Skepticism @ Quiche Moraine

Over at Quiche Moraine, Stephanie Z is elicudating a trend that underlies many challenegs in America today - the lack of sketicism as an approach to life. As is always the case with her writing, it's worth reading.

Let's get rid of the Beltway Mentality

Glenn Greenwald is right when he says, of our modern politicians and media:

Dispensing with core Constitutional principles in the name of "practical considerations" -- and treating ludicrous, bad faith claims with respect -- creates a facade of reasonableness. But there's nothing reasonable about
it. It's intellectually barren and, worse, is the prime enabler for why our political leaders stray so far and so frequently from those principles. It's why they break the law with impunity and know they can. The Bill of Rights and the rule of law aren't like modifications to the tax code or compromises over the stimulus package. They're in a fundamentally different category. The failure to recognize that category is a defining attribute of the Beltway sickness and is a prime reason why Washington so frequently degrades and destroys whatever it touches.

He's wrong abou tone thing, however, and it's a labeling issue.See, like many pundits, commentators, and thoughtful journalists (a.k.a. Bill Moyers), Glenn refers to this as a Beltway Mentality. Its a phrase of convenicne, meant to excoriate politicians in Washington D.C. located inside the Capitol Beltway (I-495). I get that. The thng is - I live and work insdie that same beltway, in a federal executive agency. Yet I do not share the outlook, ideaology, or platfrom of those oligarchs. And I' appreciate it if Mr. Greenwald would consider inventing an dpopularizing a new term - Capitol Mentality, Congressional Mentality, American Oligarch Mentality - something pithy and succinct, but which leave out the character and world views of everyone else who lives and works inside the Beltway. That way, the focus will be on the people (and their words and deeds) who are really the responsible parties.

Thanks Glenn, I know you will come through.

David Ignatius the excoriates the Security Culture: Or how to talk from both sides of your mouth

Over at the Washington Post, David Ignatius is busy today trying to talk out of the other side of his mouth. He’s writing about the “security culture” that now pervades our nation’s capitol, and to a lesser extent the rest of the nation. His prescription – we should “dial it back a notch” with the impending eighth anniversary of September 11th.

If Mr. Ignatius had a long history of agitating against the semi-police state that America seems to be building Imight buy it. But he doesn’t. Writing on July 15th about potential prosecutions for CIA officers who violated the Bush Administration’s ugly “rules” on torture, Ignatius said this:

“It was a dark chapter in American history that should never be repeated, and Obama has rightly changed the rules. But what would be accomplished by the appointment of a prosecutor in a case where criminal intent would be so hard to prove? The only certainty is that the process would damage careers and morale at the CIA.”

Contrast that with this statement today about security details and the security culture:

“The security culture has its own momentum, wiping away other values, such as openness or privacy.”

It also wipes away the rule of law, a bedrock principle on which this nation was founded. That principle can only be preserved if, going forward, we intentionally look back at our past transgressions, admit to them, and then hold those who committed them accountable. That means prosecuting those who break our laws – right up to the office of the President. Apparently, Mr. Ignatius missed this key point – or he just compartmented these two concepts in his mind – and refuses to tear down the wall of incompatibility between them.

Seeking to bolster his case that we need less security (I suppose to go with less accountability; Less Really Is More), he describes the scene of the Vice President’s motorcade going back to the Naval Observatory grounds each night:

“Maybe it's necessary to have so many cars, but it's a scene, frankly, that reminds me of Moscow during the Soviet days.”

Perhaps it does, but the nation’s intelligence services torturing “enemy combatants” to wring information out of them that fits a certain political agenda also reminds me of the Soviet Union. Since Mr. Ignatius defends such practices by American officials, I can only surmise that he has been gripped by American Exceptionalism Disease. This pernicious illness leads one to believe that an action conducted by Americans is OK, but that same action conducted by other nations, particularly against Americans, is wrong, and often requires military intervention to make right.

Mr. Ignatius closes with this:

“But surely we have reached the point of diminishing returns with the fortress mentality. The truth is, we all must live with vulnerability. It's a part of
modern life. We need to take reasonable precautions, yes. But it would be good for our public officials to step out of the bubble occasionally and smell the roses -- unfiltered by the security detail.”

Sure it would be good, and perhaps they’d learn something. The problem is, whether Democrat or Republican, most folks serving at that level do not, in fact, want to be out of the bubble. Then they’d have to deal with pesky voters, who continue to insist that we, not political elites, run the country. Likewise, once you are out of the bubble, you might actually have to account for your sins, and as Mr. Ignatius has said, nothing good can come from such an accounting.

So stretch those jaw muscles sir – that two sided mouth thing will continue to be quite taxing.

The Project for Non-Academic Scientists - my "interview"

Over at Uncertain Principles, Physics professor Chad Orzel has set out to take ideas and suggestions from Mooney & Kirschenbaum’s Unscientific America and turn them into action. He’s posting a series of interviews on his blog from people with science training and experience who are not working as academic scientists, appropriately titled the Project for Non-Academic Scientists (PNAS). He notes:

I plan to post a series of short interviews with people who have science degrees, but are not working in academia. The idea here is to provide information on career options for scientists and science majors beyond the "go to grad school, do a post-doc, get a faculty position" track that is too often assumed to be the default.

Regular readers – all three of them – will no doubt understand that this is my kind of blog action. They will also understand, because of my status as a federal employee who must blog semi-anonymously because agency blogging policy hasn’t actually been developed yet, that I can’t answer by openly identifying myself. So I’ve answered Chad’s questions below. Hopefully someone will find my answers useful, particularly in light of my quest to define what a scientist actually is.

1) What is your non-academic job?

I’m the National Program Coordinator for Protected Species at my Federal Agency. This means I work to bring together a whole host of offices, labs, programs, and people to conserve and recover marine species that are listed under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

2) What is your science background?

B.S. Marine Science – Biology Concentration
M.S. Oceanography and Coastal Science (with an unofficial fisheries emphasis)

3) What led you to this job?

Honestly – my kids. I’m a divorced dad, and I was living in Seattle prior to this job. That meant a lot of cross country flights to spend time with them, and not a lot of parenting. Now, I’m an hour away by plane or 7 hours by car.
In my last job, with another federal agency, I was doing salmon habitat restoration, Dungeness crab fishery enhancement, and environmental monitoring and compliance for large federal civil works and military construction projects that impacted marine and anadromous species. There, I got a lot of training in planning, project management, and regulatory writing, and so when this job opened up in D.C. I applied, and was accepted.

Prior to that I had done coastal and marine habitat restoration and scallop and clam fisheries population science in Florida. So while I was doing much more science then, I was still working for an agency (and then an NGO and a Florida county). I’ve never been an academic scientist.

4) What's your work environment like?

Physically, I sit in a corner cubicle in a modernish building in a suburb of Washington, D.C. But, being in a cubicle, in the corner, means I have north facing windows, and a 13 story view of the adjacent area. So I don’t feel as closed in or cut off as some of my colleagues. I do get to travel 5 or 6 times a year, mostly to national agency meetings, but occasionally to scientific meetings (Like Coastal Zone or American Fisheries Society).

5) What do you do in a typical day?

There are email inquiries from other offices to answer; budget and performance metric graphs, slides, and documents to write and update; briefings to prepare, give or attend, scientific papers to read; Congressional correspondence to answer, ocean science and policy factsheets to draft; and meetings on everything from the use of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles in fisheries research to ocean fertilization, to (literally) how many additional marine biologists will we need in 2012 to conduct stock assessments for marine turtles and whales/cetaceans in the western pacific Ocean. I also write the very rare, but fulfilling tech memo and grey literature paper on scientific issues.

6) How does your science background help you in your job?

As a National Program coordinator, I have 4 main duties:

· Identify key areas where our Program has emerging needs, particularly where our science is not aligned with an issue or natural phenomena;

· Develop and champion (to the Agency, Executive Department, White House, and Congress) new initiatives to meet these emerging challenges and opportunities. I do this by writing strategic planning and budget documents based on a constantly evolving dialogue with scientists and resource managers all over the country.

· Implement and track performance measures that allow the Program to judge its success in meeting its federal statutory mandates, and that describe success in achieving conservation and recovery goals. We use these data to both guide our requests to Congress, and to flesh out emerging needs and trends.

· Serve as a representative for our labs and office nation wide, providing briefings and other outreach on a wide variety of marine species, management strategies, and scientific approaches.

I would be largely unsuccessful in these duties if I did not have an extensive science background in oceanography and related issues. Because most listed or protected species are in that boat (!) due to complex and long-term threats, a lack of scientific knowledge would hinder my understanding of what is needed to restore them to their rightful ecological place, and minimize, if not eliminate, my ability to advocate for those species and the people working on their issues.

Lack of a science background would also hinder my ability to analyze the program from a budget and performance perspective. Trend analysis, for instance, can provide significant insight into a Program’s effectiveness, but only if you are collecting the right data, and only if you do the analysis in the right way. While some other disciplines teach methods for doing this (accounting, for instance) I find a more “traditional” scientific approach to be very robust.

7) If a current college student wanted to get a job like yours, how should they go about it?

First, you need a bachelor’s in a natural science. A Marine science or marine biology degree is ok, but even though I went the route of early specialization, I did so at a small liberal arts college, so I still got a fairly generalist education. While you are working on your B.S., take a couple of economic theory courses – it will really help you see why the world around the scientific enterprise works as differently as it does. I would also take a class in writing (preferably a non-fiction, non-science one); I’d take a modern history or political science course. The broader your undergraduate education – and the more willing you are to thus think outside the “science box” – the more effective you can be in a job like mine.

At the graduate level, either a degree in marine biology, oceanography, or marine policy is essential, though if you go the policy route I’d still take a heavy science load. I’d add another writing course, something on new media (if your university doesn’t have it check the local community college) and maybe a basic web design class as well. Learn all you can about spreadsheets and databases, and make it a routine habit to use such products – they come in handy.

While you are working out your thesis or dissertation, see if you can get an internship or committee member from the federal agency you want to work with. They can be tremendously helpful, and many of our scientists hold adjunct faculty appointments.

Finish your graduate degree before applying for federal jobs. At the moment I have half a dozen federal colleagues trying to balance their dissertation writing with full time employment, and it’s not pretty.

8) What's the most important thing you learned from science?

Science teaches you how to approach challenges, how to break them down into their elements, and how to test different solutions. Science also teaches you how to frame your responses, and how to remain skeptical of your own work (much less the work of others) so that you produce the best answer you can to the question you are being asked.

9) What advice would you give to young science students trying to plan their careers?

Don’t be afraid to decide –early on – that you aren’t going to go the academic career route. Explore all the choices with labels that are remotely close to your degree program. Spend some time working with university career counselors to get a feel for what type of work really suites you.

And don’t be afraid to remind your university colleagues that you are still a scientist and you still contribute to the discipline even if you aren’t in a university setting anymore. The knowledge, as a friend recently reminded me, doesn’t leave your head when you leave the university.

10) (Totally Optional Question) What's the pay like?

Depends on the agency, and it varies across the country. Folks with PhD.’s, and several years’ federal service can make $100K in the DC area, but you aren’t living in a low-cost city either. Since I started working in the field in 1994, I’ve gone from $18K to over $90K. Federal agencies tend to pay more; state and county agencies less.

Defining Scientists - and asking self-critical questions.

Last week, I got into an interesting side debate over whether I’m still a scientist. Especially here. I have to say it caught me off guard, especially this:

“And second, I have read the work (bought off Amazon), and I have an M.S. in Oceanography (and make my living in the field, sort of) So please, do not presume to speak for me as either a scientist, blogger, or author. I can do that very nicely, thanks.”

In other words, you’re not a scientist. If you found my construction confusing, I apologize. Where scientists object to the work it is primarily on the basis of shoddy or non-existent research and poor writing.

Now, I can concede the point that, if you look at the masthead to your left, it reads that I’m not presently doing science on a daily basis. I’d also argue that it’s a gross over-simplification of how I earn a living – but the fault for that gross over-simplification is my own.

So my response went like this:

Constant,Indeed, my blog does describe me as doing strategy at present, but that hasn’t been my whole career, nor does it cover all my current work. It’s just a summary - which I obviously need to rethink.

As a person trained in science who does other thing during the day to earn money (!),

And we moved on to other matters.

Still, the question got me thinking about what constitutes the definition of a scientist. I spent the weekend mulling it over, in fact, because I believe it lies at the heart of many of the challenges we face in today’s world. Just take the climate crisis as one example. Scientists on the IPCC, and in many academic settings and government agencies, are very pointed on the nature, direction, and impacts of the climate crisis, and have a ton of research to back them up. Other people, who want to block meaningful response to climate change, place themselves in the dialogue as scientists, and the public understandably is lead to conclude that there is a controversy on climate, when, in fact none exists. So, the definition of science matters.

First, I think scientists need some kind of training in a scientific discipline. Notice I didn’t say an advanced degree in a science discipline, because I have come to know many really good scientists who are trained in other disciplines, but use the scientific method to look at the world around them. My blogging colleague Darlene highlights them all the time. Their contributions of data and observations, once informed by the proper training, are no less “scientific” then someone holding a Ph.D. in a discipline.

Second, I think scientists must, by definition, include those who do science outside of an academic setting. Too often, the biologists, physicists, and plant pathologists (to name just a few disciplines) who work in government labs on a government salary are derided as not being “real” scientists because their work isn’t “free” of any agenda. If you work for NOAA, the logic seems to go, you can’t really be doing oceanography as its practiced in academia because NOAA is a federal agency, and must ultimately answer to the White House, Congress, etc. Unfortunately, academicians who take this view are missing a key point – unless they are somehow in a n endowed research chair, with the University picking up all their expenses, they are subject to the politics of their grant funding agencies, and thus their requirements.

More basically, though, I think a scientists needs to understand and apply the scientific method to his or her professional work. They need to remain skeptical of untested hypotheses, but willing to accept those hypotheses until additional data can prove the point one way or the other. They need, also, to be able to be skeptical of their own positions, beliefs and ideals – never taking their interpretation of the world today as static.

So where does that leave me? Well, I do write strategy papers and proposals, about the strategy of doing ocean science for the nation. I read the scientific literature, and produce the occasional synthesis piece in response to policy challenges (as I am doing now on Ocean Fertilization). I even get to give occasional talks to scientific meetings. But today (and tomorrow, and next month) I am not out in the field (or on the water) collecting data. I won’t run or interpret any Analysis of Variance or check the r-square of my correlations.
But am I still a scientist – I’ll leave that up to you to judge.


P.S. Apparently I’m a Cheese Weasel now. Interesting use of both terms.

The saga of the Blue Fin Tuna

Over at Pharyngula, Prof. PZ Myers is taking on unrestricted fishing for Bluefin Tuna. I say good for him. Its the (by now) sadly normal tale of nations making intentional decisions to fish for short term profit, instead of long term sustainability, inspite of what the science actually tells us (and inspite of what scientists have actually told their governments. I'd post more, but you get the idea.

The Use of Military force on U.S. Soil - not a mere flight of fancy

From the inestimable Glenn Greenwald, comes word that the Bush Administration considered using America's armed forces on our own soil to detain U.S. citizens. This is not, by the way, a new accusation, but as Glenn point out, the New York Times has now substantiated it. Aside from HUGE Constitutional issues, consider what this agitation for suborning American citizens says about the use of power by a government:

It's the nature of governments that powers of this type, once vested, rarely remain confined to their original purpose. They inevitably and invariably expand far beyond that. Powers that are endowed to address a limited and supposedly temporary circumstance almost always endure for years if not decades. Once a political official possesses a particular power, they almost never relinquish it voluntarily (there are exceptions -- Jimmy Carter in 1978 signed, and subsequent Presidents until Bush complied with, FISA, which barred Presidents from eavesdropping without a judicial warrant, but such instances are exceedingly rare). Perhaps most dangerous of all, detention and punishment schemes that are implemented in relatively normal times (such as now) will inevitably expand, and expand wildly, in the case of some heightened threat (such as another Terrorist attack). Put another way, once we depart for ostensibly limited purposes from our fundamental principles of justice -- in order to indefinitely detain "just some special cases" without charges -- then, by definition, we're fundamentally altering our system of justice far beyond that. (Emphasis mine) - G. Greenwald

It will come as no surprise to regular readers that I support Glenn's analysis. It will also come as no surprise that I find this one more example of why I believe the U.S. is descending into a oligarchical authoritarian state. Because these very real threats to our lives are not covered by the Main Stream Media, most Americans dismiss them as flights of fancy, when they consider them at all. We should not, because then we'd become countries that we say we are better then. We'd mimic the authoritarian states that used to exist to our south, and which we spent decades fighting against covertly. That is not the legacy I want to leave to my daughters.