Skeptical quote

"Evidence is what matters, and skeptics like us went along with the round Earth because it had the most evidence going for it. That's what science means. Treating all ideas as equal is what journalism is."

From Bronze Blog.

Friday beautiful science

This Friday's beautiful science is a photo of the surface of Europa taken by the Galileo probe in 1998. The American Museum of Natural History in New York is having a show of fantastic photos taken from various space probes. Michael Benson put the photographs together using raw data from NASA (many of the shots are composites). If you can get to New York, see the show (and please, comment on it here).

For those of us unable to make it to the show, Michael Benson has put together a book. I got it last week, it's fantastic. The photos are all stunning. The very few photos that I've seen that are better than the photos in his book are the very recently taken photos of the sun taken by Hinode, and of Saturn from Cassini.

Check out the book here:

59th Skeptics' Circle

The 59th Skeptics' Circle is up at Pooflingers Anonymous. Take a gander.

Bees in the New York Times - an addendum

I'm really pretty excited about the story that appeared in the New York Times today about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). I already posted about it once today, but I thought I'd post again about what a good job of presenting science this article does. First off, they could have said that "scientists have decided that CCD is caused by a microbe", but instead, they demonstrated the experiment that shows us that, which is much more powerful:

Mr. Hackenberg, the beekeeper, agreed to take his empty bee boxes and other equipment to Food Technology Service, a company in Mulberry, Fla., that uses gamma rays to kill bacteria on medical equipment and some fruits. In early results, the irradiated bee boxes seem to have shown a return to health for colonies repopulated with Australian bees.

“This supports the idea that there is a pathogen there,” Dr. Cox-Foster said. “It would be hard to explain the irradiation getting rid of a chemical.”

Nice experiment. Thanks for showing us. Secondly, they actually give us reasonable data, instead of sensational data. Compare for example how Spiegel showed us how many bees have been affected:

In isolated cases, says Hederer, declines of up to 80 percent have been reported. He speculates that "a particular toxin, some agent with which we are not familiar," is killing the bees.

Well, sensational, but not quite useful. How many bees have actually been affected? Could be 80% of bees in the U.S., or could be one farmer lost 80% and most lost none. This is sensational, not useful. Now notice how the New York Times presents the same data:

More than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost — tens of billions of bees, according to an estimate from the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping.

Thank you. That means something, and we've actually been told how many bees are affected, rather than taking the highest number presented, it's showing what is occurring (and showing that the numbers are quite large) without sensationalizing it. We need more reasonable reporting on science. I look forward to finding more articles by Alexei Barrionuevo. I hope they're all this good.

Colony Collapse Disorder - bees on the run

I've written several posts about Colony Collapse Disorder. This is a die-off affecting commercial bees. Bees seem to be dieing and outside their hives and not being repopulated. The unique feature of this is the failure to repopulate the hive (often when bees die, the hive will get hijacked by a nearby colony). In this case, the hives are generally left empty.

This is a major problem for farmers of various fruit crops, who rely on these commercial bees for pollination. Indeed, owners of bee hives will truck their hives all around the country to rent them out to farmers. However, over a quarter of the commercial bees in America have died over the last year, and large numbers of bees have died in other countries as well. If you've been reading about this in the news, then you've heard a few of the crazier ideas.

Finally, a voice of reason has spoken. The New York Times published a credible story today:

As with any great mystery, a number of theories have been posed, and many seem to researchers to be more science fiction than science. People have blamed genetically modified crops, cellular phone towers and high-voltage transmission lines for the disappearances. Or was it a secret plot by Russia or Osama bin Laden to bring down American agriculture? Or, as some blogs have asserted, the rapture of the bees, in which God recalled them to heaven? Researchers have heard it all.

Rapture. I hadn't heard that one. But unlike Spiegel the New York Times actually asks some entomologists who are studying Colony Collapse Disorder what they think (what a crazy idea!). And what do they find?

Mr. Hackenberg, the beekeeper, agreed to take his empty bee boxes and other equipment to Food Technology Service, a company in Mulberry, Fla., that uses gamma rays to kill bacteria on medical equipment and some fruits. In early results, the irradiated bee boxes seem to have shown a return to health for colonies repopulated with Australian bees.

“This supports the idea that there is a pathogen there,” Dr. Cox-Foster said. “It would be hard to explain the irradiation getting rid of a chemical.”

Indeed. So it looks like we need to find what pathogen is causing this bee die-off.

Genetic testing at Columbia University has revealed the presence of multiple micro-organisms in bees from hives or colonies that are in decline, suggesting that something is weakening their immune system. The researchers have found some fungi in the affected bees that are found in humans whose immune systems have been suppressed by the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or cancer.

“That is extremely unusual,” Dr. Cox-Foster said.

Great. So there's also an immune system component, and may be a chemical (or chemicals) that are altering the immune system:

Among the pesticides being tested in the American bee investigation, the neonicotinoids group “is the number-one suspect,” Dr. Mullin said. He hoped results of the toxicology screening will be ready within a month.

Stay tuned.

The resilience of ignorance

In my social circle are a number of folks who use "alternative" medicine. A woman my wife went to college with puts homeopathic belladonna in her son's orange juice when he gets a cold, and is convinced that this cures him (belladonna is also known as "deadly nightshade" and was used as a poison in the Middle Ages). As she said, "Fight fire with fire." What does that mean?! The first time she told me this I was mortified, until I realized that she couldn't possibly be treating him with real belladonna, but was treating him with what is, essentially, water (homeopathic "medicines" are diluted so completely that they don't contain any of the original ingredients).

How is it that I can take the time to explain to her that it is just water, that I can explain about how her son would likely have gotten better at the same speed regardless of treatment, and that after spending 20 minutes at it, she is still convinced I am dead wrong?

"Nobody will ever listen to an explanation of why intuitions can be flawed - presumably because their intuitions have told them not to."

I've suspected for a long time that man is not a rational animal. But now, I have data. If anyone has ever wondered why irrational beliefs are so widespread, and so resilient, you should read this post at Ben Goldacre's badscience. Really, go read it. Now. Link to it. Send it to your friends. They really should know that:

"Our intuitions about the most basic observation of all, from which all others follow – our abilities to distinguish an actual pattern, from mere random background noise – are deeply, deeply flawed."

After reading his post, I'm not sure if I'm depressed or relieved...

technical problems

Apparently some browsers on this blog are demanding a password when viewing this page. I'm not sure why it's doing that, because the website demanding the password isn't one I've ever even linked to. Just click cancel, and you can view the page without any trouble. Sorry for the inconvenience.