Hollywood Stars

We here on MT regularly criticize, or even lampoon, studies that we think are trivial or over-sold or over-priced.  Often this involves 'studies' that seem to have very little serious scientific value beyond curiosity, which can sometimes border on circus (such as digging up Tycho Brahe to get his DNA, or sequencing a 115 year old woman to see what genes 'made' her live that long, or desperately seeking to send men to Mars with butterfly nets to catch Martian life).

But these kinds of studies, not to mention huge mainlining studies like many GWAS and related expensive, exhaustive studies are all over the news.  This is not just because the investigators are so quick to brag about their work and claim its high importance, because eventually the wolf-crying would wear too thin.  The studies also sell.  Print and visual media people may not always be deep thinkers, and may be unduly gullible when talking to professors, but they know that there are readers eager to eat up the stories they write.

So the fault, Dear Brutus, may be in ourselves.  Are we just negative spoil-sports who simply wan to take all the fun out of science?  In many ways, the answer is Yes.  Science, real science that is, is a technically difficult attempt to understand Nature.  If universities and journalism worked as they should (from this perspective), there would be a lot less of this science-marketing and perhaps better science.  Hoopla and its rewards alter what people think of doing or believe they can be funded to do.

Of course, lots of really good science is being done along with the chaff, but the chaff is too expensive and too integrated into what people in universities, and media people in the real world, are pressured for many different reasons (not least being to earn a living) to do.

Of course, nobody pays any serious attention to grumps like us, even if our points about the science itself were actually sound, as we at least believe them to be.  So we and MT (except for Holly's posts) are at worst harmless and perhaps at most, laughable.  On the other hand, we do have a suggestion to make that would remedy both the  problem of costly overblown trivial science, and our own perhaps overblown criticism:

We need to establish a category of Entertainment Science, things with trivial, man-bites-dog human-interest, minimal theoretical value, and great telegenic content, and where the profit motive is legitimate rather than corrupting.  Government, being duly prudent, should be banned from funding any such science.  Instead, there are deeper pockets elsewhere, and people with the appropriate experience, desires, and expertise:  Entertainment Science should be paid for by Hollywood.

Having a wonderrrful time....wissshhshh yur wr heeeeeeeeeer

Well, a special Commentary on Science is in order, because we live in State College, where special academic events often take temporary precedence, even to the extent that crowds obstruct the streets so you can't get to where you're going, such as, say, the library (you knew that State College is a university town, didn't you?).  Well, it really isn't just the library to which access was blocked off this time, but the ordinary streets---those near the many buildings temporary reconfigured for special events experiments.

In this arts & sciences university, for one long weekend in the summer, it's the arts for whose special events the town is reconfigured (it's called the Arts Festival).  And in the winter it's science's turn.  This event is fondly known, with what for a science event is a strangely religious sounding name, as State Patty's Day.  It's when people (often referred to as 'students') flock here from places as far away as, yes, Alabama (14 hour drive) to join the hands-on, direct-experience chemistry class.

You may think it unusual for people to go to such lengths for a science experience, but Penn State here is relentlessly insistent on unprecedented high (no pun intended) academic standards.  As one participant put it:  " I don’t know any other place that has this much fun.”

Experimenters, 2011;
photo from the Centre Daily Times

Yes, we did say 'chemistry' and, perhaps pedantically, State Patty's experiments are narrowly focused on just a single chemical, known as alcohol.  The hands-on aspect refers to moveable or upsettable objects such as mailboxes, light posts, cars, and other similar items, and the experiment is to show how one tiny molecule, in large quantities, can achieve high-energy muscle-enhancing effects.  Lower-energy hands-on experiences involve what is known in the vernacular as 'groping', and shows that this very same molecule also has powerful pheromonic effects, that is, is related to uncontrolled mating rituals.

Another part of the direct-experience aspect of State Patty's is the digestive role that the self-same molecule plays.  It is a highly reactive molecule that, when past a dosage threshold, triggers what (again we apologize for using technical language) is known as the Upchuck Reflex.  The UR is activated under almost any circumstance, that is, is not always controlled by the subject of the experiment.  So it doesn't always occur in the lab, but often out on the sidewalks, local residents' yards, and so on.

Additionally, and also under apparently little control, again abbreviated UR (some terminological confusion, we realize) is the Urinary Response.  Both URs occur anywhere and any time during the experimental phase.

Finally, because so many 'students' come here to take part in the State Patty's experiments, a large number of temporary employees (people normally employed in their towns around the state as police) are hired as lab monitors.  This reflects the fact that there is even yet another effect of this same tiny molecule:  it interacts with the Arrest Proclivity gene.  Those with the unfortunate genotype are assessed an additional lab fee (for some reason, re-named a 'fine' or 'bail').  Sometimes, the AP reaction is so extreme that a period of enforced, protective isolation is required.  For the victims' own good, you understand.

Now, Penn State is known for its ongoing 'adult' education programs, and the same applies to chemistry.  Because, though the course-sizes are smaller, the same kind of first-hand experiments go on weekly here.  For a modest tuition fee (paid to the local establishment in whose lab you do the experiment), you can replicate the experimental effect week, after week, after week.  In fact, you may have heard about us a year or so ago on This American Life--which slanderously and unfairly referred to Penn State and its never-ending chemistry lab as "a drinking school with a football problem"

So, from near or far, welcome to the State Patty's day chem class!