Data Requests with an Agenda

This week I encountered an interesting example showing the problems inherent in sharing data with others who may have an agenda. Data is of no use to those who are not versed in the field they are examining, as we shall see.

In 2008 Richard E. Lenski (an evolutionary biologist) submitted a paper showing the result of a 20-year experiment that showed evolution in action: after more than 30,000 generations of 12 different populations of E. coli bacteria, one variant evolved the ability to use citrate (a component of the growth medium that can't usually be used as a carbon source by E. coli) as a carbon source. Andy Schafly (a Creationist) of the website Conservapedia sent a letter to Lenski asking for his data, quoting the submission guidelines for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science that state that data must be made available to readers. To briefly summarize the dialog, Lenski's reply to Schafly's original request and followup made clear that Schafly had not read the article in-depth and did not have a background in evolutionary biology. Lenski pointed out the relevant methods and data were all shown in the paper, and offered to post data on three minor points which were left out of the paper (none of which concerned the existence of the citrate-using bacteria).

Lenski points out that Schafly seems to not be sure what he is asking for- his request for "data" is vague. One of Schafly's "acolytes" even states that Lenski should share the actual bacterial populations, since they form the basis of the data, as a way to "keep tax-payer-funded scientists honest". Lenski states that he will share the bacteria, but only with competent scientists, which Shafly clearly is not. A considerable amount of back and forth discussion has occured over this issue on blogs. (One notable post by a biophysics graduate student dissects Conservapedia's misinformed use of statistics.)

It is important to note that Lenski correctly identifies that Schafly is not asking for the data in good faith. The PNAS guidelines state that data sharing is for the purpose of "replicating and building upon work", while Schafly is only concerned with poking holes or disproving Lenski's results. Schafly takes a tactic often employed by those trying to promote the pseudoscience of "Intelligent Design" and attempts to poke holes anywhere he can in the paper while not being able to disprove the actual results. He even resorts to casting suspicion on the "astoundingly short 14-day peer review period", as if this were a valid argument.

We can see from this issue that making data freely available can have unexpected and troubling results. As has been mentioned in our readings, non-scientists without the skills to correctly interpret the data can draw incorrect conclusions, or may not even be able to recognize the data is staring them plain in the face within the paper. Schafly would probably not be satisfied even if the experiment was performed right in front of his face, even if he had 20 years to wait, but he seems to think that access to data means he should be allowed to see every piece of information generated in the experiment, down to lab notebooks that may only be comprehensible to Lenski and his assistants. Even when the raw data is presented in a table (as in the colony counts in Lenski's paper), those without scientific training may misuse the ideal of "data sharing" to attack scientists with baseless and misinformed accusations.