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Posted by: TheChemist Feb 1 2006, 03:20 PM

You better hide that recorder well Bruce

"NOTE: Photography, videography, and audio recordings are NOT allowed in either the oral or poster sessions. This policy will be strictly enforced."

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/lpsc2006.3rd.html

Posted by: djellison Feb 1 2006, 03:29 PM

hmm - PC with voice recognition software

JUST about skirts around those descriptions

Doug

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 1 2006, 05:27 PM

One reason for this is that some journals are getting fed up that figures, maps, imagery, illustrations, etc. from poster sessions are ending up in the public domain before being published.

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Feb 2 2006, 01:35 AM

That's your opinion, Alex. Personally, I think they're just sadists. (And I don't recall any rule like that at the DPS meetings, although it would be entirely in character for me to have overlooked it.)

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 2 2006, 01:43 AM

True enough. However, I do know a few people on the editorial staffs of a few journals, and one of them told me once that journal editors, especially those still adhering to the embargo policy, are driven crazy by the amount of detail released at some conferences.

Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 2 2006, 01:46 AM

Astonishingly (to me), I'm going to be as crochety as Bruce on this topic. They're either sadist or elitist. Why should you have to be able to afford the time and the travel to go to these meetings in order to be able to see the latest stuff and also, by the way, witness science in action? If more people were exposed to preliminary stuff and how scientists hash it out in meetings like this one, they might understand science better.

By the way, volcanopele, I may want to sneak a look at your notes later

--Emily

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 2 2006, 01:51 AM

I agree, and I was just speculating on LPI's policy in this regard. However, as I mentioned in the other message, some journals, which end up publishing many of the results presented in preliminary format at conferences, have a different point of view -- and that is not mere speculation.

Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 2 2006, 02:12 AM

Yep. Stupid journals. Though I understand their desire actually to have only peer-reviewed results out there. I'm just generally peeved about this topic because we've had people refuse to let us print non-press-released space images in The Planetary Report because, their claim goes, that would prevent them from ever being able to publish the same images in Science or Nature. It's just a smokescreen of course but we have to abide by the argument.

--Emily

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 2 2006, 02:21 AM

Of course, that's their altruistic reason. Another explanation is that they simply want to be, for various self-serving reasons, including sound business ones, the first one to release the results. Although it's a little dated, there was a good http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/282/5390/860 on the whole embargo business in the October 30, 1998, issue of Science.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Feb 2 2006, 02:46 AM

I've never seen this taping statement before at LPSC.

Personally, I think the journals are afraid that their very reason for existence is threatened.

Phil

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 2 2006, 05:41 PM

Not to beat the issue to death (nor to hijack Jason's thread) but another possible (perhaps likely) explanation for the LPI policy, which might fall under Bruce's "sadist" theory, is that some conference participants may have complained. I know many scientists who don't want their pre-publication musings and speculations recorded for the "uneducated masses" only to blow up in their faces later.

Indeed, even "closed" science meetings are eschewing taping. For example, the Cassini TOST/SOST telecons (or, as a few wags have said, "telethons") that occur before each targeted encounter were intially recorded. I have a few of these multi-hour extravaganzas on my iPod (e.g., TOST T6/T7/T8 and SOST E1), and they are unusually open and candid. However, the recording of these telecons has tapered off due to, from what I understand, objections from some of the teams in having their presentations taped, notwithstanding the fact that these telecons are restricted to Project personnel, who, presumably, aren't laypersons who don't understand the "sausage making" aspect of science.

Having said that, I find it puzzling that LPI would allow non-participants to attend LPSC, including the press, and not allow them to tape. I would have thought that, at the very least, for the sake of accurate reporting that recording would be desired.

Posted by: djellison Feb 3 2006, 09:56 AM

'We wont let them record it because they report our stuff badly'

Yup - and leaving them without a record of what you've said is going to make it worse

Very narrow minded imho. Bill Haartman's comments in his Travellers Guide to Mars are so very true re: papers and conferences etc.

Posted by: vexgizmo Feb 3 2006, 07:07 PM

Correct, IMHO. Some are uncomfortable with the digital camera revolution resulting in their figures being captured before they wish them to be out there in the world. Without description, preliminary plots lose their caveats.

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Feb 4 2006, 08:11 AM

Well, I don't use no stinkin' digital camera. I just use a tape recorder, which does nothing but record their caveats. So why are they after us for that?

Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 10 2006, 04:25 PM

Bruce et al.: I've just exchanged several emails with Steve Mackwell of LPI, who is one of the conveners of LPSC. He told me that the prohibition on recording was not intended to limit the activities of the press, only others who have more nefarious designs on other people's research (though he did not go into detail about that). So as long as your intent is to share the info with the public, you're copacetic. He invited any member of the press who had concerns about the policy to contact him directly.

(Should this discussion be moved to its own thread somewhere?)

--Emily

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 10 2006, 05:51 PM

Just out of curiosity, does that mean that media covering the event have to get prior approval for recording?

And a rhetorical question(s): How is LPI going to filter out those with the "intent to share the info with the public" from those with "nefarious designs on other people's research"? In fact, if the latter get the info from the former, which is not an impossible scenario, wouldn't the effect be the same?

Frankly, I think LPI should just scrap the whole policy, which will probably end up making the perceived "problem" worse, or else just restrict the conference to participants only and make them all sign non-disclosure agreements.

Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 10 2006, 10:26 PM

I don't think prior approval is required. When you register as press (which I always do now because it's free that way ), your badge usually has a bright ribbon on it that says "PRESS" which makes you pretty obvious. I think that people who organize these conferences don't really think of them as venues for public information -- what they really are, are venues for scientists to get together to meet and talk and discuss each other's research, and the public coverage is just something that happens without anybody really paying much attention to it. DPS and AGU both organize press conferences, but LPSC doesn't. I think there's no way of preventing news from coming out of it, since the abstracts are a matter of public record. I think most researchers are of two minds when it comes to public coverage -- they are delighted when people pay attention to their research, but are worried about how public coverage will affect their ability to get it published, especially if it's sensational stuff like new planets or life on Mars. And they also just don't anticipate, or don't know how to deal with, the possibility of their comments being taken out of context. When you walk up to a scientist with that big PRESS badge the stakes suddenly get higher, and lots of people get nervous. Which I find a funny turning of the tables because I was always so nervous about approaching these Big Important Scientists when I was a student and also when I was starting out at the Society.

--Emily

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 11 2006, 01:18 AM

To save space, I snipped the bulk of your post in reply. However, I don't disagree with anything you wrote. And you made very good points.

I guess what I'm driving at is that I'd be surprised if a truly unscrupulous individual is going to be deterred by LPI's "no recording" policy, especially if exceptions are going to be made for the press.

If, as it seems to be the case, that conference participants are worried about their data or results being hijacked, misused, etc., before publication, then the best defense, it seems to me, is for them to keep quiet. After all, how many conference abstracts did Malin and Edgett present on the martian gullies before having the results published in Science?

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 11 2006, 01:28 AM

Since I hijacked it, I think it should be, FWIW. And since Jason has moderator priviliges, maybe he or the powers-that-be can spin it off into another thread, say, "LPSC takes a cue from the Supreme Court and bans all recording devices," or something like that

Posted by: volcanopele Feb 11 2006, 08:14 PM

Discussion of policies and guidelines for the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference are being moved here.

Posted by: RGClark Feb 19 2006, 09:24 PM

Emily, there are two reasons for presenting at a conference: one is to put the research out there so that other scientists can build on that research and further advance the science, and two is to give the presenters some "priority" for some original discoveries.
With either of these reasons, you can hardly blame other scientists if they take the research further than you did with your research. You CAN blame them if they don't mention your research in their publications.
Perhaps some alleviation of the problem will come from an agreement that scientists who publish first in a peer reviewed journal on the topic will acknowledge that the impetus for the research came from what was presented at a conference by other scientists.
Perhaps Alex or other planetary scientists know of a case where someone took the data and "ran with it" (to a journal) before the original scientists could publish it. The only case I know of close to this is the discovery by Brown et.al. of a large Kuiper belt body that was appropriated by another team.


Bob Clark

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 21 2006, 06:11 PM

Frankly, I don't think there are any egregious examples of someone "stealing" someone else's ideas at a planetary science conference, whatever "stealing," in this context, means. In fact, most planetary scientists who make revolutionary discoveries (i.e., the type that make the cover of Science or Nature) usually don't blab about the results in open venues like LPSC unless they are assured of publication.

Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 21 2006, 06:31 PM

I do, however, know of a few scientists who are excessively paranoid about this prospect. But you're right, the paranoid don't usually 'blab' until they're very ready to publish (much to the frustration of their poor students who may want to finish their dissertations, present their work, and move on)!

The irony that I find in this is that I've been accused of "scooping" a scientist, or facilitating that scooping just by talking about pictures from a public website with other scientists, and of course in this arena I'm not a scientist, I'm "press," much as I dislike the label. Some people are just nuts, and there's nothing you can do about it.

--Emily

Posted by: Rob Pinnegar Feb 22 2006, 02:13 AM

It does happen though. I know a couple of people from my old department at Western Ontario who have made the mistake of talking about ideas while at conferences, and have then seen those ideas show up in journal publications -- written by the same people who were present at the conference-gone-by.

By that time, of course, their own papers would be just about ready for submission. But submission to the trash can doesn't count in grant proposals, unfortunately.

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Feb 22 2006, 07:40 AM

Sounds like the sort of thing Lobachevsky used to do in the Tom Lehrer song.

Posted by: RGClark Feb 22 2006, 02:52 PM

Funny song:

Tom Lehrer -- Lobachevsky.
http://www.vigils.net/~xpaul/lobachevsky.mp3


Bob Clark

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 22 2006, 05:21 PM

Which is why I think Mackwell's reasoning to you regarding LPI's "no recording policy" at LPSC may not be, to put it charitably, the whole story. At the risk of sounding repetitive, I'll reiterate that I find it ludicrous that, at an event with hundreds of participants, allowing the handful of press attending the event the ability to record while simulataneously barring everyone else is somehow going to prevent the "scooping [of] a scientist." Again, I think the real reason for the policy is that some conference participants are afraid that their presentations may come back to haunt them (e.g., by turning up on some version of "America's Funniest Home Videos," being parodied by Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show," etc.). Indeed, I'm sure that LPI is glad that no one recorded the (near) melee at a previous LPSC regarding the ALH84001 debate.

Posted by: Rob Pinnegar Feb 22 2006, 06:35 PM

Yeah. My dad's got that guy's records, including the one with "Lobachevsky". A real pity that he retired from song writing in the early 70s (though he did have his reasons).

[Edit: A melee at a science conference? That would *definitely* make America's Funniest Home Videos.]

Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 22 2006, 06:47 PM

Then there's always the famous "Bolshevik" shouting match, which, I believe, happened at an LPSC gone by, or perhaps at the Microsymposium that precedes it. I was (un)fortunately not a witness to this one, so I am not going to relate the secondhand details, except that the person who told me the story did a fine impression of a Russian scientist's accent when he responded to pointed criticism of his paper on Venus mapping by another scientist: "In Russia, ve have names for people like you. Ve call them Bolsheviks!"

I would love to see Jon Stewart show ANY clip from any of these kinds of meetings. I loved it when he covered the Stardust sample return. He talked about the return, and mentioned the millions of tiny dust particles, and then said he had film of them opening the capsule, and he cut to that scene from Annie Hall in which Woody Allen sneezes upon opening a tin of cocaine. It was pretty funny.

--Emily

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 22 2006, 07:40 PM

I hadn't heard that one. I guess with your Brown University (and, by extension, Vernadsky Institute) connection, you must have a storehouse of Russo-American anecdotes. Now I have heard vague accounts of pre-Glastnost science conferences where the epithet "commies" was purportedly thrown about.

As for the (in)famous ALH84001 spectacle at, I believe, either the 1997 or 1998 LPSC, my understanding is that the "debate" between the opposing factions, which featured hurled verbal insults, nearly degenerated into a virtual riot. In fact, one person who witnessed it told me he wouldn't have been surprised if John Belushi (aka "Bluto" from http://www.tigersweat.com/movies/animal/) had materialized and yelled "http://www.tigersweat.com/images/anim09.jpg"


I would love to see Stephen Colbert do a parody of The Puffed-Up, Arrogant Scientist. In fact, he could read Andrew Mishkin's http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0425191990/ref=sr_11_1/002-5550557-6348835?%5Fencoding=UTF8 and use Mishkin's description of Tom Economou, PI for Mars Pathfinder's APXS, who Mishkin dubbed the "Principal Investigator from Hell."

Posted by: JRehling Feb 22 2006, 09:07 PM

A different kind of theft would be the decoding of the image transmission by the first Soviet lander on the Moon, and the initial publication of that photo in a British newspaper. That was quite a Cold War coup, but only loosely related to the conference-theft idea.

Posted by: edstrick Feb 23 2006, 08:33 AM

At an LPSC in the late 70's, maybe 76 or 77 (one of my first), The Soviets presented science reports from the Luna 24 sample return mission. They were very non-specific about technical details of the spacecraft's sample handling for the core that it drilled, and after one question on what the tape they spiral-wrapped the core with before loading it into the return cannister (wrapped in turn on a spiral drum), they conferred and conferred (including with their handlers) and finally told the audience that "it was not teflon" (or something like that). There was a very obvious general chuckle from the audience.

Posted by: RGClark Mar 5 2006, 04:43 AM

The importance of the scientific press in informing the public is of course obvious. But I want to suggest the scientific press performs an important scientific function, especially now in the internet age with its rapid dessimination of knowledge and information.
There are so many different scientific disciplines now and so much that is being published in each of them, that no scientist could keep abreast of the research publications in fields beyond their own specialization. However, the scientific press in reporting on important advances in many different fields can make scientists aware of advances beyond their own fields. It frequently happens that research can have applications beyond the field it is concerned with. Then a scientist may read of a scientific advance in a publication of the scientific press that has applications to his field that he would not normally be aware of since he does not read the professional journals in that other field.
I also believe scientists can make important contributions to fields beyond their own specialization. Science journalists can then make scientists aware of the problems and of the progress in other fields that they may have an interest in or an original insight into.



- Bob Clark