Wrap up from Gender Bias Under the Microscope Symposium #RFUSymposium #GenderBias

Had an amazing time at Rosalind Franklin University for their Gender Bias Under the Microscope Symposium. I made a Storify about it here:

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For other posts on STEM Diversity see here.

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Storify of talk by @CameronNeylon at #UCDavis on "Excellence is Bullshit"

Made a Storify

No thanks Precision Medicine #PMWC2017 - I don't want to go to your $&*@(#@( #manel #yammm #biased meeting

Today I got this email, ostensibly from Keith Yamamoto, who I have interacted with a bit over the years, including in the writing of the NAS "New Biology" report.



So I decided to check out the meeting site.  Precision Medicine World Conference. Hosted by Stanford and UCSF and Duke and Others.  And also a "manel". Also known as a YAMMM (yet another mostly male meeting).  A festival in fact of men.  So so so many men listed as speakers. Here is my round up.




Just so sick of meetings like this.  Apparently Keith Yamamoto and UCSF and Duke and Stanford and all the Sponsors endorse having a meeting where about 1 in 6 of the speakers are women.  No thanks. Not interested.  I am sure they can all make a litany of excuses.  But I am so tired of hearing them.  In the end the only way to get some of these groups to change their practices is to boycott their meetings.  And to publicly discuss, with the sponsors and speakers and organizers, why their meeting is not OK.


UPDATE 1 - Some responses and discussion on Twitter

UC Davis Coffee Course covered by NPR

A mini rant about diversity at meetings #STEMDiversity #YAMMM #manel

Congratulations SynbioBeta #SBBSF16 - you are having a #YAMMMy #manel

Well this is disappointing.

Someone sent me an announcement for SynBioBeta SF 2016 - SynBioBeta possibly thinking I would go to it.  Since it was local I decided to check it out.  And, well, the 1st thing I did was to look at the gender balance of the speakers (as much as I could infer from a quick skim).  And it did not look good.  So I dug into it in more detail.

They have a speaker page and I went through most of them to make sure my inference of gender was correct (based on looking at the pronouns used to describe them in their speaker bio and also in other web sites).  I know this is imperfect but seems potentially a decent estimator.  And low an behold when you sum it all up you get 79% male speakers vs. 21% female speakers.  They could definitely do better.

Viruses viruses viruses viruses viruses viruses viruses.

Actually, the title is clearly insufficient. [Viruses]^100 or something like that would be better.

And here is a story by Michaeleen Doucleff from NPR about viruses in the human microbiome with some quotes from me.

Today's misleading overselling the #microbiome - U. Chicago on Alzheimer's and gut microbes

Well, this is disappointing if not disturbing

A new paper is out that has some interesting findings but the paper itself, and the press release form the authors (at University of Chicago) really goes overboard in misstating the findings.

Here is the paper in Scientific Reports. I purposefully am not putting the title of the paper here in the post yet, because amazingly, even the title is misleading.

But here is what a summary of what they showed, based on their results section, which seems interesting and sound

• Antibiotic treatment of a variety of mice showed alterations in the GI microbiome and in various inflammatory markers circulating in the blood
• Male mice treated with this antibiotic regime showed reduced Aβ plaque deposition but increased soluble Aβ levels
• Reactive gliosis surrounding Aβ plaques is reduced in male mice treated with this antibiotic regime 

This is not all they report as they also discuss various controls and other observations about these mice and their brains and their responses to the antibiotic treatment.  

But what they do not report on is any evidence of anything other than a correlation between the GI microbiome changes and the inflammatory markers and the reduced Aβ plaque deposition.  They even state this VERY BRIEFLY in their paper

We are fully cognizant of the fact that the findings reported herein are purely correlative and do not elucidate precise mechanism(s). 

Yet then through other papers parts of the paper they misstate what they find and somehow, almost magically, turn this correlation into evidence for a causative connection.  For example in the abstract

These findings suggest the gut microbiota community diversity can regulate host innate immunity mechanisms that impact Aβ amyloidosis.

No. These findings are consistent with that.  They are also consistent with, for example, the antibiotics affecting microbes in the brain which in turn could affect inflammatory markers.  Or microbes on the skin.  Or in the blood.  Or elsewhere.  I don't see any evidence here for a causative connection between the gut microbes (which are certainly affected by these antibiotics) and the plaque.

Yet even worse is that this misrepresentation of a causative connection makes it into the title of the article

Antibiotic-induced perturbations in gut microbial diversity influences neuro-inflammation and amyloidosis in a murine model of Alzheimer’s disease

No no no no no no no no.  No evidence that the perturbations in the gut microbes are directly influencing anything in the brain.  It is a good model.  But they need to be more careful with their wording.

And sadly, this gets even worse in the press release about the paper: Antibiotics weaken Alzheimer's disease progression through changes in the gut microbiome | EurekAlert! Science News

What?  This "through changes in the gut microbiome" is just completely misrepresenting what was shown in the paper.

Here are some misleading parts of the PR

The study, published July 21, 2016, in Scientific Reports, also showed significant changes in the gut microbiome after antibiotic treatment, suggesting the composition and diversity of bacteria in the gut play an important role in regulating immune system activity that impacts progression of Alzheimer's disease.

Nope. Nope. and Nope.

Thankfully there are a few caveats in the PR too but that does not balance misleading statements.  The worst is saved for the end

"There's probably not going to be a cure for Alzheimer's disease for several generations, because we know there are changes occurring in the brain and central nervous system 15 to 20 years before clinical onset," he said. "We have to find ways to intervene when a patient starts showing clinical signs, and if we learn how changes in gut bacteria affect onset or progression, or how the molecules they produce interact with the nervous system, we could use that to create a new kind of personalized medicine."

Basically, saying there will be a cure for Alzheimer's. And then saying if we learn HOW (not if) gut microbes affect onset or progression, then we can better cure or treat this disease.  This is just too bold and misleading for my taste.  Nice paper.  Interesting work and implications. But it is misleading to say they have shown any causative connection between gut microbes and Alzheimer's in this paper and also very misleading to start to talk about how they will use this to lead to treatments or cures.

Oh, and did I mention this was in mice not humans?  So how do they get from a correlative study in mice to how gut microbes affect progression of Alzheimer's in humans?  Really this is not OK, even to hint at.

And of course, which such misleading material in their own paper and in their PR it is not surprising that some of the reporting on this is going awry.

See the Daily Express for example

And the Business Standard

And I am sure many more to come.  Scientists have to be more careful with discussing and presenting the implications of their work.  I love the microbiome field and the possible implications to me are enormous for the role of the microbiome in various areas of biology.  But misrepresenting ones findings, especially when it comes to human diseases, is dangerous and bad for science and bad for the microbiome field.  The author's of the paper and the people behind the PR at the University of Chicago should publish a correction of the PR and also publish a correction of their paper to correct the misleading representations. And for their misleading material in their paper and in the PR I am giving them a coveted "Overselling the Microbiome" award.

Overselling the Microbiome Award for @nytimes on thumb sucking, nail biting protecting from allergy

I am continually torn about handing out "overselling the microbiome" awards to many "stories" that are coming out recently on new scientific studies.  On the one hand, many of these studies are quite interesting.  On the other hand, a huge number of them oversell the implications of the work.  And for some reason it seems to me that studies that could indicate a positive role for microbes in some way seem to end up with more misrepresentation than other types of work.  Mind you, I truly believe the cloud of microbes living in and on various plants and animals are likely to play fundamental roles in all sorts of important functions.  But my thinking this and my thinking it is likely does not mean we should go around overstating the implications of work in this area.

And that brings me to the latest example of such overselling  ... a story about thumb sucking and nail biting as covered in the New York Times: Thumb Suckers and Nail Biters May Develop Fewer Allergies

The science here is interesting  - it is based on a new paper testing for associations between thumb sucking and nail biting on the one hand and atopic sensitization, asthma and hay fever on the other.  The paper found the following: Children who suck their thumbs or bite their nails are less likely to have atopic sensitization in childhood and adulthood.

Interesting.  But a key part of this is that they discovered a correlation.  Lots and lots and lots of possible explanations for this correlation including some examined in the paper but none of which have been proven.  Some news reports do a good job of covering the topic and discussing how this is still just a correlative observation.  For example see this Washington Post article by Lateshia Beachum.  There they report on the authors comments where the authors seem to think this supports the hygiene hypothesis

“The findings support the ‘hygiene hypothesis,’ which suggests that being exposed to microbes as a child reduces your risk of developing allergies,” Hancox said in a statement.

But then immediately this is countered by some more careful thoughts

Hirsh Komarow, a staff clinician at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, isn’t entirely convinced about the study’s conclusions. “It’s an interesting observation, but it needs more analysis,” Komarow said.

And then he is further quoted with other possible explanations

Komarow also suggested that thumb-sucking and nail-biting could be indicative behaviors that either thwart or encourage allergic reactions. He said being part of a large family and being exposed to microbes from many siblings may affect a child’s allergic sensitization.

And there are other articles out there with a decent amount of caveating.  But sadly the New York Times article by Perri Klass is not so tempered. Here are some of what I consider to be statements without enough caveating or countering:

A new study suggests that those habits in children ages 5 to 11 may indeed increase exposure to microbes, but that that may not be all bad.

No no no.  The new study did not suggest that.  The new study is consistent with that, but it is consistent with many other explanations.

And then there is this:

These differences could not be explained by other factors that are associated with allergic risk. The researchers controlled for pets, parents with allergies, breast-feeding, socioeconomic status and more. But though the former thumb-suckers and nail-biters were less likely to show allergic sensitization, there was no significant difference in their likelihood of having asthma or hay fever.

Well it is nice that the authors of the paper tested for some other possible explanations.  But it is a giant and inappropriate leap to go from that to "These differences could not be explained by other factors that are associated with allergic risk"

And then there are multiple quotes from the authors which are not really caveated enough or at all

Robert J. Hancox, one of the authors of the study, is an associate professor in the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine at Dunedin School of Medicine, a department that is particularly oriented toward the study of diseases’ causes and risk factors. He said in an email, “The hygiene hypothesis is interesting because it suggests that lifestyle factors may be responsible for the rise in allergic diseases in recent decades. Obviously hygiene has very many benefits, but perhaps this is a downside. The hygiene hypothesis is still unproven and controversial, but this is another piece of evidence that it could be true.”

Some caveats here but not enough.  This is not "evidence that it could be true" but rather it is data consistent with that model, but also consistent with other models that have nothing to do with the hygiene hypothesis.

And then there is this:

Malcolm Sears, one of the authors of the paper, a professor of medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who was the original leader for the asthma allergy component of the New Zealand study, said, “Early exposure in many areas is looking as if it’s more protective than hazardous, and I think we’ve just added one more interesting piece to that information.”

No this study did not show that early exposure from thumb sucking or nail biting has any protective benefit.  It showed a correlation between thumb sucking/nail biting and lower risk of sensitization.  It did not show any causal connection.  And even if a causal connection were found, one would still have to test for what was the mechanism and the mechanism could be many things unconnected to microbial exposure.

And then there is this

Dr. Hancox pointed out that the study does not show any mechanism to account for the association. “Even if we assume that the protective effect is due to exposure to microbial organisms, we don’t know which organisms are beneficial or how they actually influence immune function in this way.”

Yes, this is good in some ways.  But why would we assume this?  Stating this without caveats makes it seem like we should assume this.

and

Dr. Sears said, “My excitement is not so much that sucking your thumb is good as that it shows the power of a longitudinal study.” (A longitudinal study is one that gathers data from the same subjects repeatedly over a period of time.) And in fact, as researchers tease out the complex ramifications of childhood exposures, it’s intriguing to look at long-term associations between childhood behavior and adult immune function, by watching what happens over decades. 

None of these quotes are really caveating the claims.  And then the article ends with a statement that seems to indicate that this is all a proven fact

So perhaps the results of this study help us look at these habits with slightly different eyes, as pieces of a complicated lifelong relationship between children and the environments they sample as they grow, which shape their health and their physiology in lasting ways.

Yes, this study is interesting.  And yes, it might be indicative of a causative connection between exposure to microbes on thumbs and nails and reducing risk to allergy.  But no, the study did not show that there is a causative connection, just a correlation.  And thus we cannot conclude at this point that we should "look at these habits with slightly different eyes, as pieces of a complicated lifelong relationship between children and the environments."  The correlation could be due to other factors that have nothing to do with these habits.  And this is just a massive difference.  Shame on the New York Times for not reporting on this carefully enough.

And thus I am awarding a coveted Overselling the Microbiome Award to the New York Times and Perri Klass.

Hat tip to Mark Sagoff for pointing me to the NY Times article.

Today in Overselling the #microbiome: Lick-hiker's guide to Inner Strength

Well, thanks, I think to Christie Aschwanden https://christieaschwanden.com for pointing me to this.

Valio unveils Lick-hiker’s Guide to Inner Strength with travel presenter Ian Wright - hasan & partners




Valio - Gefilus Trailer from hasan & partners on Vimeo.

From the Press Release

International travel presenter Ian Wright is on a mission to seek out and lick the dirtiest locations in Europe for The Lick-hiker’s Guide to Inner Strength, a campaign that promotes the virtues of Gefilus, a good bacteria product range by dairy giant, Valio.

Simultaneously almost certainly over-promoting the benefits of this one probiotic and also the risks of licking things all over the globe.

Our 25-minute documentary sees Wright’s tongue come into contact with places that harbour bad bacteria - all in the name of testing immunity, gut health, and science. These include a metro station, public toilet, telephone, kindergarten, river, €10 note, bronze statue and Tottenham Hotspur FC.

Did they really have to pick on Tottenham?

Valio commissioned hasan & partners to demonstrate the power of Gefilus, which contains the friendly Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG and vitamins. Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG is the world’s most researched lactic acid bacterium and its qualities have since been scrutinized in more than 800 scientific studies globally.

Umm - just because there are 800 papers does not mean it is necessarily good for you. I mean, published papers is a good thing. But there are also 1000s of papers on anthrax and smallpox ...

Armed with bottles of good bacteria and a luminometer to count germs, the two-week tongue tour of Europe tests Wright’s taste buds and nerve to the limit. Viewers will find out if he survived the ordeal without contracting any stomach bugs and where in the world is the location with the worst bacterial score.

OK - well then. A luminometer will reveal everything you need to know about a sample of microbes. We should just use them for every microbial study everywhere (nothing against luminometers per se, but they really are not what is needed here).

Jussi Lindholm, COO of hasan & partners, comments: "Good bacteria in Gefilus products has been carefully studied and people believe in it. But seeing is believing, so the documentary is both educational and fun, designed to physically draw attention to the link between the gut, our inner strength, and our wellbeing. World traveller Ian Wright has experienced many challenges and Gefilus was probably the weirdest."

OK. Doesn't actually seem that weird. Just oversold ...

Here is the full documentary

A path towards the extinction of "Impact Factor"

From Ewen Callaway in Nature News:

Beat it, impact factor! Publishing elite turns against controversial metric : Nature News & Comment

Best part - the news from ASM

"And in an editorial that will appear on 11 July in eight of its journals, the American Society for Microbiology in Washington DC will announce plans to remove the impact factor from its journals and website, as well as from marketing and advertising. 

“To me, what’s essential is to purge the conversation of the impact factor,” says ASM chief executive Stefano Bertuzzi, a prominent critic of the metric. “We want to make it so tacky that people will be embarrassed just to mention it.”

This is in relation to the recent preprint I posted about a few minutes ago ...

Worth a read: A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions

Worth a read: A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions

This paper in BioRXiv is definitely worth checking out. Abstract is below:

Although the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is widely acknowledged to be a poor indicator of the quality of individual papers, it is used routinely to evaluate research and researchers. Here, we present a simple method for generating the citation distributions that underlie JIFs. Application of this straightforward protocol reveals the full extent of the skew of distributions and variation in citations received by published papers that is characteristic of all scientific journals. Although there are differences among journals across the spectrum of JIFs, the citation distributions overlap extensively, demonstrating that the citation performance of individual papers cannot be inferred from the JIF. We propose that this methodology be adopted by all journals as a move to greater transparency, one that should help to refocus attention on individual pieces of work and counter the inappropriate usage of JIFs during the process of research assessment.

Source: A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions | bioRxiv



(crossposted at the ICIS Blog)

Agilent - where men are thought leaders

Well this is disappointing.  Was googling for a person and found this Agilent "Thought Leaders Program".  It is described as

This invitational program promotes fundamental scientific advancements by contributing financial support, products and expertise to the research of influential thought leaders in the life sciences, diagnostics, and chemical analysis.

Alas it might be described better as "Agilent Male Thought Leaders Program". In my estimation (based on the pronouns used in the descriptions of the people and in Googling around for more information), of the 31 "thought leaders" 28 are male.  That comes to a bit more than 90%.  It seems like there is some sort of bias here.   Agilent should and could do better.

Blast from the past - Stephen Jay Gould on the "Planet of the Bacteria"

An influential article in my career development was this piece on the Washington Post in 1996 by Stephen Jay Gould. I was already convinced bacteria were important and interesting.  But it was nice to see the person who got me interested in evolution (via his books and then a class I took from him in college) emphasizing the bacteria.  Here is a link to the Post archive of it.

PLANET OF THE BACTERIA - The Washington Post

Well, my mom sent me a copy of it and I kept it all these years.  Just scanned it so, I thought I would share what it looked like in the paper since this is VERY different from looking at the text on the Post archive site.

I like the last part too - an ad for the American Society for Microbiology that went with the article. 

Pleasantly surprised by the National Microbiome Initiative

So I got this email a few weeks ago inviting me to the White House.



Not every day that I get invited to the White House.  And I thought I was probably on their shit list after removing my name from the "Unified Microbiome Initiative" paper due to it being non open access.  So I asked a colleague if she could teach in my large introductory biology class for me on May 13 and she said yes.  So I RSVP to the meeting and told my mom I would be coming to the DC area (where I grew up).  And I told everyone, proudly "I am going to the White House".

I realized I had a tight schedule for flying in and out since I had to be back in Davis Saturday AM.  So I wrote to the White House to ask about the schedule for the event.  You see, I had no information as to what this event was going to be about.



And, they did tell me this would work although they would not tell me what the meeting was about.



I then bought my tickets and got excited to be going to the White House.  However, fate would not be so kind to me.  My daughter got sick last week (bronchitis, and multiple spin off issues) and so I started to wonder if I really should go away.  So I tried to find out what was happening at this event.  I wrote a few friends who I knew were going and one of them told me there would be a series of talks and another told me they did not know.  So - without much other information to go on, and with a strong desire to take care of my daughter as much as possible, I cancelled my trip.

Then yesterday I got an email from a NY Times reporter



And so we connected and talked for a bit.  I found out from the phone call that the White House was announcing their Microbiome Initiative (which I knew was in the works but for which I basically knew no details).  The reporter Gardiner Harris asked me how I felt about "Big Science" types of projects and, well, I did not say nice things about them.  And I stand by those critiques of Big Science.  I talked about how I disliked the Human Microbiome Project in many ways because it fed too much money to a few groups and was prone to the same problems of other Big Science projects.  And that they were generally a waste of money.  We also discussed how I thought science worked better when administrators got out of the way and let peer review have more of a role in determining what was important.  And I said that if the new White House initiative was another top down science effort, then this would likely be a bad thing.  Or something like that.  But I did also say that I had no idea what the White House was going to announce about and I hoped it was more supportive of small science.

So the article came out and I was featured in it



Definitely something I stand by.  I think top-down approaches to science do not work well.

I woke up early this AM and started posting about the evils of Big Science.  And then I finally found an announcement with actual details on the National Microbiome Initiative being announced today.  And I was pleasantly surprised.  This was not about a big, top down approach to science.  It was more about a collection of projects under one big umbrella theme of microbiome studies.



Yes there were some top down aspects to it.  But only a component. So once I saw this, I realized my quote in the NY Times was not ideal.  Yes Big Science is bad.  But this National Microbiome Initiative is not really the standard bearer of Big Science.  It is not really even Big Science.  It is more   of a "Organizing Distributed Science".

And I found one article out there about the project that captured this essence of it:  The White House Launches the National Microbiome Initiative  by Ed Yong in the Atlantic. He nails it with this section

The National Microbiome Initiative is not the Human Genome Project—a single project with a definitive goal. It consists of many organizations operating independently; to paraphrase Whitman, it contains multitudes.

So my quote in the NY Times was technically correct - Big Science is bad.  But it also not quite right in the context it is presented - since the NMI is actually not really (or at least not completely) Big Science.  I do wish the context of the quote had been presented a bit more  (well, more specifically that I did say I did not know the full details of what they were actually proposing).  Lesson learned.  Be really careful about commenting about things "generally" without knowing the details.  I definitely regret doing that here.  I did in fact say what is reported so can't complain about being misquoted.  But I should have been more careful regarding the caveats and context.

I note - it is unclear to me how much of these smaller distributed projects would have happened without the NMI.  My guess is most of them would have happened and that the NMI is a bit of a public relations effort.  Ed Yong also captured this issue in his piece:

A cynic might be forgiven for seeing this as an exercise in branding, encapsulating what microbiome scientists were already doing under a catchy umbrella.

And I also worry as always that "Microbiomania" (hype about the microbiome) will get worse with this announcement of the NMI.  And it probably will.

But in the end I am very happy that this is not a run of the mill top down Big Science project (like the Human Genome Project or the Human Microbiome Project or the Human Brain Project).  It is much more nuanced than that.  Much more distributive.  Much more likely to support small science and creative science and such.  And that is a good thing.

True Must See TV: John Oliver on Science, Hype, and Science Reporting

This is really really really worth watching. I was pointed to it by dozens of people. And they were all right about it. Thanks people.
 

Also see these stories about it

• John Oliver’s rant about science reporting should be taken seriously by John Timmer in Ars Technica
• When Science Reporting Goes Horribly, Horribly Wrong - Phil Plait in Slate
• John Oliver explains why so much ‘science’ you read about is bogus - Rachel Feltman in the Washington Post
• Megan Thielking in Stat

And now for some good news from UC Davis - teaching and research awards

And now for some good news from UC Davis

On my evolving thoughts on the #UCDavis saga involving Chancellor Linda Katehi

Still trying to wrap my brain around the controversy at UC Davis involving our Chancellor (the head of the University) Linda Katehi (see some of these news stories if you are not aware of what is going on).  In some sense I could just watch this all from the sidelines and see what happens.  But that is not in my nature.  And, over the last month I have gotten a near endless stream of comments and suggestions (some in private, some in public) about the topic.  Some say I need to be more vocal in condemning Chancellor Katehi (e.g., a student in my lab told me the other day that they have talked to faculty who are wondering why I am being so hesitant to condemn Chancellor Katehi).  Other people (many) say any negative posts about Katehi are damaging UC Davis.  Still others say and and all actions of Katehi must be considered in the context of overwhelming sexism against female leaders.  And so on.  In total I have probably gotten dozens of private comments and even more public comments about the case with suggestions for what I should be doing here.

For those who know me or know about me, I assume you know I am not exactly shy about expressing my opinions on topics like behavior of academics or academic institutions.  For example, just after joining UC Davis I wrote a post that was shared widely, condemning a UC Davis Vice Provost over her misuse of her position in support of Closed Access publishing: Vice Provost of U. C. Davis on the wrong side of Open Access.



I give out all sorts of snarky awards on my blog to friends, colleagues, and other folds in the world for doing things I think are inappropriate (e.g., see this STAT story). Sometimes I go overboard in this, but certainly I am not hesitant at expressing thoughts when I think there has been something untoward going on.  I try as much as possible to turn my microscope on myself and UC Davis too.  For example, see this post from a few weeks ago: UC Davis Storer Lecture series - since 1963 87% of speakers are male.

Painful: #UCDavis Storer Lecture series - since 1963 87% of speakers are male https://t.co/uaBbnxPv5T pic.twitter.com/9GuFORRiqu

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) April 21, 2016

Again, I know I overdo this sometimes but I am certainly not hesitant to make my feelings know.

But the case of Chancellor Katehi leaves me on the fence and with my fingers unclear what to type somewhat.  And so I thought I would try to write up what my thoughts are here, even if they are muddled.  I wonder what other people think of the situation and would love feedback (as always) on this post.

So - what is so complex here?  What am I trying to wrap my brain around?  I think my challenge here comes down to the following: I don't know whether some of the responses (including mine) to Chancellor Katehi's actions are tinged with bias, especially sexism.  Or, in other words, are the actions and inactions of Chancellor Katehi "firing offenses" or have they been overblown by biased and sexist points of view.

And honestly, I do not know exactly how to figure this out.  On the one hand, I accept that there are massive amounts of sexism in society and certainly in regard to how we judge women in power.  On the other hand, I think the actions and inactions of Chancellor Katehi and her administration have been serious (in a bad way).  I note - one thing I have done to try and better understand my own feelings and actions in this saga is to compile all my posts and communications as best I can and go through them.

This has helped me sort out my thoughts and also helped show me at least that I was certainly not going easy on the UC Davis administration over these cases.  I also re-examined my posts about the Pepper Spray incident and aftermath from 2011 which has many parallels to the current situation and also involved Chancellor Katehi. See here for those: posts about the UC Davis Pepper Spray Incident and Aftermath.



Below is a discussion based in part on going through the news stories and posts of others and posts of mine.

Maybe it is best to start with this.  A few weeks ago I was pondering the fate of Chancellor Katehi and I wrote a detailed post about this The #UCDavis Chancellor's Board Positions and the Need for a More Public, Open and Early Disclosure System.




I also included in that discussion some possible conflicts of interest of my own that might be clouding my judgment.  Those are relevant to this post too and I encourage people to read them.  Anyway, this post was written at the beginning of the latest controversy when all that had been disclosed was her acceptance of a set of outside Board positions that were controversial.  I had written many mini posts and Tweets about the situation such as those below:

This is why I no longer use textbooks for courses. UC Davis chancellor received $420,000 on book publisher’s board https://t.co/q1evG9aTcG

— Bruce Rannala (@BruceRannala) March 5, 2016

And I also had started to see some calls for her to be fired and such and made a point to say I did not feel things were that far along and I also linked to some of those posts.

 

Am very disappointed in board membership choices by #UCDavis Chancellor Katehi but calls for resignation seem woefully reactionary (1/n)

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) March 5, 2016

Not trying to defend choices - I think she needs to disclose more details and actions (e.g., on Wiley) & how there was no COI (2/n)

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) March 5, 2016

But at this time, as far as I can tell no laws or policies were violated (actually it seems UC pushes / encourages board membership) 3/n

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) March 5, 2016

So rather than hanging Katehi out to dry as Janet Napolitano has done, better if UC took some responsibility 4/n pic.twitter.com/ovR7SY4Xet

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) March 5, 2016

What we need to do is systematically reverse the corporatization of UC from the top to the bottom and not just pick at one scab 5/n

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) March 5, 2016

#UCDavis Profs Niemeier & Beamish on UC Admins sitting on boards: Let’s focus on the process, not the person https://t.co/PWRY0ilXQd

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) March 10, 2016

Spring at #Yolo Basin

As many know, I just love Yolo Basin.  Here are some of the better pics I have taken this Spring.

Letter from #UCDavis Profs to Janet Napolitano about possible sexism in responses to Chancellor Katehi's activities

The current Chair of the UC Davis Division of the Academic Senate forwarded an email to UC Davis faculty today.  This email included a letter that had been send from from Linda Bisson (past Chair of the UC Davis Division of the Academic Senate) and Rachael E. Goodhue (Chair Elect of UC Davis Division of the Academic Senate) to the President of the University of California Janet Napolitano.  The letter's overall message is concern about possible sexism in how the Chancellor of UC Davis is being treated in regard to recent events at UC Davis. 

I note - I have received many (over a dozen) private messages also expressing concern that some of the reaction to Chancellor Katehi's activities may be sexist.  Mind you - most of these people are not defending the activities of the Chancellor but are concerned about the responses to her activities.  I think it is important for these expressions to be more widely viewed and thus I asked Linda Bisson if I could post it here and she said yes. 

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From: Linda Bisson
Date: Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 6:43 AM
Subject: Letter to President Napolitano

Dear President Napolitano:

We want to express grave concern over a pattern of negativism in the press and social media regarding women Chancellors and senior administrative leaders. There are strong parallels between the singularly intensive criticism of our Chancellor Linda Katehi and that previously of Chancellors Fox (UCSD) and Denton (UCSC), and of UC Vice President Greenwood. Yet, the activities that are being criticized clearly fall within the standards of UCwide practice. This pattern is exemplified by a 2006 LA Times article that criticized compensation practices for senior UC executives: those singled out for criticism for “extravagant pay practices, perks and privilege for top executives” are all women (http://articles.latimes.com/2006/feb/16/local/me-cap16). The intensity of the criticism at the time ended in tragedy for Chancellor Denton. Chancellor Fox’s term was equally framed as fraught with turmoil, turmoil apparently not experienced by her male colleagues who were facing identical issues due to budget cuts and lack of diversity and inclusion. In an article in the San Diego Union Tribune written on Chancellor Fox’s decision to step down (http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2011/jul/05/fox- leaving-ucsd/?#article-copy), she is described in terms steeped in implicit gender bias such as the quote ascribed to former President Atkinson: “She handled that as well as she could have handled it” – not as well as anyone could have handled it or as well as it could have been handled.

Women in leadership positions are often the victims of intense implicit bias and, as a consequence, of the phenomenon of “single storyism” - the reduction of their actions to a simple narrative that appeals to the biases of a broad section of society, in this case implicit gender bias and women being incompetent for their position. Whatever they say or do in response is twisted to fit the “single story.” We think the LA Times article listed above illustrates perfectly the problem of the single story experienced by senior women administrators at UC. If the LA Times story were rewritten today, Chancellor Katehi’s name is likely the only one that would be added to the list.

All of UC is richer because of the participation of women and underrepresented groups at all levels. We know you and your leadership team share this belief. We are concerned that UCOP does not recognize that senior administrators who are identified with an underrepresented identity vital to our diversity are subject to vilification in the press simply because of that identity. We are also concerned, as recent press regarding our Chancellor Katehi demonstrates, that Chancellors and other senior administrators are not well-equipped to deal with single storyism, nor is there the recognition that others, such as UCOP, must step in to address the criticism as well.

The absence of factual information on UC policies and practices with respect to external compensation for all senior administrators has led to speculative and negative public debate regarding a single senior woman, when the practice of external involvement is widespread. We would like to request clear articulation from UCOP of both the formal policies and the informal practices as they pertain to executive compensation (e.g., have senior managers been encouraged to participate in activities outside UC). We note that legislators are calling for the same review. UCOP's understanding of the broader issues involved is essential to informing these external discussions. The need for UCOP to take action is urgent.

We thank you for considering this request.

Linda F. Bisson, Former Chair, Davis Division of the Academic Senate, 2006-2008 & 2011-2012
Rachael E. Goodhue, Chair Elect, Davis Division of the Academic Senate 2016-2018

UC Davis Storer Lecture series - since 1963 87% of speakers are male

I wrote this blog post a while ago but never published it partly out of fear for upsetting some of my colleagues.  I try to be brave about such things, but I guess I just did not quite get up the poxy.  Well, today something came up that stimulated me to write the post.

I got an email announcement for a talk that seems potentially quite interesting. The problem is not the talk.  The problem is with the endowed Lectureship that this talk is connected to.  So here is the post I have worked on on and off over the last year or more.

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UC Davis has an endowed lecture series- the Storer Lectureship in the Life Sciences.  It has been running since the 1960s and is a relatively big deal on campus here.  The speakers come in, usually give one or two talks (one for the public and one for researchers).  They usually have a big dinner (I have gone to a few of these) and the speakers get a decent honorarium (a few thousand dollars) and some sort of gift.

Most years I have been here, I have received a request from the organizers for suggested speakers and every once in a while I have made suggestions, some of which have even led to invitations.  Recently, I had suggested a famous colleague who is also a UC Davis alum.  Alas, she could not come.  The organizers asked if I had any other suggestions and I sent them a list of a few candidates who are both very good, well known and do something related to microbes.  The organizers really liked one of the suggestions and asked if I would be willing to invite this person.

So I started drafting a letter.  And as part of drafting a letter I wanted to give examples of past speakers to show how great a set of speakers we had for this series.  So I Googled "Storer" and
UC Davis" or something like that and got to the page:

Storer Lectureship in the Life Sciences

And that is when I got a bit heartbroken.  The speakers have been, well, very male.   I note I spent a while looking at descriptions of each speaker that I did not know to try and determine their gender, looking at their web sites if available, or how they were described (e.g., what pronouns were used).  I am pretty confident in the assignments though I realize this is an error prone approach.  Here is the full list as far as I have put together with the males labelled in yellow and females in green.
 

Oct 5-16, 1963	Ernest W. Caspari	University of Rochester
Oct 17-31, 1966	Vincent G. Derhicr	Univesity of Pennsylvania
May 7-20, 1967	Ernst Mayr	Harvard University
Nov 3-15, 1968	Elizabeth C. Crosby	Univesity of Michigan
Jan 3-15, 1969	W.D. Billings	Duke University
Apr 13-23, 1969	Frank Fenner	Australian National University,
Apr 5-19, 1970	A. Frey-Wyssling	Eidgenossiche Tcchnische Hochschule
Nov 11-23, 1970	Carl L. Hubbs	Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Feb 1-12, 1971	H.L. KornBerg	University of Leicester, England
Nov 22-Dec 3, 1971	Hilary Koprowski	University of Pennsylvania
Jan 17-28, 1972	George Beadle	University of Chicago
Jan 17-28, 1972	Muriel Beadle	University of Chicago
May 1-12, 1972	Sterling Hendricks	Agriculture Research Service, U.S.D.A
Oct 16-27, 1972	George Gaylord Simpson	The Simroe Foundation
Feb 23-Mar 9, 1973	Sir Alan S. Parkes	The Galton Foundation
Apr 9-20, 1973	Peter R. Marler	The Rockefeller University
May 7-18, 1973	George C. Cotzias, M.D.	Brookhaven National Laboratory
Nov 6-13, 1973	Eugene E. Odum	University of Georgia
Nov 12-16, 1973	Peter Alexander	Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital
Mar 4-15, 1974	Davis A. Hamburg, MD.	Stanford University School of Medicine
Apr 1-15, 1974	Kent V. Flannery	University of Michigan
Nov 4-15, 1974	Garrett Hardin	University of California, Santa Barbara
Mar 30-Apr 9, 1975	Kenneth J. Carpenter	University of Cambridge
Apr 20-May 2, 1975	Murray S. Blum	University of Georgia
Oct 20-31, 1975	Bert W. O'Malley, M.D.	Baylor College of Medicine,
Apr 12-23, 1976	Sydney Brenner	Division of Cell Biology of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England
May 17-28, 1976	Peter S. Carlson	Michigan State University,
Nov 22-Dec 3, 1976	Roger Y. Stanier	Pasteur Institute,
Jan 24-Feb 4, 1977	Peter Albersheim	University of Colorado
Feb 22-Mar 4, 1977	*Jere Mead, M.D. Cecil K. and Philip Drinker	Harvard University
Apr 11-12, 1977	S. J. Singer	University of California, San Diego
Nov 20-30, 1977	James D. Ebert	Marine Biological Laboratory
Feb 8-15, 1978	Sir Kenneth Blaxtcr	Rowen Research Institute
Apr 5-12, 1978	Eric H. Davidson	California Institute of Technology
Oct 9-20, 1978	Jutgen Aschoff	Max-Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology
Feb 20-22, 1979	*Burt L. Vallee, Paul C. Cabot	Harvard Medical School
Apr 24-26, 1979	Carl R. Woese	University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign
Nov 5-16, 1979	Daphne J. Osborne	Oxford University
Februarv 4-15, 1980	John F. Eisenberg	Smithsonian Institution.
Apr 16-18, 1980	George E. Palade, M.D.	Yale Medical School
May 5-16, 1980	Jerre Levy	University of Chicago
Oct 27-30, 1980	Colin Blakemore	Oxford University
Jan 21-27, 1980	Pierre Dejours	CNRS
Feb 26-Mar 5, 1981	Richard Alexander	University of Michigan
Oct 20-27, 1981	Alfred F. Harper	University of Wisconsin Madison
May 11-19, 1982	Glenn W. Burton	USDA-SEA
Oct 11-18, 1982	Richard F. Leakey	National Museums of Kenya
Jan 6-11, 1983	Eric R. Kandel, M.D.	Columbia University,
Oct 12-18, 1983	Donald S. Farner	University of Washington
Feb 13-15, 1984	Daniel Branton	Harvard University
Apr 24-26, 1984	J. Michael Bishop	University of California, San Francisco
Dec 3-6, 1984	Maurice Fried	National Research Council
Apr 3-8, 1985	John Krebs	Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology
May 8-14, 1985	Geoffrey M. Ole Maloiy	University of Nairobi
Oct 8-10, 1985	Michael P. Hassell	Imperial College, London
Apr 21-24, 1986	John Maynard Smith	University of Sussex.
Dec 1-4, 1986	Aldo Carl Leopold	Boyce Thompson Institute
Mar 2A, 1987	Gerald Edelman	The Rockefeller University
Nov 10-12, 1987	Jean-Claude Chcrrnann	Pasteur Institute, Paris France
Jan 15-20, 1988	Jean-Pierre Changeux	Pasteur Institute, Paris France
Apr 11-15, 1988	John I. Harpcr	University College of North Wales
Oct 17-21, 1988	Rudiger Wehner	University of Zurich
Oct 23-26, 1989	John C. Torrey	Harvard University
Feb 26-Mar 2, 1990	Heinz Saedler	Max-Planck-Institute
Nov 5-7, 1990	Francis Crick	The Salk Institute
Jan 28-31, 1991	Thomas A. McMahon	Harvard University
May 28-30, 1991	Lynn Margulis	University of Massachusetts
Nov 18-21, 1991	Richard C. Lewontin	Harvard University
Feb 4-6, 1992	Philip Leder	Harvard Medical School
Apr 13-16, 1992	Patrick Bateson	University of Cambridge
Nov 16-19, 1992	Melvin I. Simon	California Institute of Technology
Feb 1-5, 1993	Anne McLaren	Wellcome/CRC Institute
Apr 13-16, 1993	Judah Folkman	Harvard Medical School
Jan 24 -27, 1994	Philippa Marrack	National Jewish Center
Feb 28-Mar 3, 1994	Stephen O'Brien	National Cancer Institute
Apr 18-21, 1994	Roy M. Anderson	University of Oxford
Oct 31-Nov 2, 1994	Michael J. Berridge	The Babraham Institute
Feb 6-10, 1995	Hal Hatch	CSIRO Division of Plant Industry
May 1-5, 1995	Elaine Fuchs	The University of Chicago
Oct 16-19, 1995	Peter Ellison	Harvard University
Mar 4-8, 1996	Gottfried Schatz	University of Basel, Switzerland
Apr 8-10, 1996	Daniel Hillel	University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Feb 3-6, 1997	Peter R. Grant	Princeton University
Apr 14-17, 1997	William J. Lennarz	State University of New York
May 5-7, 1997	Carolyn W. Slayman	Yale University School of Medicine
Apr 20-22, 1998	Floyd Bloom	The Scripps Research 1nstitute
May 18-20, 1998	Ian Wilmut	Roslin Institute
Jan 11-13, 1999	Leroy E. Hood	University of Washington
Apr 26-28, 1999	Patricia Goldman-Rakic	Yale University School of Medicine
Jan 30-31, 2001	Charles Arntzen	Arizona State University
		University of Oxford
Mar 4-6, 2002	Jan H. Hoeijmakcrs	Erasmus University
Apr 11-12, 2002	Fred H. Gage	The Salk Institute
May 6-7, 2002	Phillip A. Sharp	Center for Cancer Research, MIT
Jan 13-15, 2003	George M. Martin, M.D.	University of Washington
Mar 10-11, 2003	Kim A. Nasmyth	Vienna Biocenter
Apr 28-29, 2003	Tim Flannery	Director of the South Australian Museum
Dec 1-2, 2003	William Greenough	University of Illinois
Feb 18-19, 2004	Bruce Ames	Children's Hospital, Oakland Research Institute
Nov 29-30, 2004	Hans Herren	International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology
Apr 26-27, 2005	H. Robert Horvitz	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
May 9-10, 2005	Steven Chu	Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Jan 24-25, 2006	Cynthia Kenyon	University of California, San Francisco
Mar 14-15, 2006	Thomas D. Pollard	Yale University
Oct 23-24, 2006	Mimi Koehl	University of California, Berkeley
Dec 4-5, 2006	Simon A. Levin	Princeton University
Apr 5-6, 2007	Sir Peter Crane, FRS	University of Chicago
Apr 23-24, 2007	Stephen Quake	Stanford University
May 14-15, 2007	Pasko Rakic	Yale University
Mar 23-24, 2009	Sean Carroll	University of Wisconsin
Apr 20-21, 2009	H. Allen Orr	University of Rochester
May 19-20, 2009	John Doebley	University of Wisconsin
Mar 11-12, 2010	Elliot Meyerowitz	California Institute of Technology
May 17-18, 2010	Robert Langer	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
May 11-12, 2011	Nina Federoff	Pennsylvania State University
Jan 11-12, 2012	Jane Lubchenco	NOAA
Apr 24-25, 2012	Ilkka Hanski	University of Helsinki
May 30-31, 2012	Loren Rieseberg	University of British Columbia
Oct 2-3, 2012	Ed Delong	MIT
Nov 15, 2012	Jordi Bascompte	Estación Biológica de Doñana
Nov 19, 2012	Simon Boulton	London Research Institute
Jan 16, 2013	Ary Hoffman	University of Melbourne
Jan 31, 2013	Jonathan Losos	Harvard
Mar 18, 2013	Gloria Coruzzi	NYU
Apr 10-11 2013	Peter Agre	Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute
May 6, 2013	Richard Wrangham	Harvard
May 16, 2013	Sue Carter	RTI International
May 28, 2013	Larry Gold	CU Boulder
June 4, 2013	Eric Schadt	Mount Sinai
June 05, 2013	Nancy Moran	Yale
Oct 28-29, 2013	Walter Bodmer	University of Oxford
Dec 4-5, 2013	Ronald Kaback	UCLA
Feb 24, 2014	Patricia Wright	Stony Brook
Mar 5-6, 2014	Steve Carpenter	University of Wisconsin
Apr 9-10, 2014	Jerry Coyne	University of Chicago
May 20-21, 2014	May Berenbaum	University of Illinois
May 28-29, 2014	Joel Cohen	Rockefeller University
Oct 28-29, 2014	Charles Rice	The Rockefeller University
Nov 19-20, 2014	Rolf Zinkernagel	University of Zurich
Apr 15-16, 2015	Tim Clutton Block	University of Cambridge
Oct 7-8, 2015	Richard Lenski	Michigan State
April 22, 2016	Steve Nowicki	Duke University

The total numbers come to 19 females out of 142 speakers or ~13% female and 87% male.  Ugh.

And the person I had suggested to invite was male.  So I wrote back to the organizers and I wrote:

From: Jonathan Eisen 

Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2015 11:34 AM 

To: XXXCc: XXX 

Subject: Abyssmal gender ratio of speakers in the Storer Lectureship series 

XXX and XXXX 

With sincere apologies but ... 

In preparing a letter of invitation for XXX I decided to include some examples of previous Storer Lecturers. And therein lies the problem On the web sitehttp://www.dbs.ucdavis.edu/seminars_and_events/storer_lecture_list.htmlfrom my count, there are 121 past speakers listed. Of these, 15 appear to be female (from my estimate). That comes to 12%. That is embarassaingly low. I hope my calculations here are wrong. 

Can you tell me if the Storer Lectureship has any policies regarding diversity of speakers? If yes, can you provide me with those details.

If no, I recommend you implement one as soon as possible. Either way, I refuse to have my name affiliated with this series, and will not invite anyone to talk in it, without further information and without some serious attempt to figure out how to do a better job representing the diversity of biologists who could give such talks. 

Jonathan

They wrote back with a very detailed response and were very supportive of the concept of increasing diversity of speakers.  And they explained some of the efforts they had made in this regard.  And they really seem to be trying in some ways.  But in the end, their main justification for the lack of diversity was that they were trying to invite already recognized, in essence famous, biologists.  People who had won a Nobel or were in the National Academy of Sciences or were HHMI investigators.  And this pool, that they had chosen, was skewed in gender balance.

So I wrote back to them June 18:

All
Thanks very much for the response.

I understand you have some constraints and greatly appreciate that you are committed to trying to improve the diversity of speakers.  However, the end result is truly not acceptible in my mind and therefore I believe more needs to be done, urgently, to improve the situation.

What are some possible ways to improve the situation?

Well, the number one recommendation I would make would be to not constrain the pool to honorific groups that themselves have severe skews.  No we cannot solve those skews and there are many causes for them.  But I believe it is a major mistake to use the diversity of those groups (NAS, Nobel, HHMI) as a target.  Either invite people to represent diversity well even from a constrained pool, or, open up to a broader pool (there are plenty of incredible scientists who have not gotten HHMI, NAS, or Nobels).

In addition to opening up the pool and not aiming at such a low bar, there are many things one can do to improve the diversity of speakers.  I have written about this extensively as have many others.  I can point the committee to some of these articles if interested.

In the end, whatever the reasons are, the Storer series has ended up with extremely biased gender ratio of speakers.  I think it is up to the committee to fix this with a combination of actions.  But the first thing I would recommend is to not use the diversity of a set of pools you have chosen as an excuse.  We can and should do better and if the pools are the reason, the pools from which you sample need to be changed.

Jonathan

They wrote back, saying they were really committed to achieving better gender balance in the future writing "we are totally committed to the same goals as you in terms of gender balance now and in the future." And they also wrote that they expected "the final lineup to reflect at least 30 percent or more female" as long as one additional woman (the person I had originally recommended) would come (though I had told them she said she could not).  And then they asked if I would reconsider inviting the man who I had been about to invite that had started this whole discussion.

So I wrote back again July 14:

Thanks again for the response. And though I do not want to continue beating a dead horse, I am not convinced we are doing enough in this area. For example, what explains the "at least 30 percent" and how close to 30% will that be. This is important as, for example, the National Science Foundation will not support their people attending meetings if female speakers are at < 33%. I think 30% is, to be honest, just not acceptable in biology. So beofre contributing any more to this series I need to know exactly what is meant by "we are totally committed to the same goals as you in terms of gender balance now and in the future."

For example, here are some questions I would like to know the answers to:

• Are you committed to achieving gender balance in the speaker series or just saying you are being more even than before?
• Are you committed to researching and using diverse options to ensure diversity of speakers beyond just focusing on who is invited?
• Are you interested in understanding why the series has been so undiverse in the past and addressing this directly or just moving forward?
• Are you willing to address the lack of diversity in the past publicly and also discuss efforts to improve the diversity? 

I would very much like to know more detail about how serious you are to having a diverse series and what you plan to do to achieve this. 

With apologies, but in regard to inviting XXX or XXX. I am sorry but given the past record of this series, which as I said is among the worst I have seen anywhere, I am just not willing to be involved in any way until I see a stronger and more public committment to diversity. 

I am happy to help with the series and to help improve the diversity of speakers. But this should be done openly and publicly and forcefully. And without evidence of this, I am unable and unwilling to be involved.

And, well, I have not heard from them again.  So, I am writing this.  For many reasons.  But a key one is, I think we need to be more public about such issues.  And we just need to fix things that are broken.

So today I decided to make the post live.  I wish I had done this earlier.

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Some responses

The Tree of Life: UC Davis Storer Lecture series - Concerning stats about gender disparities from @phylogenomics https://t.co/Auo9KQWoG9

— Andy Jones (@andyojones) April 21, 2016

Important read: "UC Davis Storer Lecture series - since 1963 87% of speakers are male" https://t.co/gcsgSt1Woe

— Alexandra Rosati (@AlexGRosati) April 21, 2016

Another example of male-biased seminar series. https://t.co/cFFrErA8Ah

— Haldre Rogers (@haldre1) April 22, 2016