May 2008 Archives

Last week I pointed out the letter that Raghavendra Gadagkar wrote to Nature describing the challenges that an "author pays" model of open access poses for scholars in developing countries. I finally had time to poke around on Peter Suber's site,¹ and when I did I found both his commentary and links to other commentaries on the letter. I presume there will be a response in Nature at some point, but I didn't see one this week. When I do, I'll post a link to that letter, too. For now a few comments on Peter Suber's comments.

Last year Guyana's president, Bharrat Jagdeo, offered to let a British government agency manage all of Guyana's rainforest -- 80% of its land area -- in return for economic assistance from the British government. The British government hasn't accepted the deal yet, but Jagdeo hasn't given up. He spoke at the launch of a new campaign by Conservation International to protect the world's rainforests. (Reports in The New York Times and Newsweek)

In the early 1990s efforts to conserve the rainforest were couched largely in terms of protecting the massive biodiversity found there. In the intervening 15 years the threat of global climate change has become more apparent, and the vital role that rainforests play in sequestering carbon has become even more important.

Now Harrison Ford (a CI Board member) reminds us that "[s]aving forests is more than helping wildlife survive. It combats climate change, and allows people to continue getting the fresh water and food and medicines they need from healthy forest ecosystems." (see the full video on the CI website)

Or as Robert Semple puts it in the Times:

The good news is that the world is finally starting to see things Mr. Jagdeo's way. Negotiators at last year's climate change conference in Bali -- the first of several meetings aimed at crafting a post-Kyoto treaty -- agreed to address deforestation. The big climate bill that is expected to be debated on the Senate floor very soon provides incentives for American companies to invest in rain-forest projects abroad. Mr. Jagdeo may yet wind up with a buyer.

I made my first post about Julie McDonald just over a year ago, on 22 May 2007. Last Wednesday the  House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing into allegations that McDonald inappropriately influenced endangered species designations. Nick Rahall (D-WV) concluded that "the best hope for endangered species may simply be to cling to life until after January when this president and his cronies, at long last, hit the unemployment line." ("Politics seen in decisions on endangered species", by Michael Doyle, Houston Chronicle,21 May 2008)

At the hearing the Government Accountability Office released a report asserting that four more Interior Department officials may have had inappropriate influence on endangered species decisions. Two officials who have left the depatment denied the allegations. Two others who still work for Interior did not respond to requests for comment. ("US Official: Interior rulings subject to meddling", by Matthew Daly, The Associated Press, Washington Post, 21 May 2008)

The United States Congress is filled with lawyers, but there aren't many scientists or engineers. Vern Ehlers (R-MI) and Rush Holt (D-NJ) are the only two that come immediately to mind.¹ Nature has a report on a meeting sponsored by Scientists and Engineers for America that was held on the 10th of May and intended "to tell scientists what it takes to run for public office -- and how to go about it."

Joe Trippi claims that emphasizing the training in rational thinking (and by implication evidence-based decision-making) could be a real advantage to political candidates now. He claims that Americans are tired of the "Vote for me, and I'll cut your taxes" approach.

The SEA will launch a forum in July where scientists considering public office can seek advice.

I've written before that I think open access is an undeniable public good and that I'm not convinced that an "author pays" model is sustainable. As a result, I was taken aback when I read this letter from Raghavendra Gadagkar of the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore (Open-access more harm than good in developing world. Nature 453:450; 2008)..

Ingrid Robeyns suggested a couple of months ago that open-access will benefit the developing world by "closing the global inequalities in access to education...[and helping]to improve the quality of the papers being produced by scholars living and working in the South, which in turn increases their chance of being published in what we consider quality journals." In contrast, Gadagkar argues that "Page charges make extra difficulties for authors, while the old problems associated with peer review persist. They could be disastrous for the underdeveloped world, encouraging people to remain as consumers (readers), rather than to become producers (authors) of knowledge."

I wrote several weeks ago about a shareholder revolt at Exxon led by Robert Monks and supported by the Rockefeller family.

A CEO/Board Chairman split at ExxonMobil won't make it green overnight, but the Rockefeller family statement suggests that ExxonMobil will be changing direction, and that direction is likely to be towards finding ways that ExxonMobil can adapt to a world that is trying to wean itself from oil.

That optimistic assessment just got a little more likely. Monday's Guardian had this to say:

A shareholder revolt at ExxonMobil led by the billionaire Rockefeller family has won the support of four significant British institutional investors who will call on Monday for a shakeup in the governance of the world's biggest oil company.

Guardian.co.uk has learned that F&C Asset Management, Morley Fund Management, the Co-Operative Insurance Society and the West Midlands Pension Fund are throwing their weight behind a resolution demanding that ExxonMobil appoints an independent chairman to stimulate debate on the company's board.

Exxon is facing a rebellion from its investors over its hardline approach to global warming. The firm has refused to follow rival oil companies in committing large-scale capital investment to environmentally friendly technology such as wind and solar power. (source)

The shareholder vote isn't binding, but the broader the support that the proposal receives, the more likely it is that the Exxon board will change its governance structure and, more importantly to me, begin to consider renewable energy sources more seriously. According to the Guardian, Exxon has committed more than $25 billion in capital investment to carbon-based fuel and only $100 million to (0.4% of the combined total) fund research on climate change.

Posting will be even lighter than normal for the next three weeks. I'm off to Cape Town, South Africa for work on evolution in white proteas. I should have Internet access off and on through the courtesy of my collaborators at the South African National Biodiversity Institute, If you'd like to see some photos of the plants I'll be working on, click through to this page from the Protea Atlas Project.

The gray wolf (Canis lupus) was removed from the United States list of endangered species on the 28th of March (source). Since then, sixteen have been killed in the state of Wyoming.

JACKSON, Wyo. - Wyoming Game and Fish Department officials say 16 wolves have been legally killed in the state since the animals were removed from protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The latest wolf killing was reported by a hunter who shot a wolf May 5 near Daniel in Sublette County.

The 16 killed since late March include four wolves shot by the U.S. Agriculture Department after they were seen preying on cattle.

All the animals were shot in the area of the state where wolves can be killed at any time using any means. People who kill wolves are required to report to Game and Fish within 10 days. (Wyo. wolf-kill total reaches 16, The Associated Press, Salt Lake City Tribune, 12 May 2008)

I received an e-mail from Michael Zimmerman of Butler University and The Clergy Letter Project earlier today. Here's the news he had to report:

I am thrilled to report that The United Methodist Church, at its General Convention just concluded, endorsed The Clergy Letter Project.  The resolution that was overwhelmingly passed at the General Convention, which meets once every four years, adds a statement to the Book of Resolution that reads as follows:  "The United Methodist Church endorses The Clergy Letter Project and its reconciliatory programs between religion and science, and urges United Methodist clergy participation."  You can read the resolution and see how it reads in context here:  http://calms.umc.org/2008/Text.aspx?mode=Petition&Number=990.

The General Convention also adopted two other resolutions that are very supportive of evolution.  The first explicitly adds the acceptance of evolution to the Methodist's Book of Discipline.  In part, the resolution states that "We find that science's descriptions of cosmological, geological, and biological evolution are not in conflict with theology."  You can read the full resolution here:  http://calms.umc.org/2008/Text.aspx?mode=Petition&Number=50.

The final resolution adds a new statement to the Methodist's Book of Resolution dealing with creationism and intelligent design.  The wording reads as follows, "Therefore be it resolved that the General Conference of the United Methodist Church go on record as opposing the introduction of any faith-based theories such as Creationism or Intelligent Design into the science curriculum of our public schools."  The specific information is available here:  http://calms.umc.org/2008/Text.aspx?mode=Petition&Number=839.

Many other bloggers have already linked to this video, but it's good, and I want to make sure you don't miss it. (And if you haven't sent a check to the National Center for Science Education recently - do it now!

If you happen to be in northeastern Connecticut some time and if you're interested in landscape trees, I recommend stopping by the UConn campus for a tree walking tour. It won't take long, and you'll see a lot of interesting trees. Printed brochures will (I think) be available at the Lodewick Visitors Center, or you can download the PDF for yourself. Enjoy!

As I've written before, I think open access is an undeniable public good. It's something every scholar and scholarly society should strive to support. But I am not yet convinced we've found a model for open access that will work for journals associated with small-medium professional societies (like those in BioOne¹, for example). Making published articles available to users free of charge doesn't eliminate the expenses associated with copyediting, markup², and hosting. Visitors to national parks pay a user fee, so it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to expect journal users to pay a small fee to read articles they're interested in.

That's a long-winded disclaimer to a short notice about a new resource: the Open Access Directory.

Welcome to the Open Access Directory (OAD), a compendium of simple factual lists about open access (OA) to science and scholarship, maintained by the OA community at large. By bringing many OA-related lists together in one place, OAD will make it easier for users, especially newcomers, to discover them and use them for reference. The easier they are to maintain and discover, the more effectively they can spread useful, accurate information about OA.

The goal is for the OA community itself to enlarge and correct the lists with little intervention from the editors or editorial board. For quality control, we limit editing privileges to registered users. We welcome your contributions to our lists, ideas for new lists, and comments to help us improve OAD. Please contact us or use the discussion tab. We expect a lot of traffic during our launch phase and please understand if we cannot get to all of the messages right away.

Thank you for visiting during our launch,

Peter Suber (co-founder), Robin Peek (co-founder), Terry Plum,AO Athanasia Pontika, Charles Bailey, Leslie Chan, Melissa Hagemann, Heather Joseph, Alma Swan, John Wilbanks

The editors and editorial board members of the OAD

Keep an eye on the OAD. Open access to scholarly materials is a goal we should all strive for, even if we never get there.

As Ed Brayton points out, the Wall Street Journal understands what creationists are up to. Bills purporting to guarantee academic freedom to high school teachers in various states are nothing of the sort.

They have spent years working school boards, with only minimal success. Now critics of evolution are turning to a higher authority: state legislators.

In a bid to shape biology lessons, they are promoting what they call "academic freedom" bills that would encourage or require public-school teachers to cast doubt on a cornerstone of modern science.

That cornerstone is, of course, evolutionary biology.