I got a lot of great comments on my last post about the growing anti-science sentiment. Instead of writing another post, I decided to record my reactions in the First Ever, Science and Grant Podcast!

It’s going to take a few days to get this set up as an actual podcast you can find on iTunes (look for that later in the week), but you can listen to it right here by clicking on the player above.

Some of the questions I respond to are:

• The intersection of Passion and Facts/Logic, and how this relates to our belief systems.
• How to promote the value of your work through communication, outreach, and “marketing”.
• Data driven “truths” and the role of scientists in getting a science message out.

p.s. There are just a few more days left on the 50% OFF deal for 2 of my best Online Grant Writing Courses. If you want to put yourself on a path of success for the next round of submissions, this is a great investment and has never before been offered for this price (and won’t again, anytime soon).

Get the details here. Offer ends Tuesday, April 17th at midnight.

“The anti-science sentiment is entirely the fault of well-funded Koch brothers and people like them.”

I was helping out with the petition to get Obama’s attention on the issue of biomedical research funding.  Amongst the flurry of emails, I got one that said essentially this:

“I’m trying to get people to sign this petition, but some people are pushing back because they’re not really sure of the value of science.”  The email then went on to point to this article that discussed how conservatives have been steadily becoming anti-science, while other groups still thinking science is OK.

That email coincided with another interesting and related event.

I saw a Facebook post by a conservative person that I know.  (Yes, I actually know some conservatives! The horror!)

The mentioned a blog article that was about a woman in Pennysylvania who’d recently had a baby.  She’d intended to have that baby with a midwife at home, but the midwife couldn’t make it in time due to the speed at which the woman went into labor, so she called an ambulance.  So she had the baby in the hospital parking lot, inside the ambulance.

Doctors took the baby from her.  They made excuses for why they weren’t returning the baby.  Then, finally they told her this: we’ll return the baby, but first you have to authorize a Hepatitis B shot. The woman says to them: um, no, I want to have my husband here, and baby should be tested for Hep B first, to see whether the baby is even at risk.

At that point, a clueless hospital social worker called the police, confiscated the baby (WTF??!?!), and ejected the woman from the hospital.  The “reasoning” (if you can call it that) is that the woman wasn’t properly looking out for the welfare of the child by authorizing the Hep B shot.  So, the rationale goes, the child needs to be taken care of by authorities.  Obviously they’ll be better at caring for this child than a mother that refuses a Hep B shot!  She must be totally off her rocker!

The mom was allowed to come back in to feed the child every three hours, but had to sleep in the car.  After childbirth.

The next day a judge said WTF?!? and released the baby back to parents.  After the hospital had already given the Hep B shot, against parental wishes. So there!

What’s this story got to do with the petition, science, and biomedical funding? They’re linked in an important way.  But one more story, before we bring it all together here.

As I write this post, I’m on a plane, headed back from Mississippi.  It’s the poorest state in the union.  I was there helping them out with a program that is designed to get more underrepresented groups into biomedical research.

I heard stories like this: “When we first started the program, many of the colleges didn’t even have a basic science lab.  We had to beg and plead with administrators to get them to consider sparing space for this.  The kids who participate in our summer research programs often have never seen a pipette before.  They don’t know how to dress for work, don’t know how to do a Google search, don’t understand even the most basic elements of doing research.  And, there are some entire counties here that don’t even have a single MD!”

The efforts of these folks to develop more MD’s and scientists is laudable.  It’s a big uphill battle.

So, back to the first email.  After that email came, I made a point-in-response.  The point was this: we scientists need to take some responsibility for the anti-science trends.  We need to become better at communicating about and doing outreach for science.  If we don’t do that, then the anti-science trend is going to continue.

In a series of quippy emails that followed, one person kept saying: no, there is ZERO blame on the part of scientists for this situation.  This is ALL the fault of well-funded, anti science interests like the Koch brothers.  It is all due to these people who want to strangle science because it gets in the way of industry, by bringing up pesky issues like climate change. They are well funded, and it’s the only reason for the trend against science now.  Let’s not take responsibility, let’s fight.

No culpability.  No admittance that we scientists could be doing a better job.  Only finger pointing. “It’s THEIR fault! They’re wrong! We must do away with THEM and their wrongdoing! Then it will all be better!”

The adamance and arrogance of this very superficial opinion by a fellow scientist really startled me.

Here’s why: the two other science-related stories I tell above have nothing to do with the Koch brothers, but everything to do with the anti-science trend.

In the case of the woman whose baby was stolen, it’s simple: there was a clash of beliefs.  The hospital staff believes it is best for everyone, without exception, to have a Hep B shot.  The woman-with-baby believes that a Hep B shot should be given only if absolutely necessary, and is concerned about the risks (there are risks, BTW).  She is part of the growing anti-vaccine movement.  I know several anti-vaccine folks.  Each one of them truly believes that vaccines are dangerous, and that they are doing what’s right for their kids.

We scientists might argue that the facts are on our side, and that kids should be vaccinated. (I vaccinated mine, BTW).  Yet, in the one such debate I’ve heard, the anti-vaccine person was eloquent and passionate, whereas the pro-vaccine scientist (an epidemiologist) was dry and factual.  Guess which person won that debate, by swaying more people to her side?  Yep – the anti-vaccine person.  This is not Koch brothers, this is passion and eloquence versus dry statistics.  Passion and eloquence will win, every time.

And guess what’s going to happen with the story of the mother whose baby was taken away? More fuel for the anti-vaccine fire!  This is the worst possible public relations blunder by the supposedly pro-science hospital that this woman interacted with.

Does this have anything to do with well-funded anti-science people like the Koch brothers?  Nada.

It’s about a clash of beliefs, where one side is eloquent and passionate, and the other side is dry, boring, and authoritarian.

Unfortunately, this clash makes science look bad.

How about the visit to Mississippi?

More than anything, the problem with science there is lack of access. Lack of relevance.  Lack of interest.  Lack of knowledge.  The culture in the many impoverished areas sees no direct impact of science on their lives.

Again, is this due to the Koch brothers or other well-funded anti-science people?  That’s hard to believe unless you’re a tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist.  And if you are the tinfoil type, then let me tell you the real cause: little brown men from Mars!

In seriousness – both of the above cases of things trending away from science, there’s only one antidote.  It’s not going out and doing head-on battle with the Koch’s of the world. That’s impossible, anyway, unless you’re a multi-billionaire.

The real way forward is simple: communicating better about the value and benefit of science.

If that damned hospital social worker had, instead of trying to force the vaccine, done some very effective education and persuasion, the long-term effects on the likelihood of the kid getting vaccines would be greater.  As it is, she probably alienated the parents permanently from visiting hospitals or medical workers, and she gave a rallying cry to others who just don’t trust the science behind vaccines or the workers who administer them.

In Mississippi, the effort I was supporting is all about educating people: getting people from impoverished areas training in the biomedical sciences.  Some of those people have already gone to med school and graduate school.  Many of them have vowed that, once they’re finished, they’ll come back to their communities to help.

This is about education and communication.

Even in the case of “doing battle” with the anti-evolution folks and the climate change deniers, that battle can only be fought with effective words, education, and persuasion.

Unfortunately, a lot of scientists either don’t feel that we have the time for that, and/or we lack training in the effective doing of that.

And that’s where our culpability comes in.  If we want things to change so that the anti-science trend doesn’t continue to erode funding and support for science, then we’ve got to change our ways.

We must become passionate advocates for science.  We have to become vocal and well spoken in support of science.  We have to learn how to “market” the value of science.  

If we don’t admit the problem, and vow to do better, then we will lose. If we point a finger at others, we will loose.

This is not a battle that we can afford to loose.

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, and use those little social widgets above to let your friends know.

Cheers!

Recently, I posted a link to a story by the Atlantic over on my Facebook page called “How Your Cat is Making You Crazy.” The article discusses Jaroslav Flegr, a Czech evolutionary biologist who has been studying Toxoplasma gondii, or the brain parasite which can be passed from cats to humans.

But this article isn’t really about that: this article discusses how Flegr and his research haven’t always been taken seriously–in fact, just the opposite. His idea (that T. Gondii actually works to reroute neurons) hasn’t gained much traction, despite sound research.

Science, as a human institution, is far more conservative than it would like to admit. As a group of humans, we fear what is different and new. From Flegr’s wild hair to his “psychedelic” science, he has a hard time getting his well-researched science accepted. As he says in the piece: “There is strong psychological resistance to the possibility that human behavior can be influenced by some stupid parasite,” he says. “Nobody likes to feel like a puppet. Reviewers may have been offended.”

Flegr is just one in a long line of scientists who have challenged conventional thinking–and persisted despite not being taken seriously. It’s a prestigious list which goes back to the days of Galileo and includes Einstein.

So this is my call to you, fellow researchers and scientists: don’t be afraid of offending, of being labeled as ‘crazy.’ If Galileo had done this, the sun may still be thought to be orbiting the Earth. Your passion to create a solid body of research is what moves innovation–and as the educational system breeds this out of us, we need all we can get.

The message below was forwarded to me by a colleague about the dire funding situation, and in particular, about the lack of understanding that the present Whitehouse/administration/congress has of its effects.  These colleagues have started an official petition via the “We the people” site (sponsored by the Whitehouse), and if this petition gets enough digital signatories, there will be an automatic trigger for the executive branch to consider and respond to this issue “officially.” 

So, if you’re at all concerned about science funding in the US, now’s the time to speak up!  Do you really want politicians continuing to believe that things are just fine?

(Please share this post via Facebook or Twitter using the buttons above, to let your friends and colleagues know about it!)

Here’s the forwarded message from my colleague:

I was on a recent conference call with White House officials, during which research funding was discussed. It seemed to me that these officials did not fully understand the central importance of NIH funding to our national research enterprise, to our local economies, to the retention and careers of our most talented and well-educated people, to the survival of our medical educational system, to our rapidly fading worldwide dominance in biomedical research, to job creation and preservation, to national economic viability, and to our national academic infrastructure. In response to a question from a participant, they staunchly defended the proposed flat $30.7 billion FY 2013 NIH budget as being perfectly adequate, remarking that “The NIH receives more funding than any other research entity; it will continue to be strong; it will do just fine.”

This statement is patently false. The proposed flat NIH budget will severely exacerbate a catastrophic crisis that has been ongoing since 2003, when growth in NIH funding fell (and has continued to fall every subsequent year) behind the rate of inflation. As a consequence of this deeply flawed public policy, promising careers have been cut short, amazing research projects have been aborted, hundreds of laboratories nationwide have shrunk or been shut down, established and accomplished senior researchers have been forced to abandon their programs, young scientists have departed from research of even left the country (even after many years of productive training), thousands of ancillary jobs have been lost, our worldwide medical research dominance has been eroded (ceded to China, India, and other nations), and a large support network of laboratory supply and biotechnology companies has been drastically attenuated.

We successfully rescued the auto industry because we understood the ramifications of letting it fail. Our biomedical research infrastructure is just as far-reaching and vitally important to our nation’s economy as is the auto industry. I hope that our Administration understands this.

In response to this apparent lack of understanding of the current medical research crisis, I started the following petition:

Dear friends,

I write to let you know about a recently created petition on “We the People”, a new feature on WhiteHouse.gov <http://WhiteHouse.gov> , and ask for your support. If this petition gets 25,000 signatures by March 18, 2012, the White House will review it and respond!

We the People allows anyone to create and sign petitions asking the Obama Administration to take action on a range of issues. If a petition gets enough support, the Obama Administration will issue an official response.

“You can view and sign the petition here:

http://wh.gov/R3R (added 2/19/12: this is the new link after the White House shut our other one down with >24,000 signatures and 10 hours to go)

Here’s some more information about this petition:

Increase NIH budget to $33 billion dollars next fiscal year! A flat $30.7 billion will kill jobs and hurt research.

Increase NIH spending to $33 billion! The proposed flat NIH budget will close labs nationwide, kill good-paying jobs, damage our worldwide medical research dominance, and hurt state economies. NIH jobs cannot be outsourced. NIH funding created 350,000 jobs and contributed $50 billion to the national economy in 2007! Insource our jobs!!

Stephen J. Meltzer, M.D.
The Harry & Betty Myerberg/Thomas R. Hendrix Professor
Departments of Medicine (GI Division) and Oncology
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine & Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center
1503 E. Jefferson Street, Room 112
Baltimore, MD 21287

Please, don’t delay in taking action on this petition!

After a recent web seminar I hosted to help people write grants that are more likely to get funded, I got a note from a writer overseas that raised an interesting point about “fundability” and the progress of science (we’ll call him A to preserve anonymity).

He wrote:

THe major point I am raising though refers to the type of science. IN the western society model, incorporating science as one among other activities, the spiral has been closing down and down on the equation “potential applicative outcome=easy funding” Now I am not arguing against the need for new technology and new achievements, but basic science has been the foundation of every possible applicative science, while now the almost desperate need for immediate money leads the investors to neglect, or even worse, to design selection procedures that will specifically leave basic science out of most of the funding schemes.

If you have been working for a lifetime now (I am 53) in basic science and, very sadly, you are still strongly convinced of its value, it is very difficult to pretend to be a different type of scientist to adapt to the various funding strategies/topics.

BAsic science has never had “the brilliant idea that makes a project cool” at least not “a priori” though afterwards it gave us things such as DNA structure and fucntion or cyclin-cdk mechanism for cell cycel progression control, among others. Because it is felt as almost useless nowadays (as if we knew everything almost), it makes it really difficult to build a gap, a contrast, nothing.

Have you elaborated on this aspect? How would one get to the same strategy if the basical “why do we need it” is only very hardly fulfilled, especially considering the balance (money spent vs money income due to the results)?

At the risk of giving you the impression that Idaho is full of backwoods uneducated types, I’m going to mention a recent article about the “vaccination debate” here in Idaho.

The article tells the story of a group of anti-immunization crusaders in Northern Idaho through the lens of two contrasting women. One of these is the leader of the anti-immunization folks, Ingri Cassel. The other is state epidemiologist Christine Hahn.

I’m not going to wade into the depths of the vaccination debate except to say that the vast majority of research points to vaccines being effective, and as a scientist, I like to make decisions based on data, rather than just speculation (when data is available, at least).

But what I will wade into is the communication debate. The article says about Cassel that she’s a “heart-on-her-sleeve rabblerouser who takes on everyone.” It says about Hahn that she “has no desire to engage in a heated debate over vaccinations.”

And that, my friends, is why science is going to loose a battle, yet again.

If you’ve noticed the alarming trend towards science loosing battles against all manner of crazies, you’ve got your reason why in the two quotes above.

The non-science folks are passionate. They tell stories. They pound the pavement. They “market” their ideas.

And most of the scientists on the other side just sit there thinking that “the facts will speak for themselves.”

No, facts don’t speak. Not now, not ever.

The public doesn’t care about the subtle nuances of immunogenicity or fancy buzzwords like that. They listen to passion and stories (yes, anecdotal ones).

If you think this problem is isolated to just a few loonies in Northern Idaho, think again. This is a significant trend that we’ve seen happen in the climate change debates, in the evolution vs creationism, and many more.

If science is going to prevail, scientists are going to have to start being passionate communicators for the value of what they do. Otherwise, we may be doomed.

A friend just posted a message to me on Facebook: “How is it going with your new position?  BTW, when I read this article, I thought of you.”

The “this article” is in The Nation magazine, and is titled “The Crisis in Higher Education.”

Yes, it’s bad out there in many ways, and not getting better.

But….

I like to take the optimistic view of things.  Challenges and problems are there to help us learn lessons.  This “crisis in higher ed” is a major challenge.  But the system was broken, and needs fixing, and without a “crisis,” change would never happen.

Life’s status quo is too powerful a force to be torn down by anything but crisis.

This crisis presents an opportunity that wasn’t there before: to actually change the system for the better.

On the downside, I expect that this crisis will get worse before university administrators really wake up to what’s going on.

On the upside, when it happens, I expect there will be a significant phase change back towards some semblance of sanity in the system (or, maybe not… in which case, academia will collapse and something better will take its place, like internet-based universities and crowd sourced science).

In the meantime, if you’re already in academe and seeking to improve your odds, you can grab my “Backdoor to Funding Report” for free, without having to sign up for anything or even give out your email address.  It’s my way of saying “thank you for reading.”

My Father the scientist circa 1935

Originally I was going to post just about being thankful.

See, despite shrinking budgets and challenging times, we scientists are a lucky group – especially those of us who have benefitted from the budget largesse of the USA towards our endeavor.

When else in history has any society spent so much money on people simply exploring and figuring out who the world works?  Never.  It’s actually amazing if you think about it.

We are so lucky to be living in a time when society has had money to spare for such things.  I can only hope it will continue in the future.

So when lamenting about the challenges that we face, it is good to keep this in mind.  Just imagine if, instead, we were beholden to rich patrons to fund our work – ones whose tastes were fickle and craven?

We’ve got something to be thankful for!

But … (there’s always a but…)

I want to say “no thanks” to university bureaucracies.  I don’t know about you, but in my own case, I’ve seen so much sclerotic implementation of arcane and byzantine architectures of arbitrary rules that my head is ready to explode.

Seriously – if you think about it, almost half of all money that NIH, NSF, and other agencies give out as grants go to fund the university bureaucracies.

I don’t think anyone set out to make these for malevolent purposes.  Quite the opposite, they grew out of the desire to “protect” and “do good.”  But in the ones I’ve observed so far, they’re like trees whose branches have grown too big for the trunk.  They soon topple over by their own weight.

In other words, they are big money pits.

And that’s a real shame.  Given that we have had this tremendous opportunity to do great science, and to have a big part of the money and momentum sucked away by bureaucracy is simply a damn shame.

So, I give one thumbs up to being thankful for the opportunity to do great science

And I give one thumbs down (no thanks) to bloated university bureaucracy.

What about you? Thanks or no thanks?  I want to hear from you.

ps – have you grabbed your copy of the free report on the five keys to a successful science career yet?

I’ve long thought that university administrations had difficulty with the concept of running their “business” efficiently. Now I have proof.

Someone that I know very well (snicker) has had some funding for a few years to develop software infrastructure for next-gen sequencing data. This is important work, since next-gen data poses quite a challenge. The work was done through NC State funds for cancer research.

After spending a lot of time and money building a great team, and getting the project seriously underway… the person just received an email from an administrator. The administrator said:

“We just got paperwork to transfer all your people off this account. Please let me know what account to transfer them to.”

Haha. Like this investigator has another pool of $200k/year lying around.

Unless the person(s) behind this unexpected move change their minds, it’s going to be interesting times in the affected lab.

Nobody talked to the PI about the status of the project. Nobody gave any warning. Instead, they did the most cowardly thing possible in sending paperwork to a departmental administrator, so she could let the PI know the bad news (with zero notice).

Hello?

Let’s look at this from only one angle: good use of taxpayer funds. Let’s consider how useful it was to spend nearly $400k to build a team and get the project going – and then cancel it without warning.

Bye bye $400k.

Now that I’ve finished my book on grant writing, I think the book I’m planning to write about dysfunctional bureaucracy at universities just moved up in priority.

How dare you to “speculate” about what your results might mean?

That’s the attitude I’ve received twice now, from two different reviewers, on two different papers.

In the latest case, we did some work related to antibiotic resistance, and we found interesting new pathways activated in one resistant strain.

At the end of the paper, we speculated about what these pathways might be doing. We even came up with a model for it.

We didn’t claim that this was “the correct answer” – we just said, “hey, here’s our model, it’s the best we can come up with given what we know so far.”

The important thing about a model is that then you have something to test.

Science always proceeds in two stages:

1. Start with a model (e.g. a hypothesis)
2. Test that hypothesis, attempting to falsify it

For some reason, certain people seem to think that science solely consists of step number 2 – falsifying.

But, actually, step 1 is just as important, if not more. Step 1 is what leads to the real innovative leaps (and things like Nobel prizes).

But, because it involves “creativity,” and because nobody really understands what “creativity” is (a topic for a future book of mine), it gets swept under the rug.

Hence, when we use our creativity to speculate and build a model of what our results might mean, we get reviewers who say: OMG, hey, that’s way too speculative! You shouldn’t put that in your paper!

Let’s consider two scenarios:

1. We publish a paper with just the results, giving no interpretation/speculation.

2. We publish a paper with the results plus our speculative model of what they mean.

Which one of those two papers is more likely to lead someone to follow up to actually figure out what is going on?

In case number 2, where we provide the model, it is easy. We’ve provided a model, and all someone has to do is to test it (or prove it wrong).

In case number 1, we’ve only provided some data. Someone else can go test it to make sure that their data produces the same results – but if they also refuse to speculate about what it means, their paper will be even more boring than ours (unless it is a conflicting result).

Speculation is the cornerstone of science. It is what pushes things forward. I don’t like reading papers that leave me without any speculation as to what the results mean – they are dry and boring. And I certainly don’t like writing such papers because they are dry and boring.

As long as speculation is labeled for what it is, nobody is being misled. Any reader can choose to agree with it or disagree with it. In fact, that goes for any model of anything – they are just models, and they’re all speculative.

This comes back to my core motto: don’t be afraid to be proven wrong. You may be wrong. But if the fear of being wrong prevents you from speaking out and arguing a concept to the best of your ability, you’ll go forever unnoticed, into obscurity. I’ve decided that obscurity is not for me. What about you?

———

ps – The paper was accepted with only minor revisions, despite the objections of the reviewer over our speculative model.