It's Saturday morning, the snowstorm is bearing down on us, and I'm at the Science Bloggers conference at the Sigma Xi center at RTP. Despite the threat of bad weather, attendance looks to be pretty substantial. And the crowd looks to be people who are way smarter than me.
People like Paul Jones from UNC, who already gave me a few valuable insights before I finished my coffee. You hang out with smart people, you learn something.
More as the day progresses. The conference web site is here.
1:16 update
No snow yet. Went to a session with science bloggers. Lots of concern that many Americans don't believe in evolution. Lots of concern that they feel pressured to give the views of global warming skeptics, when the bloggers believe this is a settled issue: Global warming is real, they say, so why should we have to give weight to a handful of skeptical scientists.
Lots of discussion about blogs of opinion versus blogs of objective information. I believe, personally, that the best blogs are informational.
One participant expressed concern that there doesn't seem to be any discussion about the presidential candidates and their scientific views. Clinton vs. Huckabee, for example. Excellent question. If you believe in unfettered, federally supported stem cell research -- or if you are opposed to it -- this is an extremely important election.
Someone asked the bloggers: Who are your readers? Blank looks. They know how many, but not really who. They guess that their readers are fairly well-educated people with an interest in science.
Saturday night update
This afternoon I sat in on a seminar about the public posting on the web of all data used in scientific experiments, the kind that get published in journals. Not just the data, but the lab notes that document the experiments. This is controversial, because a lot of science has a lot of bucks riding on it. But proponents of openness say that it's often more important to share information on what doesn't work as what does work. Much of the work of science involves going down blind alleys, so if scientists would share more, we would see a faster pace in breakthroughs.
This reminded me of a debate long ago that I have read about. In the 1950s, a lot of research funded by the government was classified, and scientists railed against this because they said, rightly, that it hindered the free flow of information essential to scientific progress. In keeping research out of the hands of the Communist bloc, the government was also keeping it from being shared by U.S. scientists.
Today, we have the technology to put all data and all lab notebooks online, but that isn't happening to the extent it could because of a very competitive culture in science. One cancer researcher in the session that I attended said that there are around four labs around the world who are working on the particular area in which he specializes, but cooperation is very low.
Maybe technology will change the culture, but it also may take governments -- which provide massive amounts of funding -- demanding that scientists play nicer together in the interests of eradicating disease and improving our standard of living.
Excellent links in that site!
It's bookmarked indeed. Thanks!!