Claims not Truths

Here is an excellent article by Nicholas Wade at the NYT about the differences between textbook science and frontier science, while discussing the issue of Dr. Hwang. I particularly like the concluding paragraph:

“Tightening up the reviewing system may remove some faults but will not erase the inescapable gap between textbook science and frontier science.

The Mindlog Part II, Entering the Blogosphere.

So I’ve decided to start a weblog. The weblog, or blog for short, has had a shaky beginning. This is largely because of the stereotype that blog authors are just bored and lonely technophiles who have nothing to say but are telling people they have never met what they had for breakfast, featuring a live mood-indicator. Or perhaps you’ve thought of them as places where angry people vent their grammatically poor, factually atrocious, and ethically mal-adjusted personal views hoping that someone will subscribe to their drivel. Finally, perhaps you heard warnings about blogs through the print, radio, or television media during political campaigns as having posted dubious information and so-called anonymous ‘expert analyses’ about candidates or political issues. Yes, they can be used for that, just like the print media has its tabloids, television has its trash, and even radio has its idiotic ideologues.

But blogs as a delivery system for information have far more potential than people may yet realize.

The Mindlog Part I: A Mind Inoculated.

Greetings and Hallucinations. And welcome to The Inoculated Mind. This is the first post of a great many to come on the Mindlog, my own little place for opining on the fuzziest of scientific frontiers and teaching about the solid foundations central to scientific pursuits.

The Scientific Life.

I have a passion for science, the methodology used around the world for “chipping away at the block of ignorance,” as physical chemist Peter Atkins would put it. The scientific method is the same wherever you go, no matter how politicians in Kansas vote every four years or so, and so the scientific community is perhaps the closest thing we have to a universal community worldwide. Scientists may speak English, Chinese, Spanish, French, German, and Hindi, and that’s just one lab, but they think in terms of enzymes and substrates. Or three-letter codon triplets as in DNA, radioisotopes and silicates and microfractures, or perhaps as physicists they think in terms of the four fundamental forces of nature.

Scientists come from every political and religious flavor, and every cultural and socio-economic background, and thus come with innumerable biases and agendas. But what makes science more than just an exercise in convincing other people of your own predisposition is

Tweaking and Testing

In the future, this will be my weblog, continuing the same coverage of science news, concepts, and issues that I’ve been doing in print media for the past three years. Combined with the Mindcast, this new “Mindlog” will aim to inject discussion and understanding of science into the public.Currently, the Mindlog is undergoing tweaking and testing, as I will be setting it up to suit my needs and style. Okay, so it didn’t launch on the winter solstice, it will instead launch on Sunday, January 15, 2006.
Karl J. Mogel