"Gross National Happiness" Highlights

Here are some of the highlights of Dr. Michael Givel's presentation last night at Science Cafe.

First, he discussed Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which was invented by Simon Kuznets in the 1930s as a measure of total economic production. GDP is calculated as the sum of consumer spending, gross investment, government spending, and the net trade (exports minus imports) of a nation. He pointed out that Kuznets himself warned that GDP should not be used as a measure of the success or failure of a socioeconomic program. Another economist, Easterlin, in 1974 pointed out that the correlation between happiness and income exists only in the short term, and that all previous studies on the subject had been short term studies, rather than longitudinal studies. His work suggested that happiness rests on more complex factors, such as family, work, and spiritual matters. Based on his work, several other indices were developed that incorporate GDP and other quantities such as infant mortality, longevity, literacy, etc. A few examples of the diverse set of indices that exist are the UN Human Development Index, the Genuine Progress Indicator, and the Happy Planet Index. Givel plans to detail these indices in his forthcoming book.

Next, Givel gave some background on Bhutan, which was formed in 1616 AD by the Tibetan monk Shabdrung, after he was driven from Tibet by a political rival. Bhutan was a Buddhist theocracy until 1907, when a hereditary monarchy was formed, with the first king being elected by religious and secular leaders. In 1972, the fourth king declared that "Gross National Happiness" was more important than GDP for the Bhutanese people, as a means of making progress, but also keeping with cultural (Buddhist) values. In 2008, Bhutan became a constitutional monarchy, with an elected Parliament and Prime Minister. In the past, Bhutan has been criticized for human rights violations, which took the form of expelling a large minority of Hindus from the country into refugee camps in the mountains. Several nations have taken these refugees in, though Bhutan remains unrecognized by the US government officially.

Gross National Happiness has evolved from a vague concept to something more rigorously defined that is currently being measured by the Bhutanese government. Originally there were four "pillars": sustainable growth, cultural preservation, ecological protection, and good governance. These were expanded into nine "domains", and are currently being measured by 72 unweighted survey questions. The results of the 2007 - 2008 polling yielded a GNH score of .805. I've been looking around trying to understand what that number means, but the best I can do is to say that it's some standardized measure of what percentage of the population is "happy", according the standards in the questions. An important sidenote is that the GNH score for the "education" portion of the questions is much lower, only 0.5 or so.

There was a lot of vigorous discussion about how meaningful these subjective measures are, compared to other measures that have more objective components. On some level, this is a philosophical argument, because one could say that a person who "doesn't know what they're missing" might be happier than someone who has lots of stuff. Historically, though, it definitely seems that consumerism doesn't ultimately lead to a happier culture, as measured by rates of depression, suicide, violent crime, drug abuse, and the like. As human beings, it seems that we need basic needs met, which include material needs, but also needs for less tangible things like community, purpose, and family.

"Gross National Happiness" with Dr. Michael Givel

How do we know our government is doing a good job? How do we measure the success or failure of a nation? This very old question has many answers, and the modern Western metric is largely based in the concepts of macroeconomics. This means that a nation is doing well if measures of economic health, such as Gross Domestic Product, are favorable. These economic measures tend to ignore modern societal ills, such as drug abuse, illiteracy, mental health issues, and the like. As a response to this, the country of Bhutan created a different measure of societal success, which they call "Gross National Happiness." This Thursday, Dr. Michael Givel of OU's Political Science department will discuss his research on this concept, and how it is rooted in the philosophical beliefs of the founders of Bhutan as a country several hundred years ago. He will give first hand details of his visit to Bhutan, and his observations of the society that places a premium on happiness, rather than production and consumption. Don't miss it!

"What is Science, Anyway?" Highlights

We got together on September 1, with our distinguished panel of scientists, which included Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier (KD), Vice President for Research and Professor of Meteorology at OU, Dr. Joe Rodgers (JR), Professor of Psychology at OU, and Dr. Douglas Gaffin (DG), Dean of University College and Professor of Zoology at OU. These three represented the different perspectives of physical, social and life sciences, and their answers to our group's questions were diverse and interesting. I'll do my best to indicate what questions were asked and give a sense of how the different panelists answered the questions, though there will be NO DIRECT QUOTES, only because I didn't get any.


Question: What is your background, and how did you get interested in science?

KD got interested in learning more about the weather due to all of the severe storms he experienced growing up in Kansas. Over the years he has focused on developing mathematical models of the atmosphere, with the goal of better understanding severe storms.
JR was a math major, and got interested in behavioral science after taking a psychology course. He develops mathematical models of adolescent behavior in order to better predict and prevent behaviors such as smoking and STD transmission.
DG was never sure what he wanted to do, but always loved nature, and considered a career in forestry. His brother worked on a project with bees that got his mind working on science related to organisms and their behaviors, and he was introduced to scorpions, his lifelong research topic, in college shortly afterwards.


Question: How has science changed since the early period of alchemy and astronomy?

DG felt that science is not all that different from early science for the individual scientist. He recounted experiences of having to "do it all", much as the early astronomers had to, in the sense of taking measurements, building models to interpret those measurements, reporting findings, illustrating findings with technical drawings and artwork, and pretty much being one of a very small handful of people that thought deeply about his particular topic.
JR stated that he believes the major way that science has changed is that we no longer are searching for "the Truth", but rather building models of how very specific phenomena behave. This is different than researchers like Newton, who believed there might be and elegant model that describes everything. KD described science as the way that we explore our curiosities, and in that way as not having changed much, other than now those explorations are now required to somehow help achieve the common good.


Question: How much faith should we place in the scientific method?

KD stated that the scientific method is a human construct, which means that it is limited by human beings. It's neither right nor wrong, but is useful as a way of answering questions.


Question: How does peer review work? Is it the same across different disciplines? Is it harder to get published in one field than in another?

DG noted that peer review is actually changing, with much faster turnaround times, but that it remains a very "schizophrenic" process.
JR edits a journal, and is continually amazed that the peer review and editing process is completely volunteerism based, meaning that no money changes hands at any point in the publication process. It's all done out of service to the discipline and the community.
KD felt that the peer review process is inherently conservative, and can fail us at times by refusing to publish truly revolutionary ideas, simply because the reviewers are human beings and may not recognize it as such.


Question: As a scientist ages, does their ability to publish good work decrease?

KD said that the average scientist's age had definitely increased, making the field top heavy, and that many scientists continue to publish good work all the way until they retire.
JR asserted that even though a lot of elder scientists might feel that their best work is behind them, there are other ways to contribute to the field, such as by mentoring graduate students, organizing conferences, and editing journals. This work is also very important to the continuation of science, and requires the experience of an elder scholar.


Question: Does the current climate of limited funding inhibit collaboration?

KD felt as though the opposite was happening, because to do good work on complex problems, large teams are sometimes necessary. In addition, the competition for funding has led the University to a "portfolio approach", where work by individuals is funded, but also work by interdisciplinary teams and research centers play an important role.


Question: It's sometimes said that Walmart can predict a coming disaster by the sales of some particular item, say strawberry pop-tarts, merely by looking at trends in the data. What is your take on this idea?

JR said that even if this anecdote had substance to it, that Walmart wasn't really doing science, because they weren't looking for fundamental relationships and causes, but rather simple statistical trends. When a scientist develops a predictive model, they're really drawing on what they believe the fundamental causes are.


Question: How do scientists conceptualize and tackle uncertainty when they make predictions?

DG said that he tried to minimize uncertainty by looking for features that were robust over many experiments, and by having a deep understanding of the statistical tests that he uses in his work.
JR stated that in behavioral science, uncertainty and modeling constitute a large part of graduate school education, so that when research is done, the chances of the scientist not understanding what the assumptions are is minimized.
KD pointed out that in meteorology, scientists and forecasters use an ensemble of models to try to capture the essence of uncertainty, and utilize an area called "risk decision theory" to minimize the chances of catastrophe for severe weather events.


So these are my notes from our most recent Science Cafe. Please don't hesitate to contact me with questions!

"What is Science, Anway?" Featuring Three Distinguished Scientists

What is science all about? What do scientists do? What impact does the work of scientists have on society? These questions and more will be addressed at the Science Cafe on September 1 at 7pm at the Norman Public Library. The panel discussing these questions will include the University of Oklahoma Vice President for Research, Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, the Dean of University College, Dr. Douglas Gaffin, and Dr. Joseph Rodgers, Professor of Psychology. These three will represent the traditionally distinct areas of physical, life and social sciences. The entire community is invited to take part, and there is no charge for admission. In addition, participants can submit their own questions to be answered by the panel of scientists.

Science Cafe Norman meets the first Thursday of each month, at the Norman Public Library. Coffee is provided by Gray Owl Coffee, and snacks and other drinks are provided by the Friends of the Norman Public Library. Questions and suggestions are always welcome, and should be submitted to Sean Crowell at sean.m.crowell@gmail.com.

Extended Season Gardening with Matt Collier

Thursday night's Science Café Norman was a hit with the crowd. Adjunct
Professor Matt Collier based his talk "Fall Gardening, Winter Harvest" on
his lifelong experience with organic gardening and the university course he
teaches titled, "Gardening, Community, & the Environment."

In his talk, Professor Collier provided ideas on how to grow and harvest
vegetables through the winter months. First, he described how to "read" your
space and to locate your garden beds in the ideal spot. When considering
the bed location he said to consider things such as the direction of the
wind, angle to the sun and neighboring slopes which will positively and
negatively impact your winter garden. In addition, he discussed things we
can do to add to the success of our beds such as building garden walls and
creating cold frames. He described several ways to make inexpensive, simple
and effective cold frames. Throughout his talk, Professor Collier included
pictures from his local garden to emphasize points and highlight concepts.
The night wrapped up with a discussion of the importance of compost,
vermicompost and aquaponics. Finally he handed out bookmarks with the
following recommended sources:

• OSU Cooperative Extension Service handout - Fall Gardening.
  
  
• Four Season Harvest:Organic Vegetables From Your Home Garden All Year Around by Elliot Coleman (available at the Public Library).
  
  
• Seeds of Change commercial site
  

Extended Seasonal Gardening with Matt Collier (August 4)

The extreme heat this summer has made growing plants especially difficult. On August 4, Science Cafe will host Matthew Collier, Instructor for Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Environment at the University of Oklahoma, who will speak about "Fall Gardening and Winter Harvest." Matthew is currently a doctoral student in Geography, and draws on his own gardening experiences in his own 700 square foot backyard organic garden, and teaching experiences for the online course "Gardening, Community and the Environment." He will share ideas for growing and harvesting vegetables through the winter months, and explain why the approaching seasons are actually the best times to garden. A Seed and Perennial Plant Exchange will follow the Science Café Program. Please bring seeds you saved, excess seeds you purchased, cuttings or perennials to swap with other local gardeners.

Science Cafe Norman meets the first Thursday of each month at 7pm, and will gather this month at the Norman Public Library in the Lowry room. Meetings are open to the general public, and everyone is encouraged to attend. Coffee and snacks will be provided by the Friends of the Norman Public Library. Science Cafe Norman is on Facebook, and keeps a blog at sciencecafenorman.blogspot.com. Questions can be directed to librarian Theresa Tittle at ttittle@pls.lib.ok.us.

The Highlights of "Is Being Popular a Risky Proposition", with Dr. Lara Mayeux

DISCLAIMER: What follows is my interpretation of Dr. Lara Mayeux's research. This blog post is not written by Dr. Mayeux, nor is it peer reviewed, but rather is my synopsis as a layman of the topics discussed at the July 7 Science Cafe gathering.



Tonight, Dr. Lara Mayeux gave an overview of the findings in the psychological research on popularity. Her specific focus was on the perceptions of teens of the popular kids, and whether popular teens are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, which I'll talk more about below. First, to paraphrase Dr. Mayeux, popularity is best defined as the ability to influence one's peers. This differentiates popularity from other measures of social status, such as likability. In fact, these two measures of status tend to diverge from one another as people move into adolescence, meaning that the popular people are often not the most well-liked.


Dr. Mayeux's research methodology includes a combination of peer reporting, teacher reporting and self reporting. Peer reporting involves students identifying peers that they identify with labels like "popular", "aggressive", "people I hang out with", and others. Students are identified with unique tags, so that the researchers can statistically determine whether students being labeled as "popular" are associated to other labels. Teacher reporting is more traditional, using a Likert scale (1 to 5 or 1 to 7) to gauge how much a teacher agrees that a student fits different labels, like "popular". Dr. Mayeux was careful to point out that she never defines popularity, but rather looks at how the students define popularity through the associations present in the data.


From this experimental setup, Dr. Mayeux pointed to a number of associations:

• Overt and Relational Aggression and Bullying. Popular students are more likely to commit acts of physical and verbal (overt) and more subtle relational aggression towards peers. This association is extremely robust, and is supported by every study published on peer relations. Boys are more likely to use overt methods, while girls are more likely to use relational aggression, meaning that they attack peers through their common relationships using destructive gossip and influence.
  
• Low likability. The correlation between likability and popularity is actually negative for high school age girls.
  
• Poorer academic performance (post middle school).
  
• Substance use. Especially alcohol use, increases with onset of popularity. There is almost no evidence that substance use leads to increased popularity.
  
• Early, high-risk sexual behavior. This is emerging from more recent studies, particularly among high school age girls.
  

The audience was perplexed by the (lack of) association between popularity and likability, coupled with the strong association between aggression and popularity. Why would we admire people that treat us badly? Dr. Mayeux discussed the theory that popular kids tend to possess "peer valued characteristics", including being attractive, wealthy, athletic, or a sense of humor, which allow peers to look past their bad behavior. She noted that these results are robust in western nations, but that in China, academic achievement is more closely aligned with popularity.
Lest we think that all popular kids are bad seeds, Dr. Mayeux pointed out some of the positive traits correlated with popularity:

• Good leadership skills.
  
• Social skills.
  
• Confidence.
  
• Athletic ability.
  
• Increased "defending behaviors". Some popular kids use their status to assist others who are being bullied or attacked.
  

Hopefully this post gives a sense of the fascinating work being done on popularity. There were some counterintuitive results, and these comprised most of the vigorous discussion between Dr. Mayeux and the audience.

You can contact Dr. Lara Mayeux at her website Mayeux Research .

The Psychology of Popularity, featuring Dr. Lara Mayeux

Whether you were one of the "cool kids" or not, you won't want to miss the upcoming Science Cafe. On July 7, Dr. Lara Mayeux will be presenting a body of her work related to teenagers and popularity. Her talk, titled "Popularity in the Peer System: Is Being Popular a Risky Proposition?", will address the effects on different age groups of being popular, including the struggle to maintain popularity. Dr. Mayeux's findings are a fascinating commentary on how human beings treat each other, and are chronicled in several scholarly papers. She co-edited a recent volume entitled Popularity in the Peer System for Guilford Press on this issue, and is an expert in social development in childhood and adolescence. Her research focuses on peer relationships, peer status (popularity, likeability, and rejection), physical and relational aggression, and gender differences and similarities in how kids and teens use aggressive behaviors. The evening promises to be packed with valuable insights for parents and teachers, and for anyone curious about human behavior in general.

Learnin' about Convective Clouds!

On Thursday at 7pm at the Norman Public Library, we're going to gather to hear Dr. Michael Jensen of Brookhaven National Lab talk about the Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E). This experiment is employing the largest network of meteorological instruments in history for the study of convective clouds, which are the progenitors of severe thunderstorms. The researchers hope to better understand the processes that lead to these types of clouds, so that we can better forecast severe weather in the future.

I personally went to the Department of Energy's Southern Great Plains facility near Lamont, Oklahoma, and the array of instruments is impressive. In addition to multiple radars with different capabilities, there are many different types of sensors for estimating the amount of moisture throughout the atmosphere above the site (important for cloud formation), several different lidars (like a radar, but with pulses of light), and a pair of airplanes that fly into cloud structures to measure what the cloud looks like directly.

Hopefully you will all come out to learn more about clouds, which is a favorite topic of mine, and to support Science Cafe. Don't forget we'll we having Gray Owl Coffee, and snacks provided by the Friends of the Norman Public Library!

Posters on Therapeutic Approaches to Treating Viral Disease at the Norman Public Library

Dr. Susan Schroeder of OU's Departments of Botany and Microbiology, and Chemistry and Biochemistry, alerted our good friend and librarian Theresa Tittle to a poster display of individual research projects being put on by her students. The posters are aimed at the general public, and are being presented by students headed for health careers. The projects to be presented are related to new therapeutic approaches to treating viral diseases, and will be showcased in the Lowry Room at the Norman Public Library from 1 to 4pm on Thursday, May 12. Come check out the research of these aspiring scientists!

Last Night's Gathering with Dr. Milton

Last night we gathered at the Norman Public Library to hear Dr. Kimball Martin of Physics at OU talk about nuclear power. I was looking forward to a vigorous discussion of the topic, and the attendees did not disappoint. I would estimate about 60 people attended, and there were questions about almost every slide that Dr. Milton presented.

Some of the take away messages of the presentation:

(1) No source of energy is clean, free or without risks. Dr. Milton discussed the various ways we produce energy currently, and costs and limitations of each. He expressed concern over the contributions of fossil fuel use to accelerating warming in the climate, and to the limited supply of petroleum left to us. In addition, he noted that hydroelectric generation has gotten close to capacity for the US, and that newer and larger dams around the world are causing ecological damage and displacing millions of people. Other renewables have unknown effects, and are expensive. With this information in hand, it may be time to consider again whether nuclear power has a role to play in the energy budget.

(2) Fears about safety are based on bad calculations of risk. Dr. Milton said that the safety record of nuclear power plants is quite good, and certainly no worse than generating power by other means. The few failures have been spectacular in nature, which leads us to overestimate risk, since the probabilities of failure are low, but the outcomes have been disastrous. He also said that power generation from coal kills several hundreds per year in mining accidents, and that oil exploration is becoming more dangerous, and pointed to the recent Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico as evidence that other methods are quite risky.

(3) There are serious concerns with generation of power using nuclear reactors, other than safety. Nuclear waste must be stored for millions of years to become inert, and in a place that won't change significantly and thus expose the radioactive materials to the environment. Also, nuclear power and nuclear weapons are "entwined technologies", meaning that proliferation of nuclear weapons is a very possible side effect of widespread nuclear power use, since the same basic processes and technologies are used for both. Finally, the only international governance of nuclear power, the IAEA, has very little power for enforcement, and is chronically underfunded.

With these points, Dr. Milton suggested that we need to think deeply as a society about our goals as a society, and that moving forward will require a combined effort of efficiency, conservation, and smarter power production. He stressed that he is not an active proponent of building more nuclear power plants, but rather that our current system is not working and needs to be reconsidered.

Let me know if you're interested in the presentation, and I'll do my best to answer specific questions. Hope to see you at the next one! Details to follow soon!

Nuclear Power with Dr. Kim Milton!

Dr. Kim Milton of the Department of Physics will talk about nuclear power at the upcoming Science Cafe on May 5. Here is Dr. Milton's synopsis of his presentation, titled "Does Nuclear Power Have a Role to Play in the US Energy
Budget?":

It has been plausibly argued both from a consideration of energy needs
and from the need to combat global warming that nuclear power will need
to play an increasing role in our energy sources. However, the recent
events in Japan have brought issues of nuclear safety to renewed
attention. In addition, proliferation is a major concern, and it is
necessary to increase funding, staff, and enforcement of the IAEA.
Disposal of nuclear waste, for indefinitely long periods, and
reprocessing of nuclear wastes, are issues that have yet to be solved.
These issues are extremely difficult and worrisome, and it is possible
for reasonable, responsible people to hold strong views on the issue in
contradiction to each other.

I was inspired to contact Dr. Milton at a suggestion from Jana Smith, and the fact that the issue is reemerging after the events at Fukushima Daichi in Japan following their recent earthquakes and tsunamis. This one will have lots of discussion, since people tend to pretty polarized on this issue. I'm sure that we will all learn a lot, and I hope to find out what makes the generation of power this way different than traditional fossil fuels, in terms of costs, waste production, and so forth. Don't miss it!

Don Wyckoff's Presentation about Oklahoma's Past Climate

We gathered last Thursday to hear Dr. Don Wyckoff, the Curator of Archaeology at Sam Noble Museum of Natural History, talk about reconstructing past climates using all sorts of different types of "proxies", which are different types of preserved materials that indirectly tell scientists what environmental conditions in a particular region must have been like. As an example, Dr. Wyckoff talked about different types of pollen that are preserved for thousands of years, and existence of a pollen for a particular tree might indicate that there was a range of temperatures and precipitation in that location when the pollen was created. He showed several pollen records that describe the natural variability of the climate over the most recent 10000 to 35000 years. He also discussed the finding of "buried soils", which are different types of soil lying in layers below the uppermost layer. These also serve as indicators of the climate at a particular time, with darker carbon rich soils indicating periods of significant plant growth and favorable conditions.

Based on his findings, Dr. Wyckoff expressed a concern for people living in Oklahoma in the future, since the past points to long periods of drought, with short periods in between of relatively moist conditions. He placed a strong emphasis on the need for wiser use of water and resources, since the state's past implies a future where these will be in limited supply.

First Post!

This is the first post of the official blog for Science Cafe Norman. I plan to use this space to announce speakers and introduce topics, but also to post general science topics that I think are interesting to the general public. Hopefully, this will inspire more involvement from the community, and more speakers to volunteer.

Here is some general information about Science Cafe. We meet on the first Thursday of the month at 7pm, typically at the Norman Public Library. All are welcome, and there is no cost to attend. The atmosphere is casual, with speakers being open to general questions throughout their presentations. In the past we have had talks on climate change, the Large Hadron Collider, glaciers at the equator at sea level hundreds of millions of years ago, wind energy, biofuels, tornados, severe winter weather, extraction of natural gas from shale, environmental health risks and ozone, using gamma rays to detect leaks in underground gas tanks, and many others.

Please feel free to suggest a topic, speaker, or anything else, either in the comments, or by email to me at sean.m.crowell@gmail.com. Sign up on the right sidebar to receive emails when I post something new, or join our Google Group to get emails about meetings and such. Finally, we have a Facebook group (search ‘Science Cafe Norman’) that has our gatherings posted as events!