Corante: technology, business, media, law, and culture news from the blogosphere
OUR PUBLICATIONS:
Corante is a trusted, unbiased source on technology, business, law, science, and culture that’s authored by leading commentators and thinkers in their respective fields. Corante also produces premium conferences and publications that help decision-makers better understand their industries and the world around them.
Corante Blogs
Corante Blogs examine, through the eyes of leading observers, analysts, thinkers, and doers, critical themes and memes in technology, business, law, science, and culture.
Vin Crosbie, on the challenges, financial and otherwise, that newspaper publishers are facing: "The real problem, Mr. Newspaperman, isn't that your content isn't online or isn't online with multimedia. It's your content. Specifically, it's what you report, which stories you publish, and how you publish them to people, who, by the way, have very different individual interests. The problem is the content you're giving them, stupid; not the platform its on."
by Vin Crosbie in Rebuilding Media
There's a problem in the drug industry that people have recognized for some years, but we're not that much closer to dealing with it than we were then. We keep coming up with these technologies and techniques which seem as if they might be able to help us with some of our nastiest problems - I'm talking about genomics in all its guises, and metabolic profiling, and naturally the various high-throughput screening platforms, and others. But whether these are helping or not (and opinions sure do vary), one thing that they all have in common is that they generate enormous heaps of data.
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Now that the Web labor market is saturated and Web design a static profession, it's not surprising that 'user experience' designers and researchers who've spent their careers online are looking for new worlds to conquer. Some are returning to the “old media” as directors and producers. More are now doing offline consulting (service experience design, social policy design, exhibition design, and so on) under the 'user experience' aegis. They argue that the lessons they've learned on the Web can be applied to phenomena in the physical and social worlds. But there are enormous differences...
by Bob Jacobson in Total Experience
Clay Shirky, in deconstructing Second Life hype: "Second Life is heading towards two million users. Except it isn’t, really... I suspect Second Life is largely a 'Try Me' virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use."
by Clay Shirky in Many-to-Many
Over the last few years we've seen old barriers to creativity coming down, one after the other. New technologies and services makes it trivial to publish text, whether by blog or by print-on-demand. Digital photography has democratised a previously expensive hobby. And we're seeing the barriers to movie-making crumble, with affordable high-quality cameras and video hosting provided by YouTube or Google Video and their ilk... Music making has long been easy for anyone to engage in, but technology has made high-quality recording possible without specialised equipment, and the internet has revolutionised distribution, drastically disintermediating the music industry... What's left? Software maybe? Or maybe not."
by Suw Charman in Strange Attractor
Derek Lowe on the news that the Nobel Prize for medicine has gone to Craig Mello and Andrew Fire for their breakthrough work: "RNA interference is probably going to have a long climb before it starts curing many diseases, because many of those problems are even tougher than usual in its case. That doesn't take away from the discovery, though, any more than the complications of off-target effects take away from it when you talk about RNAi's research uses in cell culture. The fact that RNA interference is trickier than it first looked, in vivo or in vitro, is only to be expected. What breakthrough isn't?"
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Andrew Phelps: "Recently my WoW guild has been having a bit of a debate on the merits of Player-vs.-Player (PvP) within Azeroth. My personal opinion on this is that PvP has its merits, and can be incredible fun, but the system within WoW is horridly, horribly broken. It takes into account the concept of the battle, but battle without consequence, without emotive context, and most importantly, without honor..."
From later in the piece: "When I talk about this with people (thus far anyway) I typically get one of two responses, either 'yeah, right on!' or 'hey, it’s war, and war isn’t honorable – grow the hell up'. There is a lot to be said for that argument – but the problem is that war in the real historical world has very different constraints that are utterly absent from fantasized worlds..."
by Andrew Phelps in Got Game
Derek Lowe: "So, you're developing a drug candidate. You've settled on what looks like a good compound - it has the activity you want in your mouse model of the disease, it's not too hard to make, and it's not toxic. Everything looks fine. Except. . .one slight problem. Although the compound has good blood levels in the mouse and in the dog, in rats it's terrible. For some reason, it just doesn't get up there. Probably some foul metabolic pathway peculiar to rats (whose innards are adapted, after all, for dealing with every kind of garbage that comes along). So, is this a problem?.."
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Bob Jacobson, on shopping at his local Albertsons supermarket where he had "one of the worst customer experiences" of his life: "Say what you will about the Safeway chain or the Birkenstock billionaires who charge through the roof for Whole Foods' organic fare, they know how to create shopping environments that create a more pleasurable experience, at its best (as at Whole Foods) quite enjoyable. Even the warehouses like Costco and its smaller counterpart, Smart & Final, do just fine: they have no pretentions, but neither do they dump virtual garbage on the consumer merely to create another trivial revenue stream, all for the sake of promotions in the marketing department..."
by Strange Attractor in Total Experience
Kevin Anderson: "First off, I want to say that I really admire the ambition of the Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free. It is one of the boldest statements made by any media company that participation needs to be central to a radical revamp of traditional content strategies... It is, therfore, not hugely surprising to find that Comment is Free is having a few teething troubles..."
by Kevin Anderson in strange
Corante Developments
Here you will find the latest news from Corante including updates on upcoming events, new initiatives, product and publication launches, and more.
It was with shock that I returned home from a night out last night to hear the news of Russell's passing. How terribly, terribly sad. Most of all for him, as he'd seemed buoyant, healthier, and content when I'd last seen him several months ago when he was in town - he was happy that work was busy and rewarding and was having fun with it but most of all was thrilled about how things were going with his girlfriend, Ellen.
I've known Russ for what seems like ages now (in a good way) though in fact it's only been about six or seven years since the early days of "commercial" blogging when he started working on various projects at and around Corante. He was a diligent, committed, and prolific journalist who had impressively and more ably than others been able to make the transition from the old-school way of doing things to the new. He had his quirks, as we all do, but I greatly valued that he was good-natured, collegial, reliable, quick to adopt, trustworthy, eager to learn, and earnest in his interest in helping others better understand what he wrote about.
He was also, it should be said, a kind and thoughtful soul and it was the rare conversation in which he didn't ask, with sincerity, about what he knew of my life, e.g. our new babe, and we didn't talk as seemingly old friends about our lives and respective paths. I can't say I knew him very well, of course, but in our half-dozen get-togethers over the years and dozens of conversations I got a good sense of the man: he cared about learning and sharing and his bearing was earnest and ego-less and we'll miss him for that and more.
We wanted to let you know about a discount to New Comm Forum, the annual event event put on by our friends at the Society for New Communications Research. The conference, which runs from April 22-25, will feature many of the field's leading observers and is an important event for those looking, in the words of SNCR, to "better understand new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, culture and society."
Check out the event's website and, if you're interested in attending, be sure to use the code supplied below for a special discount.
EARLY BIRD PRICING - NOW UNTIL FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $995.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $195.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
REGULAR PRICING - AFTER FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $1095.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $249.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
CORANTE READER DISCOUNTS
NewComm Forum Conference - save an additional $100
Use discount code: NCF08100
Pre-conference or post-conference session - save an additional $45.
Use discount code: NCF0845
We've been remiss in letting you know about two new independent blogs we've helped launch in the past month or so.
The first - the ConversationHub - is a companion blog to Supernova 2007, the latest edition of Kevin Werbach's excellent conference on all things connected. As the conference site says: "Supernova examines the effects of an increasingly connected world on business, life, and public policy. As disparate physical and social networks link with one another, a new societal network is rapidly evolving... The New Network is greater than the sum of its parts. It challenges us to re-create everything from the software and hardware we use...to the business models we employ...to the information and entertainment we encounter...to the ways we work and play."
Visit the ConversationHub and you'll find several dozen leading thinkers and doers, led by a few notable ringleaders, weighing in on the themes and trends of the day in technology and business. We encourage you to tune in - feel free to comment and even suggest topics and ideas for posts.
The second blog - Mobile Messaging 2.0 - convenes about a dozen top observers of the mobile messaging space for an intense discussion of the industry and where it's headed. Among its contributors are leading commentators, journalists and players in the field - tune in and you'll find them touching on topics such as mobile device design, messaging platforms, market pressures, user-generated content, interface design, and much, much more.
Also, if you visit the site, which is sponsored by Airwide Solutions, this week, you'll find live coverage and commentary from Global Messaging 2007, to which several of our contributors have traveled to hear about the latest developments from a broad spectrum of the industry's players and providers.
Be sure to catch the Office 2.0 Conference and hear from and engage with leading thinkers and doers in this exciting new market. Find out more here and be sure to use the code "GLDRK" for a special discount for Corante readers.
In the Pipeline: Don't miss Derek Lowe's excellent commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry in general at In the Pipeline
The Big Fact-Check: Thoughts On the Day After Dover
Posted by Carl Zimmer
When Judge John E. Jones III issued his decision in the Dover creationism trial on Tuesday, I downloaded the document with a vague sense of dread. It wasn't just that the decision was 139 pages long. I knew that Judge Jones had ruled that teaching intelligent design was unconstitutional, but I was worried that he might have accepted that it was anything but a warmed-over form of creationism.
Months of media coverage of the trial had nurtured my dread. Again and again, reporters felt an obligation to give "equal time" to intelligent design advocates, without feeling an equal obligation to fact-check the claims that the advocates were throwing out. I assumed Judge Jones would follow suit.
Once I started reading the decision, I realized I couldn't have been more wrong.
Judge Jones did not take the claims of intelligent design advocates at face value. They declared that intelligent design was not creationism. But he followed the long paper trail that linked creation scientists to the emergence of intelligent design in the 1980s. The Dover school board had its students to read the book "Of Pandas and People" to learn about intelligent design. Judge Jones observed that in the original draft of the book, the authors had used "creationism" and similar terms 150 times. In the final version, they had turned into "intelligent design."
The intelligent design advocates claimed that it was a serious field of scientific inquiry. In fact, Judge Jones wrote, intelligent design "has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research." Intelligent design advocates have tried to bolster their case by trying to find weaknesses in evolutionary biology. Judge Jones found that scientists had solidly rebutted these attacks. What's more, he recognized that simply attacking someone else's theory as wrong does not make yours right.
Journalists would do well to print Judge Jones's decision out and read it carefully. It's not up to a journalist to decide which side is right in a genuine scientific controversy. But it's wrong to let people use an article as a soapbox where they can make grand pronouncements about science, without looking into whether the science actually backs them up. Judge Jones fact-checked intelligent design and found it wanting. He did not shy away from this realization with worries that he was somehow being one-sided. Justice holds a balance in her hand, but balance is not what she seeks. Instead, she weighs the evidence to see which way it tips.
1. Jennifer on December 21, 2005 10:56 AM writes...
I just discovered your blog, and am enjoying it greatly.
Thank you for commenting on the thing that most bothers me about American journalism today - In the effort to appear "balanced" or "fair", lazy journalists interview people on both sides of an issue and quote their comments without enough context or fact-checking. An article becomes nothing more than "this side claims ____" vs. "the other side claims (the opposite)." Specious claims get repeated enough times in the press that they take on a life of their own, and since journalists treat them as viable alternatives to the truth they gain legitimacy.
Jennifer (and Carl), have you read Deborah Tannen's book The Argument Culture? One of the points she makes in there is that there *aren't* two sides to every story. Sometimes there's just one side. Sometimes there's 3 or 4 sides. Journalism schools have this fairness mantra that's just factually wrong about the state of truth in the world, and it does a dis-service to consumers of journalism.
Regarding the Dover decision, I think the judge got it exactly right. In the context of science, there's just no argument, and so it shouldn't be taught. If you want to teach about creationism in the context of a class on religion, by all means. If you want to talk about intelligent design (or solipsism, or brain-in-a-vat theory) in a philosophy class, please do. But in order to be useful, science needs to do its own thing without interference from other ways of looking at our perception of reality.
3. D.B. Light on December 21, 2005 04:54 PM writes...
Is is possible to have classes on religion in public schools? Wouldn't any such class run up against the same constitutional problems as did efforts to introduce comments supporting AI into the science curriculum?
Science is demanding a protected status within our public institutions that is denied to other sources of authority. There is plenty to criticize within the scientific enterprise, especially when it advances claims to be a basis upon which to construct public policy.
Why not make grand pronouncements regarding science? Journalists, and for that matter scientists, make grand and often erroneous pronouncements regarding religion all the time. Such silliness is part of the journalistic culture we now live in.
I would join with Cristoph Cardinal Schonborn in calling for some humility on the part of what he calls Neo-Darwinists [you know the crowd, Dawkins, Wilson, et. al.]. Darwinian selection is a powerful explanatory mechanism, but it is not the answer to all things, and it carries with it some troubling moral implications.
Journalists are always going to do this, though, because they don't care that it's bad science and bad epistemology; the point is, it's good journalism. It's about a 'conflict' and that's interesting to the audience, which a scientific controversy is not. Journalists cover the conflict rather than the controversy; they cover the politics rather than the substance; so naturally they talk to both sides, without regard to the fact that one hasn't got a leg to hop on.
Great thread! I am, however, less certain that the Judge's decision is good for science or education. My skim through the document makes me uneasy. I am fearful of courts deciding upon what is a good therory and what is not. While this decision may be correct, it never the less introduces judges into science who have NO place to make these decisions. They do not have the qualifications.
9. Mauricio on December 21, 2005 10:13 PM writes...
Congratulations. I have criticized many scientific writters for the same reasons you've mentioned in your post. In fact, "it's not up to a journalist to decide which side is right in a genuine scientific controversy", but he can (and must) search the important questions and ask the two or more sides involved.
I mentioned your questions in my new blog http://laudascriticas.blogspot.com. (reflexions on
communications, journalism, science and environment). The post's title is "Intelligent Design: no question to Rosinha?" Rosinha Garotinho is the governor of Rio de Janeiro State. She promoted the teaching of the ID in few public schools of Rio. Until this moment, nobody asked her about the decision of the federal judge's decision in Pennsylvania.
10. Jennifer on December 22, 2005 09:28 AM writes...
Marco,
While it is chilling that judges might need to make more of these decisions in the future, clearly the Dover school board was NOT capable of making the correct decisions for its students and did not have the qualifications. Judge Jones had to become an expert overnight.
I agree with you that it is unfortunate, I don't know how else to solve this and the myriad other cases that are sure to rise over the next few years as this one specific brand of Christianity continues to flex its political muscle in enforcing its very specific ideas about truth on the rest of the population. This is only the beginning of school board/health care/censorship fights all over the country, and if local elected officials can't respect the separation between church and state, it's going to fall more and more to judges to enforce the Constitution.
Harlan, thank you for the book recommendation - I'm familiar with Tannen but not her more recent work, and I will check it out.
"While it is chilling that judges might need to make more of these decisions in the future ..."
Unless one is prepared to turn over all matters relating to science to a ruling council of scientists who will make law and administer society in areas touched by science, you will inevitably have non-scientists and non-science methods used to decide matters where science and broader society meet. At least the courts have a formal system for accepting evidence, standards of proof, rules on who bears the burden of proof, methods for review of what is presented (rebuttal and cross-examination) and oversight in the form of the potential for appeals. Courts have their faults but the formalism and the attention to (and enforceability of, through appeals) methods of making decisions give them a leg up on getting the science right compared to the political process or business processes.
In politics, telling people what they want to hear rules, in business whatever produces profit, and if publicly traded, very short term profit. Rather than being chilled, the courts should be looked at as a place where the value of evidence and reasoned argument are higher in comparison to that of rhetoric, personal prejudice and personal profit than in most other areas of society.
The courts are an imperfect tool, but then again, neither science nor evolution itself are guaranteed to be optimal. They're just practical ways to do the best you can at this moment.
Of course, I'm biased. Before law school, my undergrad was math and science.
"While it is chilling that judges might need to make more of these decisions in the future, ..."
And what will our imperial masters decide next? Will they find that American literature classes cannot study a particular play because it crosses the line between harmless fiction and active evangelism? Will they decide that string theory cannot be mentioned in a physics class because it is non-falsifiable and there are no supporting experiments?
And what would happen if somebody decided to apply evolutionary theory to humans, and act on the results? They'd be burned at the stake, and it would be a federal judge who struck the match.
"... clearly the Dover school board was NOT capable of making the correct decisions for its students and did not have the qualifications."
Indeed, which is why the local electorate rode them out of town on a rail before the federal show trial could even be finished. States rights solved the problem.
"Intelligent design advocates have tried to bolster their case by trying to find weaknesses in evolutionary biology. Judge Jones found that scientists had solidly rebutted these attacks."
They have? Then where did the first aminoacyl-tRNA synthase on Earth come from? The only evidence we have are tantalizing hints that point toward an RNA origin for life. I agree that that theory seems likely to be right, but I do so on the basis of wild guesses and faith.
I think your last point, which I agree is unanswered, misses the point. Evolution cannot and has not claimed to account for the origin of everything, down to the last minute bits of matter in the universe but rather explains why and how we have variation in living species (and many more things I would argue). This is why the creationist argument is also misplaced when placed in competition with evolution--its not about "where did EVERTHING come from", but rather "how it is that living things evolved into various forms" without explaining the origin of everything.
Jennifer, my concern is that in the future the court may not act on the side of reason. This decision by judge jones oversteps the authority of the court. Judge Jones and most judges are simply not qualified to render scientific pronouncements. The scientific community has an established process for evaluating scientific theories that the judge jones trampled upon. I am frightened by the willingness ofthis judge to overstep his legitimate authority.
The length and content of the judgment is equally frightening. I would have prefered a brief statement that also recognized the scientific communities responsibility in this area.
In summary, science has much to fear of an uneducated public and activist judges. I do not want the truth set by either of these two parties. As scientists it is our repsonsibility to govern ourselves. I do not appreciate how the ID community dragged the uninformed and courts into a scientific debate in an political manner.
bp 32 said "Evolution cannot and has not claimed to account for the origin of everything, down to the last minute bits of matter in the universe but rather explains why and how we have variation in living species ...
It explains how, but not why. Genetic and fossil evidence shows only that selection events occurred. They do not speak as to the causes. It is not obvious to me that by looking at nucleotide sequences you can distinguish random chance from a Divine Selector who occassionally prunes or nurtures a chosen gene. I choose the former, because (1) science based on abstract laws dispassionately applied seems to give reasonably good answers, and (2) we have not stumbled across any obvious evidence supporting the latter.
However that is rather far from those crowing that evolution by natural selection is now proved beyond any doubt. They only look so correct because their opponents' ignorance of biology is exceeded only by their ignorance of philosophy.
It doesn't bother you that the judge went beyond any human capacity to attack the board members, not for their actions, not for their efforts to remove science fiction from the science classroom (that would be a realistic description of Darwinian evolution as it is fictional and not factual), but rather because he stated they were trying to introduce religion into the classroom. The fact is that he could not possibly challenge the facts of the case, the facts of Intelligent Design - yes the SCIENTIFIC FACTS are incontrovertible, but because he knew he could not do this and the scientific community must rely on an environment closed to any scrutiny of Darwinianism, he made the case about religious intent which is a damnable lie.
God help him and you can be sure of this Carl, the reason you cannot see how wrong you are is that the god of this world, Satan, has blinded your eyes to the truth. May God have mercy on your soul.
Corante: technology, business, media, law, and culture news from the blogosphere
OUR PUBLICATIONS:
Corante is a trusted, unbiased source on technology, business, law, science, and culture that’s authored by leading commentators and thinkers in their respective fields. Corante also produces premium conferences and publications that help decision-makers better understand their industries and the world around them.
Corante Blogs
Corante Blogs examine, through the eyes of leading observers, analysts, thinkers, and doers, critical themes and memes in technology, business, law, science, and culture.
Vin Crosbie, on the challenges, financial and otherwise, that newspaper publishers are facing: "The real problem, Mr. Newspaperman, isn't that your content isn't online or isn't online with multimedia. It's your content. Specifically, it's what you report, which stories you publish, and how you publish them to people, who, by the way, have very different individual interests. The problem is the content you're giving them, stupid; not the platform its on."
by Vin Crosbie in Rebuilding Media
There's a problem in the drug industry that people have recognized for some years, but we're not that much closer to dealing with it than we were then. We keep coming up with these technologies and techniques which seem as if they might be able to help us with some of our nastiest problems - I'm talking about genomics in all its guises, and metabolic profiling, and naturally the various high-throughput screening platforms, and others. But whether these are helping or not (and opinions sure do vary), one thing that they all have in common is that they generate enormous heaps of data.
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Now that the Web labor market is saturated and Web design a static profession, it's not surprising that 'user experience' designers and researchers who've spent their careers online are looking for new worlds to conquer. Some are returning to the “old media” as directors and producers. More are now doing offline consulting (service experience design, social policy design, exhibition design, and so on) under the 'user experience' aegis. They argue that the lessons they've learned on the Web can be applied to phenomena in the physical and social worlds. But there are enormous differences...
by Bob Jacobson in Total Experience
Clay Shirky, in deconstructing Second Life hype: "Second Life is heading towards two million users. Except it isn’t, really... I suspect Second Life is largely a 'Try Me' virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use."
by Clay Shirky in Many-to-Many
Over the last few years we've seen old barriers to creativity coming down, one after the other. New technologies and services makes it trivial to publish text, whether by blog or by print-on-demand. Digital photography has democratised a previously expensive hobby. And we're seeing the barriers to movie-making crumble, with affordable high-quality cameras and video hosting provided by YouTube or Google Video and their ilk... Music making has long been easy for anyone to engage in, but technology has made high-quality recording possible without specialised equipment, and the internet has revolutionised distribution, drastically disintermediating the music industry... What's left? Software maybe? Or maybe not."
by Suw Charman in Strange Attractor
Derek Lowe on the news that the Nobel Prize for medicine has gone to Craig Mello and Andrew Fire for their breakthrough work: "RNA interference is probably going to have a long climb before it starts curing many diseases, because many of those problems are even tougher than usual in its case. That doesn't take away from the discovery, though, any more than the complications of off-target effects take away from it when you talk about RNAi's research uses in cell culture. The fact that RNA interference is trickier than it first looked, in vivo or in vitro, is only to be expected. What breakthrough isn't?"
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Andrew Phelps: "Recently my WoW guild has been having a bit of a debate on the merits of Player-vs.-Player (PvP) within Azeroth. My personal opinion on this is that PvP has its merits, and can be incredible fun, but the system within WoW is horridly, horribly broken. It takes into account the concept of the battle, but battle without consequence, without emotive context, and most importantly, without honor..."
From later in the piece: "When I talk about this with people (thus far anyway) I typically get one of two responses, either 'yeah, right on!' or 'hey, it’s war, and war isn’t honorable – grow the hell up'. There is a lot to be said for that argument – but the problem is that war in the real historical world has very different constraints that are utterly absent from fantasized worlds..."
by Andrew Phelps in Got Game
Derek Lowe: "So, you're developing a drug candidate. You've settled on what looks like a good compound - it has the activity you want in your mouse model of the disease, it's not too hard to make, and it's not toxic. Everything looks fine. Except. . .one slight problem. Although the compound has good blood levels in the mouse and in the dog, in rats it's terrible. For some reason, it just doesn't get up there. Probably some foul metabolic pathway peculiar to rats (whose innards are adapted, after all, for dealing with every kind of garbage that comes along). So, is this a problem?.."
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Bob Jacobson, on shopping at his local Albertsons supermarket where he had "one of the worst customer experiences" of his life: "Say what you will about the Safeway chain or the Birkenstock billionaires who charge through the roof for Whole Foods' organic fare, they know how to create shopping environments that create a more pleasurable experience, at its best (as at Whole Foods) quite enjoyable. Even the warehouses like Costco and its smaller counterpart, Smart & Final, do just fine: they have no pretentions, but neither do they dump virtual garbage on the consumer merely to create another trivial revenue stream, all for the sake of promotions in the marketing department..."
by Strange Attractor in Total Experience
Kevin Anderson: "First off, I want to say that I really admire the ambition of the Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free. It is one of the boldest statements made by any media company that participation needs to be central to a radical revamp of traditional content strategies... It is, therfore, not hugely surprising to find that Comment is Free is having a few teething troubles..."
by Kevin Anderson in strange
Corante Developments
Here you will find the latest news from Corante including updates on upcoming events, new initiatives, product and publication launches, and more.
It was with shock that I returned home from a night out last night to hear the news of Russell's passing. How terribly, terribly sad. Most of all for him, as he'd seemed buoyant, healthier, and content when I'd last seen him several months ago when he was in town - he was happy that work was busy and rewarding and was having fun with it but most of all was thrilled about how things were going with his girlfriend, Ellen.
I've known Russ for what seems like ages now (in a good way) though in fact it's only been about six or seven years since the early days of "commercial" blogging when he started working on various projects at and around Corante. He was a diligent, committed, and prolific journalist who had impressively and more ably than others been able to make the transition from the old-school way of doing things to the new. He had his quirks, as we all do, but I greatly valued that he was good-natured, collegial, reliable, quick to adopt, trustworthy, eager to learn, and earnest in his interest in helping others better understand what he wrote about.
He was also, it should be said, a kind and thoughtful soul and it was the rare conversation in which he didn't ask, with sincerity, about what he knew of my life, e.g. our new babe, and we didn't talk as seemingly old friends about our lives and respective paths. I can't say I knew him very well, of course, but in our half-dozen get-togethers over the years and dozens of conversations I got a good sense of the man: he cared about learning and sharing and his bearing was earnest and ego-less and we'll miss him for that and more.
We wanted to let you know about a discount to New Comm Forum, the annual event event put on by our friends at the Society for New Communications Research. The conference, which runs from April 22-25, will feature many of the field's leading observers and is an important event for those looking, in the words of SNCR, to "better understand new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, culture and society."
Check out the event's website and, if you're interested in attending, be sure to use the code supplied below for a special discount.
EARLY BIRD PRICING - NOW UNTIL FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $995.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $195.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
REGULAR PRICING - AFTER FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $1095.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $249.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
CORANTE READER DISCOUNTS
NewComm Forum Conference - save an additional $100
Use discount code: NCF08100
Pre-conference or post-conference session - save an additional $45.
Use discount code: NCF0845
We've been remiss in letting you know about two new independent blogs we've helped launch in the past month or so.
The first - the ConversationHub - is a companion blog to Supernova 2007, the latest edition of Kevin Werbach's excellent conference on all things connected. As the conference site says: "Supernova examines the effects of an increasingly connected world on business, life, and public policy. As disparate physical and social networks link with one another, a new societal network is rapidly evolving... The New Network is greater than the sum of its parts. It challenges us to re-create everything from the software and hardware we use...to the business models we employ...to the information and entertainment we encounter...to the ways we work and play."
Visit the ConversationHub and you'll find several dozen leading thinkers and doers, led by a few notable ringleaders, weighing in on the themes and trends of the day in technology and business. We encourage you to tune in - feel free to comment and even suggest topics and ideas for posts.
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1. Jennifer on December 21, 2005 10:56 AM writes...
I just discovered your blog, and am enjoying it greatly.
Thank you for commenting on the thing that most bothers me about American journalism today - In the effort to appear "balanced" or "fair", lazy journalists interview people on both sides of an issue and quote their comments without enough context or fact-checking. An article becomes nothing more than "this side claims ____" vs. "the other side claims (the opposite)." Specious claims get repeated enough times in the press that they take on a life of their own, and since journalists treat them as viable alternatives to the truth they gain legitimacy.
Permalink to Comment2. Harlan on December 21, 2005 12:14 PM writes...
Jennifer (and Carl), have you read Deborah Tannen's book The Argument Culture? One of the points she makes in there is that there *aren't* two sides to every story. Sometimes there's just one side. Sometimes there's 3 or 4 sides. Journalism schools have this fairness mantra that's just factually wrong about the state of truth in the world, and it does a dis-service to consumers of journalism.
Regarding the Dover decision, I think the judge got it exactly right. In the context of science, there's just no argument, and so it shouldn't be taught. If you want to teach about creationism in the context of a class on religion, by all means. If you want to talk about intelligent design (or solipsism, or brain-in-a-vat theory) in a philosophy class, please do. But in order to be useful, science needs to do its own thing without interference from other ways of looking at our perception of reality.
Permalink to Comment3. D.B. Light on December 21, 2005 04:54 PM writes...
Is is possible to have classes on religion in public schools? Wouldn't any such class run up against the same constitutional problems as did efforts to introduce comments supporting AI into the science curriculum?
Science is demanding a protected status within our public institutions that is denied to other sources of authority. There is plenty to criticize within the scientific enterprise, especially when it advances claims to be a basis upon which to construct public policy.
i addressed some of these concerns at http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2005/12/crisis-of-scientific-authority.html
Why not make grand pronouncements regarding science? Journalists, and for that matter scientists, make grand and often erroneous pronouncements regarding religion all the time. Such silliness is part of the journalistic culture we now live in.
I would join with Cristoph Cardinal Schonborn in calling for some humility on the part of what he calls Neo-Darwinists [you know the crowd, Dawkins, Wilson, et. al.]. Darwinian selection is a powerful explanatory mechanism, but it is not the answer to all things, and it carries with it some troubling moral implications.
Cardinal Schonborn's ideas, including an elaboration of his New York Times article, are presented in First Things.
Permalink to Commenthttp://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0601/articles/schonborn.html
4. Ophelia Benson on December 21, 2005 05:55 PM writes...
Journalists are always going to do this, though, because they don't care that it's bad science and bad epistemology; the point is, it's good journalism. It's about a 'conflict' and that's interesting to the audience, which a scientific controversy is not. Journalists cover the conflict rather than the controversy; they cover the politics rather than the substance; so naturally they talk to both sides, without regard to the fact that one hasn't got a leg to hop on.
Permalink to Comment5. snaxalotl on December 21, 2005 06:39 PM writes...
you must be pretty pleased with your last two sentences. I know I would be. (/envy)
Permalink to Comment6. RPM on December 21, 2005 06:51 PM writes...
But he followed the long paper trail that linked creation scientists to the emergence of intelligent design in the 1980s.
Calling it creation science is like calling evolution a religion. Let's call the bullshit for what it is.
Permalink to Comment7. marco on December 21, 2005 07:50 PM writes...
Great thread! I am, however, less certain that the Judge's decision is good for science or education. My skim through the document makes me uneasy. I am fearful of courts deciding upon what is a good therory and what is not. While this decision may be correct, it never the less introduces judges into science who have NO place to make these decisions. They do not have the qualifications.
Permalink to Comment8. Nick on December 21, 2005 07:54 PM writes...
RPM wrote:
"Calling it creation science is like calling evolution a religion. Let's call the bullshit for what it is."
Apparently the form of intelligent design they wanted kids to learn about in Dover was creation science:
Permalink to Commenthttp://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/05-12-20.html
9. Mauricio on December 21, 2005 10:13 PM writes...
Congratulations. I have criticized many scientific writters for the same reasons you've mentioned in your post. In fact, "it's not up to a journalist to decide which side is right in a genuine scientific controversy", but he can (and must) search the important questions and ask the two or more sides involved.
I mentioned your questions in my new blog http://laudascriticas.blogspot.com. (reflexions on
communications, journalism, science and environment). The post's title is "Intelligent Design: no question to Rosinha?" Rosinha Garotinho is the governor of Rio de Janeiro State. She promoted the teaching of the ID in few public schools of Rio. Until this moment, nobody asked her about the decision of the federal judge's decision in Pennsylvania.
Best wishes,
Mauricio Tuffani
Permalink to Commenthttp://laudascriticas.blogspot.com
Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil
laudas.criticas@gmail.com
10. Jennifer on December 22, 2005 09:28 AM writes...
Marco,
While it is chilling that judges might need to make more of these decisions in the future, clearly the Dover school board was NOT capable of making the correct decisions for its students and did not have the qualifications. Judge Jones had to become an expert overnight.
I agree with you that it is unfortunate, I don't know how else to solve this and the myriad other cases that are sure to rise over the next few years as this one specific brand of Christianity continues to flex its political muscle in enforcing its very specific ideas about truth on the rest of the population. This is only the beginning of school board/health care/censorship fights all over the country, and if local elected officials can't respect the separation between church and state, it's going to fall more and more to judges to enforce the Constitution.
Harlan, thank you for the book recommendation - I'm familiar with Tannen but not her more recent work, and I will check it out.
Best,
Permalink to CommentJennifer
11. Mike on December 23, 2005 01:36 PM writes...
"While it is chilling that judges might need to make more of these decisions in the future ..."
Unless one is prepared to turn over all matters relating to science to a ruling council of scientists who will make law and administer society in areas touched by science, you will inevitably have non-scientists and non-science methods used to decide matters where science and broader society meet. At least the courts have a formal system for accepting evidence, standards of proof, rules on who bears the burden of proof, methods for review of what is presented (rebuttal and cross-examination) and oversight in the form of the potential for appeals. Courts have their faults but the formalism and the attention to (and enforceability of, through appeals) methods of making decisions give them a leg up on getting the science right compared to the political process or business processes.
In politics, telling people what they want to hear rules, in business whatever produces profit, and if publicly traded, very short term profit. Rather than being chilled, the courts should be looked at as a place where the value of evidence and reasoned argument are higher in comparison to that of rhetoric, personal prejudice and personal profit than in most other areas of society.
The courts are an imperfect tool, but then again, neither science nor evolution itself are guaranteed to be optimal. They're just practical ways to do the best you can at this moment.
Of course, I'm biased. Before law school, my undergrad was math and science.
Permalink to Comment12. Daniel Newby on December 23, 2005 11:48 PM writes...
"While it is chilling that judges might need to make more of these decisions in the future, ..."
And what will our imperial masters decide next? Will they find that American literature classes cannot study a particular play because it crosses the line between harmless fiction and active evangelism? Will they decide that string theory cannot be mentioned in a physics class because it is non-falsifiable and there are no supporting experiments?
And what would happen if somebody decided to apply evolutionary theory to humans, and act on the results? They'd be burned at the stake, and it would be a federal judge who struck the match.
"... clearly the Dover school board was NOT capable of making the correct decisions for its students and did not have the qualifications."
Indeed, which is why the local electorate rode them out of town on a rail before the federal show trial could even be finished. States rights solved the problem.
"Intelligent design advocates have tried to bolster their case by trying to find weaknesses in evolutionary biology. Judge Jones found that scientists had solidly rebutted these attacks."
They have? Then where did the first aminoacyl-tRNA synthase on Earth come from? The only evidence we have are tantalizing hints that point toward an RNA origin for life. I agree that that theory seems likely to be right, but I do so on the basis of wild guesses and faith.
Permalink to Comment13. bp32 on December 24, 2005 08:38 AM writes...
Daniel,
I think your last point, which I agree is unanswered, misses the point. Evolution cannot and has not claimed to account for the origin of everything, down to the last minute bits of matter in the universe but rather explains why and how we have variation in living species (and many more things I would argue). This is why the creationist argument is also misplaced when placed in competition with evolution--its not about "where did EVERTHING come from", but rather "how it is that living things evolved into various forms" without explaining the origin of everything.
Permalink to Comment14. marco on December 24, 2005 12:08 PM writes...
Jennifer, my concern is that in the future the court may not act on the side of reason. This decision by judge jones oversteps the authority of the court. Judge Jones and most judges are simply not qualified to render scientific pronouncements. The scientific community has an established process for evaluating scientific theories that the judge jones trampled upon. I am frightened by the willingness ofthis judge to overstep his legitimate authority.
The length and content of the judgment is equally frightening. I would have prefered a brief statement that also recognized the scientific communities responsibility in this area.
In summary, science has much to fear of an uneducated public and activist judges. I do not want the truth set by either of these two parties. As scientists it is our repsonsibility to govern ourselves. I do not appreciate how the ID community dragged the uninformed and courts into a scientific debate in an political manner.
Permalink to Comment15. Daniel Newby on December 26, 2005 12:57 AM writes...
bp 32 said "Evolution cannot and has not claimed to account for the origin of everything, down to the last minute bits of matter in the universe but rather explains why and how we have variation in living species ...
It explains how, but not why. Genetic and fossil evidence shows only that selection events occurred. They do not speak as to the causes. It is not obvious to me that by looking at nucleotide sequences you can distinguish random chance from a Divine Selector who occassionally prunes or nurtures a chosen gene. I choose the former, because (1) science based on abstract laws dispassionately applied seems to give reasonably good answers, and (2) we have not stumbled across any obvious evidence supporting the latter.
However that is rather far from those crowing that evolution by natural selection is now proved beyond any doubt. They only look so correct because their opponents' ignorance of biology is exceeded only by their ignorance of philosophy.
Permalink to Comment16. Hylton on December 30, 2005 08:45 AM writes...
test
Permalink to Comment17. WBurke on January 3, 2006 10:22 PM writes...
Carl,
It doesn't bother you that the judge went beyond any human capacity to attack the board members, not for their actions, not for their efforts to remove science fiction from the science classroom (that would be a realistic description of Darwinian evolution as it is fictional and not factual), but rather because he stated they were trying to introduce religion into the classroom. The fact is that he could not possibly challenge the facts of the case, the facts of Intelligent Design - yes the SCIENTIFIC FACTS are incontrovertible, but because he knew he could not do this and the scientific community must rely on an environment closed to any scrutiny of Darwinianism, he made the case about religious intent which is a damnable lie.
God help him and you can be sure of this Carl, the reason you cannot see how wrong you are is that the god of this world, Satan, has blinded your eyes to the truth. May God have mercy on your soul.
In Christ,
Permalink to CommentBill
18. guthrie on January 4, 2006 09:51 AM writes...
Bill- what facts of intelligent design?
Permalink to CommentDo you mean biblical ones or scientific ones?
19. pj on January 5, 2006 03:20 AM writes...
Was this an intelligent decision or a random accident ;)
Permalink to Comment20. Erik H on January 6, 2006 03:37 PM writes...
William:
You summed it up nicely. The "facts" of ID are, without a doubt, unassailable. Nobody can easily DISprove ID.
The problem, of course, is that the "facts" of ID are, without a doubt, also unprovable...
Which is why they're not science.
Permalink to Comment