Science on Faith: What do you believe?

In her recent speech accepting the Democratic Party nomination for the office of President of the United States, Secretary of State Clinton said the following:

I believe in science. I believe that climate change is real and that we can save our planet while creating millions of good-paying clean energy jobs.

Part of me was happy to hear these words. On the one hand, it's refreshing to hear a politician state so succinctly what I have understood for a long time, and putting it into a pithy phrase that carries the solution as well as a statement of the problem was a real speechmaking coup.  But the use of "believe in" is, in some ways, troubling.  I don't want Secretary Clinton to have to take, on faith, that climate change is "real." I want her to understand it and be able to explain it at a level that the population can take away the main points, which are:

1. We rely on the absorption of radiant energy from the sun to make the earth habitable. Some water and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is necessary for this.
2. Certain molecules - including water, carbon dioxide, and methane - have, by their very nature, the capacity to absorb radiation from the sun in a way that others - including oxygen and nitrogen - do not.
3. At present, owing to our reliance on fossil fuels, there is too much carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and at our current rate of fossil fuel use, our best models suggest that this will continue to rise. We must find another way to generate electricity that doesn't lead to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
4. Fracking, which also unfortunately leads to increased methane leakage during extraction, is not a good solution as it leads to an environmental "double-whammy" of (a) when you burn natural gas you still get carbon dioxide and (b) methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.  

Of course, I don't expect Secretary Clinton to understand electromagnetic radiation, heat capacity or, for that matter, how carbon dioxide is different from, say, oxygen.  Nor do I expect her to be able to explain how the computer models - which have shown to be remarkably accurate - work.  I don't expect her to understand quantum mechanics, applied spectroscopy, or anything beyond a few relatively simple ideas.  These don't require "belief" or, even, excessive time spent in science classes.  I expect only a critical mind, one which has served Secretary Clinton extremely well as she went to Law School, worked on health care reform, became a Senator and later, Secretary of State.

In many ways, the economy of the United States is much more complex than the problem of climate change but this doesn't stop politicians from claiming mastery of it and insisting on their prescriptions (which often take the form of calls for lower taxes).  I don't need to have a masters in economics to understand the idea behind the phrase describing some banks as "too big to fail."

But scientists have explained, ad nauseam, how climate change "works" and how their results have been self-consistent – over 97% of peer-reviewed papers by climate scientists are coming to the same conclusions – for years.  97%? When, in life, its there such consensus? I wonder, sometimes, if politicians are expecting miracles instead of results.  So, no, I'm not looking for "belief" or "faith."  If there are senators out there who don't "get it," there are a lot of scientists out there who are ready to take on all of your questions.  Just ask.

What, then, is faith in the context of science?  For me, it's not a "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1, if you're keeping track). I think it's a confidence that if I do my experiments correctly and analyze the results carefully, I may develop generalizable knowledge about the world. Faith, then, is my belief that the answer is out there and, if I keep at it long enough, I'll find it.  And if not, I'll try another experiment and tackle the problem differently.

Where are the science experts?

When you have questions about health and science, some people go to the internet while others, like my brother-in-law, call me.  I used to think he wanted to know the answers to the questions (what are stem cells and why are they important?) but, lately, I have been thinking that he wants to keep me from getting bored during the holidays.  Am I dull?  Really?  Save that thought…

What happens when the President or the Congress have questions about science?  I mean, surely they have must have questions.  Don’t get me wrong, President Obama (B.A. Columbia University, J.D. Harvard University) is pretty bright and a number congressmen and women have advanced degrees but do they know about the way the ozone hole works?  Or what the differences are between adult and embryonic stem cells.  What do they know about climate change, or greenhouse gases?  Do they know why CO₂ is a greenhouse gas and why N₂ is not?  Are they scared of bisphenol A?  Where do they go for help?  What about judges who are often asked to evaluate arguments of a scientific nature (do breast implants adversely affect human health?).

Established by President Lincoln in 1963, the U.S. National Academies today includes the National Academy of Sciences (or just NAS) the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the National Research Council (NRC).  The legislation introduced by Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts set forth – in my opinion sensibly - the following principles:

[T]he Academy shall, whenever called upon by any department of the Government, investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art, the actual expense of such investigations, examinations, experiments, and reports to be paid from appropriations which may be made for the purpose, but the Academy shall receive no compensation whatever for any services to the Government of the United States.

—An Act to Incorporate the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)  

Initially, the academy was stocked, kind of like a trout pond, with 50 members and, later, members (like Spencer Baird, American icthyologist) were added by a nomination and election of current members.  Today, about 2,000 scientists, doctors, and engineers are members of this elite institution.  How elite?  About 200 Nobel prizes have been awarded to Academy members.  Membership doesn’t pave the way for a Nobel Prize any more than winning a Screen Actors Guild award leads to an Oscar.  Both the Nobel committee and the Academy are looking for the brightest minds to help advise the World, the President and the Congress to help them solve the big problems of our time.  In 1916, when the National Research Council (NRC) was added, that “problem,” for which the nations needs were greater than the NAS and NAE (established in 1864) could accommodate, was the [first] World War.  

I love going to the National Academy of Science web site (www.nas.edu) and looking at reports that address issues of research in biotechnology, medicine, education, and natural resources.  While somewhat longer than the brief snippets that get out to the popular press, many are written in very accessible language. There are 600 “projects” under investigation today, spanning Agriculture (Sustainable Development of Algal Biofuels) to Biodiversity (A to B?).  In the area of nuclear security, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wanted to use new radiation detectors to screen cargo containers for nuclear/radiological material at US ports and border crossings, so Congress told DHS to ask the NRC to advise them on testing, analysis, costs, and benefits.  One neat side effect is that the results of all these Congressional “homework assignments” is a report that you can buy (for the bound copy) or download for… wait for it… free!

The NAS, NAE, and IOM also publishes (along with the University of Texas at Dallas) a monthly magazine Issues in Science and Technology that you can read online.

Don’t like reports?  Magazines?  The National Academies feel your pain.  They’ve also got lots of informative booklets (most of which can be downloaded for free) on a number of critically important topics like:

What You Need to Know About Energy

Understanding and Responding to Climate Change

Understanding Stem Cells: An Overview of the Science and Issues from the National Academies 

Understanding Our Microbial Planet: The New Science of Metagenomics 

The Science of Restoring the Everglades

Critical Issues in Transportation 

Drinking Water: Understanding the Science and Policy Behind a Critical Resource 

New Horizons in Plant Sciences

More information on publications of the National Academies can be found at http://www.nationalacademies.org/publications/

The legislature and the President had the wisdom to establish the National Academies.  They knew that the problems facing the nation were too big and complex for legislators to solve them alone, and in one sweeping step, they harnessed the energy of the best and brightest minds to study, explain, and help us to tackle them.  


Update: The FBI asked the NAS to evaluate their scientific investigation of the anthrax letters from 2001. In their report, which was peer-reviewed - a critical step in good science - before its release on February 15th, the NAS commended the FBI for drawing on the expertise of government and private-sector in building a novel Anthrax repository but suggested that recently-developed techniques could have increased the strength of their conclusions.  I have oversimplified the extensive investigation that the NAS conducted.  For more information on this, check out the report.

Ready, Set, Communicate!

At times, I have lamented what I think is the reluctance of scientists to weigh in on matters of science policy and the fact that the void left by this reluctance is too readily filled by charlatans promoting policies without a scientific foundation.  Yet there are numerous ways that science is available for public consumption. Here are some of the resources that are worth your time: Science News chronicles, in brief read-it-while-you’re-waiting-for the-next-train-format, little snippets highlighting science across a broad spectrum of areas. A brief sampling of today’s listings include stories on invisibility cloaks, transforming skin cells into heart cells, the positive effects of aerobic exercise on memory and the dark side of a “love” hormone. 

The American Chemical Society, in celebration of the International Year of Chemistry (IYC2011) has posted daily science tidbits to capture your imagination. The site boasts links to interesting and short articles about energy, the environment, health and materials.  For example, a few days ago, they focused on the ozone later (SPOILER ALERT: if the ozone layer goes away, you’ll have to wear sun-bloc with SPF 10,000!).  And you can read ahead and see that June 8^th will highlight the critical issue of nuclear waste storage and disposal. 

The journal Nature, in addition to their chemistry blog from the editors of Nature Chemistry  has also added a special section to celebrate IYC2011. 

The American Association for the Advancement of Science publishes a daily news section with short, interesting tidbits across the entire scientific spectrum (OK, if visible light goes from Red to Violet, what is the spectrum of science?  Would philosophy be on the left or the right?).  As an example a recent article focused on how tree leaves can fight pollution.  Apparently, when trees are stressed by increased ozone, their capacity to absorb pollution from cars is also increased.  Ozone absorbed by trees?  But I thought ozone was in the stratosphere.  Actually, ozone, although the same molecule in each location is often referred to as “bad” when it occurs in the troposphere (where we live) and “good” when it occurs in the stratosphere (where it shields us from ultra-violet light).  As elaborated on the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) web site, tropospheric ozone is formed when sunlight shines on a mixture of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds.  This is sometimes referred to as "photochemical smog." These chemicals that fuel the fog come from vehicle exhaust, industrial emissions and gasoline vapors.  There are natural sources too: ozone is formed during electric discharge (it is the acrid smell around electric motors) and during lightning strikes. 

I remain convinced that there is a wealth of science out there for the taking.  Not only will you impress your friends with these tidbits, but you'll help them to see the value of science to health, the environment, and society.  Enjoy!  And if you know of interesting science-related web sites, feel free to post a link in the “comments” section and I’ll add it to this column.

Update: Many newspapers and magazines also have special weekly sections dedicated to science, including The New York Times (Science Times), The Washington Post (Science News), and The Economist (Science & Technology).

Chemistry is all around

If you don’t think that chemistry is everywhere, consider the following news items from the past few days:

Oil dispersant still remains in Gulf – January 26^th

In a study released yesterday by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, researchers looked for evidence of sodium dioctylsodiumsulfosuccinate (DOSS), the dispersant used to break up the oil spill at Deep Horizon last year.  DOSS is a major component of the mixture, called Corexit, that is a common dispersant used for oil cleanups, and manufactured by Nalco.  In addition to DOSS, Corexit contains 2-butoxyethanol and propylene glycol.  Do you need a degree in organic chemistry to follow what’s going on?  Not really.  The key to the chemistry behind dispersion derives from the fact that water and oil are immiscible (look at a bottle of oil and vinegar salad dressing some time…) because, while the bonds in water (O–H) are polar, the bonds in oil (C–H) are not.  The adage “like dissolves like” comes into play here: polar or ionic substances will dissolve more readily in polar solvents; non-polar substances dissolve more readily in non-polar solvents.  At any rate, this is where surfactants come in.  Surfactants tend to be long chain molecules with a hydrophilic (“water loving”) section containing a charged – or at least polar – group that is miscible with water, and a non-polar hydrophobic ("water fearing") section that is miscible with oil.  The combination of these two features allows surfactants to break up large oil samples into small microscopic droplets.  Bacteria have an easier time metabolizing small droplets (yes there are bacteria that can live off oil!) and dispersing the oil slick is a critical first step in remediation.  That there is still some DOSS in the ocean is important, as it appears not to have undergone biodegradation.  That said, the quantities of DOSS measured are approximately 1/1000^th of what would be considered toxic.  Whether these concentrations will have a deleterious impact on the Gulf ecosystem remains to be seen.

State of the Union Address – January 25^th     

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama called for the following science initiatives:

1. Put 1,000,000 Electric Cars on US highways in 5 years.
2. Obtain 80% of our energy from “clean” sources in 35 years.
3. Establish eight "Blue-Sky" research centers.
4. Train 100,000 science teachers 

Of course, these items are are related.  A division of the Department of Energy called ARPA-E is interested in funding 8 centers for research into our energy future, each with a price tag of about $25 million dollars.  The DOE believe that an infusion of $$ into the academic and national laboratories of the best and brightest offers attractive prospects for addressing our future energy needs.  25 million dollars sounds like a lot of money, but it is only a fraction of the money that we currently spend on oil.  Given that the supply of oil on the earth is finite, it is only logical that we should pursue other means of energy generation (solar, nuclear, biomass, etc.) and hopefully, the ARPA-E centers will usher in a new wave of innovation.  In case you didn’t know, in a 40-ish gallon barrel of oil, we burn about 87% to move cars and trucks around on highways and to heat our homes, leaving only 1 ¼ gallons of oil left to make things.  When the price of oil goes up, gasoline prices go up to, but so do the prices of everything else that is made from oil-based sources (plastic, for instance).  And, owing to increased pressure on our oil supply, these prices can only continue to go up.  Research in energy will make it possible to build better electric cars as well as the electric grid to charge them efficiently.  Science teachers will make it possible for the next generation of scientists to be ready for the challenges that they will face.

As I wrote in an earlier blog (Parents matter in science education), we’re in a tough spot when it comes to the level of preparation of science students (only 2% of high school students nationwide were found to be “advanced” in their preparation of science).  Some have argued that the focus of testing on reading and math, to the exclusion of science, has contributed to this deficiency.  Whatever the cause, we have to turn that number around.

International Year of Chemistry - January 1^st 

In case you weren’t already aware, 2011 has been declared the “International Year of Chemistry” which is, in my opinion, totally cool.  There are a wide array of sources with interesting tidbits but, for starters, go to the IYC web site for links to upcoming events and history.  But that’s not all: there are pages from other scientific societies and publishers like the American Chemical Society and the journal Nature that are chock full of chemistry nuggets.  For example, the ACS web site identifies January 23^rd, 2011 the date (in 1911) that Marie Curie was denied membership to the men-only French Academy of Sciences (this was after she had received her 1^st Nobel Prize).  I recently read a wonderful biography of Dr. Curie written by Barbara Goldsmith (Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie, Norton, 2004), recommend it highly, and I will likely devote a future blog to the Curie family and their contributions to nuclear chemistry.

There is much to enjoy and discover in chemistry, if not in science.  I hope you will enjoy the journey.

Why scientists should care about scientific literacy among the general public

Our nation faces the daunting, politically messy task of guiding our country through the shoals of decreasingly available natural resources, sometimes conflicting corporate interests, responsibility for environmental stewardship, and the need to prepare the workforce for a future that will depend on scientific understanding.  In the face of these challenges, we need scientists to take up the challenge and talk to friends, neighbors, legislators, coffee baristas, etc., about what they do and why.  

Make no mistake:  Science is important!  Science provides the foundation for improving and maintaining human health, expanding technological innovation, and understanding humanity’s impact on the environment, with broad implications for domestic and international policy debates.  Science provides the tools for developing new drugs, quantifying with increasing accuracy the details of the natural world and for discovering and evaluating new technologies to secure our energy future.  

Unfortunately, there is a lack of understanding of the science behind critical decisions we face, and scientists have been reluctant to engage in national debates where they are sorely needed, leaving a void that has been exploited to the detriment of, most notably, the environment, human health, and our secure energy future.  They are at times rightly criticized for being poor diplomats of their field for the lay audience (Harold Varmus’ recent political biography, The Art and Politics of Science, is a worthy counterexample), but research is not a part-time job and with financial support for basic science becoming more competitive, scientists are under increasing financial pressure to keep their labs running.  Yet the need for scientist-politicians is more acute in these hyperpartisan times where careful, verifiable inquiry is undermined in a 24 hour news cycle by opponents who know (or should know) better.  Science, dismissed as uninteresting or incomprehensible, is surely hurt by this exchange, but so are the public, the economy, and our environment.  

It is more important than ever that scientists add their voice and experience in matters where science matters.  As Victor Laslo said in Casablanca, "[Come] back to the fight.  This time I know our side will win."