Well there goes my Friday night

Yes, yes, scientists do amazing and interesting research that pushes the limits of our knowledge for the betterment of humanity.

Also, stuff on zipper-trapped penises and flatufonia. Thanks (I think), anonymous graduate students running NCBI ROFL.

Apparently this is Whine Week

When I am typing a document in Microsoft Word, it turns out that I never want to insert the phrase SPECIAL DELIVERY.

SPECIFIC AIM, however...

Two points

1) If you don't like a book, write as caustic a book review as you choose.

2) I think it's a pity when ScienceBlogs, which has won prominence in the NY Times' Science section, and represents a selection of scientists who have chosen to do a blog-form of outreach to the public, turns into a childish, cryptic den of finger-pointing, particularly on the very topic of....outreach to the public.

If I were the scientifically engaged public (which is how I'd have described myself circa 1993, before I started doing lab work), and clicked over to SciBlogs after reading my usual Tuesday Science Times, I would sure as hell click right back to more pleasant, not to mention more comprehensible, waters. And I say that as someone whose blood pressure is roughly doubled by reading Tierney's sad excuse for a "science" column.

Post about science. Post about the culture of science. Post about your life as a scientist and how it functions, or doesn't. Post about your life to give non-science readers a window into how three-dimensional scientists are.

But for chrissakes, don't post about your backroom spats with other science bloggers (whether or not they're still on SB!) and waste one of the better opportunities we have of engaging laypeople.

Drs. I and Z, I think you're capable of much more interesting work. I fully agree that you should call out misogyny when you see it. But the full-scale SB war, with blog posts being lobbed like hellfire missiles, coated in links and comments-on-comments, is boring and ugly, and worst of all, utterly uninteresting to the public. It's not like we have so very many chances to bring them on board.

Things I learned in grad school 4: Thinking vs doing

One of the most difficult aspects of science for me to deal with when I entered graduate school was empiricism. I came to a love of science from the intellectual, not the practical, end. I liked the questions, ideas, and logic. I was under the impression that, because scientific phenomena underlie our whole existence, any sort of practical problem could be solved by application of reason and logic.

I probably spent the first three years of grad school unlearning this idea.

For a long time, the idea that logic would triumph held me captive to massive frustration. It turns out to be, appropriately enough, right in principle but wrong in application.

I spent years kicking tables out of anger at problems like electrical noise in my setup. Now, there are some straightforward rules governing electricity. You learn a number of them, probably all the relevant ones, in college physics if not earlier. You can apply them all in a logical, orderly manner. You can still have inexplicably bad electrical noise.

You can learn some special rules of thumb for the particular configuration you have. Still, electrical noise.

What drove me up a tree was that invariably I'd get advice from a senior student along the lines of, "Well, just try a bunch of things like this and see if it helps." Why? There is no earthly reason that I should have to try random things. I should be able to solve this problem using a multimeter and my brain.

As I say, I wasted a lot of time on frustration before learning that in fact, some problems are best solved empirically, by trying a bunch of stuff and seeing what works. You can reason your way back to an explanation (maybe!), but some problems are more or less intractable without just trying things out, even things that you think shouldn't matter.

I know plenty of good scientists who entered grad school from the opposite pole, that of being do-ers who love nothing more than to plunge in and try stuff, and think about the results later. Those people usually do really well at carrying out experiments, and their challenge is often to make sure those experiments are thoughtfully designed.

If you are headed for or starting graduate school, I'd encourage you to contemplate which of these--thinking or doing--you consider your strength. I certainly knew heading in to grad school that I loved scientific concepts, but struggled with benchwork. If you know which half you find easier, recognize how much you need practice with the other half, and find someone to help you with it. Perhaps you have a fellow labmate who has the skills you lack, or a friend in a neighbor lab. This person's approach to problems may seem totally foreign to you, but that's exactly why you need them.

I was thinking of this today as a colleague and I were troubleshooting a completely bizarre problem with some fancy equipment we both use in his lab. We spent at least half an hour fighting two seriously disconcerting glitches, one of which seemed hardware-related and perhaps unfixable (and which would cast doubt on several published papers that use this hardware), and the other of which seemed software-related but equally unfixable.

Five years ago, I would have given up, or thrown a fit, or called up the company to yell at them, probably uselessly. Instead I suggested we try changing a software parameter that had nothing to do with anything we were having trouble with. Why? Not because I thought it was relevant, but because I have learned respect for empirical outcomes.

Presto. Both glitches cleared up. (Not with the first irrelevant parameter we changed, mind you! More like the 4th.) The other postdoc and I gaped at each other. We tested some more. Solved.

We tried to come up with any possible reason this parameter might have caused these problems. Nothing. But you know what? I don't really care (though I might still go back with some BNCs and an oscilloscope to see if I can figure it out). It's clear that the software has a bizarre bug that causes this inexplicable behavior. And now we know how to steer clear.

This is not to claim that I never get frustrated with inexplicable problems any longer. Ha ha, no. But that graduate school taught me to take seriously the attitude, "Just try it and see what happens."

More simple requests

Pubmed, you have some good qualities. Also, some not so good ones. To wit:

--Why must the cursor automatically jump to the search field when a page loads? Like all right-thinking, i.e. keyboard-shortcut-using, people, I am a fan of using the space bar to page down. But on each new results page, the space bar just....adds space, unless I click somewhere else on the page first.

--When I type the first few letters of a recently-performed search into the search field, you bring up a helpful drop-down of my recent searches. I key down to the desired one and press Return to put it in the search box.
(a) You immediately re-run that search. Sometimes I wanted to add something else to that search term.
(b) Not only do you immediately re-run that search, for reasons beyond me you sometimes fail to run the full search term, but instead use only the fragment that I had typed in. For example, when I type in "Ph" and then key down to select "Physioprof" from the drop-down, sometimes you produce Physioprof's papers. Sometimes you produce every single goddamn paper with "ph" in it. All 8 million of them. [This is just an example, people. In reality, "physioprof" produces no search results in PubMed. Don't waste your time.]

--Select some unique author ID method and implement it. I don't care which one. But if I have to try searching for a paper by "Xu X" ever again, I will maim you.

I'm lookin' at you, VWR

Welcome to ConglomerateScienceSupplyCo!

Please indicate your country to continue.

But you know my IP address.

Please select from the following menu:

[List of all countries starting with A, because we don't discriminate] or
[List of all countries starting with United States and United Kingdom, because let's face it]

The first version annoys me because I have to scroll all the way to the bottom. The second version annoys me because it reminds me that I am a spoiled American. Also, why the hell do I have to do this at all? You know my damn IP address. You could tell me what university I'm coming from, if you so chose.

Thanks for your selection! Would you like us to remember this selection for future visits?

Go right ahead, although you've never succeeded in remembering it before and I am doubtful that you even know how to place a cookie on my computer, given that you don't seem to have figured out that you know my goddamn IP address.

Referencing dross

Everyone's had this problem: you need to cite a paper in your field. The paper is totally ghastly. You know it's crap, and probably (?) your readers do too.

But you can't not cite it, because it's one of the few precedents relevant to your work--perhaps the only precedent for a certain facet of your work. Perhaps it's well-cited within your field and your failure to cite it would be seen as a glaring omission; perhaps your advisor or a reviewer has told you to cite it. Whatever the cause, you have to reference this bit of rubbish.

You can
1) Cite it. "Our data provide one of the first demonstrations of bleg-de-blug (Loser et al.)"
2) Bury it. "Previous research has not focused on the area of bleg-de-blug (Loser et al.)"
3) Trash it. "With the exception of a dubious report (Loser et al.), our data provide the first demonstration of bleg-de-blug."
4) Trash it cryptically. "Bleg-de-blug is without precedent in this field (Loser et al.)"

Sigh.

And thus does everyone's h-index creep up.

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For the other junkies out there, my odds run thusly:

2:1 Looming indictment/impeachment for ethical problems related to Troopergate.
3:1 Levi's inked a book deal.
6:1 Being blackmailed by Levi or someone else, and needs to raise cash.
10:1 Sex tapes.
18:1 Another pregnancy, hers, Willow's, or Todd's mistress's.
100:1 Actually thinks this is her best route to the presidency.