Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org

"Daniel Dvorkin f'ers like you will probably live in the chambers of hell"

"Well aren't you just a little ray of sunshine."

So ... how's your day going?

[coding] "Huh, that's a weird result. I need to fix that."

[Cate Blanchett voiceover] "Then something happened the Daniel did not intend."

*Every single time*, man.

@vansice @GottaLaff DUI hire!

@woozle @GottaLaff That's what I keep hoping. People this incompetent can't stay in power forever ... can they?

"Peer review is the worst method of safeguarding scientific integrity, except for all those other methods that have been tried from time to time." As Churchill might have said if he'd been a scientist rather than a politician.

From a conversation with a friend: https://theconversation.com/peer-review-is-meant-to-prevent-scientific-misconduct-but-it-has-its-own-problems-248015

There are a lot of flaws in #peerreview as it's generally done now, and people working to improve it. But what's the alternative to the concept itself? We know what general public #commentary on #science looks like, and politicians shoehorning science into their #ideologies, and science for #profit without checks on validity ... they're all awful.

None of them can be completely avoided either, any more than the potent combination of authoritarianism and stupidity which is always trying to infect #democratic forms of #government. (Just to choose a random example.) And in fact there *should* be input into science from outside the field, because it doesn't exist in a vacuum any more than defense or education or business or religion or any other large-scale area of human endeavour.

But if there's a better way to keep science more or less on track, I'll be damned if I know what it is. The only people qualified to judge the work of scientists—not the big-picture priorities, and not the utility of the results, but the nitty-gritty of the work itself—are other people knowledgeable in the same line of work, and I don't see that changing. Same as any other job, really.

Like I said above, there are proposals for addressing peer review's flaws, and I'll be happy to expound on that if anyone likes.

Use as needed.

"The #squirrels are really active today."

"Yeah, they're squirreling hard out there. But you know, the other squirrels are squirreling too, and they have to squirrel their hearts out. Squirrel 110%. At the end of the day, all that matters is who has the highest squirrel."

"We're getting dangerously close to #Smurf territory here."

"I kind of imagine squirrels as real-life Smurfs. Like that's the way they think. Everything is 'squirrel this' and 'squirrel that,' and calling them 'squirrely' is the highest compliment you can give."

Pretty much every day at our house.

@arthurgessler The obvious thing to do is answer "no" to all the questions, even or perhaps especially if the project in question is the kind of thing the administration is targeting. What's Trump going to do to researchers in other countires, send the CIA after them?

Like "so, it has come to this" and "as the prophecy foretold," any statement can be answered with "that's just what the Freemasons *want* you to think." Just one of those little life hacks.

I have to admit, I did not have "Go Leopards! My wife didn't need that face anyway" on my bingo card.

A conversation: someone describing all the ways in which #fibromyalgia changed their life, and someone else responding with a cheery "Have you tried giving up all #FODMAPs† yet?" My reply was as follows.

"A friend with fibromyalgia calls this the 'cucumber water' question, as in 'have you tried cucumber water?' Anyone with any #chronic #illness has most likely tried anything you're likely to suggest. Unless they ask you for ideas, sympathy and support are all you should offer."

That was as civil as I could possibly be, and probably more than they deserved. I think there's at least the *possibility* of getting through in this case, which is why I didn't immediately turn green and rip my shirt off.

But having observed in detail the effects of #fibro and other #chronic #diseases on the lives of people I love—

NO. DO NOT.

===

†Fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols ... one or more of which occur in most of the meals most people eat every day. But sure, you should just drastically limit your diet because some stranger on the internet says so.

#Tyrannosaurus #rex by Gerhard Boeggemann. I like how the emphasis isn't on the size of the tyrannosaurs: they and their prey are huge, but they're still a small part of a much larger #ecosystem. Also, this could practically be a scene right out of the WISP (Work In Some Progress) so that's a bonus. 🦖✍️

This is good news, if it passes the #Bundesrat. And yes, I'm aware of the historical irony of a descendant of #Eastern #European #Jews cheering on the growth of the #German #military. No permanent allies or enemies, only permanent interests.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62z6gljv2yo

One more time: it's very hard to detect #sarcasm #online. You may think it's obvious that you're #joking or playing a role. It's not. When other people don't know what you meant, take it as a sign to do better and move on.

And if you weren't joking, don't pretend you were. They *will* pick up on that.

My day job is all about #genes, so I applaud the #genomic revolution in #paleontology and #evolutionary #biology. But #evolution really is more than a shift in #allele frequencies over time. It's also change in the #phenotypes those alleles produce, and their #interaction with the world around them. 🧪🖥🧬🦖

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/paleobiology/article/morphological-evolution-in-a-time-of-phenomics/4A7E3BC775855EC40DE03F9EE567D22A

So I'm equally excited about the #quantitative revolution in describing and cataloguing #traits which until recently could only be analyzed #qualitatively. There's a whole new window opening into the history of life.

I will never not be proud of this.

NB: some sources prefer to write the impact as Marsh-Cope, a.k.a. the "MC Hammer". 🦖

https://www.quora.com/Do-paleontologists-still-exist/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3