William H. Grover

Why I can’t return to Tennessee

Versions of this letter were published in the University of Tennessee Daily Beacon and the Johnson City Press

I always thought I’d move back to Tennessee. I was born and raised there, and I’m proud of my chemistry degree from the University of Tennessee (class of ‘99). And even though I left Tennessee to get my PhD, I always assumed I’d return. To maybe be a professor at UT. To share my passion for science with the next generation of scientists. To collaborate with some of the world’s brightest minds at Oak Ridge. To start companies and create jobs for Tennesseans. To try to give something back to a state that’s done so much for me.

But on April 10, Governor Bill Haslam made it clear that folks like me aren’t welcome in Tennessee anymore. By letting House Bill 368 become law, Haslam sent a clear message: science education has no value in Tennessee. Science education is so worthless that the state is now encouraging teachers to intentionally confuse their students, to spread controversy and uncertainty about topics that have no such controversy or uncertainty. When the bill states that “the teaching of some subjects, including… biological evolution… can cause controversy,” the bill’s authors aren’t referring to any real, subtle controversy about the fine details of evolution, they’re referring to some controversy about the fundamental validity of all of evolution, a controversy that just doesn’t exist.

The bill’s authors claim that it is motivated by the need to “encourage critical thinking.” That’s a very worthwhile goal, and there are plenty of real debates in the scientific community that make excellent case studies for teaching critical thinking - there’s no need to invent fake debates.

For students, this is far worse than merely being ignorant of science. This is actually turning back the clock, willfully undoing centuries of scientific progress. And while the rest of America is racing to keep ahead of countries like China in science and technology, Tennessee is not merely standing still, it’s actually running backwards.

So I can’t return to Tennessee. How can I be a scientist in a state where the validity of my research could be defended by my fellow scientists but cast into doubt by politicians? How can I send my son to a school where teachers are free to say “the Earth is flat” because the state thinks that all theories are worth teaching, even ones with no evidence supporting them?

I know that Tennesseans really do value science. I’m sure that my teachers at Science Hill High School in Johnson City and my professors at UT are shaking their heads in disbelief at the legislature’s actions. But the rest of the world doesn’t know this. They’ll assume all Tennesseans are waging war on science, and they’ll think twice about moving to our communities, attending our universities, supporting our industries, or hiring our people. And like me, they’ll settle down in states that actually value science education instead. But I’ll still miss my home.

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Science for Github

My friend and former labmate Marcio von Muhlen recently wrote a thought-provoking piece on why we need a Github of science. My take on his central argument: our centuries-old system of for-profit academic journals and peer review could be vastly improved if it included aspects of modern Open Source software publishing tools like Github. For example, instead of relying on the opinion of two or three anonymous (and possibly unqualified) referees to determine whether my research belongs in a high-impact journal, I could post my paper on the “Github of science” and the entire community of my peers could weigh in on its strengths and weaknesses. Like quality hits in a Google search, well-regarded research rises to the top and is rewarded by additional visibility, and weaker research sinks to the bottom. Marcio’s piece was the subject of an enthusiastic discussion on Hacker News.

I’ve been thinking about a backwards approach to Marcio’s argument: instead of adding aspects of Github to science publishing, what would happen if we added aspects of the current science publishing system to Github? How horribly broken would Github become if we recast it in the image of Reed-Elsevier, Springer, John Wiley and Sons, and the rest of the for-profit scientific publishing companies?

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All the easy experiments: A Berkeley professor, dirty bombs, and the birth of informed consent

W.H. Grover, Berkeley Science Review 5 (2) 2005. PDF

Sixty years ago Berkeley was a campus at war. Plutonium, which had been discovered by Cal chemist Glenn Seaborg and his colleagues in 1940, had been identified by Manhattan Project scientists as a potential bomb-making material; by 1945 it was the subject of intense research at Berkeley, Los Alamos, and the University of Chicago. The frantic pace of wartime research led to numerous accidents: Los Alamos chemist Don Mastick swallowed much of the world’s plutonium when a test tube he was holding exploded in his face. Mishaps like this made Manhattan Project leaders anxious to better understand the health effects of plutonium. For answers, they turned to Joseph Hamilton, a young Berkeley professor who was already an expert on the toxicology of radioactive materials… Read on

Also check out an episode of Berkeley Groks Grok Science in which the editors of the Berkeley Science Review mention this article.

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