The Royal Society can lay claim to being the first professional association of those whom we now call scientists but who were in those days described as Natural Philosophers. Despite this considerable pedigree, however, the RS is not a bit stodgy or fuddy-duddy. And, the Society wants to take full advantage of the possibilities of Internet/web publication and dissemination. Recently, more than 350 years -worth of scientific publication was opened for general inspection and free use for a period of two months. The Society’s publications include The Philosophical Transactions in Sections A, B and C, while The Proceedings are also an important source. Once the two-month free trial period expires, access will be offered on a subscription basis, according to a menu of package options. The RS promises that private scholars, or those affiliated with institutions not subscribing to the RS publication package will be able to download individual items at a small charge. The Society web site highlighting this initiative has some direct links to a few notable documents, surely only a teeny portion of the total rich feast.
Royal Society

We are seeing and hearing a lot about evidence, and how professional practices, medicine included, should be based on it. In fact, the BG thinks we may be hearing way too much about it, as various disciplines limber up for a hop onto the bandwagon. At this moment, Prof. Edward Tufte emerges with another book. This one is called Beautiful Evidence. Tufte’s specialty is the somewhat arcane topic of Information Design, which can be described as a set of specific principles and skills which, when they are properly and consistenly applied, help the reader or viewer to understand the content better. Bad ID, like bad food, is all over the place, especially in presentations made in government, academia and business. PowerPoint comes in for a special hiding, as Tufte thinks the package allows presenters to conceal vacuous and half-baked notions beneath a coating of sizzle and flash. I don’t imagine that there will be much objection to that critique around here, and perhaps even a little sheepishness at the memory of having done that very thing oneself. Tufte conducts one-day seminars on ID, which are very popular with web designers, academicians and scientific researchers. Many people want to make clear and cogently argued products, but they don’t how, so they load up on tricks and gimmicks. Maybe we all need a dose of Dr. T’s medicine.

Tufte, Edward R. Beautiful Evidence Graphics Press, 2006

Tufte was the subject of an NPR report a little while ago:
NPR

We love those movies in which the righteous underdog gets booted around by uncaring authority or even by Dark Forces, and then triumphs in the end. So, the moral of the story is that people should do what’s right. Well, yeah, but they should be prepared to face the music when they do. “Face the music” is a rather oldish expression, probably out of fashion now, that means “take what’s coming to you, without evasion or whining”. Here’s a hypothethical as the lawyers say: some grad students have good reason to suspect that their lab boss has been doctoring parts of grant applications. After a lot of hesitation, they do the right thing: confront her and then take their suspicions to University administrators. A grinding investigation follows, and the faculty member abruptly resigns before the release of a report stating that evidence of falsification had been discovered in grant applications and in three published papers. So what happens to the students when their lab chief goes, under those circumstances? Well, having endured the suspicion and even open contempt of many of their peers and of other faculty, who suggest that the lab chief was driven to fakery because the students were too hapless to produce useful results, the students find out that there is a another price to pay, and a stiff one. Ya’ll done good, but you’ll have to start your degree programs all over. Tough, but that’s the way it is. All that training, all the debt, lives on hold, anxiety, self-doubt, frustration, tears, were all in vain. Yeah, we realize, but the lab’s work is suspect and not because of the fakery, althought that’s clearly not a plus, but also because a lot of the effort was just dead-ending, and the chief kept you at it out of excessive optimism. No none of this is your fault, and yes you did behave responsibly and honorably, and we do wish there were more like you around, but you’re not getting a degree from this place, because you didn’t do anything “PhD worthy” and no faculty here will touch you with a stick. Good Luck ! Some students went to other places, some dropped out of research, one went to law school (shudder!). A dean actively involved in the events says he’s working on procedures to help with cases such as this in the future. He clearly expects that there will be more. And,he’s probably right.

So, what does this say about the state of science, and science education in the USA right now?
Bitter Harvest

There are some footnotes to this item in the form of contributions to The Scientist, September, 2006. One asks if we are training too many scientists, and talks about a glut of postdocs, a shortage of good jobs and a professoriat commited to the status quo. Another wonders whether academic scientists are being too condescending about careers outside the academy, especially since many of them have at least one foot firmly planted in some for-profit research endeavor. The Scientist is a subscription service, and we don’t have access to it here, so linking isn’t possible. Interested parties can run it down