Funny that the phrase “stylized facts” started out in economics and is being used in social sciences when 100% of clinical medicine is, in fact, based on stylized facts.

“Natural systems … may look like (a Rube Goldberg machine) superficially because we don’t fully understand what’s going on,” he said. “Once we understand the right way to look at it, we can hopefully appreciate it as a simple design.” Referring to GRNs, but broadly applicable.

🧪 Happy to see Quanta magazine recognized for its outstanding science reporting. Their website is an oasis!

“This is not the Apollo program; we’re planning to stay there for a whole month,” said Jim Green, NASA’s former chief scientist. He added, “The concept of acquiring materials and having habitats on the moon is viable.”

2025 is the year of the first Artemis launch and I can’t wait.

Also, if this week has already burned you out, Quanta Magazine is an excellent source of optimism.

🧪 For the five people out there who are interested in T-cell malignancies, one of the last papers we wrote with Dr. Waldmann is now out as early access at Blood Advances. It is a modest phase 1 trial of IL-15 and Campath with interesting results.

“Science gets entangled with politics; it always has and it always will. And every time it happens the reputation of science get damaged. I am of course not a scientist and cannot speak authoritatively to these matters; but I can at least point to some intellectual problems that need to be addressed.”

Full post here. As a scientist of sorts, I can only nod my head in agreement.

The Good Science Project is underselling how good it is. More like this, please. (signatures below the manifesto are a good — heh — example of quality over quantity)

🧪 Good morning to everyone except to whomever is in charge of the eRA Commons service desk. You’d think that a multi-billion dollar operation like NIH would have a decent answering service, with a call-back option, number in line, etc. ★☆☆☆☆, won’t use again (if only)

A marvelous xkcd from a few days ago. This one strip explains the trouble with odds ratios better than hours of premed/med stats 🧪

A big reason Don’t Look Up didn’t sit right with me was its simplistic view of the scientific consensus. “Listen to the goddamn qualified scientists…” bellows Ariana Grande paternalistically.

Meanwhile, qualified scientists from reputable institutions of higher education act as petty and vindictive prima donnas. The linked article is one scientist’s story of having to suffer through years of academic harassment for publishing a paper that rubbed some of her fellow researchers the wrong way. From the abstract:

A naïve researcher published a scientific article in a respectable journal. She thought her article was straightforward and defensible. It used only publicly available data, and her findings were consistent with much of the literature on the topic. Her coauthors included two distinguished statisticians. To her surprise her publication was met with unusual attacks from some unexpected sources within the research community. These attacks were by and large not pursued through normal channels of scientific discussion. Her research became the target of an aggressive campaign that included insults, errors, misinformation, social media posts, behind-the-scenes gossip and maneuvers, and complaints to her employer. The goal appeared to be to undermine and discredit her work.

Goddamn scientists indeed.