Why, Oh Why Do I Write So Slowly?!

Dr. Method and Theory tells his students that the only way to get good at reading academic journals is to keep reading them. No amount of pouting or pixie dust will instantly transform a grad student into a smooth reader of complicated articles.

If I keep writing, I tell myself, if I write a fuckload, if I write every day, then one day the words won't flow like treacle through a pinhole. My brain feels like treacle. Have I ever eaten treacle?

BED, Juniper. Spare me and go to bed!

Introduction to Method and Theory in Archaeological Science

As I have mentioned before, I quit a master’s degree program in archaeology over a year ago. I do not regret having entered the program, however. I did get to work on Easter Island for six weeks—one of the most amazing of my experiences. I also got to take a course called “Method and Theory in Archaeological Science”. This course gave me the key that unlocks endless doors; it taught me how to think more powerfully. Way more powerfully.

You can think of Method and Theory as a Philosophy of Science course. My favorite former professor, Dr. Method and Theory, has made the course the keystone of both his research and instruction, because his quest in life is to turn archaeology into a science. Archaeology, he explained, on our first day of class, was never a science, and—despite the anthropological paradigm that holds otherwise—is not a science now.

“What do you think ‘science’ is, anyway?” he demanded.
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We knew Dr. Method and Theory well enough to know that it wasn’t an artistic response he wanted. Most suggestions were feeble, and many of us lapsed into thoughtful silence.

“We’ll come to that,” he reassured. “Before we can, however, you need to understand what this class is about. This class is a two-part class. The first part is about formal theory. The second part is about explanatory theory.”

Everyone scribbled or typed in notebooks.

“Formal theory should be distinguished from explanatory theory. The formal deals with nouns, and the explanatory with grammar.”

This sounded intriguing but weird. Luckily, Dr. Method and Theory explains himself well. (Whenever he doesn’t let his enthusiasm for and understanding of the topic carry him far, far away into the stratosphere, that is.) In science, he said, we need to appreciate the utility of words as concepts. In everyday life, we use words—like “tiger” and “arrowhead”—that enable us to describe objects to each other well enough. We trust that these words elicit the same ideas of the objects in the minds of everyone discussing them. In general, they do.

The key term is “in general”. Not everyone thinks of the same tiger when they use the word “tiger”. Likewise, not everyone thinks of the same arrowhead. This is true of all words that arise from our culture. So our everyday words don’t represent precise descriptions of the world. (For now, I, Juniper, am going to use the word “precise” to explain what I mean, even though I know it is potentially misleading.) In every language, we have organically generated these words out of our common sense.

Dr. Method and Theory paused to refer us to our handouts. Several comprised a glossary, in which he had provided a definition for common sense:

the culture bound sense-making system, including both units and rules for manipulation, that is acquired by every individual as part of being human and as a member of a society.

Well, what was wrong with that?

Nothing, our professor said. Until you try to do science.

When it comes to science, the problem with common sense is that it’s cryptic. We all know what we mean by common sense, but if you, say, went to the mall, arbitrarily chose a hundred shoppers and made each of them define “common sense”, you would get a hundred different answers. Moreover—outside of this class—you would have no right answer. You’d have an unpredictable amount of answers that made sense to most people, and maybe an assortment of nonsensical ones. All expressed in words that have the same problem.

After all, we can think of common sense as a survival mechanism. Philosophers have understood for some time that the physical world isn’t constrained by our perspective. We can only experience the physical world through our perspective, but we can also understand that the physical world exists apart from our perspective. Then, we can describe the world at different levels and scales. A tiger, for example, immediately appears to us as an organism—an object. If we wanted to, though, we could describe the same tiger in terms of particle physics.

Why does the tiger immediately appear to us as an object? Well, think of it this way. At the dawn of human evolution, when humans didn’t have highly specialized professions, and when everyone was focused on basic needs, who was more likely to live? The human who remained still and contemplated the nature of “tigerness” as it rushed toward her, or the human who thought, “Tiger! RUN!”

(Okay, okay. So Dr. Method and Theory, who, when asked to summarize Origin of Species, shrugged and said, “Darwin’s point was that there are no such things as species” while several biologists sputtered in their vain efforts to say something fancy, and whose cat and home I will take care of while he and his wife take their Christmas vacation this year, doesn’t really use phrases like “at the dawn of human evolution”. That’s just me employing my license as an English major. Which I have now done several times. Ahem.)

Therefore, common sense has helped people to stay alive and reproduce. What do we use, though, when we want to understand the world beyond “good” and “bad”? When we want to take measurements of the world in units other than “objects”, or in units that aren’t arbitrary?

That's It. I'm Going to Bed.

My next post will be "Method and Theory in Archaeological Science", which is largely about learning to define science. It will contain the understanding of science that changed my life. No, seriously. I'm not exaggerating by much.

I planned to post it today. Today, however, was not a good day-- neither in real life nor the blogosphere. So I'm going to eat a handful of Hershey's kisses, and then I'm going to bed.

The Peter Schiff Effect on an Early Scientist (UPDATED)

Here’s another Peter Schiff video.



A day ago, I thought I regretted watching these. It turns out I don’t. Not any more than I regret science blogging.

Science blogging has fostered my determination not only to become a scientist, but to grow up. I’m sure I have many admirable qualities. However, I’m also sure that I’ve lived more or less like a teenager for the last ten years. There is nothing satisfying about that realization.

As I sci-blog my way through the science blogosphere, I notice that some commenters regularly forgo debate over post content in favor of bitter complaints over Dr. or Student Blogger’s personality. As examples of human behavior, that’s neither here nor there. But many of the bloggers against whom these complaints are lodged are likeable, successful people whom aspirants like me should emulate.
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I want to take this opportunity only to acknowledge my gratitude for the science blogosphere. Sure, scientific knowledge is available elsewhere. But where else can an outsider hang with scientists? Moreover, where else can an outsider differentiate between the attitudes that help a real-life scientist succeed, and the attitudes that don’t? Even when she lurks, she remains privy to the good advice they dispense online to one another. Even if she speaks to no one, she can still keep company with scientists who exhibit both brilliance and enthusiasm, and to absorb their habits and insights-- somewhat like she does in her meatspace peer groups.

Yes, I know that I have neither the expertise nor the ability to verify every claim made by a scientist blogging under a pseudonym. But, in a way, who cares? If kind-of-but-not-really hanging with scientists encourages a wanna-be to work harder, study harder, (try to) whine less, think more powerfully about her assumptions about the world, respect the time of professors, take care of her health, campaign for everyone’s civil rights, write her congresspeople, kick some ass, and stand on her own two feet, then it’s worth the risk of looking up to them.

Science bloggers have made it clear to me that science, like our economy, is a fierce world. (Except it's fun, unlike the economy.) They have emphasized the importance of authentic longing to know, and they have sailed into the fray with banners and heads high. They've been gentle and rough. They have been imperfect in the great and only business of being wrong. They have been a joy to watch.

(Well. The ones I take no joy in, I simply don’t “visit”. So it’s still true.)

BTW, I’ve returned to running. I figured, if Dr. Isis can do it, and if ScienceMama can do it despite a flood, then so can I. That’s pretty friggin’ arrogant, I know. I'm doing the best I can.

UPDATE: VRR of Virology Blog has offered some valuable comments on this post here.

UPDATE 2: I originally mentioned ScienceMother when I meant ScienceMama (Mother of All Scientists). But the real ScientistMother runs, too!

Don't Know HTML, After All

Ha HAH! All kinds of unanticipated changes, as I tinkered around. I had to give up. I've also mysteriously lost the ability to upload XML Blogger templates. I love you, Blogger. Really.

Whatever. In the meanwhile, have a good weekend, and enjoy this uplifting video, which I made the mistake of watching last night. I expect to next post on Sunday-- earthquakes notwithstanding.

Blog Rule #2: No Pity Parties

Word.

Lesson of the Day (a Quote):

"If I come down in the morning to find you copulating on my table with a foreign deserter, as if you were some sort of Vagabond," Huygens said, "I am annoyed. I admit it. But that is not as important as what you do next. If you posture defiantly, it tells me that you have not learned the skill of recognizing when you are running awry, and correcting yourself. And you must leave my house in that case, for such people only go further and further astray until they find destruction. But if you take this opportunity to consider where you have gone wrong, and to adjust your course, it tells me that you shall do well enough in the end."

--from Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver

Back to work, with this song playing in the background!

(Ironically Inflammatory) Acne and Fun-for-Me-to-Understand Tazarotene

So I’ve returned, after having retreated from the gay blogosphere for a month. Considerably too sober at present to blog for my merry audience, I’ve nonetheless decided to inflict myself on you. I’m very glad to be back.

I am so divested of mischief and spice this afternoon that I will refrain—even without reluctance—from blogging on certain illuminating, if not always decorous, and recent episodes in my life—like the one in which I unwisely helped myself to a great frosty pitcher of sangria in a crowded bar and promptly whirled on my sister’s boyfriend, who had also liberally helped himself, to yell an angry announcement of notions about his character that I had silently harbored in my breast for !!!!1111!!!!months!11!!!!!11!—but by now you must have guessed that my social skills are a wee rusty. (And that cats, detecting my outrageous old-maidishness, take to me easily.) So I don’t have to blog about it. Isn’t perceptiveness a very jewel of virtues? Especially in a blog readership!

Additionally, I’m gonna postpone blogging about inflammatory topics, like horny professors, or black people who hate my parents for marrying outside of their “races” or high fructose corn syrup. Which leaves me with the most sexless and yet relaxing blog topic of all: acne.
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My new dermatologist tells me he is willing to keep prescribing topical tazarotene to me. However, he warns me that an indefinite period of topical tazarotene use may increase my susceptibility to osteoporosis. (Emphasis his.) No, you don’t understand. Topical tazarotene is a wonder drug. Tazarotene ended a struggle with bad acne that lasted from age nine to age twenty-three. Tazarotene allowed me not only to look antagonists in the eye, but to hold my chin up while staring them down as well. Tazarotene finally effected the result that my fair-skinned classmates managed to achieve with OTC benzoyl peroxide, a therapy that made no difference on me. Tazarotene fucking erased what, to this princess, felt at once like a noble test of character and a veritable mask of bumps, crusts and gross, petty shame that hopelessly diminished my attractiveness to my peers as much as my dark skin and low voice and working-middle-class background did. Silly as it sounds, the first step I took away from (what felt like) a cabal of rich white males incapable of admiring any female who didn’t resemble The Last Unicorn in her heartached anthropomorphosis was a trip to the Very Famous Dermatologist who prescribed tazarotene to me—with assurances that I could use it indefinitely and that she had patients who did. What the hell, New Dermatologist? I’ve used this stuff for five years, and nary a mention of osteoporosis till you!



(Illustration of an ideal no amount of acne medication will help me meet. "Do I want to meet it?!" you gasp. Hell to the no. Of course not. I merely posted it here to acknowledge a ghost from my past. I warned you that I'm in a somber mood. h/t Dr. Isis for inspiring us all to make use of strategically-placed images in blog posts.)

However, this is not a post in which I wish to discuss my identity and self-image per se. That counts as an inflammatory topic, and I don't feel up to defending myself from attacks on my views today. Suffice it to say that I'm averse to discontinuing the use of my acne medication; my reasons have fluctuating degrees of superficiality.

What if New Dermatologist means the “irreversible osteoporosis” described in this FDA review, though? I am lately trying to take better care of my health anyway, since I know refusing to exercise and subsisting on coffee and high fructose corn syrup (drat!) isn’t as inconsequential to my energy level as it once was. And I already don’t get enough calcium as it is. So. Time to determine how comfortable I am with my current plan of !!!111nevah!!!111!! quitting tazarotene.

I'm not satisfied with asking some authority like New Dermatologist or Very Famous Dermatologist whether or not there's a grave probability that I'll hurt myself if I use this drug forever and leaving it at their answers. I want to understand what's going on. Why? Because I want to know. What will happen if I try to learn on my own?

The article linked above is about oral tazarotene (for psoriasis treatment). How much topical tazarotene must one absorb into the bloodstream to incur osteological damage? How much tazarotene have my bones been exposed to at present? If a patient is absorbing tazarotene through the skin in miniscule amounts, does that give her bones time to recover whatever density they may have lost as a result between exposures—unlike scenarios in which she directly ingests tazarotene? Can I offset damage with calcium supplements? Am I even asking these questions right? How do untrained patients learn to ask the right questions?

A Google search reveals nothing explicitly about the bone density of healthy acne patients and topical tazarotene. How well will I do at patching answers together from multiple studies? For example, this study in the Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology finds that topical tazarotene is absorbed into the bloodstream at "less than 6%" and that it doesn't accrue in the body. It concludes that tazarotene is "safe". But, again, how much tazarotene would I have to absorb into my bloodstream to make it "unsafe"?

I can search PubMed, too, check if the researchers of interest have affiliations with Allergan, and read the titles of articles and conclusions of abstracts to get answers. “Is long-term use of tazarotene bad?” I want to know. No, says a reassuring German study. (This particular study mentions bacterial resistance in its abstract, but not osteoporosis.) PubMed searches of "osteoporosis + tazarotene" or "bone density + tazarotene" yield zero results. Obviously, "acne + tazarotene" generates plenty of papers to explore. Many of them are comparison studies, of tazarotene to another drug. One catches my eye: "The potential immunomodulatory effects of topical retinoids". How can topical tazarotene have any effect on your immune system if it metabolizes out of your body too quickly to gain a significant presence? Didn't the compromise of my mother's immune system during her chemotherapy for breast cancer last year lead to worries about her bone density? Am I simply misremembering something her doctors said? Would it be possible for an amateur to use a resource like PubMed to anticipate, from many different studies, side effects from long-term use of a drug that doesn't appear to be studied much in this capacity? How much science do I need before I get to start having ideas like that without being completely fucktarded? Am I being fucktarded now?

And what about the clinical pharmacology of tazarotene? Armed with online dictionaries, can I read and understand the insert that came with my prescription? (Available here.)

Tazarotene is a retinoid prodrug which is converted to its active form, the cognate carboxylic acid of tazarotene (AGN 190299), by rapid deesterification in animals and man.

My pitiful translation: Tazarotene is a vitamin A-like compound that only does what it’s supposed to do after your body’s metabolic processes convert it to its active form. Specifically, the active form is carboxylic acid and the metabolic processes are the quick dissipation of the volatile fruity odored product of the reaction between the carboxylic acid and the ethyl alcohol in the tazarotene compound. “Here, ‘cognate’ merely indicates that the carboxylic acid was derived from the vitamin A, right?” I think, already puzzled by my willingness to do this messy thinking in public. But it’s fun. Or soothing. “But how would a derivation of a compound react with the compound? Is it a chain reaction? Am I asking stupid questions again?"

AGN 190299 (“tazarotenic acid”) binds to all three members of the retinoic acid receptor (RAR) family: RARα, RARβ, and RARγ but shows relative selectivity for RARβ, and RARγ and may modify gene expression. The clinical significance of these findings is unknown.

My pitiful translation: This vitamin A-like compound binds to all cell surface molecules that recognize vitamin A acids. However, it favors one of this type of cell surface molecule, and this preference may modify gene expression. We don't know what this means in terms of side effects.

The mechanism of tazarotene action in acne vulgaris is not defined. However, the basis of tazarotene’s therapeutic effect in acne may be due to its anti-hyperproliferative, normalizing-of-differentiation and anti-inflammatory effects. Tazarotene inhibited corneocyte accumulation in rhino mouse skin and cross-linked envelope formation in cultured human keratinocytes. The clinical significance of these findings is unknown.

Wait. What's a "rhino mouse"?

(h/t Ugly Overload)

WOW. Of course you are the darling of tazarotene studies. Not to mention dermatological researchers everywhere.

I had more. But I am presently bowled over, once again, by the power of genetic knowledge, and this will have to do it for today.