This is a new Scientopia blog that will be hosting a wonderful slate of non-Scientopia bloggers for two-week guest-blogging stints. Have fun!
Bees, CCD, and Pesticides
In the last few months, there's been a steady stream of new publications about honey bees and pesticides. One news item ran with the headline: Mystery of the Disappearing Bees: Solved!"
Um. NO. Not even close.
I have gotten a bajillion emails about this paper from a Harvard researcher:
“In Situ Replication of Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder,” Chensheng Lu, Kenneth M. Warchol, Richard A. Callahan. Bulletin of Insectology. June 2012.
This paper claims two things we're already conditioned to think are evil are the cause of CCD: high fructose corn syrup and pesticides. It's from a big name, widely respected university. It is also, sadly, a flawed paper. (The fact that it's in the "Journal of Insectology" should be a tip-off. Is that even a word?)
A fair amount of bashing is going on in the bugosphere:
"My reading of the paper suggests that the author knows little about bees, little about pesticides, nothing about HFCS, and had no understanding of the distribution of systemic pesticides in plants. "
Ouch! And that was from one of the nicer reviews. What immediately jumped out at me when I read the paper was that the control hives failed.
One consistent criticism is that the levels of pesticide were increased in the middle of the trial when they didn't immediately see bee deaths. That isn't how you do science--especially when you increase the levels of pesticide to well over 40 times what is normally seen in the field. Oddly enough, that still didn't kill all the bees. Randy points this out:
"...it appears that the data from this study actually support an alternative hypothesis–that field realistic doses of imidacloprid had no measurable adverse effects upon the colonies. And even patently toxic doses had little immediate effect." [emphasis original author]
This paper is a good example of the problem I mentioned in an earlier post, of some research being given more weight simply because it fits within a narrative of what we believe ought to happen--even if the evidence doesn't support it.
Do pesticides kill bees? Oh Hell Yes. Pesticides are bad for bees, and there is no doubt about that. That is not the same question, though, as "do pesticides cause Colony Collapse Disorder?", which is a distinct syndrome with clear signs. And it's also a different question from "Which pesticides harm bees most?" and "How do pesticides harm bees?"
The answers to all of these questions based on the scientific literature from the last few years is incredibly mixed. Lab trials don't match field trials. Very wide dose ranges and modes of delivery are used, and results are inconsistent from study to study. Something is going on, certainly, but if pesticides--in particular the neonicotinoid class of pesticides--were the primary factor in bee deaths, I would expect more coherence in the literature.
This is why I think the paper that should really be getting all the press is this one:
Dietary traces of neonicotinoid pesticides as a cause of population declines in honey bees: an evaluation by Hill's epidemiological criteria. James Cresswell, Nicolas Desneux, and Dennis vanEngelsdorp. Pest Management Science. 2012. DOI: 10.1002/ps.3290
Science already has a lot of tools for picking apart complex causes of diseases and environmental changes. In this paper, three leading bee scientists from the three countries most involved in CCD research--USA, UK, and France--evaluate CCD using one of those tools. From the paper:
"Normally, the results of manipulative experiments are the hard currency of decisions about causality in natural science. In situations involving public concern over environmental change, however, decisions about causes sometimes must be made under political pressure, in spite of scientific uncertainties, which may include the lack of experimental evidence. In such circumstances, a scientific evaluation is nevertheless possible, but it uses a different process to manage uncertainty and to validate its conclusions."
They evaluate if there is enough evidence to implicate neonicotiniod pesticides in bee deaths using a standard epidemiological method developed by Hill. It looks at nine different criteria, and assigns a weight to each one (1-Slight, 2-Reasonable, 3-Substantial, 4-Clear and 5-Certain) with regard to the cause-effect hypothesis. The value (+/-) of each score relates to the nature of the effect; positive if it causes a population decline, and negative if it has little effect on the population.
Because it's a complex paper, I've reproduced their analysis table here, and will only discuss some of the criteria they used. The first criteria is experimental evidence--they assigned this a value of -1, since there isn't a consistent pattern to support the hypothesis that neonicotinoid pesticides cause CCD.
The second criteria is coherence, which evaluates whether identifying a factor as the cause of a particular phenomenon conflicts with established knowledge. It's certainly a reasonable assumption that these pesticides harm bees, so the value of the score is positive (+3, Substantially supports the hypothesis). However, it does not receive a higher score because despite lots of research, we still don't have a numeric value or dose that is a meaningful (or consistent!) threshold of harm.
The temporality criterion asks whether "the cause precedes the consequence." As you can see from the graph I've reproduced here, bees were already starting to decline before the introduction of neonicotinoid pesticides. And despite pesticide use increasing steadily, the bee declines are far slower.
Since trace dietary neonicotinoids neither preceded nor intensified honey bee decline, this factor had a score of -4; Clearly lacking evidence to support the hypothesis.
The next factor, consistency, asks whether the association between the hypothesized cause and consequence is repeated in space and time. It isn't, within the US or worldwide. From the paper:
"Worldwide, honey bee declines are not ubiquitous, and, according to figures produced by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the global stock of managed colonies has increased by 45% in the last 50 years, in spite of the declines in North America and Europe. Even in Europe, stocks of colonies have increased in some countries, such as Spain, where the numbers have risen by over 50%"
The specificity criterion asks whether the consequence is uniquely associated with the hypothesized cause. As I have detailed before, pretty much everything wants to kill your bees. A whole bunch of other factors clearly cause declines in bees, including:
- increased losses due to Varroa mite;
- diseases such as Israeli Acute Paralysis virus and the gut parasite Nosema;
- pesticide poisoning through exposure to pesticides for in-hive fungal or mite control (NOT neonicotinoid pestides; these are different)
- habitat loss for foraging; inadequate forage/poor nutrition;
- poor nutrition and migratory stress brought about by the increased need to move bee colonies long distances to provide pollination services.
When you add this all together, you come up with the conclusion that neonicotinoid pesticides are not the cause of honey bee declines. Because non-entomologists mostly see just a few papers that are covered by the media, it creates the illusion that there is far more evidence for pesticide causes of CCD than actually exists.
Is it possible that neonicotinoid pesticides in the environment harm bees? It's not only possible, it's likely. But we can't just assume that pesticides did it ("I knew it! Those bastards had it in for bees from the beginning."). By focusing on just one of the many threats that harm bees, we are missing the real story.
An incredibly complex host of factors makes it hard out there for bees of all sorts--and not just honey bees. We have to evaluate all of them, and how they might interact, to try to help bees make a comeback.
Bees and STDs
I talked about Varroa Mites yesterday, and I wanted to point out that solitary bees also have parasites that can be deadly. Osmia, or Mason bees, occur in all shapes and sizes, but nearly all 300 species are fuzzy, mild-mannered, and adorable. They're called mason bees because they create nest chambers out of mud. Each individual female does all the work herself, unlike social bumble bees and honey bees.
Sadly, just as lots of things like to kill honey bees, there is also an extensive list of predators, parasitoids, and parasites that specialize on just this one type of bee.
Solitary bees pose a unique challenge for a parasite. How are you supposed to build up a population when your host doesn't live in a group or a herd? Somehow you have to spread and move between both individuals and generations.
One time when even solitary animals have to hook up is.... when they hook up. Parasitic mites on bees hop off one host and onto another just like changing taxis. The bees are too otherwise occupied with gettin' it on to notice.
I posted some footage of varroa mites on honeybees yesterday, but that pales in comparison to the horror I'm about to show you. Indeed, I hope it will shock you, make you quite itchy, and put you off sex for a while. (I'm not getting any, so might as well make it a universal condition.)
From the video author:
"These Red Mason Bees are heavily (probably fatally) infested with mites. Mites will often move from the male bee (who picks them up whilst visiting flowers), to the female during copulation. The female will then carry them to her nest where they will feed on the provisions and breed. Mites often will suck the blood of bees, sometimes leading to death. Heavily infested bees are unable to fly."
The mites are probably Chaetodactylus, but that's a guess.
You should be ready for Friday Weird Science now.
It's hard out there for a bee
I spent my first post lamenting confusion over CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder), honey bees, and native bee species. One key problem is that CCD as described by entomologists is not the same as "disappearing bees" as described by media or Hollywood. (Although, to be fair, "vanishing bees" is a pretty cool idea, suggesting that perhaps aliens have decided to abduct bees rather than rednecks in pickup trucks, just to mix things up a little.)
CCD is a syndrome. By definition, a syndrome is a collection of signs and symptoms known to appear together but that have no known cause. Unfortunately, we can't use Koch's postulates to clearly link a causal pathogen to a disease.
The CCD Working Group issued this definition in 2009 for a diagnosis of CCD:
- "the apparent rapid loss of adult worker bees from affected colonies as evidenced by weak or dead colonies with excess brood populations relative to adult bee populations;
- the noticeable lack of dead worker bees both within and surrounding the hive; and
- the delayed invasion of hive pests (e.g., small hive beetles and wax moths) and kleptoparasitism [honey stealing] from neighboring honey bee colonies."
To diagnose a hive that is in the process of failing:
"In those CCD colonies where some adult bees remained, there were insufficient numbers of bees to cover the brood [brood = baby bees], the remaining worker bees appeared young (i.e., adult bees that are unable to fly), and the queen was present.
Notably, both dead and weak colonies in CCD apiaries were neither being robbed by bees (despite the lack of available forage in the area as evidenced by the lack of nectar in the comb of strong colonies in the area and by conversations with managing beekeepers) nor were they being attacked by secondary pests (despite the presence of ample honey and beebread in the vacated equipment)."
"Bees gone" is not sufficient for a diagnosis of Death by CCD, if you are a CSI Apiarist. The status of the brood is important. A lot of hive health is assessed by how well the queen and her minions are producing and caring for the young.
Another major complication is that beekeeping is an endeavor with an incredibly high rate of failure. It boggles my mind that 15% hive loss yearly is NORMAL. I don't mean hive losses from CCD--that's the rate of hive failure before CCD arrived on the scene. It's just the cost of doing business--a lot of hives don't make it through the winter.
In the last decade, that loss rate has crept up to 30%, on average, for the US. This increase in bee deaths has been primarily driven by two bee parasites--Varroa Mites and Tracheal Mites. Varroa mites are pretty big, compared to a bee. It's probably like having a tiny vampiric chihuahua stuck to your body. Here, have a look:
(Also, I just SERIOUSLY creeped myself out imagining vampire chihuahuas.)
Tracheal mites live in the breathing tubes of insects, and as you might expect, severely inhibit the ability of bees to thrive. And I'm just getting started on things that kill bees independently of CCD. I can think of at least 20 different fungal infections, viruses, and additional parasites. Foulbrood. Nosema. Chronic Paralysis Virus. I'll spare you the full list, but a LOT of things like to kill bees.
This is part of what makes teasing out the cause of CCD so difficult. It's not that there are no smoking guns; there are hundreds of smoking guns, all of which plausibly contribute to the decline of bees. Here is the short list of contributors to CCD, ordered roughly in order of importance, based on the most recent literature:
- increased losses due to varroa mite;
- diseases such as Israeli Acute Paralysis virus and the gut parasite Nosema;
- pesticide poisoning through exposure to pesticides for in-hive insect or mite control
- habitat loss for foraging; inadequate forage/poor nutrition;
- Exposure to pesticides in the environment (including neonicotinoids)
- poor nutrition and migratory stress brought about by the increased need to move bee colonies long distances to provide pollination services.
Note that the pesticides on this list that are of most concern, and most common in hives, are the ones that we apply to the bees on purpose. Miticides and fungicides to control parasites and diseases of bees are the ones of most concern for sub-lethal effects on the bees we are trying to protect.
Bees encounter pesticides in their environment as they look for nectar and pollen, and those get all the press. That story fits a narrative for humans--we fear pesticides in our environment too--and gets privileged over other factors in news coverage.
What pesticides really seem to do is make everything else worse for bees. For example, three different studies this year found that exposure to pesticides increased Nosema infections. It's these synergistic effects that make pesticides of concern, not their ability to kill a bee outright.
One other factor that entomologists know is that a Beepocalypse is actually not new, if you look at the history of beekeeping.
Many of these historic collapses pre-date the introduction of pesticides or other modern bee culture practices that are being blamed for bee losses today. The extent of some of those historic losses are staggering--up to 90% colony collapse in some cases.
Hopefully, this gives you a sense of just how difficult and tangled the problem of CCD is, and how very far we are from a simple linear cause --> effect relationship for this problem. It IS hard out there for a bee. And it's frustrating that when researchers find a new potential contributor, it's reported as "the cause" of CCD, even when the scientists involve explicitly say it isn't a cause.
We aren't kidding. It is complicated.
Next up: a brand new literature review published this month that tries to untangle the issue of pesticides and bees.
The Coming Beepocalypse
Right now, even people who aren't bug dorks like me are really interested in bees. This is a mixed blessing for an entomologist.
The Good:
As the American population becomes more distant from their food production (only 1% of the population works on farms), a bee crisis reminds everyone that a significant part of their diet depends on these little Angels of Agriculture. We rely on bees to serve as pollen couriers for fruits, vegetables, and animal food crops. The value of pollination services is estimated between 30 and 15 Billion dollars per year in the US.
It's good to remind people that their food depends on these little animals, and to generate some positive buzz about bees and agriculture. People are interested in planting native plants, and creating habitat for bees and other pollinating insects. Win!
The Bad:
Most Americans, and lots of the media, don't seem to realize that "The Bees" are actually thousands of different species, with very different habitat needs and life histories. Honeybees are domesticated animals. Like cows and chickens, they came to America with Europeans as introduced species in the 1600’s. They rapidly displaced native bee species, and habitat loss due to agriculture and urbanization further weakened our native pollinators.
Honeybees live in artificial hives we build for them, and work to pollinate crops that grow in huge monocultures of single plant species. It is the honeybees that are dying from CCD, or Colony Collapse Disorder. Or, maybe not. It's complex.
There are also declines in native solitary bee populations, in wild bumble bees, and in bumble bees that are reared commercially like honeybees. Confused yet? The press certainly is. Sometimes they can't even figure out what insects are actually bees, much less what is killing them.
Because the media is Beedazzled, bee stories are covered heavily. This results in some not-good science getting a LOT of exposure that it would not otherwise. Papers that would have quietly been published in an obscure periodical, and perhaps used as a "don't do this" example in Journal Club, are suddenly big news. Press releases about grant funding to study a bee issue are presented with the same weight as finished research. Mainstream media seems to need to create a false sense of urgency about the stories. OMG NOT THE BEEZ!!! (obligatory photo of Nicholas Cage inserted here).
The Ugly:
A whole bunch of conspiracy theories about bees and what's killing them have surfaced:
GMO Plants.
Cell phones.
Sun Spots.
Power lines and electromagnetic smog.
Rapture. (No, seriously. The bees are being raptured. Via a psychic they issued a “so long and thanks for all the pollen” statement, and revealed they were going to a higher astral plane.)
Claims of catastrophic consequences ("OMG All humans will die without bees!!1!") and complex, murky science make space for some pretty wild claims. A whole mythology of what Einstein might have said about bees has sprung up. Monsanto bought a bee genomics company and it's part of their grand plan to poison us all. At this point, the only claim I haven't seen yet is that very, very small black helicopters are abducting the bees.
So what the F is up with the bees, anyway?
As you can see, there are a lot of different things going on with honeybee disappearance and loss of native species. It doesn't help that the honeybee problem is usually framed as a cause/effect relationship between bee declines and some toxic thing. Our modern news cycle isn't really built to deal with nuance and complexity.
This “toxic thing” narrative results in some stories being given far more weight than others. For some reason, a lot of people really want to believe cell phones and GMO crops kill bees, even when there is no evidence for it. Some of the evidence that does exist is discounted, as is the "expert" status of a lot of entomologists. The story has been shaped as much by what people already think about "those corporate bastards" than actual bees.
This has been a bit of an existential crisis for me, since while I know from my work in science education that just telling people facts won't change their minds...I still do it. It's the default position for an academic.
Commenter: Cell phones are killing bees!
Me: Well, actually, not so much [facts]
Commenter: Well what about this story?
Me: [more facts]
Commenter: You are a tool of the industrio-telecommunications complex.
I occasionally find myself in the problematic position of not wanting entomology to be covered widely as news because people aren’t listening or thinking carefully. (Which, frankly, could cover a lot of the daily news cycle, not just stories about insects.)
This is all a long way of saying that "The Bee Problem" is a really complex issue, involving many species, and the research isn't finished. It's a biological system with thousands of moving and living parts.
When trying to explain this, I find myself returning to Carl Zimmer's excellent New York Times summary of recent research on bees and pesticides: Bees’ decline linked to pesticides. Carl (I shook his hand once, so I can call him Carl, right?) does a great job of showing how the scientific community is still resolving how all this research adds up. In a post on his blog providing supplimental information to the NYTimes story above, Carl discusses the difficulty of making sense of all this information:
"I found this story to be especially challenging to sum up in a single nut graph. To begin with, these experiments came after many years of previous experiments and surveys, which often provide conflicting pictures of what’s going on.... The experiments themselves were not–could not–be perfect replicas of reality, and so I needed to talk to other scientists about how narrow that margin was. As they should, the scientists probed deep, pointing out flaws and ambiguity–in many cases even as they praised the research.
At the same time, these two papers did not appear in a vacuum. Other scientists have recently published studies (or have papers in review at other journals) that offer clues of their own to other factors that may be at work. And, biology being the godawful mess that it is, it seems that these factors work together, rather than in isolation."
Exactly! It's a body of research, not hundreds of isolated individual papers. If Carl Zimmer–an exceptional science journalist with access to the actual scientists that are doing the research–struggles trying to assemble a coherent picture of the information, I KNOW that the rest of us regular schmoes are too.
What I hope to do in my time at the Guest Blogge is cover some of the research that I think is important to understanding bees and the ecosystem services they provide, within the context of a field of rapidly evolving research.
Who is this Bug Girl person and why is she on the Blogge?
Howdy! I am excited to be here at Scientopia! For those who have never heard of me, I thought a brief introduction might be useful.
I am a bug pundit. In much the same way that Stephen Colbert is a conservative talk host, I am a blue insect overlord goddess spreading the gospel of entomology online. I have a PhD in entomology, and a Masters in Whup Ass.
In addition to being blue, I sometimes work blue. If you went to ScienceOnline2012, you KNOW that statement is true. You can listen to the Scio12 story that brought the house down here. It's....probably not safe for work. But you will learn that:
- Pubic lice are like sea monkeys. IN YOUR PANTS.
- The internet is a very, very strange place.
That monologue should tell you most of what you need to know about me, really. If you want to know more:
- I've written pretty extensively about why I use a pseudonym.
- I work in the Provost's Office (I know! I'm surprised too!) in a Connecticut university.
- There are photos of the "sea monkeys" I was mailed here.
Since Scientopia has given me a bully pulpit, I will probably spend a lot of my allotted posts talking about bees. The most common questions I get are about the Beepocalypse--is it real? And why are they dying?
If you have any burning insect questions you would like me to address, let me know in the comments!
(But please--don't attach any photos, ok?)
The Moscow Rules - Science Edition: Part 10
Today, I’m winding down my stint here at the Scientopia Guest Blog with the last of the Moscow Rules for scientists, and some incomparable spy music.
Moscow Rules, number 10.
Keep your options open.
Are you letting an eight year old run your life?
I was listening to an interview (I think it was someone connected with space research on CBC’s Quirks and Quarks). The interviewee said he started pursuing his career since the age of eight. He joked that essentially was letting an eight-year old dictate his life.
We place a high premium on following childhood dreams. In my writing course, I ask my students to write a personal statement for some program that they want to apply to. Because I’m in biology, we have a lot of students who want to go to medical school, or into health professions. I’ve been struck by how often people justify their decision as a “childhood dream.”
When someone like Neil DeGrasse Tyson talks about answering that question with, “Astrophysicist!” from a very young age, there’s a tendency to hold those people up high as somehow possessing some sort of extra nobility because they “followed their dreams.”
The Avengers: I bet when Scarlett Johansson was a kid, she watched Diana Rigg on TV.
Sometimes we place too high a premium on childhood dreams. Seriously, what did you know about the world when you were 8? If we did the job we said we wanted when we were 8, there would be nothing but astronauts, firefighters, and ballerinas in the world. (And maybe a few spies.)
When a kid answers the “What do you want to be when you grow up?” question from adults, we forget how our adult response affects kids and young adults. What kind of response a kid gets when they answer, “I want to be a doctor” compared to “I want to be a mechanic”? Some adult occupations are better for a kid to want than others.
The road to a scientific career is a long and lengthy one. If you’re looking at a scientific career now, it’s worth asking how much of that desire is what the “right now” you wants, and how much of it is what the 8 year old you (or 16 year old you, or 20 year old you) wanted, perhaps helped along by adults who view “educated professional” as a very good answer to the “What do you want to be...?” question?
This is particularly important to ask this question early in your career, because it does get trickier to keep those options open as you go along. It gets harder to jump different research fields as you go.
If what you thought you wanted is not what you want, I have good news for you. There’s a lot of stuff out there that’s you didn’t know about when you were 8 that is awesome.
I sometimes joke about my own research by saying, “Nobody gets into this business to become a crustacean neuroethologist.” Before you get into university, never mind how you get trained for that kind of career, who even knows that is a an actual job that you can get paid to do?
Now, a lot of cool stuff is protected by a force field of tediousness (as Ben Goldacre says). You often have to do a bit of slogging before it starts to get awesome. But if you are willing to keep those options open, you can often find stuff that you didn’t know about that is challenging and rewarding and something that you can do.
And even as you go along further in your career, pay attention to the signals you’re getting. You can create new opportunities for yourself by habitually putting yourself in new situations, which creates little chance opportunities to seize (Wiseman, 2003). This is why you should look for chances to switch up the kind research that you want to do, and look for new challenges you want to take on. (See also Moscow Rules #6.)
In other words, luck is a skill. It can be learned, and improved, by following this last Moscow Rule.
Follow the Moscow Rules, and like the best spies, you too will be be capable of death-defying feats... of science!
Coda: If you have enjoyed these Guest Blog posts, please visit my current #SciFund project, Beach of the Goliath Crabs. If you can chip in a little contribution, great. If not, you could help me out by sharing it on Twitter and clicking the Facebook "Like" button. Thanks!
And just a reminder that I blog about science regularly at NeuroDojo, Better Posters, and Marmorkrebs, and about movies at Sunday Matinee!
Reference
Wiseman R. 2003. The luck factor. The Skeptical Enquirer May/June 2003: 26-30.
External links
David Kroll on career changes. Excellent stuff, from a man who gave up tenure twice.
This post talks about how open grad students are to different kinds of careers besides becoming becoming professors at major research universities.
The Moscow Rules - Science Edition: Part 9
I wrote before that there are lots of versions of the Moscow Rules out there; so far, I’ve used the ones codified by the International Spy Museum. Today’s post is the exception, because I love the source so much. The idea for this series of posts on the Guest Blog came about because I loved hearing Wendy shout with frustration, “Moscow Rules Number 9!”
And what is rule number 9, according to The Middeman?
Technology will always let you down.
I can kick your ass even without this gun.
I know this to be true, because I do electrophysiology. It is black voodoo magic. Sometimes it works: you have a clear signal of neurons spiking away, happily generating their little action potentials. You come back the next day, haven’t touched a single cable or setting, and you can’t see a damn thing because of all the 60 cycle.
I think my colleagues in molecular biology will also recognize the truth of this. Sandra Porter wrote a couple of posts a few years ago about the problems of using kits versus doing it all from scratch. Here’s one comment from PhysioProf:
In my opinion, kits have a very dark side, in that they allow--and sometimes even encourage--ignorance about what you are actually doing. This makes it very difficult to troubleshoot when things don't work.
And another one from commenter by the handle of quitter:
I've seen it again and again, if people don't really understand what each step is doing they'll make critical mistakes, as even very good kits... aren't idiot proof and often if you don't know the molecular biology it might be inappropriate for your experiment.
Technology fails are hardly limited to the lab, either. As I wrote elsewhere about presentations:
There are two types of speakers: those who have had slide or visual aide disasters and those who haven’t had one yet.
When I was interviewing for the job I had,PowerPoint was not as ubiquitous as it is now. I had my laptop with my slides, but we were having problems getting it to work. Because I knew Moscow Rules number 9 (even if I didn’t know it by that name), I had 35 mm film slides (yes, I’m old) with me, and I was loading them into the carousel when the problem got fixed.
A few months ago, I was invited to give a seminar at another department. I put a lot of work into polishing the figures. I had made a couple of new videos, and embedded them, and checked before the talk to make sure they would display. But I forgot to check the sound. Two of my three videos were silent, but the third had dialogue and nobody could hear it. Technology mocked me. The good news was that the video wasn’t essential.
One of the questions ask my students (and myself) as a measure of how ready they are to give a presentation is, “Can you do it on the radio?” If Moscow Rules number 9 comes into effect, can you give your talk with no slides, no notes, just with the story that you have inside your head? That’s when you’re ready to give a talk.
A favourite quote of mine from the book Observing Interaction by Bakeman & Gottman:
Although paper can be lost, it almost never malfunctions.
We scientists love our high tech, but it always helps to be ready to go low tech.
During exam week, too.
Has technology let you down? Tell your story in the comments!
External links
Things that go wrong in the lab
Molecular biology in the age of kits
The Zen of Presentations, Part 3: Can you do it on the radio?
The Moscow Rules - Science Edition: Part 8
Two things before we get into today’s entry. First, some mood setting spy music. Second, you might want to review Moscow Rules number 3: anyone can be the opposition.
Which brings us to Moscow Rules number 8.
Don’t harass the opposition.
They say you can judge a person by the quality of the opposition. It is no coincidence that best heroes have the best rogue’s galleries. But while we do love a tussle, we also separate our heroes and villains by how they treat the opposition. John Steed defeated his foes with and umbrella, bowler hat, and his wits. No need for clumsy brute force.
A real world example can be found in the arsenic life story. When Rosie Redfield posted her criticisms of the pre-print, a substantial amount of discussion was not about whether the criticisms were in any way flawed, but about decorum and “This sort of language would never be allowed in a peer reviewed journal. Not cricket, wot.” Personally, I thought those objections were overblown, but it shows that people do care about the way criticisms are delivered.
I have two short tips for when you have to criticise someone’s science.
First, always stick to the evidence. It’s not about the person or people, and in particular, it isn’t about you. There are a lot of people in science (and geek culture more generally) who have this great desire to prove just how smart they are. They can’t resist correcting a mistake - and getting in a little dig at the same time. Maybe there are lingering feelings of inadequacy from high school, or maybe they just got rewarded so often for being right that they just can’t pass up the opportunity to have the last word. People can so busy trying to show how clever they are that they overlook how harsh their criticisms can sound.
Second, while criticism is great, you will look even better every time you suggest a positive alternative along with your criticism. If you’re not convinced by the experiment someone did, it is helpful to spell out what you think would convince you. If you think a manuscript is badly written, pick out some of the typos, or suggest rewording.
If I might move from from spies to samurai for a moment, I like this description of the bushido virtue of polite courtesy (礼; rei) (from The Last Samurai DVD):
Samurai have no reason to be cruel. They do not need to prove their strength. A samurai is courteous even to his enemies. Without this outward show of respect, we are nothing more than animals.
Scientists have no reason to be cruel, either.
Related posts
One of Dr. Becca’s all time great posts, on her science enemy. Must read hilarity. The ruler story alone is worth the price of admission. This brought equally awesome responses from DrugMonkey and Scicurious.
The Moscow Rules - Science Edition: Part 7
Expectations can be dangerous. How often have you had an experience that you were told or hope was amazing, and you’re looking forward to it, building up the anticipation, and you get there and it’s...
Okay.
Good, even.
It’s not a bad experience, but yet somehow, you’re left feeling disappointed.
In contrast, what about times you go into something cold, with no expectations at all? When someone drags you into a movie that you haven’t heard of, and it turns out to be good? That’s often an experience that you’ll tell other people about.
Now, I haven’t forgotten this is Moscow Rules for scientists, and I haven’t forgotten your spy music.
Rule 7.
Lull them into a sense of complacency.
The question of self-promotion came up a couple of weeks ago at the Experimental Biology meeting. For a full description and some discussion, read posts by Biochem Belle and Heather Doran. In brief, senior scientist who won big shiny gold medal said self-promotion - like blogging - is the “antithesis of science.”
When I read this, I did a double take. Networking! Impact factor! Presentations! Conferences! Professional scientists devote huge amounts of effort to promoting their own work.
Everything is under control.
Perhaps the key there is “work.” We’ve all met that person who is way into himself - or herself, as the case may be. Someone who only talks to you to let you know they got a grant. Someone who, on the first day of class, not only tells students they’re lucky to have such a good teacher, but al attaches photocopies of their teaching award to the syllabus, and makes their TAs come into class to tell the assembled students what a great teacher their boss is. (That’s a real example, by the way: I know someone who did that.)
The “I am so awesome!” style of self-promotion is smug and annoying. I am not saying, don’t be awesome. I’m not even saying, don’t think you’re awesome. Just don’t broadcast that you think you’re awesome. That sets up dangerous expectations.
It bears considering expectations when you think about how to promote your science. Don’t go around telling people that you’ve got a project that is surely going to end up gracing the cover of your favourite glamour mag. Because that might not happen, and you’ll look dumb if it does.
To put it another way, under promise and over deliver.
Here’s a great example of promising little and delivering more: the solution of Fermat’s Last Theorem, a math problem that had remained for over 350 years (from Cipra 1993; slightly edited):
Andrew Wiles had been quietly working on (Fermat’s Last Theorem) since 1986. He was equally quiet when he arrived at the Newton Institute to speak at a conference on number theory, but rumors of a breakthrough were starting to fly among the other participants - in part because Wiles, who normally doesn't ask to give lectures, had asked to give not just one, but three hour-long talks.
Wiles' audience could see from the beginning where his research might be heading. And during his first two lectures, Wiles said nothing about how far he had gotten.
"The excitement was increasing each day," says Rubin. Finally, on Wednesday, Wiles unveiled what Ribet calls "the endgame" and Mazur refers to simply as "quite a piece of magic." There was little need for Wiles to remind his audience of the implications, but he modestly noted that Fermat's Last Theorem was a corollary of his main result. After a moment of silence, the room erupted in applause for the historic announcement.
Now that’s taking out the target in a style that any suave spy would appreciate.
Reference
Cipra B. 1993. Fermat's Last Theorem finally yields. Science 261(5117): 32-33. DOI: 10.1126/science.261.5117.32 JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2881457
The Moscow Rules - Science Edition: Part 6
Why did I pick today’s Cold War music? Just Cos’.
And because those spies had one of the best cover stories in the genre.
Moscow Rules number 6:
Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.
There is a fine line to walk in developing a science career.
On the one hand, you want people to know you and your research. You want to have a personal brand. Way easier to get speaking invitations, grants, that sort of thing.
We take our tennis very seriously.
This is easier if you have a “thing,” a schtick, or, if you insist on formality, a clearly defined research program. That is, when someone asks, “What do you work on?” - the one you always get at conferences - you have a snappy answer you can deliver in an elevator ride. (The movie Losing Control pokes fun at this question in its preview.)
Some early career scientists try to do this is to make one big seminal finding, use it to land a “glamour mag” publication that gets the press releases and media attention, then spend the rest of a career mining that rich vein of possibility opened up by that initial discovery. This is a high-stakes play (see arsenic life).
But... you do not want to be so committed to a single finding that you do not have opportunity to change and grow. Anyone who’s been in science for a while can probably think of senior researchers who have been working the same set of ideas for years and are unwilling to admit that the field has moved on.
Likewise, you don’t want to be known as a one-trick pony. And this is an easy, easy trap to fall into.
There can be external lures into this pitfall. Sometimes, a set of labs forms a very tightly coordinated and communicative network around a particularly research topic. It becomes very easy for a student to do grad school in one lab, then do a post-doc with the lab down the street (so to speak), while the master’s student from that lab goes to do their doctorate in the lab you’re just leaving.
It can be a bit cliquish. The supervisors from labs might be actively recruiting from each other, and sets of labs like this can end up be very productive and well-funded.
This means that the temptation to just keep working your established preparation is strong. Once you get good at something, there is a tendency to milk it for all its worth.
It's easier to change direction earlier in a career, but that doesn't mean it's easy. I switched disciplines between my undergraduate and graduate careers. I didn't make the transition at all gracefully, but I managed to persist.
More recently, I've had the good fortune to do new kinds of things by working with collaborators.
The important thing is to remember that most of the things you do as a scientist are skills. And skills can be learned. Your abilities are not fixed,
Check this post on science identities at Scientopian Becca’s blog, Fumbling Towards Tenure.
