data talks, people mumble

Your eggs is getting cold...

4/8/2021

Symbolism being what it is, can be revealing in ways you might never imagine. I have been listening to Stephen King’s book--On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Because you can never pull too many threads without ripping the entire seam it will suffice to say that I have made a pivot to audiobooks for company on long trail runs. I figure at least I won’t have to hear the rabid coyote rip me apart if I bring along a distraction.

The bit about the coyote is funnier if you live in my city. There was a coyote on the loose that could not be confirmed or denied as being rabid. It simply attacked a few people on the bike and running trail and either died or became bored. A friend mentioned her pepper spray would save her. She would spray it directly into her own eyes so she didn’t have to watch her demise. Maybe its ultra-runner humor but I still think it’s pretty damn funny.

-- “That’s it. There you are. Man say to his woman: I got me a dream.
His woman say: Eat your eggs. (Sadly, but gaining in power) Man say: I got to take hold of this here world, baby!
And a woman will say: Eat your eggs and go to work. (Passionately now)
Man say: I got to change my life, I’m choking to death, baby!
And his woman say – (In utter anguish as he brings his fists down on his thighs) – Your eggs is getting cold!”--A Raisin in The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry

Stephen King made a reference to “eat your eggs”. In his context (I believe) he was referring to the scene from a Raisin in the Sun where bold dreams and aspirations are being articulated but fall on skeptical--if not deaf ears. Almost like saying, “yada, yada, yada” that is all well and good--now just eat your eggs.

Newly minted data professionals are not too different. When I am approached for career advice they often want to know the “how” before even appreciating the “what” or the “why”. I may need to stare at them blankly while reciting, “eat your eggs”.

I believe you need to cultivate a passion for your data projects. Admittedly easier to do if your responsibilities aren’t limited to spreadsheets and dull finance reports. For example, Mapping Inequality is a website describing the “redlining” of the 1930s.

In 1933, faced with a housing shortage, the federal government began a program explicitly designed to increase — and segregate — America's housing stock. Author Richard Rothstein says the housing programs begun under the New Deal were tantamount to a "state-sponsored system of segregation."

The government's efforts were "primarily designed to provide housing to white, middle-class, lower-middle-class families," he says. African-Americans and other people of color were left out of the new suburban communities — and pushed instead into urban housing projects.--A 'Forgotten History' Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America, Terry Gross NPR

In the map below you can see how the neighborhoods were classified in Decatur Illinois in the 1930s. You can select the geographical areas you are interested in exploring.

We can see patterns of the districts impacted by segregation in the maps available for inquiry. Census Viewer filtered by census tract and black race demonstrates the population demographics still somewhat predictable in the graphic below.

ArcGIS has a native living map depicting urban heat islands. Focusing on the same geographic area we can identify where the zones of heat intensification are within the city. An important thought or additional layer of exploration might be considerations of historically established land-use systems and the modern impact on climate change. Think about neighborhoods with higher square footage of asphalt, low levels of tree line, less green space and you will see higher land surface temperatures and down stream impacts of climate discrimination.

Additionally, most cities capture informative demographic data to enhance perspectives on the distribution of economics at the county, city, or census tract level. Additional questions create hypotheses to identify drivers of poverty density or non-low income diaspora from areas lacking economic investments.

Tom Lisi from the Herald and Review highlights abandoned homes in Decatur cited for potential demolition."The left side shows a "heat map" illustrating pockets of Decatur with the most abandoned homes left to either county officials to manage, or already on the city's demolition list."

These examples are to show you how important it is to “scramble your eggs” before trying to make a souffle.

You need to build curiosity before you can bring a bit of creativity to your data questions or analyses.

stop asking people for directions to places they’ve never been--Glennon Doyle

3/18/2021

The quote by Glennon Doyle is often repeated in the edited form I borrowed for the title. The full quote, “This life is mine alone...so I have stopped asking people for directions to places they've never been.” Basically I interpret this as a reminder not to compare yourself to others. They haven’t walked your path. It also reminds me of discussing big issues in public health across our communities. If you aren’t including spatial perspectives I think the road is too narrow and perhaps the insights you are curating are distorted.

Location intelligence adds an additional layer (pun intended) to data analysis. Herds of data analysts are guilty of mooing the sound “big data” perhaps attempting to direct attention to their own efforts or skills.

When I hear the term, I think of data without a story, lacking a formulated question, and most importantly helpless to motivate or change behavior.

When we appreciate the “where” of large datasets we can suddenly reveal deeper insights. We create buckets and filterable data readily available to tell unique curated stories.

For example, it appears easy for many to wave away the inevitability of climate change. We can do better. As journalists, data visualizers, analysts, and professionals that use graphics to communicate and share narratives we should focus on data literacy, skill development, and if nothing else--how not to be duped by low value information.

How else can you explain the persistence of the spreadsheet? How compelling of a story can you weave with this spreadsheet?

Once we visualize the data we can see trends missing in our initial glance at the spreadsheet. Fluctuations in global temperatures reveal the temporal aspect of climate change but what we can’t see here is the spatial component.

What happens if we sacrifice the temporal aspect for the spatial? This snapshot demonstrates a global perspective but how about getting both integrated into a single visualization.

Temperature Anomalies by Country
This pill plot does a great job on the global setting to show when anomalies become more routine than exception. Look what happens in the 1970s on a systemic scale.

The last graphic reminds me a bit of my recent discussion on Chord Diagrams hosted by Jon Schwabish, One Chart at a Time (below).

We can now look at country level (US is at the top) and region level once we watch the temperature change that also included predictions into future decades.

I was welcomed to Clubhouse recently and joined a GEOSPATIAL CONNECTIONS community where we discuss climate change and how best to communicate the risks and potential solutions. You can reach out on twitter for an invite. I have a few that I am happy to share with anyone looking to join the community.

Creative Commons License I first saw these images in a class that I recommend for the geospatial data curious--GEO-PYTHON 2020

You can follow along on Substack. Subscribers can get step by step “how to” sessions either within the newsletter or pop-up zoom sessions. So far we have talked about geo-python skills, QGIS, Tableau, and even blogging.

Don’t become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin--Ivan Pavlov

3/10/2021

In the months--and almost year to the day--waiting to be vaccinated, I leaned into the introverted side of my psyche. I love the social side of being a speaker and outspoken data analyst but one thing I learned after almost a year of no live conferences or workshops--I need and crave my space.

Even during my busiest travel seasons I was up before dawn running on familiar or often unfamiliar streets hour after hour. I recently heard Steven Pressfield describe these as little successes. Beginning your day with something you can achieve in order to parlay that into more successes as interactions and responsibilities escalate.

Leaning into the silver lining a bit more, my consumption of podcasts tripled. I didn’t become brilliant or anything but my questions were definitely better. Nothing makes you brilliant-adjacent faster than better questions.

For example, I often facilitate data discussions about Anti-PD-1 Therapies. These are straightforward discussions because you can access de-identified open source data from the US FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS). Many of the pharma types in my workshops are focused on the profits made from the leading drugs. Executives and marketing agencies dissect the positioning and marketing strategies of the branded drugs in the space and point to strategies you can emulate.

I like to talk about the patients. These are highly toxic drugs being introduced into sick patients. What are the risks? What are reasonable side effects to expect? How does overall survival compare to standard therapies? Are there clues as to which patients might have better outcomes?

My point here isn’t to discuss the actual data although we can if that is of interest. A recent podcast did an interesting job walking through the latest research utilizing a creative but impactful study.

Plenary Session · 3.48 The Predictive Value of High Tumor Mutational Burden with Dr. Luc Morris

I like to share examples of how to add a deeper insight by looking at a variety of data perspectives and resources.

Thanks for reading along!

Collecting all the dots:recalibrating wrong turns

2/18/2021

Photo from plane--leaving Utah

Answering the question of “where?"

I am writing a book about geospatial analytics and location intelligence. Have you ever felt you held a secret that if everyone knew it the world would become a better place? Well. Its been like that. Let me clarify...

mumble | delegate | ponder is a newsletter where I write about my work but also a bit of life spills in as well. Granted things have been a little less exciting without the element of travel but there is a lot that creeps to the surface at a slower pace.

For starters, I began exploring my ESRI ArcGIS account

A starter level ArcGIS account is reasonable. I think I paid $100 for one solid year. Buyer beware though--this is definitely an enterprise solution unless you are really careful not to bring in any data that will be automatically geocoded ($$$$$) or you store large maps and data on the platform. The price tag can bloat quickly.

It was a great platform to simply learn about GIS and creating maps. Their conference sessions from last year are great educational opportunities and they offer an abundance of free tools, courses, and webinars. What they don’t offer is ArcGIS Pro compatible with MacOS. A deal breaker for me. Back in the early days of Tableau, I had to bootcamp my hard-drive and run windows on a partition. I hate Windows. When Tableau was available for MacOs I vowed to never return. Buh bye Alteryx. Yes, it might be my loss but there was also a lot to gain. ArcGIS online may be all you need. No software to install but there aren’t scripting functions unless you are on desktop version (ArcGIS Pro).

The Living Atlas is amazing and after a quick tutorial you are able to build maps using their Census data layers and a wide variety of other ready built datasets for you to explore. Happy to share a few videos I created on how to create a story map.

I am sharing a professional hack with you. Once I felt comfortable in my geospatial skills I switched to an open source platform--QGIS. There is a python plug-in readily available and you are off to the races. This will be the focus of the book.

I am also trying out a little live forum--link below--where we can chat in real time.

Python is versatile (and free). I often demonstrate how to address the same question using 3 different methods. Look for these sessions to increase as I move through the book. I create and test a variety of visualizations and often perfectly great maps are too twitchy for a book where many users will be using different software. I will include them here for our discussion and in future blogs and newsletters.

Click to register Geospatial Roundtables and other discussions

Embodying beautiful ideas...

1/23/2021

Sonnet--To Science
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
Science! True daughter of Old Time thou art!

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,

Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,

And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

Krista Tippett introduces us to Nobel physicist Frank Wilczek through her podcast, On Being. Beauty as a Compass for Truth is a mesmerizing conversation about the intersection of the physical world and ethereal topics like art and culture.

On the topic of science and religion he answers, "In science, you’re broadly asking, “How does this work?” In religion, you’re asking, “What does this mean and what should I do about it?”

As a former bench scientist and current data analyst I am drawn to the intersection of art, science, and culture. I was drawn in while listening to Frank Wilczek compare the Bruce Munro installation Field of Light to the inner workings of the mind.

To be reminded by Edgar Allan Poe in Sonnet to Science that many think Science removes the mystery--forces us to realize--we don’t have to be willing participants.

There was an art exhibit called “Fields of Light,” by Bruce Munro, which consisted of acres in the desert on a hillside of lights that slowly pulsated, asynchronously, in different colors. It was the nighttime. It just made me think in a different way about what it might be to wander inside a mind and what thought looks like. And to me, it was awesome, because it brought together so many analogies and metaphors and ways of thinking about thinking and visualizing it. I suddenly thought that this is what thought really is.--Frank Wilczek, On Being

The subtlety of living in a complex world with equally complex problems demands an intersectional appreciation to not only common elements of what might appear quite diverse but bring what is outside closer.

I will admit I often find that the isolation of current travel limitations stimulates long bouts of creativity. Fewer distractions and obligations allows a more intense and focused look at the world that surrounds us. It may feel more finite now but I would argue there is still much to discover.

Different artists have different styles. We don’t expect to find Renoir’s shimmering color in a different world entirely, the Beatles’ from another, and Louis Armstrong’s from yet another. Likewise, the beauty embodied in the physical world is a particular kind of beauty. Nature, as an artist, has a distinctive style.--Frank Wilczek

mistletoe, good cheer, and graphic blandishment...

12/21/2020

Like many of you, I am balancing equal measure stacks of work to finish out the year and a wandering eye toward the prep for a scaled down holiday feast and celebration.

Last night my husband suggested we watch Charlie Brown Christmas. By we, it was just us. The kids were off in their own homes or upstairs enthusiastically engaged with an online posse of Valorant tactical team players.

Steve is not known for sentimentality but we have always watched the special; either live on a network or from our own personal copy. The first holiday music to play is more than likely our Vince Guaraldi CD. I know we can stream it from dozens of options but there is nothing like tradition--especially around the holidays.

Curious about a credit at the end of the cartoon reading, “Graphic Blandishment by...” I found the director, production designer, storyboard and layout artist, and background painter--Edward Levitt.

He also coined the famous credit used for many years at the end of the Peanuts specials—Graphic Blandishment. “Blandishment” is defined as “something that tends to coax or cajole,” which speaks to Levitt’s modesty and his view of the role he played in the filmmaking process.--RIP: Edward Levitt, 96, Disney Background Painter and Cartoon Modern Designer

Thinking of the word ‘blandishment’ in the context of graphics is brilliant. “A flattering or pleasing statement or action to persuade someone gently to do something.” Well, yes. That is pretty much data visualization in a nutshell, right?

Here are a few year end thoughts from the newsletter, Mumble, Ponder, Delegate over on Substack. I pulled it out from the paywall to share with you.

This specific post is from The plausibility of factual information--here are summarized ideas from a year that has been nothing but challenging, heartbreaking, and illuminating.

Be safe my friends and have a happy holiday season...

Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering 'it will be happier’--Alfred Lord Tennyson

The value of data: location, location, location

12/9/2020

A few years ago I entered the entrepreneurial space as a “newly" minted applied data analyst. Although I had been working along analysts and data scientists in my work as a medical writer and outcomes professional, it was more of an observed curiosity than an immersive existence. Somewhere along the line I began asking questions. I hesitated at first not wanting to appear ignorant but quickly noticed vague responses to questions I would have thought had straightforward responses.

Curiosity morphed into agency as problems presented themselves and needed viable solutions. But whatever that sound is when a record scratches to halt forward movement in a movie--insert that here. Collaborative efforts to improve data collection and processes were not hailed as the “secret sauce” I had imagined. Here is the rub. Data literacy was lagging the needs by quite a significant gap. Most data departments (and I use the term loosely) consisted of finger pointing, a small measure of chest pounding, and gasps of “But we have always done it this way...”.

Fast forward to today and I am contractually obligated to author my first book on geospatial analytics. How I got here and why will be the subject of more than a few future posts. I want to first introduce you to an organization that does a great job illuminating the importance of thinking spatially (below).

We all respond to graphic images. Instinctually we are grounded in the what and where of an image. Any student of data visualization recalls pre-attentive attributes--the preliminary detection of the image. But we often don’t appreciate the attentive attributes as well. Attentive attributes call in to play the higher centers of the brain to make inferences following four principles as described by Eric Kandel--Nobel prize winner in Physiology or Medicine:

1. Disregarding details that are perceived as behaviorally irrelevant in a given context,
2. Searching for constancy,
3. Attempting to abstract the essential, constant features of objects, people, and landscapes,
4. Comparing the present image or graphic to images encountered in the past.

“Perception is the process whereby reflected light becomes linked to an image in the environment, is made enduring by the brain, and becomes coherent when the brain assigns it meaning, utility, and value.--Eric Kandel, Reductionism in Art and Brain Science."

What do we mean by “spatial literacy”? Let’s take a look. Location data looks at the environmental or first-order effects and the second-order or interaction effects. We can simplify processes into data-driven and model driven. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We are first looking to summarize the data. What are the characteristics of the data? The testing begins during model-driven analysis.

WorldPop data is the perfect place to start understanding the process of mapping and providing “high resolution, open and contemporary data on human population distributions, allowing accurate measurement of local population distributions, compositions, characteristics, growth and dynamics, across national and regional scales.” You won’t find a lot of US data here but I have successfully used the methods discovered here on US CENSUS data for example.

There really isn’t--at least not yet--a handbook to guide you through the insights needed to make granular assessments about poverty beyond quantitative assessments but applying even a few of these insights to our data questions can only improve our ability to provide a 360 perspective.

Spatial data reminds me of a useful definition I once heard of big data. It isn’t the volume that makes it big--it is the interactivity of blending different datasets to answer complex questions. This is visually appreciated when we look at layers of data integration to examine patterns in geographic regions.

The ability to explore characteristics that influence differences in population density. It isn’t enough to simply drop a pin onto a map to indicate populations--we need context.

Summaries of the workflows will continue to be posted here. If you are interested in the detailed "how-to"--subscribe below:

Graphics are from HDX Dataset Deep Dive on WorldPop’s Gridded Population Datasets.
HDX Humanitarian Data Exchange.

Indefatigable truths...

12/7/2020

There are 46 million Americans with Alzheimer's disease in their brain right now, but no symptoms. --Richard Isaacson

I have two blogs. More like one and a half. The other one is sort of a repository for information. I don’t pay for that one and at times I think it may have run its course but then I think of something else I want to park over there. The name of it is Alzheimer’s Disease: The Brand and there is plenty of value over there but also plenty I have learned that I replicate over here.

For example, you really need to do your homework. The hard tedious bits. I long advocated the work of Dr. Dale Bredesen and I am not exactly recanting but it never occurred to me to look at the data he cited from the literature in support of the claims made in his writings.The person that dug into the findings and the data in the resources cited by Dr Bredesen was Dr Peter Attia. I have listened to his podcast and read his posts for years. He has evolved into more of a pay to play model for some of his podcast show notes and communications so I was unable to locate the conclusion. Regardless I still follow many of the earlier recommendations simply because they still make sense.

An article in The Washington Post, Atypical forms of dementia are being diagnosed more often in people in their 50s and 60s caught my attention. All gloom and doom and no grounding in the granularity needed to describe the known heterogeneity of Alzheimer’s Disease.

My dad had Alzheimer’s disease likely because of head trauma in a car accident years before we were able to make the probable diagnosis. So with uncertainty regarding any long term benefits from the lifestyle recommendations in the literature I decided to focus my attention on longevity and prevention--the focus of The Drive.

Here is a direct link to the podcast Alzheimer’s disease prevention--patient and doctor perspectives

And it sounds like what you're saying is Alzheimer's is not really one disease. it's an umbrella term that encompasses many different diseases of the brain that have some common features in the way that all cancers have some common features, cells don't respond to normal signaling, but there's this notion that someone could have a form of Alzheimer's that largely spares the frontal cortex and therefore preserve some higher order functioning versus another person that has.--Peter Attia

Here is an additional resource--an article authored by both Peter and Richard (as well as others). Click on title for full article.

Individualized clinical management of patients at risk for Alzheimer's dementia

Introduction
Multidomain intervention for Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk reduction is an emerging therapeutic paradigm.
Methods
Patients were prescribed individually tailored interventions (education/pharmacologic/nonpharmacologic) and rated on compliance. Normal cognition/subjective cognitive decline/preclinical AD was classified as Prevention. Mild cognitive impairment due to AD/mild-AD was classified as Early Treatment. Change from baseline to 18 months on the modified Alzheimer's Prevention Cognitive Composite (primary outcome) was compared against matched historical control cohorts. Cognitive aging composite (CogAging), AD/cardiovascular risk scales, and serum biomarkers were secondary outcomes.
Results
One hundred seventy-four were assigned interventions (age 25–86). Higher-compliance Prevention improved more than both historical cohorts (P = .0012, P < .0001). Lower-compliance Prevention also improved more than both historical cohorts (P = .0088, P < .0055). Higher-compliance Early Treatment improved more than lower compliance (P = .0007). Higher-compliance Early Treatment improved more than historical cohorts (P < .0001, P = .0428). Lower-compliance Early Treatment did not differ (P = .9820, P = .1115). Similar effects occurred for CogAging. AD/cardiovascular risk scales and serum biomarkers improved.
Discussion
Individualized multidomain interventions may improve cognition and reduce AD/cardiovascular risk scores in patients at-risk for AD dementia.

I will continue to share information, preferentially in this blog, due to the limits of a free Weebly account.

The numberless sentient beings...

11/14/2020

David Whyte is a brilliant human, poet, and storyteller. In his 3 week series of invitations, we meet for an hour or so each Sunday.

One of the many gifts is an exploration of a poem or two. Where was he, what was he thinking, what does it mean to him in reflection years and years later.

He began our first session by thinking about our curriculum vitae. This reminded me specifically of data science where the expectation is for a wide and dense depth of experience. The focus is on skills--not on critical thinking, problem solving, or creativity.

Perhaps you have the requisite experience and deep toolbox--and you are selected for the position. David suggests--correctly--that regardless of your cinematic expertise, there is a good chance your employer will only want a narrow part of this skill set. In an unapologetically linear manner, you are asked to perform only this narrow skill. Again and again, day after day.

All of these years later, David reflects on the poem, Faces of Braga. He thinks of the statues in the monastery. Why were they so compelling? Wooden faces in the dark--silently shriven. The flaws in the wood under the masterful skill of the carving knife. It is these imperfections that reveal the vulnerability that humans strive to mask or hide.

For me, the fear is about the beautiful and unique skills and gifts you are tempted to leave behind. Your employer never asks for them and so you disinvite them. You fall into a routine, a sameness.

David Whyte offers a chordal invitation. “Beckon yourself into a disturbance”.

I don’t want to be ordinary or do things the same way as everyone else. I doubt you do either.

"What does it mean to have an invitational presence in the world?...

Making real invitations, and asking increasingly beautiful questions of life - of others and of ourselves - is one of the foundational ways we can practice and shape a more beautiful mind. It is interesting to think that we might be able to practice shaping our imaginations, our perceptions and our minds, just as we practice a musical instrument, and that there are ways of improving ourselves that are pleasurable and rewarding in and of themselves, without necessarily having puritanical goals."

In monastery darkness
by the light of one flashlight,
the old shrine room waits in silence.

While beside the door
we see the terrible figure,
fierce eyes demanding, “Will you step through?”

And the old monk leads us,
bent back nudging blackness
prayer beads in the hand that beckons.

We light the butter lamps
and bow, eyes blinking in the
pungent smoke, look up without a word,

see faces in meditation,
a hundred faces carved above,
eye lines wrinkled in the handheld light.

Such love in solid wood--
taken from the hillsides and carved in silence,
they have the vibrant stillness of those who made them.

Engulfed by the past
they have been neglected, but through
smoke and darkness they are like the flowers

we have seen growing
through the dust of eroded slopes,
their slowly opening faces turned toward the mountain.

Carved in devotion
their eyes have softened through age
and their mouths curve through delight of the carver’s hand.

If only our own faces
would allow the invisible carver’s hand
to bring the deep grain of love to the surface.

If only we knew
as the carver knew, how the flaws
in the wood led his searching chisel to the very core,

we would smile too
and not need faces immobilized
by fear and the weight of things undone.

When we fight with our failing
we ignore the entrance to the shrine itself
and wrestle with the guardian, fierce figure on the side of good.

And as we fight
our eyes are hooded with grief
and our mouths are dry with pain.

If only we could give ourselves
to the blows of the carver’s hands,
the lines in our faces would be the trace lines of rivers

feeding the sea
where voices meet, praising the features
of the mountain and the cloud and the sky.

Our faces would fall away
until we, growing younger toward death
everyday, would gather all our flaws in celebration

to merge with them perfectly,
impossibly, wedded to our essence,
full of silence from the carver’s hands.--
The Faces of Braga--David Whyte

“Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them all.”--Bodhisattva vow

A breath of fresh air...

10/19/2020

ivart was one of the first scientists to call attention to the observation that major transitions in evolution do not involve a single organ changing; rather, whole suites of features across the body have to change in concert.
Some Assembly Required Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA--Neil Shubin

If you aren’t familiar with St George Jackson Mivart, today is your lucky day. In a nutshell, Mivart was trolling Darwin’s findings in his seminal work, "On the Origin of Species".

But his question was important:

If entire bodies have to change for any great transformation, and many features need to change simultaneously, then how could major transitions happen gradually?--Some Assembly Required Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA--Neil Shubin

Charles Darwin responded thoughtfully and respectfully...

All of Mr Mivart’s objections will be, or have been, considered in the present volume. The one new point which appears to have struck many readers is, ‘That natural selection is incompetent to account for the incipient stages of useful structures.’ This subject is intimately connected with that of the gradation of the characters, often accompanied by a change of function.”--Neil Shubin

You can read more in the Neil Shubin book here. If you order from the link I get a few coins that would instead go to Jeff Bezos...

The take home point, covering mudskippers and other amphibious land dwellers, yields the research from a group at Cornell.

"The genes that are used to build swim bladders in fish are the same ones used to make lungs in both fish and people."

Lungs aren’t some invention that abruptly came about as creatures evolved to walk. Fish were breathing air with lungs well before animals ever stepped onto terra firma. The invasion of land by descendants of fish did not originate a new organ--it changed the function of an organ that already existed...the change did not involve the origin of a new organ; instead the transformation was, as Darwin said more generally, “accompanied by a change of function.”--Neil Shubin

My thesis was in population genetics so this book is a win for me but it also reminded me of data. We take a class and are often surprised when the skills or tools are not easily assimilated into a work flow. It reminds me of the fish with the genetic equivalent of a lung.

He doesn’t effortlessly stroll onto the beach and become a land dweller. There are gradients of success. There needs to be changes in a whole host of functions. Suddenly his watery environment has a drop in dissolved oxygen--mysteriously he relies on his lungs to weather the storm.

Perhaps our data skills are like air sacs. They exist--we simply need to challenge them to innovate and evolve along with us.

<<Previous

data & donuts