As the Spring semester rolls around, in this short space between the winter holiday extravaganza and the start of my second semester in Missouri’s library and information science program, I though I’d share some thoughts on a few recent pieces on research. Often positioned as a final boss in education and the thing that keeps people in the academy once basic skill and efforts to cultivate them are exhausted, research can be vexing when done well. When done poorly though whether through negligence or malice it can be catastrophic though interesting.
The first published at Ars Technica concerns a case of problematic interpretation. The setup seems very innovative, the results seem interesting, and then the investigator offers his interpretation involving an outmoded Lamarkian view of evolutionary biology. He devised an apparatus that allowed E. coli to be cultured over a gradient of differing concentrations of nutrients and antibiotics while being able to travel between these cells and observed rapid acquisition of resistance to ciprofloxacin, on the order of ten hours. And then he interprets his results through a pre-Darwinian lens. Presentation abstract available here.
The next is is from all of the way back in May, though I only recently ran into it. Darryl Cunningham offers a comic strip version of the MMR controversy and disgrace of Andrew Wakefield. In a hypothetical future in which I am responsible for children I might evaluate pediatricians based on the visible presence or absence of this in their office. Thankfully journalism on the subject is taking a positive turn if this NPR piece hoping for less parents to opt out of vaccinations is a sign.
Complementary to the first piece about problematic interpretation arrives this study from Michigan State concerning science illiteracy among college students, although this could probably be reproduced among many other populations. The university’s press release presents a nice summary.
These are just a few things I’ve been reading over the break between obligatory holiday gatherings and trying to put together some research of my own over the break. More than anything that first article has been sticking with me, the scientist interpreting an experiment he set up with what seems to be an innovative apparatus through assumptions a few hundred years behind the standards of the discipline he is writing on, makes me wonder what I as an aspiring librarian/educator can do to take steps to promote scientific literacy. Additionally to, in my work avoid lapses through which I may inadvertently promote poor research methods.
Any thoughts or comments?