ACS Meeting in Denver: Who Went to Bergman’s Talk?
I’m here in Denver for the 2,745,456th national meeting of the American Chemical Society. Denver is a great city: very compact and walkable, especially without any snow.
Anyway, I’m told that the Sames–Sezen story was a major focus of Bob Bergman‘s HIST 005 presentation titled “Irreproducibility in the scientific literature: How often do scientists tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” I’m also told that he and Ron Breslow had an exchange in the question-and-answer period.
Does anyone know what, exactly, was discussed?
Oh, and I’m giving a talk tomorrow at 3:30 in CCC 108. If you are one of the three people who stays at national meetings past Wednesday, please come!
August 31st, 2011 at 11:29 AM
I didn’t. My wife is called Bergmann, and, since I have her every day, i rarely listen.
August 31st, 2011 at 1:30 PM
Good luck with your talk. How come you didn’t attend Bergman’s?
August 31st, 2011 at 2:13 PM
Since I had to stay through Thursday, I decided to arrive one day late to save time and money. I probably would have missed the talk anyway, as it was in the HIST division. I usually hang around the ORGN & INOR venues.
August 31st, 2011 at 6:34 PM
I ran by Paul’s poster at the Sci-Mix on Monday. He was quite enthusiastic, engaging and perfectly professional, and surprisingly not surrounded by fans and friends from the blogosphere. Anyway, good luck with the talk, i’m sure it will go well! (Sadly i have left Denver already.)
August 31st, 2011 at 8:27 PM
There goes my reputation!
I was glad to meet ~10 or so blog readers this meeting and to discover the “real” people behind some of my favorite Twitter feeds.
September 4th, 2011 at 10:42 AM
to be ir nit t be
it is the question here
On my last poster session in Washington, DC, when i presented to The ACS a well-prepared, scientifically honest poster, the public asked me whether i were a post-Doc or something. No, I answered, I am an associate research professor. Well, I was at the time.
I should have presented things like almostz flying to Mars, as Prof. Mirkin always does. I am not this way, I would never go through as a vacuum cleaner rep.
September 7th, 2011 at 10:43 AM
I wasn’t at the conference, but I might be able to give you some idea of what was discussed in the talk. Bob has given talks on scientific fraud in the past, and I have a copy of his slides and talking points from when I was a member of his lab (although I never saw the presentation myself). In this version from 2008, there is mention of both the Sames-Sezen and the Breslow-Mehta stories, although neither were covered in great detail, from what I can tell. More attention was given to the following topics:
Jacques Benveniste/”Water Memory”
Rusi Taleyarkhan/ Sonofusion
Org Syn/ Reproducibility
Conscious and Unconscious Data Manipulation
Idea Stealing/Cordova-Blackmond
I assume that the focus of the talk has changed significantly since then as more information from the Sames-Sezen case has emerged. I’ll alert Bob to this post, and perhaps he’ll be able to give you a better idea of what he talked about this time around.
September 7th, 2011 at 6:35 PM
Thanks, Courtney. Very helpful.
September 15th, 2011 at 10:08 AM
I was there, missed you’re talk. Just ran across this blog looking up the Sames/Sezen case. Very nice! And Matyjaszewski with 70-1 odds? I would expect better than that…..
September 15th, 2011 at 4:53 PM
Caleb…you were at the Bergman talk? What was said?
September 23rd, 2011 at 4:34 PM
Argh…Bergman’s talk was not among those recorded at the meeting, according to the ACS Web site.
December 21st, 2011 at 4:51 AM
It looks like is WAS recorded, see:
http://www.softconference.com/acschem/sessionDetail.asp?SID=267264
December 23rd, 2011 at 11:37 AM
Scientists, just like primary school teachers, are in the possession of some absolute truth, or at least, they find it so. The awareness that this is not so, comes only later.