Over the past few years, the Canadian government has been lurching into antiscience territory. For example, they’ve been muzzling scientists, essentially censoring them from talking about their research. Scientists have fought back against this, though from what I hear with limited success.
But a new development makes the situation appear to be far worse. In a stunning announcement, the National Research Council—the Canadian scientific research and development agency—has now said that they will only perform research that has “social or economic gain”.
This is not a joke. I wish it were.
John MacDougal, President of the NRC, literally said, “Scientific discovery is not valuable unless it has commercial value”. Gary Goodyear, the Canadian Minister of State for Science and Technology, also stated “There is [sic] only two reasons why we do science and technology. First is to create knowledge … second is to use that knowledge for social and economic benefit. Unfortunately, all too often the knowledge gained is opportunity lost.”
I don’t even recognize my country anymore. We have fallen from grace. This is such a backwards move, it makes me want to cry.
Click title to read more.
“Everything has a crack in it; that’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen, take a bow.
Another crack has appeared in the Harper government’s surreptitious but merciless war to muzzle Canadian scientists — and just about everyone else.
The light entering through this particular crack shines on a disturbing fact. Canada, the only parliamentary democracy in the Commonwealth where a government has been found in contempt of Parliament, is now the only democracy in the world where a government bureaucrat can suppress scientific research.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, where a reign of terror aimed at choking off internal leaks has been in full swing since the disastrous decision to close the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA), has issued a new policy on the publication of scientific papers.
[…]
“The most disconcerting elements to the new policy are that they will apply to all scientific submissions, including those co-authored by non-DFO scientists, and that DFO managers have been given a hammer that they have not previously been able to wield: the withholding of copyright permission to allow for the publication of an article that has been externally peer-reviewed and accepted for publication by a scientific journal.”
Hutchings thinks that this could lead to government scientists, especially younger ones, thinking twice before undertaking certain projects that might displease their managers. Even if never exercised, the mere existence of this new power for DFO managers could suppress scientific ideas, hypotheses, data and conclusions that might raise serious objections to government policy.
The Harper government is well known for its policy-based approach to the facts rather than evidence-based decision making. The classic example was the disbanding of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy because, as Harper cabinet minister John Baird explained at the time, the government didn’t like the advice it was getting.
Click title to read more.
And the great canadian muzzling of scientists continues. .____.
This government needs to go.
Let’s talk about history!
This man is Dmitri Mendeléyev. He was a Russian chemist and inventor. He is credited as being the creator of the first version of the periodic table of elements. Using the table, he predicted the properties of elements yet to be discovered.
In 1907, Mendeleev died at the age of 72 in Saint Petersburg from influenza. The crater Mendeleev on the Moon, as well as element number 101, the radioactive Mendelevium, are named after him.
Let’s talk about history!
This guy is Niels Bohr. He was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922.
Bohr adapted Rutherford’s nuclear structure to Max Planck’s quantum theory and obtained a model of atomic structure which, with later improvements – mainly as a result of Heisenberg’s concepts – remains valid to this day. Bohr published his model of atomic structure in 1913. Here he introduced the theory of electrons traveling in orbits around the atom’s nucleus, the chemical properties of each element being largely determined by the number of electrons in the outer orbits of its atoms. Bohr also introduced the idea that an electron could drop from a higher-energy orbit to a lower one, in the process emitting a photon (light quantum) of discrete energy. This became a basis for quantum theory.
He died in Copenhagen in 1962 of heart failure.
Looking at a bird [my father] says, “do you know what that bird is? It’s a brown throated thrush; but in Portuguese it’s a … in Italian a… ,” he says “in Chinese it’s a… , in Japanese a… ,” etcetera. “Now,” he says, “you know in all the languages what the name of that bird is and when you’ve finished with all that, ” he says “you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You only know about humans in different places and what they call the bird. Now,” he says, “let’s look at the bird.
- Richard P. Feynman on his father and how he taught Richard to look at the world and see the importance of knowing about things rather than simply knowing their name (via aliwatts)
8 Myths About Scientists
I stumbled across this in Thick Books and Thin Films by Adam Ruben. Pretty good.
Myth #1: Scientists frequently make “breakthroughs.”
Truth: Scientific discovery is agonizingly slow. The only time I’ve ever run naked through the streets yelling “Eureka!” is when I forgot to refill my prescription.
Myth #2: Scientists work in isolation.
Truth: Scientists are even prouder of setting up collaborations than they are of actual results. Most scientific talks end with a slide listing all collaborators like little badges of honor—and the less similar the collaborator’s field, the prouder the scientist. “Well, you know, I might have discovered a cure for tuberculosis,” a scientist will say, “but what I’m really excited about is this new collaboration with an Icelandic poet!”
Myth #3: Scientists possess useful skills.
Truth: Scientists possess useful laboratory skills. But you should never allow a physicist to wire your house.
Myth #4: Scientists follow the scientific method as it was taught in high school: Observation, Question, Research, Hypothesis, Experiment, Conclusion.
Truth: In reality, the way scientists work is more like: Fiddle Around, Find Something Weird, Retest It, It Doesn’t Happen a Second Time, Get Distracted Trying to Make It Happen Again, Go to Chipotle, Recall the Original Purpose of Your Research, Start Over, Apply for Funding for a Better Instrument, Publish Some Interim Fluff, Learn That Someone Has Scooped You, Take Your Lab in a New Direction, Apply for Funding for the New Direction, Collaborate With an Icelandic Poet, Eat Chipotle With an Icelandic Poet, Co-Write Scientifically Accurate Ode to Walrus, Get Interested in Something Unrelated, Apply for Funding for Something Unrelated, Notice That 20 Years Have Passed.
Myth #5: Experiments always yield data that teach or reveal something.
Truth: Let’s say you’re doing an experiment with five mice. These particular mice will turn either yellow or blue. So you walk into the lab expecting to see five yellow mice, which will point to one explanation, or five blue mice, which will point to the other. Instead you would see one yellow mouse, one green mouse, one striped mouse, one plaid mouse (dead), and one mouse that has somehow sewn himself a little blue jacket, though he doesn’t wear it all the time.
Myth #6: A personal tragedy can turn a scientist evil.
Truth: Very few scientists are legitimately evil, though the number rises if you ask graduate students to characterize their advisers. Besides, it’s hard to be truly evil when you don’t have any practical skills.
Myth #7: A scientist can be proficient in all branches of science.
Truth: Exactly what discipline did the professor from Gilligan’s Island specialize in? Chemistry? Mechanical engineering? Coconut-based transistor radio construction? Any time a problem needed solving or a device needed building, the professor knew exactly how to do it. That guy could make anything. Except a boat.
People who don’t understand science assume that scientists can master any subfield. That’s why we’re often asked for our opinions about scientific news items, and we can only reply, “Uh … sorry … I know I’m a molecular phylogeneticist, and this story was about molecular phylogenetics, but, well, I’m a different kind of molecular phylogeneticist.”
Myth #8: Scientists are not sexy beasts.
Truth: Scientists are indeed sexy beasts. Not only do our lab coats make us look dapper and charming, those same coats look even better strewn unceremoniously over a standing lamp while we make passionate love to you.
The Badass Women of Space, Physics, and Maths
1. Eileen Collins - The first women to pilot the Space Shuttle (1995)
2. Marie Curie - Nobel Laureate in Physics for her pioneering work on radioactivity. (1903)
3. Ada Lovelace - Designated first programmer in the world (1815-1852)
4. Valentina Tereshkova - First woman in space, ever (1963)
5. Maria Goeppert-Mayer - Nobel Prize for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus (1963)
6. Peggy Whitson - First female to command the ISS (2008)
(Images via; NASA; universetoday.com; prostheticknowledge.tumblr.com; astrocollection.com; us.edu.p)
You and I, mere mortals as we are, get a traffic ticket and either accept it or come up with some idiotic sounding excuse like “Uh, I didn’t see that stop sign” or “I didn’t know I was speeding because I was texting”. But physicist Dmitri Krioukov of the University of California San Diego wrote a god damn mathematical paper on why he shouldn’t get a traffic ticket.
(Source: deconversionmovement)
(Source: theabandonednerdblog)
About Shychemist
