• #DarkMatter was first theorized in the 📆 1930s to explain movements of #stars 🎇 and #galaxies 🌌 that couldn't be explained by Newton's laws of gravity.
I can't help but wonder whether the real implication of #ratgate is the realisation of how much the model of #OpenScience people have been working toward is threatened by the advent of #LLMs -
full #OpenAccess suddenly means not just access for people, but also training machines, and the more those can generate content (including online post-peer review comments!) and flood the ecosystem, the more gate keeping will be required
4 major nonprofits that rose to prominence during the #coronavirus pandemic by capitalizing on the spread of #medical#misinformation collectively gained >$118M between 2020 & 2022, enabling the orgs to deepen their #influence in statehouses, courtrooms & communities across the country, a Washington Post analysis of tax records shows.
2 other grps, Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance & America’s Frontline Doctors, went from receiving $1M combined when they formed in 2020 to collecting more than $21M combined in 2022, acc/to the latest tax filings….
The 4 grps routinely buck #scientific consensus. Children’s Health Defense & Informed Consent Action Network raise doubts about the safety of #vaccines despite assurances from federal regulators. “Vaccines have never been safer than they are today,” the CDC said….
I see a lot of people talking about #science as a #religion, or the closely related idea of “#scientism,” the purported ideology that says science is the only way to know things. Oh, I’m not talking about you, they’ll solemnly assure anyone who objects. Naturally you know better. Just … you know … them. Those people, out there. The great unwashed. On the #internet, nobody knows how long it’s been since you took a shower.
You know what I hardly ever see? The phenomenon in question.
There are people who think that way. Yes. Ideologues of science—hardly if ever #scientists themselves—who invoke The #Scientific Method™ (that’s a whole ‘nother rant) as the be-all and end-all justification for whatever nonsense they spew. Such posts and comments have crossed my feed a time or two. But they are vastly outnumbered by those who complain about them, at least where I can see both groups. I have no reason to believe my experience is atypical in this regard.
As a scientist myself, I think science is a very good way to understand certain things. In my field, it’s the best way to know what makes you sick, and hopefully what will make you better. There are other ways to learn these things, sure, and many of them can be useful places to start. If you don’t end up with a #clinical#trial sooner or later, you’re as likely to kill as cure.
To know what we’re seeing when we look up at the lights in the sky. How the natural world around us, of which we’re a part whether we like it or not, changes and how we both affect and are affected by that change. What came before us, and what might come after. The fundamental building blocks of reality. All these require science for real understanding. If you try to puzzle them out any other way, you may learn something, but you’ll also fill your head with a lot of nonsense. Sorting the wheat from the chaff later is a lot harder than doing it right the first time.
Other questions are at least amenable to scientific inquiry, although that process itself may not be enough. What my fiancee does as a #historian looks, to me, a lot like what I do as a #biomedical#researcher. Make observations, construct #hypotheses, gather evidence, test and revise. (And revise, and revise, and …) But #history vanishes every minute. What’s left is always fragmentary, and shaped by the interactions of modern minds with those long since gone to dust. There will never be an objective truth, only the truest story that can be told.
And then there are things beyond any kind of quantitative analysis, or even rigorous qualitative description. We may be able to agree on what makes a true story, more or less, but what makes a good one? That’s inherently personal. A happy marriage, a tasty meal, a satisfying job—only we can define what these goals mean for ourselves. Science may at best, occasionally, provide vague guidelines. Even then, my advice will not determine your experience.
My perspective is unusual in one key way, sure: not too many people do science for a living, at least not compared to other jobs. With regards to the way people talk about science, I think it’s not unusual at all, except maybe that I pay particular attention.
The division above—things that clearly belong in science’s domain, things that clearly don’t, and a whole bunch in the middle—is a whole lot more common than the idea of science as the One True. It’s at least somewhat more common than blanket rejection of science too, but not as much as it should be. That’s also a rant for another time.
Which all makes me wonder what people who never miss a chance to bring up “scientism” and science-as-religion get out of it.
...but can we do it without suggesting that the reason a woman would dedicate her life to #science & #teaching was to fill the vacuous space of never having children?
...and maybe also without suggesting some intuitive maternal instinct as the source of her #scientific reasoning?
As a scientist, it is so infuriating, that #scientific#journals that either take extraordinary submission fees or extraordinary publishing processing fees still can't just insert a video into the HTML version of the article. Not even a hyperlink. The text says "movie S1 of Supporting Information", so you scroll down to the bottom of the page, then open the "Supporting Information" page, then click on the link for "movie S1", that downloads the video file that you can play like in 1999.
The articles were originally published between 2019 and 2021. in Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine (MGGM), a genetics journal under the purview of the US academic publishing company Wiley.
you always knew it was the case but here’s some data! Scientific publishing continues to fail at providing meaningful #alttext for images.
Data for 1250 articles across 250 journals (five articles per journal) were collected from March 14 to Sept 30, 2023 […] Alt-text Provides meaningful interpretation: Total: 0
I love how they also considered opthamology journals as a special category :3 Of course they still failed.
We identified that nine (90·0%) of these publishers, including Nature Portfolio (44 [17·6%] journals), Elsevier (43 [17·2%] journals), and Annual Reviews (18 [7·2%] journals), stated a commitment to following WCAG 2.0 or WCAG 2.1. However, alt-text practices across these publishers did not comply with either WCAG version.
#Scientific#study please! Has anyone ever researched the evolutionary context of the fact that the hungry cheeping in a great tit nest outside the window triggers a feeding reflex in me? I suddenly want to breed aphids and catch midges. 🐥 🐦 🐛
Uncovered this truly extraordinary (for 1944) short text by an Alfred #Mirsky, delivered at the #Scientific Spirit and #Democratic#Faith conference, in a section named "The Democratic Responsibilities of Science." In it, Mirsky ties the behavioral effects of good vs poor laboratory animal welfare to the nature/nurture question of how environment interacts with genetic potentiality:
[Professional travels] How can we combine participation in #conferences, #scientific meetings, with #reducing researchers' carbon #footprint? By reducing the number of such meetings? By generalizing virtual meetings? By optimizing the location of these meetings?
Is there a #screenreader or something that you could recommend to use if I want to listen to a #paper
I have to urgently read through several #scientific papers but am too stressed and sleep deprived to focus on just reading the text. Please send help 👀
Papers are all available in #pdf and some also in other formats.
“Narwhal are recognized as a #cultural cornerstone by Inuit, the #narwhal holds profound significance,” Jason Akearok, executive director of the #Nunavut#Wildlife Management Board, said on Wednesday.
“In alignment with their cultural relevance, the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board commits to a thorough examination of #scientific insights and #Inuit#Qaujimajatuqangit [knowledge] from #COSEWIC, evaluating their assessment of the narwhal as ‘Not at Risk.'”