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Conservapedia talk:Lenski dialog (view source)
Revision as of 14:49, June 27, 2008
, 14:49, June 27, 2008→Reply to comments in archive
::::: Note, by the way, how the opponents of data disclosure seem to have no idea about what data Lenski actually has, which raises further questions about the merits of the conclusion.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 09:15, 27 June 2008 (EDT)
::::: Note, by the way, how the opponents of data disclosure seem to have no idea about what data Lenski actually has, which raises further questions about the merits of the conclusion.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 09:15, 27 June 2008 (EDT)
:::::: I know some people here have claimed that the data are too voluminous to release...I didn't know what they were talking about, which is one reason I chimed in. Anyway, here are point by point responses to each of these cases. <i>Turbidity checking</i>: these data are either in a grad student's notebook somewhere, or were not recorded. I wouldn't at all be surprised if they weren't recorded due to the nature of the data (it's just a visual check of turbidity, and wouldn't be reported in a paper). <i>Low concentration of glucose in DM25</i>: this is a factual statement about DM25 media, not an observation. <i>Contaminants</i>: Same comment as the turbidity checking. Either there's a one-liner in a notebook somewhere ("Flask 25 contaminated, re-grew from stock") or nothing at all, since it's tangential to the experiment. <i>Figure 1</i>: As I already mentioned, the data in Figure 1 are actually comprehensive -- three data points went into each plotted point. They report the range (which give you a max and a min) and they also show you the average, which allows you to impute the third data point. <i>Number of Cit clones, and the following comments except the last</i>: these data are probably recorded in a lab notebook somewhere, since they're rather not tangential to the experiment. In addition, I'm sure they have a frozen stock of each cit+ bacterial clone that they checked, so this is something that could be easily independently verified. <i>Cit+ is not a contaminant</i>: no this would not be a part of the peer review...peer reviewers are not out to find fraud in general. Especially in the inaugural paper of somebody just nominated into the national academy. And the data underlying contamination checking are also extremely simple -- you plate the bacteria on an Ara+ plate and check sensitivity by eye, for example -- so there is no need to verify methodology as long as you trust the source.
:::::: You're basically asking for the lab notebooks of all of the grad students involved in the experiment over the 20 years. The data in these notebooks is going to be, in general, very simple (e.g., the statement "colony grew on Ara-, is a contaminant") since as I mentioned, there is no photographic evidence of this. Additionally, while biotech companies generally have document retention policies as required by law, no such policies exist at the academic level (although specific institutions may have them). A very few labs are run like well-oiled machines -- lab notebooks are kept up-to-date and thorough, and every observation is recorded. This is the ideal, but almost no labs actually achieve it, since most labs are working at 125% speed in an effort to get experiments finished and published.
:::::: If you're really interested in monitoring the quotidien details of these experiments, that falls outside of the scope of what PNAS and professional standards would require Lenski to release, I believe. You're not asking to re-analyze data so much as to oversee the entire experiment for fraud. This would require giving you all of Lenski's graduate students' lab notebooks for an indefinite period of time, which would be quite disruptive, and as I said probably wouldn't even yield the level of data you seem to want. In this case your best bet is to contact MSU and ask for a comprehensive review of Lenski's lab and his notes for this experiment. But without any evidence to point to said fraud, they will certainly deny your request for oversight. Your expectations here just aren't in line with professional standards in the field in the absence of any evidence of fraud. -- [[User:Princetonian|Princetonian]] 10:49, 27 June 2008 (EDT)
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