Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Protons, Proteins - What's the Difference?
NPR's science reporter Nell Greenfieldboyce just now (2 PM EST, March 30) referred to the Large Hadron Collider sending "beams of proteins whizzing around a 17-mile circular tunnel, then smash[ing] them together at high speed, creating a shower of debris". I sure hope that was just a slip of the tongue. Any science journalist who doesn't know immediately what the difference between a proton and protein is, and why the LHC would be smashing the former and not the latter, doesn't deserve a job.
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14 comments:
I suspect there was a typo with "protin" for "proton" and a spell checker puked up "protein" as the correction.
I doubt it. First of all, she wasn't reading the news, but reporting it. Even if she ran her own copy through a spell-checker (doubtful) and it replaced the word, surely she should know better while reading it.
Still, that slip seems more forgivable than "Jupter's moon, 'ten'".
and as a mispronunciation, on par with Gord Martineau's "NEW-trin-OSS" that would soon be observed in Sudbury.
Based on her C.V. she should definitely know better. My gut tells me to attribute this to carelessness rather than incompetence. But I wouldn't bet money on it.
Well, Steve Fuller, the pro-ID "sociologist of science" who showed up in Expelled linking "Darwinism" and the Holocaust, and who supports teaching ID in schools as an "affirmative action" program for Christian natural theology, thinks that DNA is a type of protein.
And this guy's supposed to be a historian of science. See, for example, this excellent thread where some very intelligent commenters debunk Fuller's "affirmative action" for Christian theologians posing as incompetent scientists:
http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/comments/783/
Maybe colliding proteins is just the first step towards the Very Large Earth Collider (perfect timing from the Onion there).
i THOUGHT i heard her say that this morning. I'd call it a freudian slip, but i'm not sure what that would imply in this case....but i do think it was just a misspeak.
It was a spoken mistake, which does not seem as bad as a written mistake (with the possibilities for editing); such as Michael Shermer's invocation of hydrogen fission in a column in which he was criticising someone else for getting the science wrong.
Diogenes, do you have a citation for Fuller thinking that DNA was a protein? He's said some pretty silly stuff but I was not aware of that particular statement.
Here is Steve Fuller responding (selections in '' from Squeakyrat. [And I see no reason to doubt that 'proteins' for 'protons' was just a slip of the tongue.]
jah
http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/comments/783/
PART TWO OF TWO
3.‘Anything new in science comes when scientific work comes up with something new, and this is unpredictable. At the time that Linus Pauling gambled that the genetic material would be a protein, he knew that it was a gamble and that experimental work would decide it.’ But your own example shows that Pauling DID predict correctly, and there’s nothing mysterious about that, since he made an educated guess about where the relevant science was going. So the future of science is something that could be given over to betting parlors, and would be in fact a great way to get the public interested in the scientific developments on a regular basis. Sneer as you will, I’ve actually supported such an idea in print.
...
END
Posted by Steve Fuller on 12/06 at 02:17 PM
Thanks anonymous, that was the comment I was referring to.
When the error is pointed out to Fuller, by the very smart commenters on that thread, his response was,
"No one would confuse me with a working natural scientist. (‘Laughter from the Gallery’) I am more like a science connoisseur. (‘More laughter’)"
The phrases in parentheses are Fuller's. I am reminded of Berlinski and Ann Coulter comparing themselves to restaurant critics, who say they don't like a dish, but can't tell you how to improve it.
Isn't a proteen just a younger proton?
Well.
The Large Hadrosaur Collider has lots of proteins!!! What are you guys talking about?!?!?!?!?!
:)
"I sure hope that was just a slip of the tongue."
I'm hoping that Obama's promise of a "3000% decrease in premiums" was also a slip of the tongue.
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