We Deserve the Lies

Source: http://radioornot.com/

This election season is the most bizarre that I have ever seen.  The electorate seems to care more about the message (jobs won't be leaving the US anymore, free tuition for all, there is no drought in California, ...) than on sound policy that will get us to where we want to be.  The few details that are given by the populist candidates show a gross misunderstanding of how things work, and is proof that they will be ineffective leaders with potentially disastrous consequences.  Yet the moths continue to be attracted to the flame as untruths fill the airwaves and internet.


I blame the stupidity of the electorate as the source of the problem, and part of me feels that the people deserve the candidate that they elect.  This reaction comes form the gut, which we know is not the ideal source of sane information.  I therefore decided to write an op-ed piece that spells out the facts without emotion.  It appeared in print 12 hours after I submitted it to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

For those of you who don't get the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, the opinion piece is reproduced below.

The presidential candidates are being unduly criticized for lying. The fault is not in our politicians, but within us.  We want to hear lies that confirm our dearly-held ideologies.  The pleasure centers of our brains burn brightly when our ideologies are reinforced, and turn cold in response to nasty facts that contradict what we wish to believe.  As a result, we reward candidates who lie to us with our votes.

Lies uttered by ideological adversaries are easily discerned as such, but objectivity is lost in proclamations from ideological bedfellows, fortifying the ideologue’s certainty.  No wonder that the electorate is so polarized and government deadlocked.

The overwhelming evidence for human-caused climate change is extinguished in the deniers’ minds when Sarah Palin smugly asserts that she doesn’t believe it.  Hell with them 97% of climate scientists who are convinced by the data.  Hell with consilience.  The deniers know better, delightfully wringing their hands as they cherry-pick for scraps of data that validate their faith.

Those who believe that vaccines cause autism don’t want to hear about the lack of evidence for their convictions.  They prefer testimonials to facts, confuse correlation with causation, and scour the internet in search of “evidence” that supports their ideology rather than the medical research.  Protesters against genetically modified foods are not dissuaded by the dearth of supporting facts.  Instead, they write it off as a corporate conspiracy.  Alien abduction zealots, on the other hand, point to a government cover-up.  The list goes on.   This pathology cuts across party affiliations.

The defense against self-deception is the scientific method; but, even science has come under attack when it conflicts with the ideologue’s cherished beliefs.  Science is implicitly humble, admitting that truth is difficult to come by.  This tiny perceived flaw is attacked by the ideologue who equates his or her gaping ignorance with the small uncertainty of science -- no matter how tiny -- proclaiming that “science is uncertain, so my belief in biblical creation, denial of evolution, and conviction in a 6,000-year-old earth is as valid as the science that conflicts with this view.”  The fact that we can never be 100% certain does not make all beliefs equal.

Reality, rather than wishful thinking, drives complex technologies and social institutions on which we depend.  Solutions to problems require a deep understanding of how things work, which guides a nuanced course of action that is not amenable to soundbites and campaign slogans.  Often, the optimum response is counterintuitive and defies common sense.  Ideology coopts reason and leads to actions that run counter to our priorities.  If we are truly interested in solving societal ills, we should set aside subjective passions and act upon objective evidence.

The next time you become irate by the lies, take a look in the mirror.  The politicians will continue to lie to us as long as we continue to lie to ourselves.  It’s time for us to make an effort to be honest with ourselves and to apply some scientific thinking in our lives.  Only then can we come together and begin to solve the horrendous problems that lie ahead.

An exciting discovery

A discovery is not always a eureka moment where the a puzzle resolves itself in a burst of insight.  As I realized tonight, we had made a significant discovery of the gradual kind.

A graduate student Sean Mossman, collaborator Rick Lytel and I had been working on a problem for over a year.  We got what we believed was a significant result, so we submitted our work to the best optics journal called Optics Letters.  The reviews came back positive so we started to diligently work on the required revisions.  It was only then that it hit me that this might be a more significant discovery than we had originality imagined.

We have the disadvantage of working in an esoteric branch of a very applied field, so there aren't many people out there that understand or appreciate the work.  Last year I organized a small conference on WSU's campus to bring together people that have worked in this area and have an appreciation for its nuances.  This year, the second meeting in what is becoming an annual event, was held at Lehigh University and organized by a talented experimental physicist, Ivan Biaggio, who was an early appreciator of the power of the sum rules and the guidance they provide in understanding how to make better materials.  The next meeting will take place at Tufts University, and will be hosted by a young and energetic theorist named Tim Atherton.

It is our job to get the word out about our work so that others can reap its benefits and this paper is the first step in the process.

I am too excited to sleep, so to unwind, I am wiring this post.  Below is an email that I sent to my coauthors (typos and all!) of our paper.  I hope it gives my readers some appreciation of the joys associated with doing physics.  Such reward come rarely in the midst of persistent failures.

Goodnight!

Dear All,

First, let me say NICE JOB!  Usually after I read through a manuscript a zillion times, I start feeling more and more insecure about the significance of the work with each reading due to becoming desensitized; the sublime becomes the mundane.  However, this is not so with this work.  I truly think it is fantastic.

I have spent a considerable effort on revising the manuscript to address the reviewers' comments and to bring out the wonderful physics that I think was buried in there.  Though I was aware of it  all, as I now you were too, the significance of phase disruption did not strike me until I rewrote the last 4 paragraphs of the paper.

Let me summarize my thoughts.  First, we have shown that phase disruption is associated with a significantly enhanced nonlinear response.  If we go back to our fundamental understanding of a quantum wave function, a kink is only possible where there is an infinite change in the potential; the two classic examples are infinite walls, from which one makes perfect reflectors and ideal boxes to confine particles, and the delta function, which represents the ultimately-bound system.  All such systems are impractical.  That is most likely why researchers have had such difficulty in improving the nonlinear response.

In essence, we have played a great trick on nature by adding a branch that can divert a small electron flux.  As far as the main direction of flow is concerned, the effect on the wave function is the same as one would expect for a delta function.  But, this is easy to do in a nano wire by fabricating a little wart on its surface, or by asking a chemist to add a side group to the bridge that carries electrons between two parts of a molecule.

This may all seem an academic exercise because the original idea was implemented with one electron and there is another requirement that phase disruption must dominate the states near the ground state.  In the case of many electrons, this requires that the phase disruption be concentrated in the states near the Fermi level, which corresponds to the single partial states just below and above the Fermi level.  The problem is that an arbitrary quantum graph will not have this property.  However. all we need to do is to move the little side branch to the right place, and voila, we have a huge nonlinear-optical response.  All this time chemists have been synthesizing all sorts of structures made of all sorts of atoms, and it appears that all that we need to do is move one simple part.

Finally, we propose a very simple molecule that has the right properties to have a huge nonlinear response.  This makes it possible for our ideas to be tested.  I do not expect that the molecule we propose will end up being so great because we have not taken electron interactions into account.  It would indeed be a miracle if this one turned out to work given how everything needs to fine tune in just the right way.  But, with slight modifications of the prong position or length, a project for a seasoned synthetic chemist, and heavy duty calculations by quantum chemists, I think that the right geometry and topology can be identified and experimentally tested.

I will most likely have difficulty sleeping tonight, but I will try to hit the sack soon.  As for the paper, I am passing it along to you for your revisions.  Please keep in mind the ideas above, which I think should be stressed.  So if you make changes, please make sure that they preserve or enhance this narrative.

The response to the reviewers may need more work since I did not get a chance to proof it very carefully.  We need to make sure that we carefully answered all the reviewers comments in the way they intended.  Also, please make sure that our responses match up with the actual changes we made in the manuscript and that we didn't miss anything.

I am willing to read through it all before we resubmit unless you both are comfortable with the final product.  Given that grading is piling up, meetings continue to chew up my time, and I still need to do quite a bit of work for my presentation in DC, any relief from proofing burdens is greatly appreciated!

All the best!

-- 
Mark G. Kuzyk
Regents Professor of Physics
Meyer Distinguished Professor of Sciences
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99164-2814

Phone: 509-335-4672
Fax: 509-335-7816

Web Page: www.NLOsource.com

Who should be a coauthor

Over the past two years, I have been leading a collaboration of 4 universities.  We are now writing a bunch of papers and giving talks, so naturally, my graduate students are asking me who should be included as coauthors?.  Almost three decades ago, this same question came up while I worked at Bell Labs as part of a large team.  Since there was pressure to publish, conflict was inevitable when a researcher was dropped from the author list.

One of my collaborators found a document that spelled out reasonable guidelines.  I have not been able to locate my copy -- since it was on paper, I probably lost it --  but here is what I remember.

Collaboration is integral to science, reaping rewards that exceed the sum of individual efforts.  Success thus requires an understanding between collaborators that researchers who do the work can expect to be coauthors.  There are many types of contributions, and all are critical, so it is pointless to argue which are more important.  To  this end, the criteria for coauthorship can be parsed into five broad classes.  Coauthorship requires that the individual contribute substantively to at least three of these five.  The five criteria, in typical chronological order follow:

1.  Having the idea.  All research is initiated by a question and a rough outline of activities that will lead to an answer.  For example, recent data show evidence that the earth is warming.  A stroke of insight leads to the realization that a temperature record is literally frozen in place in polar ice caps that goes way back in time.  The scientist then imagines ways that a core can be extracted and how they will be evaluated to determine a historic temperature profile.

2.  Getting support for the work.  Research requires resources.  An individual like Albert Einstein had deep insights and worked out his ideas at home after work as a patent examiner.  In this case, he supported his own research.  Collecting ice core samples, on the other hand, requires expensive expeditions, specialized equipment, and technical expertise.  A scientist proposing such experiments to a funding agency must succinctly pose the question to be answered, provide a meticulous plan for experimental protocols with well-defined timelines, and estimate the cost of the project, including manpower needs.  Getting funding is a time-consuming activity with low chances of success, so is an important ingredient to research. 

3.  Doing the research.  Once the idea is generated and funding secured for the project, someone has to do the work.  To get credit for doing the research, one must do a substantial chunk of the work and should also contribute both intellect and muscle.  If a technician is given specific instructions, such as turn this knob and write down this number, that doesn't count even if (s)he spends a significant amount of time and effort.  Acting like a machine taking data and being a computer following code is not the creative activity we call research.  On the other hand, interacting with a colleague or advisor who guides the direction of the work warrants co-authorship even if that individual did not work in the lab, analyze data or wrote code.

4.  Writing the paper.  All researchers who have made a contribution to a piece of work will typically provide input to the manuscript.  Writing the paper implies a significant amount of work that includes interpreting the results and tying it all together.  Proofing the manuscript is required of coauthors but correcting typos is not sufficient to count as writing the paper.  Adding an overall wrapping to the work that ties it together is part of the creative process.

5.  Understanding the paper.  This is less of an activity and more the result of being involved in the day-to-day work in generating results and writing the paper.  Each coauthor should have a good enough grasp of the science to be able to explain the work to other scientists.  There are always exceptions, especially when doing  interdisciplinary work.  A chemist may need to muster loads of creative juices to figure out how to make a compound that a Physicist measures to get the result.  It is unreasonable to require the physicist to understand synthetic chemistry and the chemist should not be required to understand relativistic quantum mechanics.  If the chemist writes a strictly synthesis paper, the physicist need not be a coauthor unless the reason for making the material is integral to the argument for making the material.  Similarly, the chemist need not be included as a coauthor in a series of physics papers that use the chemist's material.  However, if the chemist makes a material with the specific requirements for the physics experiment, that counts as creative input, and the chemist should be included as a coauthor provided he or she has contributed to two other categories.

These guidelines are not meant to be applied as absolute rules.  Nor should they be used as an excuse to cut off a potential coauthor.    Rather, they should be the starting point for discussions.  There are undoubtedly many exceptions for a diversity of reasons, so treat each of these thoughtfully.  When in doubt, err on the side of including your collaborators as coauthors.  It never hurts to add a coauthor to a paper.  However, it is unethical to add undeserving authors.

There are many reasons for not adding coauthors.  Years ago it was common practice to add the name of a highly-respected colleague to paper to give it added credibility.  As a result, high-profile publications now ask who did what in the reported research.  Clearly, it is unethical to make deals with collaborators to add my name to your papers in expectations of reciprocation.

Then there are the fuzzy areas.  For example, it often happens that a researcher worked on a project side-by-side with team mates, but his or her part didn't pan out.  If this person is involved in writing the paper and has a firm grasp of the results, then he or she should be a coauthor.

I am sure that you can think of many exceptions and gray areas.  Treat them thoughtfully and you will have good collaborators for a lifetime.  Let me know what you think.

I need an A!

As teachers, how often have we encountered students at the end of the semester -- after grades have been turned in, stating, "I need at least a C to graduate.";  "I'll lose my scholarship if I don't get at least a B." or asking "Can I do anything to improve my grade?"  Some use the teary-eyed approach to gain sympathy.  Others are confrontational with an air of entitlement.

If the grade is so important to you, then why didn't you work harder during the semester?  The biggest whiners are often the students who made little effort, skipped a large percentage of classes, and didn't turn in all their assignments.  And the sparse work they did turn in was either wrong or devoid of intellectual content.

Graduates students, for the most part, are experienced enough to know how to work hard and make an effort to learn.  Since most of my teaching over the last few years has been at the graduate level, such whining is rare.  However, my wife teaches on the order of 500 students per semester, and this time of year her email box gets filled with requests for higher grades.  In response, she has prepared a level-headed standard email response, which calmly states the facts.  It is reproduced below:

Some of you may be disappointed in your grade for this course. That is a regrettable fact of college life. Please do not ask me to give you a grade that's higher than that which is justified by your course average.  (I routinely round up for students whose course average is just a hair below the cutoff point).

Also, I do not offer additional extra credit opportunities at this point.   It would be unethical for me to offer extra credit opportunities to an individual student that have not been offered to the entire class. 

Furthermore, a grade in a course is a reflection of the depth of the student’s comprehension of the material, not a favor bestowed by the teacher. It would be a violation of my integrity and an act of dishonesty for me to assign grades that are not justified by a student’s performance.

An email from me would have been more caustic. 

The Ugly World of Plagiarism

Science is based on the honesty and integrity of its practitioners.  Even a small fraction of dishonest acts such as fudging data or plagiarism can be very costly.  As such, we all need to be vigilant to punish those who break the rules.

This hit close to home when over a decade ago, one of my papers was plagiarized.  (Click here for an example of how an academic who had plagiarized my work was punished by loosing his job.) I was impressed by the actions taken by the journal that had received the tainted manuscript, and the administrators at the perpetrator's institution who took decisive actions.

Just this morning, I got a letter from a colleague who just discovered that a paper recently appeared in a prestigious journal that basically copied his work and lifted whole sections from his previous paper without acknowledging him or citing his papers.  He wanted my opinion on the topic, and here was my response:

Dear Prof. Colleague,

Plagiarism is a horrible corruption of the scientific process, that like a cancer, could compromise science if it is not dealt with vigilance.  You might want to check out my case (http://www.nlosource.com/PlagiarismCase.html) to see how I responded and how the ordeal was settled.  In your case, the other paper has already appeared, and journals might be reluctant to accuse the offending parties in fear of a lawsuit.  In my case, the act of plagiarism was caught by an astute postdoc that reviewed the offending manuscript and alerted the editor before it was published.
 
If I were to find myself in your situation, I would probably contact both Journal A and Journal B editors to get their opinion on a course of action that they are willing to take.  At minimum,Journal A  should at least print some sort of correction that includes citations to your work.  That way, you would at least get credit in the citation indices.  You might also want to write the authors to confront them; but, you may want to check with your university's legal department first.
 
Note that I was not able to open the links to the papers since one was to a server from your university that requires a password.  However, from your description, I think that you should take action.
 
Thanks for sending me a copy of your pre-print on two-photon absorption.  This is a beautiful paper that I would like to read carefully when I have some more time.  Once the paper appears, can you send me a copy?  Since it will undoubtedly be very useful to my group, I want to add it to my database of references.  I have skimmed through the manuscript and was wondering if you took cascading into account and if the concentration dependence might be telling you something about it.  I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question based on my cursory reading.
 
Finally, have you given any thought to hosting a "sum rules and scaling" meeting at your university?  I am thinking about keeping it small, perhaps with a dozen attendees, so that we could concentrate on bouncing around new ideas.  Let me know your thoughts.
 
Always glad to hear from you, though it would have been better under happier circumstances.  Keep in touch.

Best,
Mark

Cherry Pickers Deny Global Warming

Global warming deniers are like a broken record, repeating the same old climate change myths.  It is always possible to find supposed counterexamples to any well-established and impeccably-tested scientific theory such as evolution, the big bang theory, the germ theory of disease, etc. by cherry picking the data.  This despicable practice is forbidden by the scientific community, and those who practice it are censured and shunned.  Unfortunately, cherry picking is the favorite tool of politicians, lobbyists, and purveyors of ideology, who use it unashamedly with impunity.

Take the claim that global warming has stalled.  A plot of the mean global land-ocean temperature shows that the 2013 temperature is indeed below the 1998 value.  However, such variations are well within the expected range of statistical fluctuations.  Taken out of context and ignoring the rest of the dataset leads to the erroneous conclusion that warming has stopped.  The long-term trend is clear and agreement between the data and computer models (within computational and measurement uncertainties, of course) increases our confidence in the results.

What about the claim that scientists are changing terminology in an effort to hide the perception that global warming has stopped?  To be precise, the earth is experiencing global heating.  It is a fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps heat, which warms the atmosphere, land and oceans.  Manifestations of heating include temperature increase, evaporation of water, melting of ice, volatility, and changes in climate patterns.  Deniers see a conspiracy in what they believe is an intentional obfuscation on the part of scientists.  The fact that the media uses different words or has changed its terminology is irrelevant to the underlying facts.  The terms  global warming and climate change have been used by scientists for decades, and it has always been understood that these are consequences of heating.

Deniers like to downplay the scientific consensus.  According to several studies that analyze the vast literature on climate change, more than 97% of active climate scientists conclude that the data supports anthropogenic climate change.  The most meticulous study of this sort assembled a list of researchers who are both active climate scientists (judged by numbers of publications in refereed journals), and who have been signatories of public statements that either support or denounce anthropogenic climate change.  This study confirms the 97% figure.  Global warming deniers point to one specific report that suffers from a documented flaw in its methodology as evidence that the 97% number is incorrect.  They ignore all the other studies that confirm the sentiments of 97% of the climate researchers who concur that global warming is real.

Deniers call for productive discussions on climate change.  These are already taking place. Vigorous debate is common at scientific conferences, new and updated studies are inundating the journals with data, and interpretations of the data are continually being fine-tuned.  Scientists are not zombies who tow the party line.  Only after years of debate is a scientific consensus reached; and even then, scientists doggedly try to find holes in the evidence.  In contrast, the climate change denying machine cherry picks the data in a deliberate effort to cast doubt and plant misinformation in the popular press.

Demanding 100% certainty before taking action on global warming is a stalling tactic.  Prudence demands that steps be taken in proportion to the degree of confidence in the information.  Public debate should focus on finding the most economical ways with the greatest impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  The scientists who have the deepest and broadest understanding of the literature have reached a consensus based on the preponderance of evidence.  We are fools for not heeding their warnings.

The value of ‘curiosity-driven’ research

Darwin did not study the natural world to understand the genome with the purpose of developing the field of genetic engineering.  Einstein did not study the curvature of space-time and the eerie condensation of particles called bosons to develop the GPS system or to invent the laser. Instead, these scientists were driven by curiosity and an intense thirst to unlock the mysteries of life, matter, and space-time. The practical applications of their research, which have fundamentally transformed the fabric of our lives, came about fortuitously as a byproduct of their relentless pursuit of understanding.

Universities must continue to hold a public commitment and financially invest in fundamental research, not only to expand human knowledge, as an end to itself, but also because basic research can lead to breakthroughs that shift scientific paradigms and enable novel applications that leapfrog existing technologies.  Strong support for continued hiring of bright and energetic basic researchers at universities should continue, as it reinvigorates existing research areas, attracts the best and brightest students, and increases the visibility of our research and the reputation of our institution.  Basic research is the foundation on which new innovation and societal solutions are built.