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Thread: SCIENCE-NEWS for Commoner.

  1. #11
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    Links two artcles

    There are a couple of interesting artcles in The Guardian today. The first is about the difficulty of engaging the public in science debates:
    http://education.guardian.co.uk/high...501271,00.html
    The author says:
    "Democracy is about informed choice, but science is now so vast and complex, that no single individual could ever be well enough informed to make this level of dialogue feasible. "...
    "Of course there are plenty of issues involving science that are worthy of public discussion and debate: the ethics of embryo research, the risks of nuclear powers versus its benefits for climate change, the possible environmental and health implications of GM crops - the list is endless.

    But scientists are too busy discovering hard fact to inform debate in all these controversial areas. Many of us are frustrated - not because no one is listening to our opinions - but because public debate is occurring but no one is listening to the facts. "
    On the otherhand, I find that many scientists are too specislised and often do not have the overall perspective to discuss on public issues (just take a survey on how many scientists know the difference between DNA and RNA).
    The other artcle is about the evolutionary role of the difference between male anf female orgasms:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/scien...501314,00.html

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  3. #12
    Moderator Veteran Hubber Badri's Avatar
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    Re: Simpson's Paradox

    Quote Originally Posted by gaddeswarup
    After ten years, they found to their horror that even though they increased the proportion of women in every category, in the total academic staff the proprtion of women decreased.
    Once one knows this, anybody can work out examples to see that this can happen. So, it seems that one has to be careful with some claims of supposed statistics in newspapers. You can find more examples by google search.

    Swarup
    I didnt quite follow this? How does that happen?
    When we stop labouring under the delusion of our cosmic self-importance, we are free of hindrance, fear, worry and attachment. We are liberated!!!

  4. #13
    Senior Member Senior Hubber nirosha sen's Avatar
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    i wonder if it's due to a high turnover of female employees?????!!!
    Demand a broader view - BBC

  5. #14
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    Scientists confess their experimental sins
    11 June 2005
    From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
    TO SEEK the truth about life, the universe and everything - the lofty goals of science. But it seems scientists cut corners just as much as the rest of us.

    Questionnaires returned by 3247 researchers for the US National Institutes of Health reveal that bad behaviour is rife. A third confessed to at least one of the top 10 "sins" listed.

    Although less than 2 per cent owned up to fraud, falsification or plagiarism, less serious misdeeds were widespread: 15.5 per cent admitted changing the design, methodology or results of a study to suit a sponsor, and 6 per cent admitted suppressing data. More than a quarter owned up to inadequate record keeping, and 10 per cent confessed to inappropriately giving credit to an author (Nature, vol 435, p 737).

    "Mostly, we're not talking about fraud," says Brian Martinson of the HealthPartners Research Foundation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which conducted the survey. "The kinds of behaviours we were observing are more corrosive than explosive."

  6. #15
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    I didnt quite follow this? How does that happen?
    _________________
    Cheers
    Badri
    Sorry, I am moving around and do not have time to work out examples. If you google for" Simpson's Paradox', you will see many examples, for example:
    http://exploringdata.cqu.edu.au/sim_...501763,00.html
    about the batting averages of Waugh brothers. I will be back in Melbourne after July 7 and can work out some examples if still necessary.
    swarup

  7. #16
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    Sri Badri,
    sorry for my laziness. Here is a simple example sent by Sreenath Jonnavithula after my posting in Telugudanam:

    "This paradox might be lurking in many popular presentations of statistics, *and it seems that unless we're careful,*these can be very misleading.
    *
    A simple numerical example (which I found with a quick google search) shows the issue:
    *
    Say a company tests two treatments for an illness. In trial No. 1, treatment A cures 20% of its cases (40 out of 200) and treatment B cures 15% of its cases (30 out of 200). In trial No. 2, treatment A cures 85% of its cases (85 out of 100) and treatment B cures 75% of its cases (300 out of 400)....
    So, in two trials, treatment A scored 20% and 85%. Also in two trials, treatment B scored only 15% and 75%. So treatment A (at 20% and 85%) is surely better than treatment B (at 15% and 75%), right?
    Wrong! Treatment B performed better. It cured 330 (300+30) out of the 600 cases, or 55%;* Treatment A cured only 70 out of 400, or a miserable 17.5%."
    Regards,
    Swarup

  8. #17
    Moderator Veteran Hubber Badri's Avatar
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    Thanks sir...now I got the drift!
    When we stop labouring under the delusion of our cosmic self-importance, we are free of hindrance, fear, worry and attachment. We are liberated!!!

  9. #18
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    Watering Plants

    Again a half baked post from me but it seems to be a useful topic and I hope that somebody can dig up more. I once saw on Australian ABC midday agriculture programme on a weekend that Australian scientists were developing a technique to save water while watering some orchards. They found that they could trick the plants by watering only on one side at a time (and on the other side the next time) and saved about 30-40 percent on water consumption.
    Swarup

  10. #19
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    Sleep patterns in children and adults

    Saw it in the news today:
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050610/...s_dc&printer=1
    I enclose a few excerpts from
    "Lack of sleep can affect teen athletic performance ":
    "These well-rested youngsters are generally known to function at their best early in the day, rather than in the late afternoon or evening. However, as children grow older and begin to get involved in clubs, community service and other extracurricular activities, or part-time employment, they may experience disruptions in their normal sleeping patterns.

    "The system that's regulating and controlling sleep changes during an adolescent's development," Carskadon said. "As kids go through adolescence, the timing of sleep and all biological processes seem to push later," she explained.

    Adolescents may go to sleep later than they did in previous years, while still waking early in the morning, thus getting less sleep, despite their need for the same number of hours of sleep. Thus, "young people live in a nearly constant state of chronic insufficient sleep," Carskadon writes.

    Adolescents, therefore, generally perform their worst in the morning, when their brain is still craving sleep, and perk up later in the day, according to the researcher.

    As sports teams travel across time zones, sleep issues "become exaggerated," she said."
    Swarup

  11. #20
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    Query

    I heard that recently some group (could be a chapter of AID India) have started writing elementary science books for primary school children in Tamil to promote science. Does anybody know more about this?
    Swarup

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