Didn't Dan Savage recently demonstrate in a tour de force paper that bijectuals don't exist?
Man I rushed that. Could have been funny.
I just got the link in the OP. The first time I was just confused.
3: Man I rushed that.
Next time think about Sperner's Lemma.
This thread is left as an exercise for the reader.
It's certainly passing the Cauchy Thread Convergence Test.
Tried t'buy a proof but it was a lemma
The proof is trivial, but the pudding is intractable.
9 is useless without a picture of teo with pudding running through his fingers.
My point stands. You must have some sort of pudding around?
Comment 9 cures cholera and gout.
You can't spell pun without the first two letters of pudding!
17 was provided as a service by the American Society for the Preservation of Commenter Self Image. You make a bad joke or pun, we'll make a worse won.
Why you dirty man, I've never pudded!
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Cloudy here for Perseids. But maybe not at your location. Moon not very full and sets around 11 or so.
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Wandering through the MOA the other day, I wondered to myself how many people in the Mall with me had killed someone. Probably quite a few. Wonder how often they think about that? Walking past the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. or glancing over at the indoor rollercoaster as it whizzes by.
One of the Bloomington cops walking around had THREE extra magazines for his pistol. It wasn't a huge .45, as far as I could see, so presumably he had a minimum of 40 rounds available to fire at miscreants. Maybe 50 or more. I'm not sure, but I only remember a couple of homicides at the Mall. Given it's been around for 20 years, with who knows how many billions of people-hours logged there, going around armed to the teeth seems a bit excessive.
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I'm pretty sure that shooting lots of times with poor accuracy is as good as shooting a few times with good accuracy. As long as you don't worry about specificity.
I'm pretty sure that shooting lots of times with poor accuracy is as good as shooting a few times with good accuracy.
This is why they pay you to do statistics, right?
With the right qualifications, almost anything is right.
I'm sure if we paid him he could come up with a more definite answer.
Hasn't worked for anybody else, but you may get lucky.
24: The last time I was at MOA I was carded just for being there. I don't know what age I was supposed to be before I could alone.
Wandering through the MOA the other day, I wondered to myself how many people in the Mall with me had killed someone. Probably quite a few.
Well, let's think about the maths here. There are 32,000 traffic fatalities every year in the US. It's difficult to work out how many of those are someone else's "fault" - obviously a lot will be someone crashing their own car and killing themselves. But 5,200 are non-occupants - pedestrians and cyclists - and let's take a haphazard guess and say that another 3,000 in-vehicle deaths are caused by surviving drivers, and drop another 1,000 to represent people who kill someone this year and have already killed someone else last year. So there are 7,000 new vehicle killers every year.
There are 18,000 homicides every year. Let's be optimistic and say that in half of those, someone is arrested and convicted (and is therefore not likely to be walking around the Mall of America). So every year, 9,000 Americans murder someone and get away with it.
There are 40,000-80,000 deaths every year in the US due to medical error. Now, many of those will be the result of errors by the same (inept) doctors, killing several a year, year after year, so let's take another guess and say that 4,000 US medical personnel mark up their first kill every year. (First is the only one that counts for these purposes).
So, among US adults, 20,000 more become non-imprisoned killers every year. Over an active adult lifespan of 50 years, that means that, in the US, there are 1,000,000 killers.
2.5 million Americans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, many doing multiple tours. Now, of those, 10% will have been in frontline killing-people units (infantry, armour, artillery, aircrew) and let's say that a fifth of those will have actually killed someone. 50,000 people. Same numbers roughly for Vietnam (2.7 million veterans) to 100,000.
Brings the total to 1.1 million adults. Very roughly, 1 in 300 of your fellow citizens bears the mark of Cain.
Out of a population of 300 million, 100,000 Americans visit the Mall of America every day.
The probability that at least one of them is a killer is therefore 1- ((298.9/300)^100,000) = basically 1.
In fact there are more killers in the Mall of America than in any given prison.
I think maybe you assumed too much things not being correlated.
There are a lot of doctors out there who drive really badly.
Also, things like that aren't evenly distributed in the US. Minnesota is probably below average for most of them. Maybe not medical errors, since Mayo may result in a disproportionate amount of opportunity for that.
50% conviction rate for homicides? I wonder if that's a realistic number.
In the UK the conviction rate is much much higher. I think [based on an old Home Office report and some other googling] in only ~12% is there no suspect brought to trial.
We don't have Sherlock. No need to rub it in.
31: [Curls into fetal position on floor, whimpering lines from Peanuts television specials.]
I think the 50% conviction is close to right. I saw a news report that the clearance rate (i.e. the police say they got the guy whether or not he is convicted) is down to 65%. But I think that significant minorities of each year's unsolved murders are being committed by somebody who has killed in an earlier year or who killed more than one person that year or who went to prison for something that isn't murder. And that smaller minorities of them killed somebody in a war or a crash.
And smaller minorities of those went on to commit fatal medical malpractice.
There are a lot of wobbly assumptions, true. But if someone kills another person deliberately, even if they're caught they won't be in prison for the rest of their lives. A lot of those homicidal shoppers might be, say, a 65-year-old who killed someone forty years ago, did fifteen years in prison, and was then let out. If the question's "what percentage of US murderers and manslaughterers are in prison" then I think that 50% is a reasonable guess.
Also, things like that aren't evenly distributed in the US. Minnesota is probably below average for most of them.
But this is the Mall of America - people come from all over the country to visit, not just Minnesota. If anything, the demographics of recreational mall-tourists might bump the numbers up: retired people have had a good 40 years to get a kill, while a 25-year-old has barely had any time at all. Ceteris paribus, an old person's much more likely to have blood on their hands.
Correlation: I dunno. Is someone who has killed someone in combat more likely to then kill someone else in a vehicle accident?
We don't have Sherlock. No need to rub it in.
As previously discussed (though I can't find it in the archives), Sherlock Holmes had a shit clearup rate. If he'd worked Homicide in the Western, Jay Landesman would have been on his case pretty much continuously.
There's a not small number of medical worker/serial killers out there. I don't know which came first, but you'd think a couple of malpractice deaths would ease you into it.
"Attention Mall of America shoppers. I have called you here together for this reason: statistically speaking, one of you is probably a murderer!"
Our criminals are wilier, since they know they have to stand on their own two feet, and not rely on socialized medicine. My own grandmother robbed two banks to pay for her chemotherapy, may she rest in peace.
Chopping Mall 2: It Could Be You!
Is someone who has killed someone in combat more likely to then kill someone else in a vehicle accident?
These are all things that tend to involve men who drink.
Sherlock Holmes had a shit clearup rate.
Giving him easy cases to boost his average would probably drop the national clearance rate of fictional murders.
But this is the Mall of America - people come from all over the country to visit, not just Minnesota.
That's more depressing that the murder stuff.
It's a good Google-interview question. "How big a drawing room would Hercule Poirot need to have to be 95% confident that one of the people in it was a murderer?"
He only needs about 8 or 9 in every one I've seen.
Yeah, that's why his clearup rate is so much higher. Holmes is hunting his suspects through the whole of London and the Home Counties. Poirot only ever has a handful to start with.
It depends on how many people are doing the evil voice.
"Follow the opium, Watson, and you will find nothing save opium fiends and opium peddlers. Ah, but follow the money! and who can say where it will take us?"
Watson never actually made any money practicing medicine. He earned a living rifling the pockets of immobile opium fiends and shaking down opium peddlers.
I mean, did you ever see him give any medicine except brandy? He has no clue.
I just got a weird email where someone accidentally forward me this anti-Steven Pinker rant.
58: that just means that he was a Victorian doctor, though. The script was like:
1. BREATHING?
Yes: go to 2.
No: dead.
2. BLEEDING?
Yes: apply bandage and go to 3.
No: go to 3.
3. CONSCIOUS?
Yes, but not in pain: go to 4.
Yes, in pain: apply laudanum and go to 4.
No: apply smelling salts until answer changes.
4. IS IT A WOMAN?
Yes, she's giving birth: Apply chloroform and wait until baby appears. Charge 5 guineas.
Yes, but she's not giving birth: she is hysterical. Shut her in a room until she quiets down a bit. Cold bath if necessary. Charge 10 guineas.
No: apply brandy. Have a spot yourself. Charge 5 guineas.
58: I mean, did you ever see him give any medicine except brandy?He has no clue would have been far more effective than most of his peers.
The essay that rant is countering was in fact extremely terrible. On the other hand, the first two paragraphs miss pretty wide.
Watson diagnoses people sometimes: the homicidal non-Mormon cabbie has an aortic aneurysm that he identifies. And Holmes won't let Watson anywhere near him when he's malingering for fear of being busted. (I've always remembered that should I need to feign insanity at any point, the way to go is talking about pocket change and shellfish. It's never come up, but I feel prepared.)
62: It was sent to me by my senior colleague along with a note that made it clear it was supposed to be going to someone else, but I guess now we know how well-known local popularizers of science feel about each other?
65: oh dear. That's rather funny.
60: I think 4 goes like this:
4. IS IT A WOMAN?
Yes, she's giving birth: Apply chloroform and wait until baby appears. Charge 5 guineas.
Yes, but she's not giving birth: Manually stimulate her until she orgasms acheives paroxysm. Charge 10 guineas.
No: apply brandy. Have a spot yourself. Charge 5 guineas.
67: No brandy in case 2? That seems inhospitable.
59: Pinker has gotten on my nerves for years. He seems to be doing for neuro/cognitive science what twits like Steven Levitt did for economics: license its practitioners to pass themselves off as generic all purpose "experts".
"Hey, X involves thinking. Thinking involves brains. I'm an expert on brains. I guess that means I'm an expert on X!"
71.1: you'll fit right in here if you decide to stop lurking at some point.
Both 67 and 71 involve a lot of potential for abusing the line, "Trust me, I'm a doctor."
Everything is made of particles. I'm an expert on particles. Therefore I'm an expert on everything.
I was reminded recently when reading Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews that actually many so-called "solid objects" are mostly empty space. So essear can't be an expert on them, since he's only an expert on particles.
74 is a joke, but I know people who take a line not that far from it.
77: Clearly the real problem is people named Steve.
The people opposed to gay marriage seem to blame a lot of things on Steve.
The rant in 59 achieves the rare distinction of being more annoying than Pinker.
77: Ironically the people I'm thinking of are not tippy-top dudes in the relevant fields, just very smart guys with an arrogant streak and blindness to the limitations of their intelligence. Sort of a Dunning-Kreuger thing. You may have met one of them when you visited (IIRC) snapping turtle U.
so presumably he had a minimum of 40 rounds available to fire at miscreants. Maybe 50 or more.
Easily, especially if it's a 9mm. I'm at 50+ with only two extra mags.
74, 75: I'm an expert on nothing, so you can all consider yourselves outranked.
Nothing is really complicated. Nosflow's probably right that I understand something better than I understand nothing.
81: Ooh, I know a lot of people there, assuming I'm correctly interpreting. Can we play 20 questions? Is he older than Obama? Bigger than a breadbox?
85: Older than Obama and bigger than a breadbox, but outside your field, so you might have a hard time guessing. I can't for the life of me remember his first name and when I try what comes up is Wen Ho Lee, which isn't quite right.
The rant linked above isn't any good, sadly, but I totally understand the motivating spirit/animus. I increasingly want to scream, 'Shut up you ignorant fuck' at any number of science popularisers/triumphalists who appear with regularity in the British media.
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Dream: I was a Gandalf-style wizard, and could put long, beautiful, perfectly-formatted data queries into command lines just by waving my staff.
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From following British people on twitter it seems that the most hated entities in the country are Richard Dawkins and Mumford & Sons. Apparently there is a comprehensive conspiracy by all factions of the media to fill people's ears with the sounds of Mumford & Sons and fill people's brains with the pontifications of Richard Dawkins, and people on Twitter are not going to put up with it any longer.
re: 89
History's greatest monsters, innit?
86: Does he have a deep and abiding interest in the origin of the spin of the proton?
Nosflow's probably right that I understand something better than I understand nothing.
The question is, which thing is that something?
I submit: there is actually very little variation in the number of self-aggrandizing, overconfident popularizers/hucksters across any field with interesting enough results to get regular press releases written by the university press office.
I have a comprehensive Theory of Nothing.
91: I don't know him well enough to know that. I sort of doubt it, due to his professional distance from things protonic. If you met him it would be more likely under the rubric of departmental bigwig than potential collaborator or critic. My experience with his views comes from having taken a single poorly taught class from him in which he expressed the view that since everything in the end comes down to mathematics, particles, and fields he was therefore well qualified to comment on neuroscience and economics, among other things.
99% of everything is the assumptions used to turn whatever into math.
96: for now, yes. But what about when we have the One True Model?
93: I don't know, physicists have generally been pretty good keeping themselves under control, especially given how much press the big name theorists get. I don't recall Brian Green or Stephen Hawking (another Steve!) pulling a Dawkins in public. Maybe Sean Carroll is guilty to some extent.
On the other hand, Economics is especially awful.
93: This is obviously wrong. Ev psych is worse than cognitive science. Psychology is worse than economics which is worse than sociology and anthropology. The only really egregious populizer for cognitive science is Pinker himself. The fact that he approvingly cites ev psych people proves that the there is a harmony to the universe.
87. Why do you say it isn't any good? It isn't perfect, but it goes some way towards serving its purpose.
95: Oh, okay. I wasn't thinking of somebody in my field, but a nucl/ear guy whose name kind of vaguely rhymes with Wen Ho Lee.
I realize the wrt physicists I forgot all about Lawrence Krauss, who seems to be moving in a Dawkins like direction.
98: srsly? I think of physics as sort of the number one offender of "oh, well, see, this field is easy if you use the math we have."
I could name (Roger Penrose) names, yes.
100: because the dude comes off worse than Pinker right off the bat?
104: do you generally ask for people's full names?
106: If people aren't wearing a name tag, I generally fumble with clumsy ways of hiding that I don't remember any part of their name.
105. Does he? Have you read the Pinker piece it's specifically targeting? He's completely jumped the shark.
I guess with physicists I'm thinking of the obnoxiousness to opportunity ratio. (Theoretical) physicists get more press exposure than a lot of other fields. Given the plentiful opportunities, the actual level of obnoxious pontification on non-physics subjects seems not too bad.
That's just a personal impression, however. Clearly we need some sort of quantitative study.
108: as I said right off the bat, the Pinker piece is terrible. But it's not terrible because he hasn't read the people he claims for science. It's terrible because it's in the genre "here, let me help you by telling you what your problem is". Claiming those people for science is disingenuous and sort of ahistorical. But he's not doing that from ignorance; he knows that science per se is a modern construct, and he knows that Descartes, for instance, was doing something wildly different than a modern scientist. But he's claiming them for science (again, a bad idea) intentionally, from a position of knowledge. Asserting otherwise means you've lost before you started.
98 physicists have generally been pretty good keeping themselves under control, especially given how much press the big name theorists get
Are the names you follow this up with supposed to be representative of "the big name theorists"?
Clearly we need some sort of quantitative study.
Big Data will finally tell us who is the most obnoxious!
Clearly we need some sort of quantitative study.
You'll probably want to get a physicist for that. They know numbers.
100: Really? I thought it had close to zero redeeming qualities. It responds to Pinker's absurd "Hume and Spinoza were really scientists" with an equally absurd "There was a unity of knowledge before the scientists ruined it with their cliquishness."
103: Penrose's position is that consciousness will be explained by physics that has not yet been invented, which is at least weirder than most popularizations.
106: If people aren't wearing a name tag, I generally fumble with clumsy ways of hiding that I don't remember any part of their name
Do a David Dimbleby impression*: "You there, in the blue shirt"
* May not work outside the UK.
I didn't read either carefully, as they both looked super annoying, but they seemed to me to both be annoying and wrong in exactly the same way.
re: 100
It's just a bit of an unstructured rant. He could have distilled the hate into something sharper. Also, there's some claims about science -- that what we think of as science really only dates from the mid 19th c. -- that I don't think are really defensible from the a history/philosophy of science point of view. And I'm not sure that 'Fuck you, scientists, we were totally here first' is as strong a point as he'd like it to be.
I'm on board with the hate itself, though. And much of the general 'fuck you, ignoramuses' tenor.
Is Brian Green well thought of in the physics community, either as scientist or populariser? My impression of him is that he specializes in talking about string theory in a way that conveys no understanding, and that he does so with a speaking style most people would use to tell a children's story.
116: That's really awkward if you've been seeing the person around for five years and that person clearly knows your name.
115.last: "violence has been steadily declining for centuries because human nature" is significantly weirder than most popular works of history.
Are the names you follow this up with supposed to be representative of "the big name theorists"?
In the general public's eyes, I think they're pretty representative.
I just realized I left out Michio Kaku, but I'm not sure he fits into this discussion, since the nonsense he dispenses to the public is ostensibly about physics.
122: I guess I find your "especially given how much press the big name theorists get" kind of hard to understand. If by "big name theorists" you mean "theorists who get a lot of press", it seems kind of circular. If you mean "theorists who are important in the physics community", Hawking is on the list (but only for things he did a few decades ago) and the others, not so much.
Fucksake. I really need to get my arse in gear and write my pop philosophy of science book.
115: Was Penrose the dude who thinks consciousness can be explained by some sort of quantum thing going on at synapses? There's some bigshot scientist/popularizer who takes that position. Penrose does not ring a bell but my useless memory is not coughing up any other candidate.
Oh, say, ttaM, what are your thoughts about "Against Method"? My adviser was speaking fondly of it when I mentioned Lakatos to him the other day.
that what we think of as science really only dates from the mid 19th c.
Yeah, what is up with that? He thinks no one was doing science until there were some kind of sharp disciplinary divisions? I can't say I'm very well-informed about the history of science but it's pretty clear there was something recognizably close to what we call science today happening in the 17th century if not earlier.
It is Penrose, yes, along with an anaestheologist whose name for the moment escapes me. But he has a position is somewhere in Arizona and his velocity is low.
126: yep. Quantum effects in microtubules!
Also, you know what, physics? "Dancing Wu Li Masters". There, I said it.
when I mentioned Lakatos to him the other day.
The guys in the Mario games who float around on clouds and drop spiny things, right?
128: he seems to be saying that humanities people did science until science stole it because mean.
along with an anaestheologist
Awesome.
I still remember Lakatos. Positivists, Kuhn, Lakatos, and a vague idea of what they all said. I don't know why I can't forget them.
it's pretty clear there was something recognizably close to what we call science today happening in the 17th century if not earlier.
No way. Eratosthenes was just guessing and shit.
Whenever any of them are mentioned, I just mumble something about social construction and leave.
Sometimes, I mutter "sophisticated methodological falsificationism," but that's gotten better with the medication.
Also, you know what, physics? "Dancing Wu Li Masters". There, I said it.
Aw, man. Did you have to go there?
121: Pinker's most recent book is his least egregious. In one of his earlier books, he basically argues that all of human-related sciences can be split up into the abominable relativists, who believe in the filled-with-straw Standard Social Science Model, and the heroic ev-psych and cognitive scientists, who have brought science back into social science.
132: I was once mugged by a scientist, so he has a point there.
re: 128
I guess you could argue that the boundaries between science and non-science were much more amorphous the further back you go, but still, yeah. I think the mid-19th c. cut-off is hard to defend.
re: 132
To be fair to him, I don't really think that's what he's saying. I think he's saying that the problem areas that scientists study have a history that predates what we'd think of as modern science, and that just because people were studying subject areas that we now think of as 'scientific' that doesn't mean you can claim them and their work for 'science'. At least that's one way of reading it [admittedly I'm skimming rather than trying to do some kind of close reading].
re: 127
Funnily enough, I've never read it. It's one of those gaps. Although I'm familiar with the broad general claims.
140: I couldn't get through that one. How The Mind Works has the same voice-of-certainty problem but sticks in large measure to reasonably plausible summaries of good research.
Stuart Hameroff. His velocity is now less certain.
I am sad to learn there is Pinker hatred going on without me.
143: How the Mind Works is the marijuana that's the gateway to the heroin of The Blank Slate. I read the first one, found it unobjectionable, which lured me to the second. Maybe it was really the candy to lure me into the van? I'm not sure. Some metaphor that expresses that it's bad.
Oh my god it pisses me right the fuck off when people act like idiots about the supposed "incorrect" use of "literally" seen in such phrases as "I was literally beside myself".
ttaM - Feyerabend is great: one of the few philosophers you really want to spend a lot of time talking with. A friend of mine, who claimed to have been the first man ever jailed for supplying acid when that became illegal in California, was a pupil of his (later) and tried to talk me into writing his biography.
I think he's saying that the problem areas that scientists study have a history that predates what we'd think of as modern science, and that just because people were studying subject areas that we now think of as 'scientific' that doesn't mean you can claim them and their work for 'science'.
I so read it. Or, Newton did what we call physics; he also did what we (and he) call alchemy. Insofar as he basically didn't distinguish between them as categories, he wasn't approaching the combined field scientifically.
Oh my god it pisses me right the fuck off when people act like idiots about the supposed "incorrect" use of "literally" seen in such phrases as "I was literally beside myself".
Obligatory XKCD trolling:
Insofar as he basically didn't distinguish between them as categories, he wasn't approaching the combined field scientifically.
Or he was, and he just didn't have the information yet for it to be clear that the assumptions underlying the work in alchemy were flawed. I mean, just because something is wrong doesn't mean it isn't science.
116: That's really awkward if you've been seeing the person around for five years and that person clearly knows your name.
That's why you make it very clearly a Dimbleby impression. Gesticulate with a pair of glasses if it helps.
148: But you can study alchemy scientifically and I would be surprised if Newton didn't do so. Just because work done centuries later makes the whole idea implausible doesn't mean that it couldn't have been studied scientifically.
re: 147
Like anyone who has studied a field for a long time, I have those odd gaps where there are books that by rights I should have read but somehow never got round to it [even though I've read a ton of other less important books in the same field].
So, Feyerabend is one, definitely.
I started a program recently to try and go back and fill gap now that I am no longer an academic. So, various individual works, but also entire areas/periods where I know sod all. It hasn't gone well so far, as I thought I'd start with the period leading from classical philosophy [after Plato and Aristotle] through to the Scholastic period. And the book(s) I bought were deadly dull.
152: Google says there's an old guy and his sons. We're talking about the old guy? I'll practice.
I mean, just because something is wrong doesn't mean it isn't science.
Magicians operating according to principles of association and contiguity were really the first scientists, they just had a lot of incorrect assumptions.
just because something is wrong doesn't mean it isn't science.
Some university needs to translate that into Latin and make it their motto.
He hosts Question Time, which is basically a political roundtable with audience participation. His job basically consists of coming up with reductive, but not offensive, ways of picking people out of a crowd.
I think it's, "tikai tāpēc, ka kaut kas nav kārtībā, nenozīmē, tas nav zinātne."
ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
161: sure, use Pinker's words against him.
159: "You there! The blackamoor of stately proportions!"
Question Time, which is basically a political roundtable with audience participation
In the same sense that Jerry Springer is basically a discussion programme focussing on social and family issues.
If I watch Question Time for more than five minutes, I find myself coming over all mcmanus.
164.last: at first I misread the order of "over" and "all" and was kind of horrified.
164: I used to like Any Questions okay. Maybe being on the radio makes it less dumb than the TV version. It took me a while to figure out that it wasn't one man named Dimbleby hosting both programs.
In the same sense that Jerry Springer is basically a discussion programme focussing on social and family issues.
Well, it wasn't meant to be a complimentary description.
Does Rudy Rucker count as one of the crackpot totalizing popularizers?
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Email from me to collaborator: "Oh, by the way, Nature requires a statement of what each author contributed to the paper. What do you think it should say?"
[crickets]
Collaborator, a few days later: "I was thinking it over and we should probably publish in Science."
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Science is fine with "Emotional Support and/or paying the salary of another co-author"?
It looks like they require authors to submit a statement but they don't actually publish it as part of the paper.
I never heard of it being published in the paper.
I've seen it, usually in fields where getting & analyzing the data are completely different full-time jobs. Alice climbed the mountains, Bob did the crystallography, Eve did the math.
175: I believe that PNAS actually does put a little note at the bottom of the first page saying "Smith performed the research, Smith and Jones analyzed the data, Jones wrote the paper" and such.
Nature appears to do it in every paper? At least, every recent one I've downloaded from their website to see what they do.
Collaborator has also insisted they must be the corresponding author because we will get more press attention that way.
It would be nice to manage to hack into the final typesetting process and rewrite the note: "Jones didn't do a damn thing, actually".
"Person Who Is Not An Author suggested the idea, Author 1 relayed the idea to Author 2, Author 2 did all the work and wrote the paper" presumably wouldn't go over well.
"Smith stole idea from colleague, Jones used seniority and political pressure to intimidate colleague into not complaining about it, Smith and Jones wrote the paper".
"Smith stole idea from colleague, Jones used seniority and political pressure to intimidate colleague into not complaining about it, Smith and Jones wrote the papersmells a bit, but 'as a heart o' gold."
You need more euphemisms, Abe. CoA helped conceptualize the project, CoB assisted in writing and data analysis, CoC participated in helpful discussions, CoD assisted in modeling studies, CoE coordinated resources, etc. I think the author statements are pretty common in biology (as are co-first authorships, which are another layer of bitchery).
"Jones was involved in translational applications of our method."
co-first authorships
Oh, I hadn't thought about this. I guess we're going by the alphabetical order which is completely standard in our field even though we're venturing into territory where everyone will misinterpret it to give me less credit. Whee....
"Funding was provided by the Society for Technology under an entirely different grant from which we misappropriated funds."
186, I have a friend who just went through an argument on who got to be the first listed co-first author. Poor guy had the later alphabetical surname but did the larger share of the work.
I fully recognize how maddening 172 must be to live with, but from a safe distance it's actually hilarious.
I am very glad to work in a setting where nobody's name goes on almost anything we publish. And when we do need a name, I just get permission from whatever colleague I'm ghostwriting for. Easy as pie.
(Now, if the colleague at another organization for whom I'm ghostwriting would just get back to me....)
187 is great, but this whole threadjack has me laughing out loud, which is kinda bad since I'm manning the reception desk here for the next 3 weeks.
Heh at 181.
I have a friend who works in a (human) science field whose every conversation consists almost entirely of complaints about people stealing authorship, blackmail involving research funding, the person who did all the work [everything, idea, research, analysis, the lot] being thanked in the acknowledgements but not even credited as author, etc.
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I now hate HR for an entirely different reason than people usually hate HR. But with a burning, fiery intensity nonetheless.
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186: give you less credit but assume you're more senior.
I forget if I talked about this under my pseud or not but my recent struggles with authorship (I was worried I was going to get bumped to a useless secondary author slot on my own damn project) have been resolved with the little bitchery of joint fist authorship. My name is second, and I won't be corresponding author, but eh, good enough.
Is there a graceful way to tell a client "I'm not going to use the language you suggest in my opening statement because it makes me sound like an asshole, and I think your interests may be better served if the finder of fact doesn't begin the day thinking that your attorney is an asshole?" Really, I'm looking out for him!
"Thank you for the suggestion. My experience suggests that the most effective approach is to begin by affirming what the judge got right...." or however it is you want to begin.
---
In other news, is it common practice for the New York Times to erase a winning plaintiff from their front-page write-up of a major court case? Their story on stop and frisk doesn't mention the Center for Constitutional Rights, which to me seems somewhere between tacky and shameful.
I actually already hemmed and hawed my way through the conversation -- I just wanted to complain about it.
what does co-first-authorship look like? How can an observer tell the difference between a first author who is listed second and a second author?
I can't tell if my field doesn't do this or if I am just oblivious/naïve.
Some people have strong feelings about this issue.
198: In irrelevant biolographical facts, I briefly dated the judge on that case's son in tenth grade. Broke up with him for no particularly good reason, and regretted it when in subsequent years his haircut improved.
It had been too short. Looked much better long enough so the curl showed.
200: the first two authors are starred and there is a note saying that they contributed equally.
I just googled, and he is at least balding. Not that there's anything at all wrong with that.
204: Oh, so that's what that means. I had wondered about it.
195: They left that part out in the AP reprint here! I considered posting it here but it lacked the cock-joke-ness.
(And, how is that not blatantly breaching the establishment clause? Surely a judge must be bright enough to know you can't say "I rule so because Jesus Christ is the LORD" and expect it to stand on that ground / surely it wouldn't stand?)
Huh. I really haven't paid that much attention. When I see stars or other little symbols by authors' names I assume it's because there's a list of affiliations underneath. Then I ignore the list of affiliations without looking to see if it's even there.
Some people really don't like it, per Messily's link, for good reasons, but it's a tough challenge to solve for interdisciplinary work where there are two or more parts that are equally vital and basically nonoverlapping, especially since first authorship is such a massive thing. Essear's field's alphabetical thing makes a lot of sense in some ways.
There are circumstances where the second-listed joint-first-authorship is just as useful, such as for instance grad programs where a dissertation is constructed from N first author papers. But listed first is listed first, and citations still follow the format Firstlisted et al.
Essear's field's alphabetical thing makes a lot of sense in some ways.
Somewhere on the internet I encountered a really nasty rant about how alphabetical author order is stupid and harmful and career-wrecking and antithetical to the very idea of science, or something like that. I should try to dig it up again, it was really special.
198: In other news, is it common practice for the New York Times to erase a winning plaintiff from their front-page write-up of a major court case?
From what I can tell, not much of the mainstream news coverage of the decision describes the actual case or its plaintiffs.
213: Prof. Zwicky gets really testy about it.
Aw, questions I can discuss and I'm too slow. Following 212, first author papers "count" more when you are being evaluated on your research (unless you are in a nice collegial field that lists alphabetically). Frex, in South Korea, publications are given point values when you apply for professorships, and only author is highest, corresponding is next highest, then first, then anything else.
213: I mean, in some ways it just displaces the senior collaborator shenanigans to a different stage of the process. But it does seem less stressful.
215: Yep, here's Prof. Zwicky being testy.
The main problem with alphabetical order is that it genuinely harms people with names later in the alphabet. Not only are there the obvious problems (the evil et al., people not paying attention past the first author or two, etc.), but some more subtle ones like having your name early in the alphabet means all your papers will be contiguous in bibliographies thereby making your influence appear greater.
Oh yeah, senior collaborator on this one: "I think I should be corresponding author because they might recognize my name and it might help us get in. Also, the journalists are more likely to call me."
One of my friends from graduate school is literally the last mathematician alphabetically in the history of the world (David Zyw|na).
nice collegial field that lists alphabetically
I've read enough of TFA to have my doubts.
people not paying attention past the first author or two, etc.
I just don't think this really happens if you're used to every author list being in alphabetical order.
Are there any fields that randomize the order of authors? That would be cool.
224: but very, very easy to game.
Unless it happened on the journal side, I guess.
Well, you'd have to make a big deal about it.
If any would, it would be statistics, but it doesn't.
The bit of research I've seen cited about there being an actual negative affect is this paper about economics which also publishes in alphabetical order. (Unsurprisingly, one of the authors name begins with a Y).
If anything, I think the bias with alphabetical order is toward senior co-authors. I have definitely caught myself referring to "Q's paper" when I know that A or Z did the majority of the work, just because Q is the more well-known name. And in my recent papers that were by something close to "E, L, Q, and S," some journalists wrote articles referring to it as "Q et al." or "Q and colleagues" and when one of them interviewed E the questions were all of the form "so, what is it like to work with Q?" and "how does Q come up with these great ideas?"
230: things tend to work that way in our field too, if there is a well-cited paper where one of the authors is the most famous; I know of papers that are constantly referred to as "Q's paper" when Q is third author or whatever; usually it came out of their lab, but I think not always.
198.last: I don't have it at hand, but I recall at least once being extremely pissed at them doing something similar with regard to ACORN*. But it may just be that I am remembering this editorial lauding the Justice Dept. for stepping up enforcement of motor-voter laws which contained this sentence, In addition, government offices are much more likely to provide reliable registrations than Acorn or other advocacy groups that were widely accused of fraudulent sign-ups in the last cycle but somehow neglected to mention the role that "Acorn[sic] and other advocacy groups" played in getting the law passed in the first place as well as forcing it to be even nominally enforced.
*Did you know the fucking fucks in the House still attach "none of these funds are to go to ACORN" clauses to bills?
I dunno that alphabetical order is really the culprit there. It seems quite common to hear a paper referred to as "by X's student" even if it's singly authored.
198.last, 232: Shorter NY Times.
1. Procedural liberalism.
2. ??
3. PROFIT JUSTICE!!
233: I don't know that alphabetical order is the culprit, I'm just saying this is a noticeable phenomenon but I've never noticed people being ignored just because of their position in the author list.
234.3: And of course the greatest justice of all is them and their ilk profiting because MERITOCRACY.
232.last: No, but I'm not surprised. Aren't they on their 40th vote to overturn Obamacare at this point?
237: HuffPo headline captures it House GOP Weighs Defunding ACORN In 13th Vote To Block Funds To Defunct Organization. So only 13, but bonus defunctness.
238. A wee bit obsessive they are. They (if Xian) probably believe in repeated baptisms too, just in case.
This just in, ACORN still defunct.
49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore.
I expect to get blamed for stuff after I don't exist, probably with some reason.
New small business idea, finding the right Klan for *you*!
You Must Be Christian - It makes me sick that Klan groups such as the UKA and the IKA allowed Atheists, Pagans and other Christ haters membership. Since 1915, the Klan has only allowed White Christians membership. If you aren't Christian, the New Empire Knights is not the Klan for you.
241: Like the faint musty odor coming from the crawlspace.
Acorns don't just disappear; they become trees. Oak trees. Oak trees of voter fraud. Black oak trees.
243: Speaking of which, there appears to be a dead animal in my wall.
Shh! Or everyone will want one!
I saw a really nasty spider earlier, and I think I killed it but I'm not sure. I didn't really want to kill a spider, but it was fast-moving and nimble, so yeesh creepy, so Windex. It scurried into a crevice, which I assailed with said Windex.
I think Windex just cured its pimples.
Oh gosh, I hope so. It had horrible arachne.
OT: People are sending me spam calendar appointments that pop up on my phone. The fuckers.
242: I'll be right back. In unrelated news, has anyone seen my stupid-white-trash-peckerwood-beating-gloves?
249: Oh no. Soon it will be back for revenge.
253: There is a simple gmail trick to turn off spam in your calendars. Set it not to show invitations to which you haven't responded.
Speaking of which, there appears to be a dead animal in my wall.
Oh, not again. For the fifth time, Blandings, that is a trophy head. It is not the head of a lion that attempted to chew its way through your wall but died when it had got part way. Go round the other side of the wall. Is there the rear half of a lion dangling out of the wall on that side? No? Well then.
257: Thanks. I don't know those features very well.
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So the fact that the new Doctor is an actor who already appeared on both Doctor Who and Torchwood demonstrates LB's notion that there really are only like 12 actors in the UK, right? The episode Fires of Pompeii -- which had both Karen Gillen and Peter Capaldi in it -- was so epic that it used the entire two-digit acting population of the UK.
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258: Keep telling yourself that, ajay. Animals can't eat through your wall. It's okay to go to sleep at night. Animals that eat through your wall aren't real. You're perfectly safe.
There are also only 12 people with law degrees in New York, as witnessed by 202.
Keep telling yourself that, ajay. Animals can't eat through your wall.
Well, no. They always die halfway through. I think it must be something in the plaster.
So the fact that the new Doctor is an actor who already appeared on both Doctor Who and Torchwood demonstrates LB's notion that there really are only like 12 actors in the UK, right?
If I remember correctly, LB's theory was actually that there were only about 20 people in the UK, all of whom spent their time appearing in BBC drama series or being Queen.
There was a time when every British actor had a credit on The Bill and/or Casualty.
Speaking of British actors, at Starbucks you can buy a cd of Hugh Laurie playing music. I'm not recommending you do so. Just indicating my surprise that the option exists.
Hugh Laurie's a pretty good musician. That was him playing the piano in "Jeeves and Wooster", and there's the Musical Cocktails in "A Bit of Fry and Laurie"....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8WaPX0tQQE
I don't specifically recommend against it either.
If I remember correctly, LB's theory was actually that there were only about 20 people in the UK, all of whom spent their time appearing in BBC drama series or being Queen.
And commenting on unfogged.
Er, sanctity of off-blog garden parties there, teraz.
Following up on 172, Science rejected the paper without sending it out for review as "better suited for a specialist journal". We have no idea what kind of journal would be appropriate for this other than a general-interest one.
(It also confuses me because when I look at papers in Science or Nature I see huge amounts of jargon-laden biology with no attempt at accessibility to people with backgrounds in the physical sciences.)
Are you from the field where they smash things together and label the results with helpful, clear terms that can't be confused with anything else like "up" and "strange"?
Following up on 172, Science rejected the paper without sending it out for review as "better suited for a specialist journal".
I believe this is what they do with nearly everything.
273: Maybe, and maybe in this case the things that were smashing together were more like the Earth and giant chunks of rock.
And maybe at this point presidentiality isn't doing a damn thing for me in this thread.
275: if you got off your ass and operationalized this plan, you might get more attention.
277: Make an agreement with your collaborator beforehand about who delivers the threatening message to the UN, how much you demand, and who gets what.
