Re: Gene to Phene
John, good to see you posting too, and Merry Christmas!
You say this:
Surely it will not be “the fact of our ignorance in this area” that “is likely to be very important to thinking about public policy in the upcoming decades”: rather it will be our increasing understanding in this area. The fact of our ignorance was, after all, around from the beginning of time up to 1953.
Our understanding of both genetics and the biological basis of behavior is proceeding rapidly, and I assume will continue to do so for some time. This has led to many extravagant claims for knowledge that we do not have, i.e., a “gene for depression.” Such claims have obvious policy relevance, and I think that subjecting such claims to rigorous scrutiny will become increasingly important in future decades, because there will likely be many more of them.
Then you ask the following:
And what does this mean: “We do not have the practical ability to understand why person X has normal psychological make-up Y based on analysis of his or her genome”? Do you mean to say this is a thing we metaphysically cannot understand? What is the evidence for that? The name Auguste Comte mean anything?
I know of no metaphysical reason (that I am certain is true) for why we could not ultimately understand this scientifically. We don’t understand it yet, though.
Comte is a great illustration of several kinds of errors, many of which center on unfounded claims to knowledge. You link to one example of this: his claim that we could never know the chemical composition of stars. But Comte is usually thought of as the founder of sociology: a discipline that he saw as scientifically modeling human social organization based on mathematical laws (per a recent set of Corner exchanges, Hari Seldon anyone?). He and Saint-Simon were called out by Hayek as key intellectual figures in building belief in the current (not possible at some future date) capacity to predict and therefore plan society. A key intellectual task of Hayek, Popper and the other mid-20th century libertarian thinkers was to point out the pseudo-scientific nature of these claims.
It may be that someday we will be able to use knowledge of the genome to predict human social behavior sufficiently to rationally plan our political economy, but we are not there yet. We should rigorously scrutinize claims of the reduction of non-pathological human mental states to scientific phenomena, in part because of the potentially profound political implications of such findings. More precisely, all scientific claims should be subjected to rigorous scrutiny, but we should challenge the sloppy popularization of such claims unless and until they are really scientifically validated, because any such popularization may tend to create an unfounded intellectual climate hospitable to the erosion of political and economic freedom.
(Cross-posted to The Corner)
Ok, but also we should not mistake the breathless, magazine-selling hyperbole of science writers with the actual claims of actual scientists in the actual scientific literature.
It’s increasingly the case that the primary scientific literature is available for free online. But for whatever reason, even intelligent, science-interested people feel like they can only get science from Discover Magazine and Wired, that the primary literature isn’t “for them.” If you’re not reading the journals you’re not getting science, you’re getting analogies.
— Chet · Dec 22, 04:07 AM · #
Chetaling, that’s typically retarded. Have you ever seen the primary literature? I’ve spent years and years teaching undergrads and grad students to read it. They work on it and work on it — and that’s pretty much their job — and then they can read it; my first year grad students — in a damn prestigious program — I don’t trust to read the literature right, and all of them have prior lab experience and publications. Very, very few of them — essentially a small set of those in highly cross-disciplinary fields — can read the literature in multiple scientific areas so typically your cell biologist learns about particle physics from Discover more than from Physical Review. If you want to see what happens when layfolk try to read the scientific press you need only check out some vaccine denial sites. So if you think Bob the banker — even if he’s a really smart banker — wants to read JACS or PLoS Biology it’s only because you don’t understand how little you understand about those publications.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 22, 04:52 AM · #
Furthermore, Chettums, you will find that almost of the greats in any field of science you choose, agree with me not you — they read the lay science literature extensively an even write for it occassionally (and the staff writers are very often Ph.D.‘s with research experience). I have personal subscriptions to Science, Nature, Biochemistry, JACS, Biophysical Journal, Protein Science, Journal of the Optical Society of America, Nature Neuroscience, and Nature Chemical Biology. I also get Scientific American, Smithsonian and National Geographic, and I like those last three! (and I get Chemical and Engineering News which pretty much goes straight to the trash).
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 22, 05:07 AM · #
I’ve not only read a great deal of it, I’ve produced a bit of it, too. In my experience you can get a far better picture of a new scientific discovery just by reading the abstract than you can from the three pages of science-writer misunderstanding likely to be published about it in the NYT.
Right, right, right. Everybody’s an idiot but you. How frequently I forget since the things you write here are so utterly and completely stupid.
— Chet · Dec 22, 02:44 PM · #
And I didn’t say it would be easy, Kiddie. I’m just surprised that people like you think science is something to hoard and conceal, to the extent that you’re adamant that not even grad students in the sciences should really try to expose themselves to science except through a series of supposedly-more-intelligent mediators. Like yourself, I suppose.
— Chet · Dec 22, 02:52 PM · #
Chetwad, as usual, can’t defend his stupid position so goes ad hominem. Nobody’s saying science needs to be concealed, and you need to be as inept a reader as you are, to think I’ve said that. I’ve gotten the clal from Natalie Angier and seen other folks do it and we’re all of us pretty excited to share science with the public through skilled interlocuters. Again: those articles in the lay science literature are often written by greats of science — seriously, do you have a problem with, say. Brian Greene or Stephen Hawking doing PBS? And most of the big science writers have science degrees — even Ph.D.s, which makes them more credible than you — and research experience.
And despite the typically moronic ad hominem I’m still right. Very, very few cell biologists can read a math or physics journal. Very very few electrical engineers can read a chemistry journal. This fact can be easily verified! That you don’t know it, tells me something pretty clearly. And in that light, urging laypeople to read the primary literature is indefensibly dumb; there’s a hundred good reasons that they can’t.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 22, 03:11 PM · #
I find it remarkably interesting as a field study how facile the Derb and Sailer and Razib are about say….the heritability of race and IQ, while being intransigent on neuro-politics and red/blue genetics.
I wonder why that is?
Did you see this?
Might explain the behavioral genetics of Distributed Jesusland. ;)
joyeux noel
— matoko_chan · Dec 22, 03:28 PM · #
“until they are really scientifically validated, because any such popularization may tend to create an unfounded intellectual climate hospitable to the erosion of political and economic freedom.”
like say….Razib’s position on the heritability of intelligence? Or race and cognitive ability?
shukran for the epiphany…..i finally understand libertarians and conservatives.
You used to be a big “intransigence of genetic complexity guy”……we had arguments right on this very blog about that.
now that its about to be your ox that gets gored you are flipping your position.
le plus que ca change, le plus c’est la meme chose
— matoko_chan · Dec 22, 04:46 PM · #
Well, that wasn’t a total loss — the colleagues had a great pre-holiday eggnog bash laughing at the stupid kid who wants folks to learn science by reading abstracts…. somebody has never made it past the abstract to compare to the actual paper!
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 23, 07:40 PM · #
learn science by reading abstracts
Depends on what you mean by learning science. If you mean “learn to be a scientist in that field,” then probably it’s good for a laugh.
It has been a long time since I’ve tried to be a scientist myself, but I go to seminars at our workplace. (It has a reputation on the outside for being a snakepit for visiting speakers, but really our people just ask lots of good questions. Some people fine it intimidating. But our people do it in a friendly manner, and are willing to find redeeming scientific value where it can be found. I have seen scientists cut speakers down for doing bad science and make it hurt, and it’s not a pretty sight.)
One thing I’ve learned is that even though I am not doing work in any of the fields myself, I can usually tell good science from bad science. What I cannot do at my distance, though, is reliably distinguish good science from exceptionally good science.
Whether my limited abilities would hold up in a field like physics has not been put to the test.
— The Reticulator · Dec 23, 08:30 PM · #
Well, that’s the point, Reticulator. A seminar with a Q&A is nothing like reading a paper — there’s a back-and-forth with a group that knows the field. You wouldn’t have seminars if the literature weren’t incredibly deficient. Forgetting the sheer ignorance of Chetamaran’s idea — since much of how papers are written is to shape perception — the literature serves a different purpose; you read it and it requires considerable savvy to evaluate. Most scientists pretty much go directly to the actual data — figures and tables — and to materials and methods before even reading the text or (in detail) reading the abstract.
And even then the literature is crap. Most medical studies aren’t reproducible! An awful lot of published science — I think most of it — is no good [Back in his postdoc days Steve Block had a photocopy of some reviewer’s letter on his wall, with the names blacked out: he wouldn’t tell me from whom or to whom it was written. But it said, the paper is poorly written, the data are questionable and surely not representative, the data don’t support the conclusions, even if true the conclusions add nothing to the field, and the authors show no understanding of the state of the field — and therefore I recommend it for publication as it is no worse than anything else in this crappy journal. That is, it was an acceptance letter.] You need either a lot of experience, or help from a senior and/or your colleagues, to carve through it and to judge it. Without those things, sorry, but you’re judgment’s no good. I think some very credible folks think I’m pretty good at this stuff myself — but, my judgment, is general, is no good either — I run a lot of things by colleagues (“I haven’t used the method he’s describing here; what’s your read?”) If you think you are somehow magically telling right from wrong, that’s a case of knowing so little that you don’t know what you don’t know (where Chetaboo is) — because I don’t assert that I am on solid ground in the literature in general, so sure as hell you shouldn’t. (Judging a seminar is much easier, if the audience is savvy: that’s just being able to tell when the speaker has been knocked on his ass by a good (unhostile) question and is trying to BS his way out).
Fortunately there’s actually a pretty good lay scientific literature; it has it’s issues but it’s remarkably good. When the articles are written well, a scientifically literate person calls a few scientists from different labs, gets a reading on the context and points of disagreement which isn’t in the paper. Frances Crick used to praise Scientific American often, and I can easily name Nobel laureates who I know love reading Gina Kolata — but up there you have some boob who’s probably gotten out of freshman biochem with a gentleman’s C dissing those long New York Times science articles. Now, I’ve seen Norman Ramsey and Dan Koshland poring over the NYT science section, so it doesn’t take a lot of brains to realize Chetbo is a fool trying to say “wow, I read the journals.” Yes, and you clearly don’t understand them. It would be unreasonable to conclude that the Chetorama has even met a scientist.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 23, 10:20 PM · #
I’m sure they had a great laugh about it, but if that’s what you told them I said, you lied.
Stop trying to win TAS’s “Biggest Asshole” award for a second – MBunge has you beat, anyway, he’s a shoe-in for defending the genocide of Palestinians – and pay attention to what I’m actually saying.
Laypeople should learn science only by reading abstracts? Not even close to what I said. Laypeople – any interested person, in fact – should definitely continue to read the popular science reporting, especially when its Brian Greene or Neil DeGrasse Tyson or the like. Its enjoyable and informative. Of course, that’s not at all representative of the bulk of popular scientific writing.
But you’re encouraging the idea that even people with advanced degrees in the field should never expose themselves to the primary literature, that science is something that they must forever understand by someone else’s interpretive analogy. It’s right up there in your post at 11:52 PM.
That’s how we get nonsense like a “gene for depression” that Manzi is talking about (typically for you, you did not understand that was the context of my remarks, despite the fact that these are the comments to that exact post.) You’re a direct cause of the attitude that tells people – even intelligent people – that science is something they can only understand through a glass, darkly. I disagree. People should go to the primary literature, and even if they fail to understand it – as you must so frequently fail to understand anything – they’ll still have gained something from the experience.
If personal attacks, as you suggest, indicate a deficiency in one’s argument, I think I’ve made my case. And for what it’s worth, I showed your comments to the guys in the lab over here and they all agreed you’re a total fucking asshole.
— Chet · Dec 24, 12:42 AM · #
AH, the illiterate returns. No, Chetmeister, I gave them the link to laugh at you.
Demonstrably wrong as ever. I never said, nor ever would say, that professional scientists shouldn’t read the literature; you just can’t even read commentary, Chettish. I said they couldn’t. And they can’t. Find me a cell biologist who can make head or tail of a math paper — there’s a very, very few (which is exactly what I said). Or a particle physicist who can read a synthetic chem paper; same deal. If you had ever met a working scientist you’d know that. If you walk into a bio lab and ask them what they think of the faster-than-light neutrino measurement, 99% of everybody is going to tell you what they read in the lay press because they cannot begin to critique the arXiv paper.
Actually, you did mock the dumb New York Times writers. But Gina Kolata (say) is brilliant. I’d be durprised to discover she doesn’t have an advanced degree in science and certainly she’s been doing this stuff down in the trenches so long she may as well have. Based on the number of times colleagues have breathlessly told me she called, I’d say her Rolodex of folks who will gladly help her out and do, is a hell of a lot bigger than mine anyway. But some twit stripling wants to tell me, she writes pages and pages of misunderstanding.
Chetless, nobody knows who knows what on the Internet: but you’ve proven you don’t know anything about scientists.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 24, 01:18 AM · #
It’s worth again pointing out the idiocy of “even if you don’t understand much you’ll learn something.” As has been pointed out by Ionaddis and others most published medical research is irreproducible. So, no: you won’t. Or you’ll learn something wrong. The primary literature is the scientific battleground. It is not for layfolk. We do however produce stuff — are obliged to produce stuff — which is, and you can read it in Discover, which Chetbop mocks.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 24, 01:28 AM · #
And I didn’t say that you said that professional scientists shouldn’t read the literature.
How are you getting this so wrong? I’ve explained what I meant twice, now. Would you like a third try? All you need to is ask.
That’s true! But what on Earth does it have to do with what I said?
And, look, calm the fuck down. Jesus Christ, reading your posts is like diving face-first into an overloaded sewer. Stop being such an overinflated anus and, I dunno, find some fucking Christmas spirit or something. What the fuck is wrong with you?
— Chet · Dec 24, 06:34 PM · #
You lie, Chetbird: I can play this game too, but I can read so I do it right. In your 23 Dec post you explicitly say I encourage the idea that trained scientists should not read the primary literature. You now concede that I don’t.
So, the score: every single point you’ve made is wrong.
Here’s the thing: when some New York Times science writer with years of science experienc, an advanced degree, and contacts all over the science world puts down a few pages’ article, and some poor widdle boy with hurt feelings who’s spent a semester washing glassware in his dentist’s office tells you it’s “full of misunderstandings,” who exactly is it logical to think is “misunderstanding”?
Yoyu poor, dumb shit. THe issue now is it’s pretty clear you don’t even understand the primary literature, but you’re going around telling smarter but unqualified folks to read it.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 24, 07:52 PM · #
Hey, everyone who thinks it’s interesting to hear what the ignorant little one-note shit thinks about the Christmas spirit, let me know.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 24, 07:55 PM · #
Let’s itemize: Chet opens saying, people disserve themselves by reading Discover or Wired: wrong.
Instead, he says, they should read the primary literature: wrong, and ignorant about what that literature is.
Says I am “adamant that not even grad students in the sciences should really try to expose themselves to science except through a series of supposedly-more-intelligent mediators”: wrong, and unsupported by anything I’ve written — hell, even my undergrad mentees are given papers to read on their own because it is, as I said, “their job”; I just know better than to believe their interpretations, or to trust them to grasp important points, until someone experienced helps.
Three page New York Times articles are “full of misunderstanding”: generally wrong, and a dishwasher sniping at people very respected among scientists.
I am “encouraging the idea that even people with advanced degrees in the field should never expose themselves to the primary literature”: wrong, and unsupported by anything written.
“People should go to the primary literature, and even if they fail to understand it…they’ll still have gained something from the experience”: provably wrong because almost none of the primary literature is both correct, informative, and readable for laypeople, and indeed a majority of it isn’t even the first. Shows a complete lack of understanding of science literature and what it’s for.
Want to add more errors, Chetalong?
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 24, 08:06 PM · #
Uh, I explicitly don’t say that. What I said was:
Not even a mention of “trained scientists.” And, look, that’s exactly what you did, on your first post in this thread:
Hey, maybe they are! I’m prepared to admit that if shown. But here’s the problem for you – you’ve not demonstrated that a single point I’ve made in this thread is wrong. You’re spending all of your time arguing against things I never said. You’re having a hell of a time arguing with someone; it’s just too bad it’s not me.
No, the issue here is that you think nobody but you is qualified to read it. The problem, as anyone can see, is that you don’t even have the ability to accurately read a blog post.
If you think the average newspaper science writer is “very respected among scientists”, then you’ve revealed that it’s you who doesn’t actually know any scientists. (Next time they bring you in to sweep up after one of their Christmas parties, you unqualified buffoon, ask around. You’ll see that the average newspaper science reporter is approximately one step up from creationist in the esteem of most scientists.)
Fuck Christmas spirit – you’re an idiot, and your aggressive ignorance is matched only by your pomposity. What the fuck is wrong with you, kid?
— Chet · Dec 25, 12:27 AM · #
Ah, the Chetsuck. still failing.
Again: real scientists — Nobelists even— read the lay science literature and help make it. Easily proven, easily confirmable. That’s why we talk to those guys when they call (unless we’re Prusiner). I think that makes the respect issue pretty clear. Those guys call, and we get excited.
Digging yourself in a hole and trying to create a difference between “people with advanced degrees in the field” and “trained scientists” is the level of pathetic I expect form you, Chetster. And again, it’s like you don’t understand “should” and “can” mean different things. A fresh science undergrad should try to understand the literature. A fresh science undergrad, in my experience, can’t. I’ve illustrated that distictions with numerous examples (e.g. a cell biology prof, in general, can’t read arXiv, the biophysics types being, on occasion, the exception) and you keep missing it, because you have gotten no smarter over your years trying to nitpick your betters.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 25, 01:13 AM · #
To simplify — Chettalid’s entire attempt to make himself look like he knows anything about science now rests on convincing us of two irrelevant points: (1) that he said “people with advanced degrees in science” wich I shortened to “trained scientists,” so clearly I misread, and (2) when I said “can not read” what I actually meant was “should not read.” Sad.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 25, 01:19 AM · #
Again, you’re just not even close to being on the same page with me. Here’s a hint – I’m talking about things like the “gene for depression” Manzi mentioned. Remember Manzi? The guy who wrote the post that these are the comments to?
Remember how that’s the context, here? Yeah, I didn’t think you did. “Gene for depression.” Where did that come from? Why, from your vaunted popular science writers. The ones who are also scientists in their fields? Probably not. The ones hired by newspapers to do part-time science journalism when its a slow day in sports? Much more likely.
You can continue to assert that the science desk at major newspapers isn’t something besides a continual fail-parade of false equivalence, “shape of the Earth – opinions differ”-type manufactured conflict, promulgation of obfuscating analogies ostensibly meant to clarify, and outright misrepresentation of the state of modern science, but in doing so you only reveal your complete ignorance on the subject. I mean, do you really even talk to scientists? (I’m developing a picture of your “holiday party”; you and a bunch of life-size photographs of the real scientists you think you deserve to be counted among, all standing around a very full punchbowl.)
The truth is that Americans are regularly failed by the people self-designated to explain science to them, and this post is an example of that. Hence, 60% or so of Americans reject evolution; 20% believe the Sun orbits the Earth; people think you can purify radioactive milk by boiling it. People not only think there could be a “gene for depression”, they think we’ve already found it. The natural and reasonable conclusion is that people should make some effort to cut out the middleman, here, and go right to the source. It’s at least worth a try to eliminate the influence of people like you, who think they think so that others don’t have to.
Nobody thinks you’re the one who knows what he’s talking about, here. Nobody even thinks you can read English, kiddy.
So, then, what’s going on here is that you’re boldly defending the exact position I took at the start, all the while styling yourself as some great defender of the truth against me being an idiot.
You’re transparent, kiddo. “Nitpick my betters”? As if I could have any betters at TAS.
To lie, you mean.
— Chet · Dec 25, 03:22 AM · #
Ah, Chetaria keeps digging. And still: every single assertion has been wrong.
Why do I bother? Because this is always the pattern — says something just wrong and stupid, tries to make it, “oh, you’re not grasping the subtlety of my point,” then we get sick of it and a lot of back chatter goes on about, “how do you shut this ass up?” Which I suppose is nice in that it brings together so many points of view, but: somehow when you let it go he thinks he came off “right,” and keeps doing it, and what he suggested is ignorant, bad for science, bad for public understanding of science, and insulting to damn capable folk working to clarify it.
Science sections are simply not written by grossly uninformed writers anymore. I have buds who wrote for the Economist’s section — they were Ivy League grad-degrees scientists. Call any scientist of note and say you’re Gina Kolata, or Greg Miller, or Mitch Waldrop, or Natalie Angier, or Jennifer Ouelette, and they’ll be damn excited. And see, those are the kind of people who you think write “pages of misunderstanding” in the New York Times. You find me “pages” of article in the Times, or a feature length article in Discover, written by a misplaced sports writer — or else you’re just still lying in a transparent attempt to dig out.
[This point is not meant too much to privilege a kind of science credentialism: I don’t think any good scientist would question the bona fides of, say, David Attenborough, who lacks those credentials.]
There’s all kids of reasons why the impact of particular scientific results may be distorted in the lay literature (considerably less than it is distorted in the primary literature, in general). But nobody — not Manzi, not Khan, just one stupid dishwasher — has said that it’s because the writers there don’t understand what they’re reporting. [Those distortions actually do originate with the scientists not the writers, for many reasons: you better bet the grant app says, modulating this gene is a potential cure for depression. The writer rolls her eyes, and then uses the quote ‘cause she ain’t getting you to admit less than that, and your immediate colleagues in the field all make the same claim for the same reason.]
Again, tries to break the language to lie. Can’t defend anymore the difference between “trained professionals” and “people with science degrees” so tries a different fabrication: that when I talk about fresh undergrad mentees being given the literature — saying, note, that they aren’t competent to read it! — that’s the same as the Chetamaran saying “Intelligent, science-interested people” ought to. Patently false, and again showing concretely no familiarity with what it is to be a science academic. The undergrad has, well, me, or someone like me — a mentor guiding them through the literature and introducing them into a tradition. Because, again: he can’t read the literature and needs an interlocuter. That’s why we train!
Ah, the poor stupid worm.
Chetterling: many of these _TAS_ers correspond with me directly. I don’t put on scientific airs that would make me look foolish to them, and I am adult enough to know how this thread reads. You embarrass yourself trying this crap.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 25, 04:44 AM · #
And still, this damaging idea that the public should go “straight to the source.” Just to kill this for the kiddies out there: most of the source material is wrong. Probably a much bigger percentage of it, then of the lay literature! We who traffic in it know that — in some ways it’s a good thing — and are plugged in to a big network and individual tradition to think through that. If you aren’t — leave the shit alone and go get Scientific American.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 25, 04:48 AM · #
Folks, I’m traveling tomorrow, so when the bitch doesn’t get slapped down for the desperate try he makes next … give it ‘til Monday.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 25, 04:58 AM · #
It’s like watching two chimps trapped in an overturned trailer.
— cw · Dec 27, 12:24 AM · #
‘zactly, O Dark Lord of the Sith.
But its all they can do at this point. Conservatism is an empty purse, libertarianism is just localized mob-rule (aka states rights federalism), and the “freed” market is an ecophagy.
Conservatism/libertarianism’s greatest intellectual defender is an ex-pat millionaire living in France.
and in the run-up to November 2012 we will see conservatives and libertarians speaking in tongues and barking like dogs, but it will avail them nought.
because, like the Great Nate Silver says, demographics is destiny.
— matoko_chan · Dec 27, 03:24 PM · #
Good post really nnice !
— do my essay · Dec 29, 11:53 AM · #
Dr. Manzi, let us all bookmark this and see how much of it comes true.
im thinkin’ not much.
— matoko_chan · Dec 31, 02:17 AM · #
its actually magical thinking, isnt it Jim?
— matoko_chan · Dec 31, 02:26 AM · #