Comments - The truth of science-art helping science - SCI-ART LAB2024-03-29T09:05:25Zhttps://kkartlab.in/profiles/comment/feed?attachedTo=2816864%3ABlogPost%3A107936&xn_auth=no144tag:kkartlab.in,2013-10-01:2816864:Comment:1108632013-10-01T01:28:53.412ZDr. Krishna Kumari Challahttps://kkartlab.in/profile/DrKrishnaKumariChalla
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<p>144</p> http://www.cnn.com/video/data…tag:kkartlab.in,2013-09-10:2816864:Comment:1098772013-09-10T02:03:27.855ZDr. Krishna Kumari Challahttps://kkartlab.in/profile/DrKrishnaKumariChalla
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<p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/tech/2013/09/03/dnt-artist-faces-public-dna.cnn.html" target="_blank">http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/tech/2013/09/03/dnt-artist-faces-public-dna.cnn.html</a><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" id="ep_709" height="234" width="416"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="false"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><param name="wmode" value="opaque"></param><param name="movie" value="http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_embed_2x_container.swf?site=cnn&profile=desktop&context=embedwww&videoId=tech/2013/09/03/dnt-artist-faces-public-dna.cnn&contentId=tech/2013/09/03/dnt-artist-faces-public-dna.cnn"></param><param name="bgcolor" value="#000000"></param><embed wmode="opaque" src="http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_embed_2x_container.swf?site=cnn&profile=desktop&context=embedwww&videoId=tech/2013/09/03/dnt-artist-faces-public-dna.cnn&contentId=tech/2013/09/03/dnt-artist-faces-public-dna.cnn" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" bgcolor="#000000" allowfullscreen="false" allowscriptaccess="never" height="234" width="416"></embed> </object>
</p> http://edition.myjoyonline.co…tag:kkartlab.in,2013-09-07:2816864:Comment:1094062013-09-07T02:07:14.268ZDr. Krishna Kumari Challahttps://kkartlab.in/profile/DrKrishnaKumariChalla
<p><a href="http://edition.myjoyonline.com/pages/science/201309/112670.php" target="_blank">http://edition.myjoyonline.com/pages/science/201309/112670.php</a></p>
<p>Artist creates faces from DNA left in public</p>
<p><a href="http://edition.myjoyonline.com/pages/science/201309/112670.php" target="_blank">http://edition.myjoyonline.com/pages/science/201309/112670.php</a></p>
<p>Artist creates faces from DNA left in public</p> http://bigthink.com/endless-i…tag:kkartlab.in,2013-08-28:2816864:Comment:1079452013-08-28T03:53:17.033ZDr. Krishna Kumari Challahttps://kkartlab.in/profile/DrKrishnaKumariChalla
<p><a href="http://bigthink.com/endless-innovation/dna-street-art-or-the-future-of-genetic-surveillance" target="_blank">http://bigthink.com/endless-innovation/dna-street-art-or-the-future-of-genetic-surveillance</a></p>
<p><a href="http://bigthink.com/endless-innovation/dna-street-art-or-the-future-of-genetic-surveillance" target="_blank">http://bigthink.com/endless-innovation/dna-street-art-or-the-future-of-genetic-surveillance</a></p> Hmm, this art project strikes…tag:kkartlab.in,2013-08-28:2816864:Comment:1080982013-08-28T03:14:24.417ZDr. Krishna Kumari Challahttps://kkartlab.in/profile/DrKrishnaKumariChalla
<p>Hmm, this art project strikes me as misleading and as likely to lead (indeed, already has led) to overblown reactions. It appears (from here: <a href="http://deweyhagborg.com/strangervisions/samples.html" target="_blank">http://deweyhagborg.com/strangervisions/samples.html</a>) that she’s basing these masks on very little data: (1) presence or absence of the SRY gene, which tells her whether the cigarette butt or gum, or whatever, was in the mouth of a male or female; (2) mtDNA Haplotype,…</p>
<p>Hmm, this art project strikes me as misleading and as likely to lead (indeed, already has led) to overblown reactions. It appears (from here: <a href="http://deweyhagborg.com/strangervisions/samples.html" target="_blank">http://deweyhagborg.com/strangervisions/samples.html</a>) that she’s basing these masks on very little data: (1) presence or absence of the SRY gene, which tells her whether the cigarette butt or gum, or whatever, was in the mouth of a male or female; (2) mtDNA Haplotype, which tells you something pretty broad (e.g., “Eastern European”) about only half of the person’s ancestry (the half on his or her maternal line); and (3) the person’s genotype at the HERC2 gene, which *predicts,* probabilistically, one’s eye color — and only for those of European ancestry, because, alas, that’s the data we currently have. (So, for instance, in Europeans, those who are homozygous for HERC2 (AA), as all four of her samples are, have an 85% chance of having brown eyes; a 14% chance of having green eyes; and a 1% chance of having blue eyes. To take another example, I am heterozygous (AG), which gives me a 56% chance of having brown eyes; a 37% chance of having green eyes; and only a 7% chance of having blue eyes. Although she would have predicted that I would have brown eyes, I in fact have blue eyes.)</p>
<p>All of which is just to say that, so far as I can tell, she’s working with sex; ancestral groups that are usually very broad, and in any event only reflect half of the individual’s DNA (from which she presumably guesses hair color and texture and bone structure); and a decent guess at eye color. There are hundreds of thousands (at least) of people who would fit these descriptions even if each of her phenotype predictions were accurate, and in many cases, one or more of those predictions are probably going to be wrong.</p>
<p>And yet her masks, and the publicity they’ve generated, suggest that simply genotyping the saliva on a leftover dinner glass could easily re-identify someone by creating a 3D mask that resembled the proband’s unique face. As Big Think disappointingly puts it (here: <a href="http://bigthink.com/endless-innovation/dna-street-art-or-the-future-of-genetic-surveillance" target="_blank">http://bigthink.com/endless-innovation/dna-street-art-or-the-future-of-genetic-surveillance</a>), “imagine walking into your local coffee shop and seeing your face up on the wall without ever having posed for a photo or portrait. . . . The only thing that [DNA] can’t tell you, apparently, is the specific age of the person.” Oh brother.</p>
<p>I appreciate that she acknowledges that the masks may look more like a “cousin” of the proband than the proband him- or herself, but even that is misleading unless we think of each person as having 100,000 “cousins.” Given that she intends her art to “spark a dialogue over genetic surveillance,” that’s a little troubling.</p>
<p>(Also, with respect to her “self-portrait” (see here: <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/5/3138563/stranger-visions-genetic-surveillance-eyebeam" target="_blank">http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/5/3138563/stranger-visions-genetic-surveillance-eyebeam</a>), which is being used to suggest how accurate her method is, I’m pretty sure that there are no genes for plucked eyebrows.)<br/> <a href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/billofhealth/2013/05/27/dna-art/" target="_blank">http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/billofhealth/2013/05/27/dna-art/</a></p> http://www.thefacultylounge.o…tag:kkartlab.in,2013-08-28:2816864:Comment:1080942013-08-28T02:51:58.334ZDr. Krishna Kumari Challahttps://kkartlab.in/profile/DrKrishnaKumariChalla
<p><a href="http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2013/05/science-art-policy-and-the-importance-of-good-science-communication.html" target="_blank">http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2013/05/science-art-policy-and-the-...</a></p>
<h3 class="entry-header">Science, Art, Policy, and the Importance of Good Science Communication</h3>
<p>Recently, several media outlets, including…</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2013/05/science-art-policy-and-the-importance-of-good-science-communication.html" target="_blank">http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2013/05/science-art-policy-and-the-...</a></p>
<h3 class="entry-header">Science, Art, Policy, and the Importance of Good Science Communication</h3>
<p>Recently, several media outlets, including <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/05/12/183363361/litterbugs-beware-turning-found-dna-into-portraits#pq=TcHUw8" target="_self">NPR</a>, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/science/tasting-words-dna-art-neuroscience-on-the-small-screen.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y&_r=0" target="_self">New York Times</a>, and <a href="http://bigthink.com/endless-innovation/dna-street-art-or-the-future-of-genetic-surveillance" target="_self">Big Think</a>, have covered the story of Ph.D. student in Electronic Arts Heather Dewey-Hagborg, who makes 3-D "masks," or "portraits," of the faces of unknown individuals using the DNA they unwittingly discard on such things as cigarette butts and chewing gum. The media coverage has conjured an Orwellian dystopia for readers (check out the first few comments on the NPR piece for a sample). The artist herself apparently shares these concerns. In addition to her upcoming exihibit, <a href="http://deweyhagborg.com/strangervisions/" target="_self">Stranger Visions</a>, she will be <a href="http://qote.me/dHzhFA">leading policy discussions</a> on the implications of her art. She's also working with the Delaware medical examiner's office to try to <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/05/12/183363361/litterbugs-beware-turning-found-dna-into-portraits#pq=TcHUw8" target="_self">identify the remains of a 20-year-old body</a>.</p>
<p>The problem? As I <a href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/billofhealth/2013/05/27/dna-art/" target="_self">commented</a> over at <em>Bill of Health</em>, based on what she's said about her methods, they do not allow her to predict someone's face with anything but the crudest of guesses.</p>
<p>Matthew Herper of <em>Forbes</em> took my criticisms and those of others directly to the artist. I confess that <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2013/05/31/turning-found-dna-into-portraits-what-an-imagination/">her response</a> does not make me feel any better. Even if you're "only" engaging in art, it seems to me that when that art has an obvious science policy message — indeed, one that you invite — you have some obligation to be clear about how "speculative," as she puts it, your art is. But when you decide to move from the world of art into the world of science, and to start leading policy discussions based on your speculative art and working with forensic examiners? Then you <em>really</em> have a strong duty to be very clear about what your work does and does not mean. Among other things, you should take care when talking to the media, and correct the media if they get it wrong. (This is, of course, a lesson that applies to all scholars, including legal scholars, not only to scientists.)</p>
<p>Yesterday, the <a href="http://www.ssgac.org/Home.php">Social Science Genetic Association Consortium,</a> an international consortium that pools and conducts social science research on existing genome-wide association study (GWAS) data, and on whose Advisory Board I sit, published (online ahead of print) the results of its first study in <em>Science.</em> That paper — "<a href="http://www.chabris.com/Rietveld2013-GWASEducation-Science.pdf">GWAS of 126,559 Individuals Identifies Genetic Variants Associated with Educational Attainment</a>" (plus <a href="http://www.chabris.com/Rietveld2013-GWASEducation-Supp.pdf">supplemental data</a>) — like much human genetics research, has the potential to be misinterpreted in the lay, policy, and even science worlds. That's why, in addition to taking care to accurately describe the results in the paper itself, including announcing the small effect sizes of the replicated SNPs in the abstract, being willing to talk to the media (many scientists are not), and engaging in increasingly important "post-publication peer review" conversations on Twitter (yes, really) and elsewhere — we put together <a href="http://ssgac.org/documents/FAQsRietveldetal2013Science.pdf">this FAQ</a> of what the study does — and, just as important, does <em>not —</em> show. So far, our efforts have been rewarded with <a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/there-is-no-gene-for-finishing-college/33045">responsible journalism</a> that helps keep the study's limits in the foreground. Perhaps Dewey-Hagborg should consider issuing a similar FAQ with her speculative art.</p>
<p><a href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/billofhealth/2013/05/27/dna-art/" target="_blank">http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/billofhealth/2013/05/27/dna-art/</a></p>