of Reality Television" Beth Montemurro says:

"Reality shows often cast relatively diverse groups with the intention of seeing whether conflict or harmony will result. Success in reality competitions is often achieved through the development of alliances and strategic relationships and the process by which these unions form can be sociologically fascinating to watch."

Essentially she postulates, as several others do, that we watch for the competition and conflict.

But that does not explain the proliferation of what I can only call "train-wreck" television. People and actions society can gawk at.

In the book Reality TV, Remaking Television Culture by Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette, this trend is discussed:

"More recently, a subgenre has developed that trots out minor celebrities and has- beens that come cheap to endure humiliating tests of there mettle, fighting each other in Celebrity Boxing or plunging themselves into vermin on Celebrity Fear Factor."

This means Whitney Houston calling for BOBBY!!! This means Tanya Harding hopping in a Boxing Ring.

It's not just celebrities going on these shows however. And it is definitely not celebrities comprising the majority viewership.


One of the greatest culture shocks I think I've ever experienced has to be my introduction to a favorite viewing pastime of my generation. And ironically, considering the editorial topic of the week, a viewing experience that could only be enhanced with use of cannabis. The Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. Which, until last September I mistakenly called "The Most Extreme Malaysian Challenge."






I always think that the line has been pushed to the limit that society will tolerate. I am always wrong.

Reality Show Link:

Okay so that was not real. But this is.

Contestants to Vie for Kidney on Reality Show

All the world is a stage. Maybe current society has taken that line from Shakespeare to heart and believes that we all are entitled time in the spotlight.

"Surveillance-based reality television has emerged as a resurgent programming genre in the US and Western Europe... Surveillance is portrayed not as a form of social control, but as the democratization of celebrity..." Mark Andrejevic.

In a sense, according to Andrejevic maybe nowadays we want Big Brother watching us.

Sports: My opinion on the Tiger Woods scandal has not changed since December 1. When i found out that alcohol,drugs, or domestic violence were not a factor in the car accident that precipitated this avalanche, the rest of the details became none of my business. And, most likely none of yours either.

Culture/Art editorial link: Banned Cartoons. Intriguing tie in to whats acceptable in modern culture vs. past culture.

International Affairs: Tough sunject. Layman do not know not understand the minutia of terrorism, shia vs. sunni, middle eastern history etc. Editorial on Hezbollah

Legal Issues: Death Penalty and wrongful convictions. An issue very important to me. Innocence Project Editorials.

FYI: over 150 wrongful convictions overturned and counting.

Nate Silver on conservative homogeneity.

Sam Harris on Stem Cell Research