Note from the ODA

As noted in my Defense of Marriage post, in my opinion bad arguments are the bane of good science and should be exposed to the light of day as part of creating a scientifically literate society.  At the same time I am hesitant to get on a soapbox that diverts attention from the purposes of this blog.  But, hey, it's my blog!  So, I will warn readers with the label "Office of the Devil's Advocate" when I venture into this territory.

What does the Devil's Advocate have to write about today?

In the last couple of weeks folks effected by the Gulf Coast oil spill have become more vocal about the perceived unfairness of the way BP funds will be distributed to compensate for lost income.  Specifically, these folks have noted that they have been deriving a large part of their incomes from cash business transaction for which they keep no records to avoid taxes.  There is even some talk about having congress change tax law so that these folks can get an amnesty from their tax law violation and make claim on the oil spill funds.

Lets see, people working in an underground economy, not paying taxes, demanding and getting government services, and asking for an amnesty from their illegal acts because "those were in the past" as one person stated in a radio interview I heard yesterday.

Does this mean that the Gulf Coast communities universally support immigration reforms that would give amnesty to all illegal immigrants currently in the country?  There certainly appear to be parallels.  I am sure the tea party movement and libertarian and conservative media will be all over this demanding these scofflaws be dealt with the same fervor they show for Arizona's ID check law.

We would all be well served to remember that our own illegal, immoral, or ethically questionable actions that we justify by saying that we are just ensuring that our families or businesses are able to make do are no more legal, moral, or ethical than those actions of others.  BP and company cut corners to save money or effort, which they thought was justifiable.  Fishermen and an apparent entire Gulf Coast community used a cash economy to avoid taxes to take care of their families and businesses.  Illegal immigrants cross the border for their families and quality of life.

T.S. Hall

Catfish a jumpin

Veteran academics, particularly we scientists at PUI/MCU institutions, know that it is best to avoid the neighbors during the summer.  I have even thought about having a red, white, and blue, flag emblazoned t-shirt made for the neighborhood 4th of July picnic that would carry the logo;

No! I work every day, all year! I just don't get paid in the summer.
Yes! I will take another beer!

The neighbors think that we have the summers off and envy our long "vacations".  We PUI/MCU faculty know that summer can be the best time to get research accomplished.  In synthetic labs where technique training is key, the summer with long uninterrupted days are ideal.  Since the new students need to be trained, it frequently falls to the faculty member to do this.  Since I am rebuilding my group, this summer is full of new students and devoid of continuing students to help out.  This means that all the training falls to me.  The month of June has been filled with twelve hour lab days, and evenings of SOP writing and analysis of data.  This explains why my blog prompts list is the longest it has ever been and the number of posting in June the lowest since starting this blog.

June may be the hardest summer month because the new students don't start getting results until the end of the month when their technique skills start to click.  With any luck July will bring armloads of data and a publication or two.

Since a research experience is central to the education of today's undergraduates perhaps colleges and universities should allow faculty and students to bank for use in the fall or spring semester of the following academic year three units of undergraduate research course training for every student working through ten or twelve 40 hour weeks.  At least then the students and faculty would get some credit/pay for their labor.

T.S. Hall

You Call That a Defense of Marriage?

Anyone how has taken a class from me knows that their arguments for anything will be parsed for quality.  Sloppy arguments come from sloppy thinking and sloppy thinkers make poor scientists, politicians, and citizens.  Sometimes I wonder where my students learned such sloppy thinking.

Today I heard a news report about the arguments being put forward before the court looking into the constitutionality of California's proposition 8 which is supposed to "defend marriage" by defining marriage as being between one man and one woman only.  My position on the issue does not matter as the point of today's blog is ineffectual (and unintentionally humorous) arguments.

It appears from the radio news piece that the argument by the "defense of marriage" lawyers is that the purpose of marriage is to create children and raise them in a household containing a mother and father.  Ignoring the circular argument, this view also allows for the invalidation of numerous marriages between heterosexuals.

Based on this argument, people how can't have children for medical reasons can't married or are not married.  If one partner or the other has rendered themselves incapable of having children, they dissolved the marriage, with potential legal liability for breaking the marriage up.

Hey guys, wife reaches menopause and kids out of the house, you don't need to divorce.  If she can't have kids the "defense of marriage" folks have just dissolved your marriage.  Marry that 23-year old without alimony to the former wife.  You will be defending marriage because you can now start family 2.0.

Be it our national dialogues or our teaching of the next generation such obviously flawed arguments should not be allowed to stand, and should be ridiculed publicly.  If I were the judge I would have to find against the "defense of marriage" argument with the admonition that gay marriage has nothing to do with the decision.  If the "making babies" argument is the best argument they can come up with they should pay all the court costs for wasting the time and money involved in the case.

Getting back to the pedagogical point, in class this means that my students get one point for making an argument but don't get the rest, for making a logically invalid argument.

T.S. Hall

It's better to never leave

With the start of the summer many PUI and MCU faculty are welcoming new research students into the fold.  In my case, just as my new students are starting I need to go out of town to a conference.  This leaves me with a half-dozen new faces and only a couple of students with less than a year's experience to oversee them.  This will require that I organize and write out in detail everyone's training and research plan for the week before I go.  It's a bit daunting when the new students have not had technique training yet.  It is hard to do research this way.

I am not bringing this up to instigate a pity party.  I am lucky to have six new research students.  When discussing the issue of not wanting to leave so I can stay a train my students my RO1 friends laugh.  In general they have not worked in the lab in years.  The current PhD students and postdocs train the new students.  Leaving town has almost nothing to do with the schedules or training of student workers.  While there new students are being trained they are writing papers and grants.

I find that when the summer comes my days are no less busy that during the academic year.  In some ways they are more busy.  Maybe this is why I wanted to punch my neighbor in the nose yesterday when they asked me what I was going to do now that I am on vacation for the summer.

Thankfully, with skype and e-mail i can at least touch base with the students each day.

T.S. Hall

Undocumented Groundswell

While I have a longstanding interest in political issues, I generally try to avoid spouting off on subjects political that are outside research and academic funding.  That said, the issue of undocumented students is hitting me in the face these days.

Just after the Arizona undocumented alien issue hit the fan I was contacted by a prospective graduate student.  The student even came to campus to talk about my research.  His spoken and written English where not great, but in California that applies to many people born in US, and more than a couple of faculty members.  Interestingly, the prospective student told me that their family was paying for school and that he was not interested in being a TA or GA.  Of course the idea of an MS student who would actually spend all day in the lab had visions of publications dancing in my head.

Later when discussing the prospective student with the department's graduate advisor it was pointed out that the undocumented are not interested in being TA's because they would need to provide a social security number in order to get paid.  The student in question had indeed noted that they are undocumented on their application.

In the second slap, a regional community college has recently announced an endowed scholarship in the name of a student who was killed in an automobile accident.  The requirements of the scholarship are that recepients must be undocumented.  Rep. Dana Rohrabacher blasted the school for sending a message that encourages people to enter the country illegally.  He noted that they put their public funding at risk by such actions.

Putting these two things together with the mood of the community, I wonder how a faculty member dedicated to lifting people up though publically funded education should balance their responsibilities.  For me, living in California, I can't win.  No matter what I do, people will be upset and someone will not be served.  For me this brings home the need for some resolution of our immigration debate.

T.S. Hall

Getting Lost

Hi, I'm Thomas and I'm a "Lost" addict.

The show "Lost" reminds me of my research.  Just when I think I have locked down the variables and understand something, I am proven wrong.  And, the Smoke Monster has also made a few appearances with disastrous effect.

With the show coming to an end, I am going to go out on a limb and put forward my speculation on the putting things together.  You can all laugh a what complete crap this is on Sunday evening.  On Monday we can all go back to the lab were we belong.

I think the key is, "Live together, die alone."  The coming face off with the smoke monster will turn on the individual characters putting their own issues aside and coming together.  I think this is also the key to "getting of the island."

All the main characters arrived lost in the sense that they were all inside themselves.  Charlie, Sun, and Jin may have died on the island, but they all did so at the point when they let go of themselves and committed to another, or to each other in Sun and Jin's cases.  Remember, Juliet said "it worked" after her selfless act of setting the bomb off.  Sayid was even selfless in his last act.  Bernard and Rose have in a sense already escaped in that they found their peace in each other.

The man with no name (not the character played by Clint Eastwood in the Leone films), before he became the smoke monster expressed disgust with living with the other people on the island because they were venal and self absorbed.  I have speculated the Jacob was bringing other people to the island to prove to the smoke monster that people were capable of more.  The Darma communal project might have been such an attempt.  The monster has been trying to prove otherwise to Jacob by his interactions with people and his attempts to manipulate them to kill Jacob.

Desmond through his experiences with EM fields has recognized the need to connect the part of each character in the parallel "sideways flash" existence with themselves in on the island.  In a sense to reconnect them with their souls.  This is critical to getting them to come together to face the smoke monster.  Once the castaways have faced down the smoke monster, Desmond can be revealed as the name at 108 degrees, and as the replacement for Jacob.  Having put others ahead of themselves the Oceanic 815 folks who have stood together can leave to their sideways existence, now knowing how they are all connected and taking the lesson of "Live together, die alone".

OK, back to grading.

T.S. Hall

Stages of Science Evolution Part II

I wrote yesterday about Alexander Shneider's "Four stages of a scientific discipline;  four types of scientists" article.  Just as Shneider cautions us about the effects of mismatch in stage of scientist and stage of reviewer, should we not also consider the possible disconnection between the expectations of those who support our departments and the faculty that do the work of the department?

I have been thinking about my department's "Friends of the Chemistry and Biochemistry" group.  This group is made up of alumni and regional industry representatives who advise us on direction and curriculum.  Our friends of the department (FODs) group frequently chastises us for not training our students in the specific topics they feel students need to succeed in industry.  Many blogs written by industry types mirror the same sentiments.  If industry scientist are generally stage four types, while faculty are in stage one through three, the disconnect is understandable.

At RO1 institutions there is an expectation from those on the outside that faculty be at stage one, two or three, but at PUI and MCU campuses the expectations often differ.  In some cases, by State mandate MCU and PUI campuses are discouraged from research in the first three stages.  Our mission to train students to meet the needs of the community places emphasis on stage four thinking.  At the same time, the expectations of granting and publication activities overseen by stage three scientists demand that faculty be in the stage three.

In trying to envision how a forward looking university administration might deal with this problem the answer might be to develop faculty hiring to ensure that faculty who represent all stages of scientists are employed.  In this fashion there are representatives in the program for all constituencies.  Then one must encourage and enforce a collegial respect among the faculty at different stages so that they respect the value each person brings to the department as a whole.

I think I just went a bridge too far.  Perhaps I should have mentioned that I have been thinking about all of this while plowing though exam grading.  It makes one crazy.

T.S. Hall