Sports Meltdowns, Remixed

Allen Iverson, Jim Mora, Dennis Green, Mike Gundy, Joe Namath, and Terrell Owens have never been so entertaining!

Alcohol reduces gallstone risk

Beer gets another check mark in the plus column! Drinking a moderate amount of alcohol protects against the development of gallstones.

I'll take an Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout, if you don't mind...

see more Funny Graphs

*Facepalm*: free antibiotics, what could possibly go wrong?

My wife sent this to me today: "Free antibiotics may have high cost later"

Apparently, a few supermarket pharmacy chains have been giving away free antibiotics. The CDC caught wind of it, went "Bwaah?!?", and sent off stern letter stating Knock It Off!

Several pharmacies have been offering the free antibiotics--some only for the winter season and down economy, others year-round--to those with valid prescriptions for said antibiotics. Experts are worried that this will encourage misuse of these drugs and further requests for these prescriptions even when unnecessary; a British Medical Journal study from last year indicated that 13 percent of doctors reported using antibiotics as placebos! Often patients insist on antibiotics to treat viral infections, like influenza, for which antibiotics cannot be effective.

For those who aren't aware: antibiotic resistance is a big problem. Antibiotics, generally prescribed to treat specific bacterial strains, are rendered completely ineffective on those that develop resistance. Bacteria get a push towards drug resistance when antibiotics are used improperly or unnecessarily.

I honestly can't believe that there are still practicing physicians that will prescribe antibiotics to those that don't need them. It's beyond stupid. I'd argue that it's enough of a public health concern that doctors caught doing this should have their licenses suspended. Seriously, grow some stones and explain to the patient why it's a bad idea.

Anyways, back to the pharmacies...what they're doing may have been well-intentioned (although a cynical angle represented in this story explained how it's a clever marketing ploy), but it's clear that it may have negative consequences. I wonder if the pharmacists employed by the chains in question registered any concerns about the promotion. However, I will stick up for the pharmacies a bit here for a general reason: they're not responsible for the prescription practices of medical doctors. At the rick of soapboxing again, if 0% of doctors prescribed antibiotics when medically unnecessary, a free antibiotics promotion wouldn't be a problem at all. Hopefully stories like this will continue to shed light on the problem and change relevant behaviors.

...I can dream, can't I?

NCCAM and American health care

Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) isn't happy...His pet project, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), one of the 27 institutes within the National Institutes of Health, appears to have let him down: It hasn't proven efficacy for any complimentary/alternative medicine (CAM) modality! In fact, he's upset that NCCAM has (apparently) been too busy "disproving things."

Specifically, Harkin said:

One of the purposes of this center was to investigate and validate alternative approaches. Quite frankly, I must say publicly that it has fallen short. It think quite frankly that in this center and in the office previously before it, most of its focus has been on disproving things rather than seeking out and approving.

This statement belies a complete misunderstanding of the purpose and methods of scientific research. Science is not a magic box from which we can pluck corroborating evidence to support our preconceived opinions on a topic! It's a method of testing specific hypotheses; often the result is "your hypothesis is flat wrong."

This statement is related to Harkin's very recent "Integrative Care: A Pathway to a Healthier Nation" session of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Harkin invited some of the top names in altmed to pitch their woo at the committee, too. The general gist of the whole meeting is that reform of the American health care system should involve substatially greater "integration" of CAM modalities because they are generally "less expensive and less intrusive." Curious, then, that his complaints about NCCAM were that these modalities--perhaps truly less expensive or intrusive--are also evidently less effective in treating illness?

I sent a message to Sen. Harkin through his website today. I've copied it below (and added some links and formatting that weren't possible in the simple text format of his messaging system):

Dear Senator Harkin,

I find troubling your recent comments regarding complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), health care reform, and National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). Those of us in science and medicine—I am a researcher who hopes to have earned a Ph.D. in neuropharmacology by the end of this summer—have long dealt with (particularly over the last eight years) attacks from conservative/religious ideologues that wish to stifle and distort scientific progress in fields as wide-ranging as stem cell biology, the instruction of evolution in public schools, anthropogenic climate change, and contraception. A common thread of these attacks and others over recent history, generally, is the misuse and abuse of science for ideological gain; the formation of a particular ideological stance was invariably followed by cherry-picking of data to support the pre-determined conclusion with concomitant mischaracterization, suppression, or outright denial of evidence contrary to such assertions.

But such actions are not the sole domain of the political right. Please consider your recent statement regarding NCCAM:

One of the purposes of this center [NCCAM] was to investigate and validate alternative approaches. Quite frankly, I must say publicly that it has fallen short. I think, quite frankly, that in this center and in the office previously before it, most of its focus has been on disproving things rather than seeking out and approving.

Perhaps you mis-spoke, perhaps I'm mistaken in my interpretation in your words, but the quote above, to me, sounds much like the issues discussed above. Your stated goal for NCCAM was to validate (and not, ostensibly, to invalidate), using scientific methodology, the claims of CAM practitioners...Science does not work this way.

Responsible research can only test the hypothesis that any particular intervention will have medical value beyond placebo, using controlled methodologies that counter the natural biases that all humans possess, avoiding the pitfalls of notoriously unreliable data such as anecdotal evidence. Scientific research cannot and should not be used as a tool to seek a preferred outcome: that is, unequivocally, pseudoscience. Notably, NCCAM's work to-date has not demonstrated efficacy for a single CAM paradigm. This is not a failure of science to validate these methods; it is a failure of these methods to demonstrate medical utility. Furthermore, limited and precious science funding should not be used on further testing of failed (and too-often scientifically implausible) hypotheses.

To be disappointed at seeing a hypothesis fail under higher scrutiny is a feeling all-too-common for every scientist, and an understandable reaction. To persist, however, in promoting and institutionalizing un- or dis-proven modalities as “pragmatic alternatives” and to describe modern evidence-based-medicine's eschewal of such practices as “discrimination against alternative health care practices” is beneath dignity, and it emits the same stench as Intelligent Design advocates’ remarkably similar claims.

Whether any particular modality works is scientifically testable; it is medically irresponsible to use any intervention that lacks scientific support. I find it unconscionable that a United States Senator would advocate “reforming” health care by spending taxpayer monies on medical treatments that may sound good but cannot demonstrate clear efficacy. I am not an Iowan, but I’m a concerned American scientist; I strongly back President Obama’s call to restore science to its rightful place.

It’s without doubt that the current American health care system is fraught with inefficiencies and inadequacies, overrun by special interests and rapidly-increasing costs. However, I fail to see what Americans gain by reducing the standard of evidence for medical treatment. This is not reform, it’s a leap backwards.

There is another relevant angle that I didn't address in my letter for the sake of brevity: the cost/benefit analysis of alternative treatments (the apparent thrust of Harkin's argument to more fully "integrate" CAM in the national health care system). I've addressed this at-length in the post below.

In retrospect, I also wish my letter had emphasized the importance of safety as well as efficacy in the evaluation of medical interventions. Relevant safety concerns of an alternative treatment include not only the side effects of that particular treatment, but also whether the recipients of said treatment are less likely to follow recommended care. As an example, this patient refused standard chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer (a diagnosis with a fairly good track record of successful treatment) in favor of "nutritional therapy, yoga, meditation, positive thinking and laughter," dying of cancer 19 months later. (Of course, the chemo could have failed, too, but there's ample evidence that it often works...not so much for yoga.) Furthermore, those more inclined towards CAM treatments often eschew good evidence-based clinical advice and can be mislead by outright quackery into dangerous decisions (such as the anti-vaccination movement, or the 2006 bombshell British homeopaths telling consumers to avoid proven anti-malarial drugs in favor of homeopathic preparations that unequivocally do not work).

There's much to be considered in the re-organization of American health care. I don't think, however, Americans would gain much by placing greater emphasis on ineffective or unproven treatment options.

Cost/Benefit analysis in new or "alternative" medical treatments

Above, I talked a lot about the efficacy of CAM treatments, but that's only one part of one side of the entire cost-benefit analysis necessary for any medical intervention. Roughly, we can abstractly understand the costs of a treatment as some combination variables representing monetary ($) and time (t) expenses and the likelihood of substantive side effects (SE); the benefit side of the equation is the likelihood of a positive outcome (PO) and the magnitude (m) of that positive change. We'd have to make up numbers to reflect these "variables," but we can understand that a particular intervention's benefit/cost could be understood as

treatment value = [PO∙m]/[$+t+SE]

Note that as any of the variables increases or decreases, the "value" of a treatment should correspondingly increase or diminish.

To take this oversimplified algebraic thought-experiments to a more utilitarian level, though, let's consider that most conditions treated by modern medicine have a generally-recognized standard treatment that is appropriate for any particular patient type, usually based on previous research indicating that the standard treatment has some acceptable level of safety and efficacy. Any new modality to treat a condition must be measured against this standard of care. This can be represented as

relative treatment value = [(PO*-PO)∙(m*-m)]/[($*-$)+(t*-t)+(SE*-SE)]

where the * represents the variables of the standard treatment option, compared to another modality. What this abstract monstrosity should convey is generally that for a newer treatment to supersede a standard treatment, it needs to demonstrate a superior combination of costs and benefits for responsible medical practitioners to implement it over the tried-and-true.

Let's take this to a real-life example: osteoarthritis of the knee. The standard treatment varies upon the severity of the condition and the patient's health; this can range from over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medicines to (for about 1 in 4 sufferers) surgery option, which also range in complexity from fairly simple arthroscopy to knee replacement. A common CAM treatment for this condition is acupuncture.

NCCAM investigated acupuncture for osteoarthritis of the knee, reporting that patients receiving acupuncture had better pain and function outcomes than those receiving "sham" acupuncture...however, there are a few important caveats: all subjects received "standard care" (including anti-inflammatory medications and opioid pain relievers") during the study, and while they used similar amounts of these treatments at the start, there was no reporting of such use during the trial; the reported significant improvements took 8-14 weeks to manifest (16 total acupuncture treatments by 8 weeks) and averaged, on a subjective 20-point pain scale, a 0.87 point improvement over the sham group; the "sham" procedure had a fair deal of unmasking, revealing a highly statistically significant difference between what "real" and "sham" subjects believed they were receiving; and a substantial number of subjects dropped out of the study, providing questionable control data. Furthermore, subsequent reviews of the total literature indicate that acupuncture and "sham" acupuncture show similar clinically relevant short- and long-term improvements in pain and function compared to "usual care control groups," suggestive of a substantial placebo or expectation effects. (At the least, it's not a good sign for the underlying theoretical basis: that needles at specific points can "unblock" flows of qi, thus curing disease via restoring a "balanced state" of internal yin and yang.)

The best available data on acupuncture for osteoarthritis of the knee indicates that the treatment may or may not have small benefits (as an adjunctive therapy) on the likelihood and magnitude of a positive outcome, is generally considered safe [warning! the general tenets of acupuncture vitalism reject the germ theory of disease! don't trust that those needles are sterile!], but can take a long time to manifest additional improvement and is rather costly: In 2005, my hometown Portland clinics averaged $75 for an initial visit and $56 per follow-up appointment. Plug this into the second equation above, and I don't generally see current information to justify adding acupuncture to the standard therapy for osteoarthritis of the knee; it may be a good choice for those with cash burning a hole in their pockets, but nationwide healthcare reform can probably do without this specific treatment for this specific condition.

Now, naturally, I am not a physician, nor am I a public health policy official, and I'm clearly no mathematical theorist. My analysis of the specific case of acupuncture for osteoarthritis of the knee was probably woefully over-simplified. I'm just a marginally intelligent scientist-like person who pays taxes and has a strong interest in a health care system that maximizes positive outcomes with efficient practices, a process that requires high-quality evidence and prudent choices based upon the evidence over ideology. I'm also not closed-minded: if acupuncture, or any other CAM modality, can reliably demonstrate safety and efficacy for any condition that results in a reasonable outcome of a sober cost/benefit analysis, sign me up! In fact, I imagine the medical community at large would embrace it.

Of course...at that point, it wouldn't be alternative medicine, would it?
Funny how that works.

Oooh, it burns!

Via Pharyngula: How to respond to requests to debate creationists

Nicholas Gotelli, a professor at the University of Vermont, received a request from a member of the Discovery Institute for a "debate about evolutionary science and intelligent design". Gotelli declined, writing a scathing response that neatly encompasses almost every major problem I have with the warmed-over creation science being peddled as "intelligent design":

Thank you for this interesting and courteous invitation to set up a debate about evolution and creationism (which includes its more recent relabeling as "intelligent design") with a speaker from the Discovery Institute. Your invitation is quite surprising, given the sneering coverage of my recent newspaper editorial that you yourself posted on the Discovery Institute's website.

However, this kind of two-faced dishonesty is what the scientific community has come to expect from the creationists.

Academic debate on controversial topics is fine, but those topics need to have a basis in reality. I would not invite a creationist to a debate on campus for the same reason that I would not invite an alchemist, a flat-earther, an astrologer, a psychic, or a Holocaust revisionist. These ideas have no scientific support, and that is why they have all been discarded by credible scholars. Creationism is in the same category.

Instead of spending time on public debates, why aren't members of your institute publishing their ideas in prominent peer-reviewed journals such as Science, Nature, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences? If you want to be taken seriously by scientists and scholars, this is where you need to publish. Academic publishing is an intellectual free market, where ideas that have credible empirical support are carefully and thoroughly explored. Nothing could possibly be more exciting and electrifying to biology than scientific disproof of evolutionary theory or scientific proof of the existence of a god. That would be Nobel Prize winning work, and it would be eagerly published by any of the prominent mainstream journals.

"Conspiracy" is the predictable response by Ben Stein and the frustrated creationists. But conspiracy theories are a joke, because science places a high premium on intellectual honesty and on new empirical studies that overturn previously established principles. Creationism doesn't live up to these standards, so its proponents are relegated to the sidelines, publishing in books, blogs, websites, and obscure journals that don't maintain scientific standards.

Finally, isn't it sort of pathetic that your large, well-funded institute must scrape around, panhandling for a seminar invitation at a little university in northern New England? Practicing scientists receive frequent invitations to speak in science departments around the world, often on controversial and novel topics. If creationists actually published some legitimate science, they would receive such invitations as well.

So, I hope you understand why I am declining your offer. I will wait patiently to read about the work of creationists in the pages of Nature and Science. But until it appears there, it isn't science and doesn't merit an invitation.

In closing, I do want to thank you sincerely for this invitation and for your posting on the Discovery Institute Website. As an evolutionary biologist, I can't tell you what a badge of honor this is. My colleagues will be envious.

Sincerely yours,
Nick Gotelli

P.S. I hope you will forgive me if I do not respond to any further e-mails from you or from the Discovery Institute. This has been entertaining, but it interferes with my research and teaching.

Yeowch!

I agree strongly with Gotelli on a several points. Specifically, and especially, the ascent of a scientific hypothesis is not earned through public debates, but on the preponderance of quality data. Public debates may be in interesting way to get some attention, but ultimately will only serve as a sideshow with no relevance to biological research. Furthermore, the deck is stacked in the favor of creationists from the start: giving an equal floor to ID (a God of the gaps argument with only the apparent trappings of science) and the modern evolutionary synthesis (150 years of convergent support from fields like paleontology, embryology, biochemistry, geology, behavior, and genetics) gives the former a scientific relevance it has not earned. Finally, any scientist worth his or her chops is bound by the evidence and the natural caution of the scientific method to avoid making statements not commissural with the bulk of the evidence; not so for the ideologue creationist, who rarely attempts to make a positive case for their position, focusing instead on perceived weaknesses of evolution, often willfully making claims that mislead or are outright false (Gish Gallop, anyone?).

All that would be bad enough if ID creationism was actually a real scientific hypothesis of any possible merit that just currently lacked evidentiary support. It's not even a scientific hypothesis, and it certainly has no supporting evidence. Intelligent design is simply a pseudoscientific concept, propped up by easily-packaged soundbites (like "irreducible complexity"), designed to be a cultural virus. The Discovery Institute, the main promotional organization of ID, explicitly designed ID to "replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God...to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." This is theology. It's theology done poorly, to boot: it makes the Big Guy into a tinkerer of bacterial flagella and mammalian clotting cascades--hardly the majestic words of Genesis.

By the way...I love the BCS, too!

Two videos on religion...

First, a hilarious skewering of some of the crazy Old Testament...

Now, a thoughtful and artsy allegory for coming to terms with the interpretation(s) of such liturgical works...

15 Evolutionary Gems

Nature has started its 2009 celebration of the legacy of Charles Darwin off well...This year marks the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and the sesquicentennial of the publication of The Origin of Species.

"15 Evolutionary Gems" provides a short lay overview of 15 studies published in Nature over the last decade or so, each evidence supporting the overwhelming scientific consensus that evolution via natural selection has created the panoply of widely divergent organisms that inhabit Earth. It's pretty cool stuff.

3...2...1...

Senseless violence claims a Seattle icon

In Seattle, as in Portland, it rains often.
This year, it's pouring. For Seattle sports fans, it's been dismal. The Mariners (my favorite baseball team) suck. The Seahawks (the only NFL franchise I pay even remote attention to) are a currently a cellar-dwelling 2-7. The Washington Huskies and the Washington State Cougars are arguably the two worst Division 1A teams in college football. The worst: the proud Seattle Supersonics NBA franchise was stolen away to fucking Oklahoma City.

Now the stomach punch: Violence takes iconic Tuba Man
Tuba Man, also known as Edward McMichael, was a Seattle staple. McMichael, bespectacled and usually in some Seussian hat, would play his tuba outside of, essentially, every major sporting event in Seattle. It wasn't always completely in tune (he was outside after all), and some songs don't sound quite right in brass bass, but it was always enjoyable. Tuba Man's tunes would hover over a crowd as it entered before, and exited after, games for those Sonics and Mariners and Seahawks.

My grandparents loved hockey. For years they had season tickets to the Seattle Thunderbirds, the junior hockey team in the Western Hockey League. They always delighted in taking their grandchildren to Thunderbirds games. I've probably been to about 50 Thunderbirds games in my life--far more than my hometown Portland Winterhawks--courtesy of Gramma & Pop-Pop.

I can distinctly remember, even for games a dozen or more years ago, the melodies of classical and popular tunes, in their deep ringing register, drifting through the evening æther.

Edward McMichael was beaten and robbed on October 25. He sustained head injuries that, police say, eventually caused his death days later. Three 15-year-old teenagers have been charged with robbery and assault, and may face harsher charges for McMichael's death, pending the completion of police investigations. Three kids.

I never actually met Tuba Man, enjoying his talents only as a passing pedestrian. But it's clear that the man meant a lot to many in Seattle. For me, reading about his death made me melancholy not only for the tragedy of its circumstances, but it reminded me of just how much I miss my recently-deceased grandparents (has it really been more than 1 1/2 years?) and how much I treasure my days spent with them.

2008 election: my take on the ballot initiatives

November 4, 2008, is approaching quickly. I've made my mind up on most issues, but have a few lingering tossups. For those still searching for information to help them decide, I'd suggest a site that I just found, Ballotpedia. Here's a rundown of the 2008 ballot measures from Ballotpedia, and here's the state's online voter guide.

In this post, I'm going to analyze some of this year's 12 Oregon ballot measures.

Ballot Measure 54
This is the easiest measure on which to make a decision, and it's kind of a cool story. High school students from Grant High discovered that the Oregon Constitution contained provisions (from 1948) requiring voters to be 21 years old and pass a literacy test before voting in school board elections. The students contacted the Oregon Secretary of State, and eventually the Oregon Legislature drafted this measure based on their concerns.

This provision has been completely ignored and unactionable since the 1971 passing of the 26th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which lowered the state and federal voting age to 18. Furthermore, Federal court decisions have determined these type of requirements "violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Oregon's Attorney General in 1972 held that the requirement is unenforceable." Finally, the literacy test hearkens back to Jim Crow-type laws that contributed to Oregon's history of racially-motivated disenfranchisement via literacy tests and the like as a condition for eligibility to vote, which were prohibited by the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This measure is a technical fix of something broken for 36+ years; it's also an affirmative statement rejecting these relics of a more divisive era. No brainer: VOTE YES!

Ballot Measure 55
This measure is a fix for a problem that has occured during redistricting. During redistricting, the legislative districts in the state are rearranged to even out population representation (and political purposes), but this can result in situations in which districts can be altered such that sitting State Senators and Representatives may end up in wildly different districts than those from which they were elected; in 2001, for example, "one Representative elected in an urban district in the Willamette Valley was assigned to represent a rural district in Central Oregon."

The measure fixes this issue by maintaining old districts until a legislator's term is up, but establishing the new districts for nomination and election purposes. This should prevent a situation in which people are not represented by lawmakers that they never elected. VOTE YES!

Ballot Measure 56
I hate Oregon's "double majority" rule. It's a system that actively rewards nonvoters! Currently, bond measures must pass not only 50% support, but be voted upon by >50% of eligible voters in order to pass. Elections without major state & national races have, historically, very low turnout. The "double majority" requirement has killed 169 measures that achieved sufficient support, but didn't reach the turnout mark. If a story can be related in which a

popular measure easily won a simple majority but the 43 percent turnout doomed it. Just 500 more votes would have provided the "double majority," and even if all 500 of those votes had been "no," the bond still would have passed.

...you know the system is broken. Especially when opponents of a May 2007 police levy "urged others to refrain from voting, because it was easier to kill the measure by lowering voter turnout." The levy was supported by more than 78 percent of voters, but turnout only hit 42 percent and the levy failed.

Folks, if you don't want to support a bond measure, you should have to vote no. Overturn that bullshit. VOTE YES!

Ballot Measure 57 & 61
These two measures are competing directly against each other; Measure 57 has a provision within it that, if 57 & 61 both pass, allows only the measure with greater support to go into law. 61 is a hardline anti-property crime bill that creates mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain theft, identity theft, forgery, drug, and burglary crimes. It would also drastically increase the number of prisoners and amount of spending on law & order. 57 was created by Oregon's legislators as a watered-down option that only doles out mandatory prison time for repeat-offenders and provides additional funding for treatment programs (which 61 does not).

Both measures will come with a hefty price tag. What's interesting here is that a lot of organizations that would oppose 57 if it were on the ballot alone are supporting it in order to keep 61 from going into law. For me, I'm leaning towards the Oregonian's take:

Measure 57: No. This is one of two property crime measures on the ballot that are ill-conceived, poorly crafted and offer wildly expensive answers to the wrong questions. But any voter feeling compelled to vote for one of them should choose this one. It's half as dumb, and half as expensive.
Measure 61: No. This measure authored by Kevin Mannix is a craven assault on your fears. It calls for mandatory minimum sentences for first-time burglars, identification thieves and drug dealers. If passed, the measure might cost as much as $800 million to enforce over the next five years, and more than $1.3 billion in prison construction.

Those are some ginormous price tags. I can't help but be swayed by this, though: "Each dollar spent locking up violent criminals saves about $4.35...each dollar spent locking up property criminals returns far less: about $1.10...locking up drug criminals produces hefty losses: Each dollar spent returns only about 35 cents in value." VOTE NO ON BOTH!

Ballot Measure 58
Does Oregon really need a statute prohibiting English as a Second Language instruction beyond some mandated time? Shall we allow institutionalized xenophobia to potentially hamper the education of children? VOTE NO!

Ballot Measure 59
Most states don't allow deduction of federal income taxes on state income taxes, but Oregon currently allows residents to deduct as much as $5,500 in federal taxes (indexed to rise with cost-of-living). If 59 passes, Oregon will join Alabama, Iowa, and Louisiana as the only states to allow federal income taxes to be fully deductible on state income tax returns. This is a straight-up tax cut; a tax cut that may eliminate almost 9% ($1.3 billion ) of the 2009-2011 state general budget. The state is already in a budget crunch...I see no need to do that in a way that would only substantially benefit those making enough money to be on the hook for well over $5,500 in federal taxes. (A basic online tax calculator suggests that a single person earning ~$37,000 will be in the $5,500 range for federal income tax. This is approximately the median income of an Oregonian.)

A measure that will create a big budget strain with no benefit to about half of the state's tax payers (and relatively insignificant benefit to those not in the top brackets)? VOTE NO!

Ballot Measure 60
This measure would mandate under state law that:

Teacher pay raises and job security shall be based on job performance...pay raises for public school teachers shall be based upon each teacher’s classroom performance and not related or connected to his or her seniority. If a school district reduces its teaching staff, the district shall retain the teachers who are most qualified to teach the specific subjects, which they will be assigned to teach. A determination as to which teacher is most qualified shall be based upon each teacher’s past classroom experience successfully teaching the specific subject(s) or class, as well his or her as academic training in the relevant subject matter.

The bolded terms have deliberately been left undefined and the italics show the main impetus for the measure. I actually kinda like this idea...maybe it's my capitalist bent, but I dislike a system in which an employer is limited in hiring and firing employees because qualifications and performance history can be superseded by seniority.

The main argument against this measure is that opponents assert this will lead to greater emphasis on standardized tests and thus greater "teaching to the test," a claimed byproduct of things like No Child Left Behind. In my opinion, that this measure refuses to define the terms used is a strength, though: "test" appears nowhere in the act. If 60 passes, there appears to be sufficient flexibility in determining "performance" and "qualifications" that don't necessitate more testing. In fact, "past classroom experience successfully teaching the specific subject(s) or class" seems to allow seniority a qualified backdoor in a performance evaluation, as a history of quality teaching is undoubtedly worth consideration.

This measure is strongly opposed by unions in general and the teacher's union in particular. In their general concern, I sense that the unions are likely threatened by the possible weakening of one of their key tactics: instituting a "statute of limitations" on any manageable firing process such that the efforts to remove an underperforming employee of sufficient tenure become increasingly more difficult. I do think it would be best if the unions worked closely with the state to develop methods and metrics to properly evaluate a teacher's performance and quit hanging onto the outdated and counterproductive stance. I do recognize that Measure 60, if it passes, could have some negative effects, though. Perhaps it will increase testing. It will increase costs. I don't like that the language appears to prohibit cost-of-living increases.

I'm with the Oregonian here (in their recommendation against 60): "the current union system neither rewards outstanding performance nor penalizes mediocrity, nor protects promising young teachers during economic downturns."
In the end, Willamette Week captures my feelings: "Putting a stop to raises based largely on seniority could go a long way toward rewarding good teachers—and motivating others to improve" but the "measure is, to borrow a popular saying from Sen. Barack Obama, a meat cleaver when what we need is a scalpel." VOTE NO!

Ballot Measure 62
Divert 15% of Oregon Lottery proceeds to a public safety fund? Why?

Currently, the Oregon legislature is mandated to spend 44 percent of lottery funds on parks, bond payments and an educational reserve fund. The remaining 56 percent of Lottery proceeds are spent on a variety of programs, including K-12 education, and state and local economic development. This measure would reduce funds available for these programs. Under this measure, the legislature may not limit expenditures from the public safety fund. Additionally, the distributions to county district attorneys and sheriffs cannot be used to replace existing funding from other sources.

This shifts money around, from education and such to public safety, and creates greater restrictions on the use of that money. Sounds like it will create more budgetary red tape and funding problems for education...VOTE NO!

Ballot Measure 63
This measure would allow homeowners to avoid buying building permits for work on their own home up to a value of $35,000 each year. The idea here isn't so bad: there probably is plenty of red tape that could be eliminated in the home improvement field...but, as a measure opponent presciently states, "Thirty-five thousand can buy a whole lot of stupid when it comes to working on houses."

I'm not opposed to evaluating the current system for common sense changes that will allow greater freedom for property owners to improve their own land, however, given the safety concerns and insurance requirements relevant to proper permits & inspection, baby steps would be a better approach. VOTE NO!

Ballot Measure 64
Measure 64 is déjà vu all over again: we've voted on the same content in failed 1998 and 2000 initiatives, and similar initiatives failed to qualify for the ballot in '02, '04, and '06. Bill Sizemore really wants to end the use of payroll deduction for "political purposes," a term that includes "candidates, political committee or party, initiative or referendum committee, and supporting/opposing candidates or ballot measures (including signature gathering for petitions)."
One needn't be particularly cynical to note that unions are generally the strongest opponents of whatever Sizemore can get on the ballot, and unions generally collect a substantial portion of their operation funds via voluntary payroll deduction...What's sad, though, is that this initiative would probably have a negative effect on the funding of many non-profit charitable organizations (i.e., Muscular Dystrophy Association, United Way, Parent Teacher Associations, Oregon Humane Society, Oregon Food Bank, etc.) that have political lobbying efforts in their actions. VOTE NO!

Ballot Measure 65
This measure would create a "top two primary " in which the primary for a specific race would have all running candidates and be open to all Oregon voters. The top two vote recipients would be on the final ballot. Those arguing against warn that this will create final ballots in which your choices could only be two Democrats or two Republicans (though I'm skeptical that it will result in many unwarranted cases of this) and that small party candidates will be left out of the final race entirely.

Well, those may be limitations of the proposed system. But the current system sucks. A closed primary means that successful candidates are often more satisfactory for the party's fringe than the moderates, and it only allows one to vote in one's own party primary, completely leaving registered independents (like myself) out of all decision-making. As for third parties...well...improve your messages and get in the top two. VOTE YES!

And don't you forget it...

"If there's one rule in election-year politics, it's this: Don't mess with the science crowd."

You don't want a piece of this.

Pareidolia + evolution via natural selection

I've been following this site for about a year now. It's an interesting experiment combining elements of evolutionary theory with pareidolia, the phenomenon through which humans perceive hidden images in random patterns (i.e., bunny rabbits in clouds, faces on the moon or Mars, the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich).

The experiment: create pictures with shapes in a random layout. Each viewer rates a given picture (0-10) on its likeness to a given category, such as "face". Subsequent rounds of pictures are created from the previous: images that receive higher scores create the most "offspring" with "mutations" (minor alterations in layout). Over time, the images grow more and more like the prescribed category.

Here's a best-of gallery.

For the "face" category, here's an example of a "before" pic:

and an "after":

Why can't sports video games get it right?

I'm no hardcore gamer, but I do like to play my Xbox 360--it's a great way for me to relax. My favorite genre of games is typically sports games. Last month, EPSN's Patrick Hruby nailed every sports gamer's general frustrations regarding the features video game developers just haven't been able to capture properly. If you're interested at all in sports video games, you'll surely share his concerns.

SEC, Pac-10, Big Ten, Big 12: Who Is the Best?

An interesting report was published a little while back regarding the now-constant debate among college football fans regarding the relative strength of the major conferences. In this article at Bleacher Report, the author asks which league--SEC, Pac-10, Big Ten, or Big 12--has placed a greater percentage of teams in the final top-25 polls from 2000 to 2007.

It's a reasonable and simple analysis, and it reveals:

The Pac-10 placed 30 percent of its teams in the Top 25, the Big 12 notched 32 percent, the Big Ten 33 percent, and the SEC led with 41 percent.

Interesting stuff. But I think it lacks nuance. Perhaps I should modify this analysis?I'd argue that the position in the polls is also important, as this analysis equates every #1 with every #25. I propose that a truer measure would be to analyze the relative position as well. Also, the teams of 2000 and the teams of last year are quite a bit removed--I think temporal trends are worth evaluating.

Position can be measured & weighted rather simply...Here's how:

• #1 in the polls gets 25 points (and so on to #25 earning 1 point); 25+24+...+2+1=325


• The maximum points available each year in each league depends on the number of teams in the league. For example, the 10-team Pac-10 can earn up to 205 total possible poll points each year
  
• Divide total numbers of earned points by total possible points to determine % that accounts for the weighted top-25 results, this is the % of maximum possible poll points

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. What's the comparison then? I'll use the season-ending AP & ESPN/USA Today polls (using the average ranking). The ACC & Big East are more complicated because they swapped some teams around and changed size in 2004 & 2005...I left them in, though.

After far too much work, here's the results...

From 2000-2007, these leagues earned the shown percentage of possible ranking points:

SEC: 28.5%
Big 10: 22.7%
Big 12: 25.5%
Pac-10: 22.7%
ACC: 16.7%
Big East: 19.4%

The raw numbers here won't compare nicely with the Bleacher Report analysis, but let's look at the rank-order.

His: SEC>Big 10>Big 12>Pac-10

Mine: SEC>Big 12>Pac-10=Big 10>Big East>ACC

My paradigm shows the Big 10 & Pac-10 in a dead heat & the Big 12 undervalued by the Bleacher Report analysis. The SEC clearly comes out on top. How about over time?

For the last 4 years, the SEC has dominated in this metric--and it's a conference that appears to be trending upward. I'd buy this, based on the reality that there are a lot of great teams in that conference every year, and currently the league boasts a Who's Who list of college coaches and the last two BCS champs.

The Pac-10 has been fairly steady: never the worst and never the best. Yearly, the recent dominance of USC has been accompanied, almost invariably, by 2 teams in the #10-#20 range. I would bet good money on another year of the same...

It's easy to see how the Big East suffered--notice the fat dip 2003-2005--during the moves of Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College to the ACC. (But...it didn't seem to help the ACC much, did it?) While the Big East has regained some strength on the backs strong West Virginia and Louisville squads, the establishment of South Florida and Rutgers as legit top-25 teams, and recent success of Cincinnati and UConn, has given the Big East some (unexpectedly good) clout.

The ACC use to be the Florida State show. Now the Seminoles aren't even good. Virginia Tech has been the only program with any semblance of consistency and national recognition since the realignment. Recent growth by Wake Forest notwithstanding, until Miami and FSU get back to top-dog status, the ACC may continue to slide.

The Big 12 slid for seven straight years, but had a good year in 2007. Will they continue to bounce back? I think that hinges on the re-establishment of traditional North Division power Nebraska...Texas & Oklahoma have been carrying the conference while A&M underachieved, K-State regressed and Colorado's program was rocked by scandal after scandal. Also in play: can Texas Tech finally take that last step up in performance (that is, win all those games they're supposed to win) to become a truly elite team rather than an inconsistent-but-very-good team with ridonkulous Playstation offense numbers?

The performance of the Big 10 has been much-maligned on teh intarwebs the last couple years. I think what my analysis indicates is that the conference has bounced up and down in relative strength. Last-last-first-first-fourth-second-third-fourth. Wha? What's interesting is the difficulty in divining any sort of trend here...

So, let's let the computer do it...

These are the best-fit linear trends of each conference. What jumps out to me is that 4/6 show downward slopes, and the Big 10 isn't one of them! Now, admittedly, this isn't a large sample set--8 years of data in am imperfect metric won't exactly help me earn that Ph.D. I'm supposed to be working on--but perhaps the Big 10 is getting a bum rap; maybe 2002/2003 were plus-side aberrations of a generally improving league?

Nah. I still can't buy it. Right now, Ohio State is the only team that strikes any fear into non-conference foes (September 13 is gonna be huuuge). Michigan is sliding, Wisconsin's success seems a little over-inflated, Minnesota should be relegated to the Mid-American Conference, and Iowa has lost its mojo...

...does this mean I need to go back an collect earlier data for a stronger analysis? I don't know if that's something I wanna do.

One final iteration of this analysis: what about the non-BCS teams? The graph below includes the yearly result (and associated trendline) of the fraction of available points that went to teams outside the six BCS conferences. [This data technically uses a different y-axis (% total points), but I left that info off the already-cluttered graph.]


We can see that non-BCS schools have also been able to increasingly chip away at the number of available ranking points for the big boys. This coincides well with the general feeling that modern college football has much greater parity than ever before.

The fire alarm that cried "Wolf!" (and fucked up my experiments)

Over the last month or so, my building has had periodic fire alarms. Actually, the alarms have been largely confined to my floor and often only one other...and it's happened, on average, about once a week.

There's never been a fire, or anything close to a fire, as far as I can tell.

I don't know what's causing the damn things, probably the construction on the floor immediately below. Whatever it is, though, it needs to stop.

The alarm went off again today, just about an hour ago. Allow me to share a few observations...

• These modern fancy-schmancy alarms are w e i r d. Instead of a really loud buzzer, horn or bell, there's a modestly loud "ding" that doesn't actually ring very often. And it talks. "Attention. Attention. There is an emergency. Please head to the stairwells and exit the building" states a disturbingly calm male voice. I guess the alarm attempts to soothe and relax the masses that might justifiably panic if the biochemistry lab across the hall were to go up in flames with Jebus-knows-what in their fume hoods?

• We've had so many recent false alarms that at least half of the residents of my floor did not leave. In an actual emergency that would be a bad thing. Don't you think?

• Let's say one is -- hypothetically -- performing an experiment in which one analyzes the behavior of small animals, investigating subtle differences in their interactions with a specific environment. In this thought experiment, the data that would be generated is vital to one's thesis research and necessary for the fancy charts and graphs planned for two upcoming meetings. Furthermore, this hypothetical researcher came in all weekend to prepare said animals for this experiment. HOW PISSED OFF IS THIS...(ahem) hypothetical...RESEARCHER RIGHT NOW?! It's pretty obvious that loud dinging, a strange voice-over and flashing strobes might ever-so-slightly alter the behavior of these animals, right?

Grrrrr.

Here it comes...

Humor in scientific publications

I just ran across a paper that amuses me. In his 1994 article "Are Crystal Structures Predictable?" Italian crystallographer Angelo Gavezzotti provides a light touch...I'll copy the first two paragraphs below:

Are Crystal Structures Predictable?

“No”: by just writing down this concise statement, in what would be the first one-word paper in the chemical literature, one could safely summarize the present state of affairs, earn an honorarium from the American Chemical Society, and do a reasonably good service to his or her own reputation. In the mainstream of academic tradition, one could then concede a “maybe”, or even a conditional “yes”, thus making a good point for discussion; and then, in the mainstream of publication policy tradition, proceed eventually to have his or her papers rejected by referees taking the opposite stand.

Fortunately, there is a rhetorical way out of this predicament, known to medieval philosophers as amplificatio: in plain words it means, when you cannot provide an answer, just rephrase and expand the statement of the question. To this very old trick we will resort in this paper. In fact, the title question is a bit too straightforward and simple-minded; such broad terms as “crystal structure” and “prediction” need be defined in more detail. There are several levels of desirable a priori information on a solid; they will be described by posing a number of typical, more restricted questions, in order of increasing complexity. Organic substances only will be considered.

Gavezzotti A. "Are Crystal Structure Predictable?" Acc. Chem. Res. 1994, 27, 309-314.

The article goes on for a few pages, but I can only read the first; it seemingly turns into a thoughtful expository on the ideas behind, and practical realities of, predicting how a particular chemical structure--that may only exist on paper--will behave in pure form with particular temperature/pressure conditions.

What I love about this is how light-hearted and self-effacing the opening is...scientific writing is overwhelmingly dry and sober. However, most of the scientists I know, in fact, aren't. In those two paragraphs we get a glimpse of personality. Sure, perhaps much of the scientist humor I've been exposed to has been...how you say?...dorky with a dash of lame, but that reality is much better than the perpetuated-all-too-often image of socially-stunted, arrogant, emotionless automatons in white lab coats.

New spam tactic (?)

Okay, spam email blows.

With that out of the way, spam email is often a source of amusement for me. Sure, "Feltmate" (@genesisit.com.au), I'd love to hear more about this story of yours entitled "Hot chick visits senile grandpa‏"...fascinating!


Still, among the adverts for Rolex knock-offs and the cheapest pharmaceuticals from Bahrain, I've noticed a new trend: spam that purports to be a huge Hollywood story of some sort. My first exposure was a few weeks ago when my spam filter caught one from an address that had about a 0.1% chance of actually being someone I knew; the subject of the story was, I believe, "Will Smith drowns in bathtub" (but it might have been "pool").


Naturally, I was skeptical...but, to determine (exceedingly unlikely) likelihood that this was a valid email from a valid address, and without wanting to open it, I checked out cnn.com. If Will Smith had drowned, it woulda been front page, 70 bajillion point font. No dice. Spam deleted.


Since then, I've received dozens of similar ones. Through the remarkable power of email I've learned that Larry King was "shot dead at home,‏" Mary-Kate Olsen "attacked by killer bees," Madonna "committed suicide," and that a few major film stars have had major rape charges filed.


Sweet Jeebus. I guess if you're going to commit federal crimes with spam, you might as well go balls-to-the-wall with full-on libel, eh?

How does one html code a slap to the forehead?

What's the opposite of "dress for success"?

Whatever it is, these braniacs have figured it out...

A new campaign slogan for Obama?

Vote for me, Barack Obama, and force Steven Baldwin to leave the country! That's right...a vote for me is a vote for change: namely shipping the star of such classics as Bio-Dome and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas to some un-named foreign destination! (Or at least calling his bluff.)

Barack Obama, a Vote For Change in the status of Steven Baldwin's residency in America. Together we can achieve the dreams of our forefathers: getting rid of that sinkhole of mediocrity known as the Baldwin Brothers (except for Alec--he's actually really funny on 30 Rock). Yes, we can!

Mr. Deity

Holy crap...this stuff is funny. There's a whole series of these, and you need to watch them...now. Episode #1 is below.

Now, there's just a touch of blasphemy-ness, but mostly its irreverent and witty.




The FAQ softens the blow if you think this is just an attack on religion. You can find many episodes on Youtube, but you need to go to Crackle to see season 2.