The Dangers of Junk Science.

[jacks4u]

And anothe thing...

Even the arguments for "Intelligent Design" are arguments for evolution:

Who created the creator(s)? Or did it/he/she/they spring into existence with the big bang? Or did they evolve from more mundane creatures? Where did they come from?

Huh?

Do you feel boxed in? that's what unsupportable positions feel like. Like you're on a slippery slope, and every little question, every inquiry into reality brings you that much closer to the precipice. I've been there, it really sucks

 

[Epmd607]

...

Where you see complexity, apparently a majority of trained scientists see a pattern, and that pattern leads them to believe that AGW is real and requires a strong and urgent response. Their belief is so strong that they've staked their reputations and the reputations of their organizations on it.

This impresses me. I have to cast my lot with the academies on this one.

If Anthropo global warming isn't real there's going to be a whole lot of embarrassed scientists, governments, and institutions. Why would you wanna risk backing something that's suspect when you can always wait for more data? Why would our own gov wanna back something that goes against what drives the economy? Money? No. A climatologist could get paid some serious cash by the massive coal industry if they had better data.

Unbridled consumption of natural resources is what fuels American GDP and Chinese GDP. It's not easy getting the united states or china to agree to cut emissions, but it's happening slowly. And no industrial country is out there saying "AGW is a fiction!" Maybe there's one or two Industrial Countries, but I'm talking about G-8 and G-20, the only countries that can actually do anything about the problem.

 

[Epmd607]

Even the arguments for "Intelligent Design" are arguments for evolution:

Who created the creator(s)? Or did it/he/she/they spring into existence with the big bang? Or did they evolve from more mundane creatures? Where did they come from?

Huh?

Do you feel boxed in? that's what unsupportable positions feel like. Like you're on a slippery slope, and every little question, every inquiry into reality brings you that much closer to the precipice. I've been there, it really sucks

Intelligent Design accepts the common ancestor for humans and other apes as far as I've gathered. So ID is different from Creationism/the Bible enough to be slightly interesting. Defending the Big Bang is pretty slippery, there's just not enough data to talk about the first 100,000 years of the universe. The universe certainly didn't 'spring into existence', the universe is existence and couldn't have sprung into anything. But that's the thing, there's no way to talk about the Big Bang itself. Stephen Hawking always says since physics breaks down at the Big Bang you can't describe it and don't have to actually talk about it. People shouldn't have to defend God in scientific terms just like scientists shouldn't have to find God anywhere in the universe.

Think about this tenet statement of ID:
"certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."

At face value they're saying 'selecting' certain features is not 'directed' in Evolution. The idea of 'selection' includes purposeful direction, a reason to favor one group over another. There are reasons certain attributes are selected and others fade, it doesn't get easier than that. There are certainly better ways to debunk ID, Richard Dawkins does it as a profession now, but just read the core statement of ID and it's straight outta Lewis Carrol.

 

[ishtat]

I am in the midst of reading a book that involves Germany's Messel Pit

The Link by Colin Tudge - HachetteGroup, Little Brown & Co.??

Quite interesting Try.

 

[trysail]

The Link by Colin Tudge - HachetteGroup, Little Brown & Co.??

Quite interesting Try.

Excellent deduction on your part, ish !!! Have you read it?

And, yes, it is interesting. It's the first time I've run across Tudge— and it turns out it was entirely by random chance ( is that appropriate or what? )— the book caught my eye on a shelf at the local library.

I do have to admit a bit of ( how shall I put this? "Disgust" is too strong a word ) shock about credit for its authorship. The dust jacket and cover list a sole author: Tudge, of course. The title page lists the author as "Colin Tudge with Josh Young" and the acknowledgement page ( p. 249 ) states, "I did not write every word in this book. I wrote the bits about the science— chapters 3 to 8 [ of 9 chapters ], plus the epilogue— and Josh Young wrote the rest..."

I am not so naive as not to know that the use of research assistants by established authors has been commonplace ( but undisclosed ) for decades. This is, however, the first instance I can recall where joint authorship has been explicitly acknowledged ( though NOT on the book's dust jacket or cover )— it does yield a mild impression of "ghost writing."

Tudge is, by the way, both conversant with and very comfortable with the notion of the normality of naturally-occuring wide climate variability over the course of earth's history. Chapter 3, "Ida's Eocene World" has a long description of the climate of the day and ends with a five-page discussion under the sub-heading "Why Did The World Grow Cooler." After pontificating on that topic, he inexplicably and breezily finishes with a one sentence, off-hand and veiled acknowledgement of the current AGW hypothesis. It begs the obvious question but no explanation is forthcoming.

 

[ishtat]

Excellent deduction on your part, ish !!! Have you read it?

And, yes, it is interesting. It's the first time I've run across Tudge— and it turns out it was entirely by random chance ( is that appropriate or what? )— the book caught my eye on a shelf at the local library.

I do have to admit a bit of ( how shall I put this? "Disgust" is too strong a word ) shock about credit for its authorship. The dust jacket and cover list a sole author: Tudge, of course. The title page lists the author as "Colin Tudge with Josh Young" and the acknowledgement page ( p. 249 ) states, "I did not write every word in this book. I wrote the bits about the science— chapters 3 to 8 [ of 9 chapters ], plus the epilogue— and Josh Young wrote the rest..."

I am not so naive as not to know that the use of research assistants by established authors has been commonplace ( but undisclosed ) for decades. This is, however, the first instance I can recall where joint authorship has been explicitly acknowledged ( though NOT on the book's dust jacket or cover )— it does yield a mild impression of "ghost writing."

Tudge is, by the way, both conversant with and very comfortable with the notion of the normality of naturally-occuring wide climate variability over the course of earth's history. Chapter 3, "Ida's Eocene World" has a long description of the climate of the day and ends with a five-page discussion under the sub-heading "Why Did The World Grow Cooler." After pontificating on that topic, he inexplicably and breezily finishes with a one sentence, off-hand and veiled acknowledgement of the current AGW hypothesis. It begs the obvious question but no explanation is forthcoming.

I have read it . I thought it was put together a bit hurredly and was quite interesting but as popular science goes there was more accent on the popular than the science.

Tudge wrote 72% of the book("the science") and Josh Wilson a rather bland 28%. However, my research indicates that neither of them was the main mover. That was Jorn Hurum , the original discoverer of the fossil. Google Jorn Hurrum and he soon emerges as the main man.

Hurum has been quoted as saying that the problem with major discoveries in the past is that all the effort goes into the original scientific publication and the book and film is only produced later when the marketing advantage of initial discovery has dissipated.

In this case, recognising the importance of his discovery Hurum was smart enough to organise the scientific paper, the film, the book and the TV programme to follow each other in quick succession. He maximised the market potential. That in itself caused some sniffy reviews from some academics who thought academic publication and extensive review should have absolute priority. (jealousy basically) Hurrum upset the scientific establishment by bypassing "Nature" and "Science" and published his academic work (by a strong team) on line.

Tudge seems to have been picked as author because he was a name that was a proven seller. He did none of the original research and Wilson supplied the padding. It would be interesting to know who owned the copyright holding company (Hurrum??).

Tudge is no SJ Gould and doesn't have a fraction of Jared Diamonds capacity but he did a workmanlike job in double quick time.

I thought the climate change issues on pages 38 to 43 heating and 52 to 56 cooling were adequate particularly as the climate itself was not the main subject of the book.

So I don't think that Tudge made use of Wilson, the more likely scenario is that Hurrum commissioned Tudge and Wilson through Little Brown to author a quick seller, whilst he handled the rest of the project. Seems totally legitimate to me and it worked on me at least as I bought it.

 

[WRJames]

Even the arguments for "Intelligent Design" are arguments for evolution:

Who created the creator(s)? Or did it/he/she/they spring into existence with the big bang? Or did they evolve from more mundane creatures? Where did they come from?

Huh?

Do you feel boxed in? that's what unsupportable positions feel like. Like you're on a slippery slope, and every little question, every inquiry into reality brings you that much closer to the precipice. I've been there, it really sucks

Well, saying that the universe "just happened" to come into existence, apparently out of nothing, and that it "just happened" to have the right characteristics for us to be having this discussion is about as unsatisfying.

Do things like that "just happen"?

Of course ID just pushes the problem back a layer -- which may be correct, but as you point out, doesn't really answer the question. It's the old "turtles all the way down" problem.


Wouldn't if be strange if time were circular, and we actually wind up creating ourselves?

 

[jacks4u]

... Do things like that "just happen"?

... Wouldn't if be strange if time were circular, and we actually wind up creating ourselves?

There certainly is enough room in this universe for 'strange'. I've often wondered whether our entire universe is just parts of a Giant's tooth or something, the galaxies being something akin to atoms...

But what I was really asking, and still am, how did the 'intelligence' in ID come about? It seems the the sort of 'intelligence' that might have created life, the universe, and everything, could not possibly have 'sprang into existence', and so must have evolved in a way similar to ourselves, albeit I have no proof of this. But is there proof to the contrary? most likely not.

I will admit, though, that: 1) I'm no expert in either ID, evolution, or the universe. 2) that I'm definitely not the most intelligent person in any sizable population. 3) that Human kind may well, after suitable evolution, create life similar to ourselves. 4) That life on this or any planet could have been 'seeded' by some sort of alien being(s) - would this be the 'god' y'all are referring to? 5) The possibilities are almost limitless. 6) Data is completely absent, either supporting or refuting ID, and so belief must be completely by faith, or deduction, which may or may not account for all variables. 7) the notions of heaven or hell are mostly derived from a work of circular reference.


Jacks

 

[dr_mabeuse]

But what I was really asking, and still am, how did the 'intelligence' in ID come about? It seems the the sort of 'intelligence' that might have created life, the universe, and everything, could not possibly have 'sprang into existence', and so must have evolved in a way similar to ourselves, albeit I have no proof of this. But is there proof to the contrary? most likely not.

Jacks

I'm an atheist myself, but I pass on some words from the Talmud: "It is the nature of God that He is incomprehensible; and that which is comprehensible is not God."

 

[rgraham666]

God and logic.

 

[trysail]

Professor Lindzen's lecture slides

Why do we need to deconstruct global warming? Simply because it has been an issue that has been routinely treated with misinformation and sophistry abetted by constant repetition, institutional endorsements, and widespread ignorance even (perhaps especially) among the educated. Because of the increasingly dangerous and expensive approaches being promoted to deal with this alleged problem, it is, I think, important to understand what is being said as well as to understand how climate actually works.

Richard Lindzen, Ph.D.
Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Fellow American Academy of Arts and Sciences, AGU, AAAS, and AMS
Member Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Member National Academy of Sciences

 

[trysail]

The more I read about the IPCC's methodology ( which at bottom, is essentially a Monte Carlo simulation using data of dubious integrity— say, does that remind you of anything? { mortgage-backed securities, f'rinstance? } ), the more I'm convinced its analytical approach is anything but conclusive.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The more I read about the IPCC's methodology ( which at bottom, is essentially a Monte Carlo simulation using data of dubious integrity— say, does that remind you of anything? { mortgage-backed securities, f'rinstance? } ), the more I'm convinced its analytical approach is anything but conclusive.

You're talking about their methodology of modeling the future, I take it, and not their methodology of current data analysis?

Do you have a reference for this dubious methodology?

I know that some of the models they used were verified by feeding in data from the past and correctly predicting current conditions, but there are a lot of contentious areas in their modeling.

 

[Dragonlipz]

By which I mean the global warming denial crowd as well as the Intelligent Design crowd, among others. You know, the ones who can't accept empirical data because some rogue pseudo-scientist offers them an alternative.

How dangerous are they? I believe them very dangerous, because they bring reality into dispute and cast doubt on empirical facts.

They: Mon Ami (amicus) and 3sale are only as dangerous as you want them to be: neither one of them has any scientific expertise (Mon Ami has described himself as 'the Glenn Beck of the Sixties' - which, at best has him at least forty years out of date - way beyond any sort of shelf life.....and 3Sale has admitted to some 'financial' experience - no brain salad surgery there.....)
So what if these throwbacks can't admit or surmise what's in their face?
There is none so blind as them that cannot see............
And they are blind and proud of it.......
It's great theater and fun to watch them dance around trying to plant their bogus tentpoles of logic.......Yeehah!!!
I haven't had so much fun since the hogs ate my little brother!!!!!

 

[Dragonlipz]

The more I read about the IPCC's methodology ( which at bottom, is essentially a Monte Carlo simulation using data of dubious integrity— say, does that remind you of anything? { mortgage-backed securities, f'rinstance? } ), the more I'm convinced its analytical approach is anything but conclusive.

Chomp, chomp....them's my hogs gnawin' on the tentpoles of yer logic.......

 

[trysail]

Chomp, chomp....them's my hogs gnawin' on the tentpoles of yer logic.......

For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false.
—H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)


CARGO CULT SCIENCE
by Richard Feynman

Adapted from the Caltech commencement address given in 1974.

During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such
as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. Then a
method was discovered for separating the ideas--which was to try
one to see if it worked, and if it didn't work, to eliminate it.
This method became organized, of course, into science. And it
developed very well, so that we are now in the scientific age. It
is such a scientific age, in fact that we have difficulty in
understanding how witch doctors could ever have existed, when
nothing that they proposed ever really worked--or very little of
it did.

But even today I meet lots of people who sooner or later get me
into a conversation about UFOS, or astrology, or some form of
mysticism, expanded consciousness, new types of awareness, ESP, and
so forth. And I've concluded that it's not a scientific world.

Most people believe so many wonderful things that I decided to
investigate why they did. And what has been referred to as my
curiosity for investigation has landed me in a difficulty where I
found so much junk that I'm overwhelmed. First I started out by
investigating various ideas of mysticism, and mystic experiences.
I went into isolation tanks and got many hours of hallucinations,
so I know something about that. Then I went to Esalen, which is a
hotbed of this kind of thought (it's a wonderful place; you should
go visit there). Then I became overwhelmed. I didn't realize how
much there was.

At Esalen there are some large baths fed by hot springs situated
on a ledge about thirty feet above the ocean. One of my most
pleasurable experiences has been to sit in one of those baths and
watch the waves crashing onto the rocky shore below, to gaze into
the clear blue sky above, and to study a beautiful nude as she
quietly appears and settles into the bath with me.

One time I sat down in a bath where there was a beautiful girl
sitting with a guy who didn't seem to know her. Right away I began
thinking, "Gee! How am I gonna get started talking to this
beautiful nude babe?"

I'm trying to figure out what to say, when the guy says to her,
I'm, uh, studying massage. Could I practice on you?"

"Sure," she says. They get out of the bath and she lies down on a
massage table nearby.

I think to myself, "What a nifty line! I can never think of
anything like that!" He starts to rub her big toe. "I think I feel
it, "he says. "I feel a kind of dent--is that the pituitary?"

I blurt out, "You're a helluva long way from the pituitary, man!"

They looked at me, horrified--I had blown my cover--and said, "It's
reflexology!"

I quickly closed my eyes and appeared to be meditating.

That's just an example of the kind of things that overwhelm me. I
also looked into extrasensory perception and PSI phenomena, and the
latest craze there was Uri Geller, a man who is supposed to be able
to bend keys by rubbing them with his finger. So I went to his
hotel room, on his invitation, to see a demonstration of both
mindreading and bending keys. He didn't do any mindreading that
succeeded; nobody can read my mind, I guess. And my boy held a key
and Geller rubbed it, and nothing happened. Then he told us it
works better under water, and so you can picture all of us standing
in the bathroom with the water turned on and the key under it, and
him rubbing the key with his finger. Nothing happened. So I was
unable to investigate that phenomenon.

But then I began to think, what else is there that we believe? (And
I thought then about the witch doctors, and how easy it would have
been to cheek on them by noticing that nothing really worked.) So
I found things that even more people believe, such as that we have
some knowledge of how to educate. There are big schools of reading
methods and mathematics methods, and so forth, but if you notice,
you'll see the reading scores keep going down--or hardly going up
in spite of the fact that we continually use these same people to
improve the methods. There's a witch doctor remedy that doesn't
work. It ought to be looked into; how do they know that their
method should work? Another example is how to treat criminals. We
obviously have made no progress--lots of theory, but no progress--
in decreasing the amount of crime by the method that we use to
handle criminals.

Yet these things are said to be scientific. We study them. And I
think ordinary people with commonsense ideas are intimidated by
this pseudoscience. A teacher who has some good idea of how to
teach her children to read is forced by the school system to do it
some other way--or is even fooled by the school system into
thinking that her method is not necessarily a good one. Or a parent
of bad boys, after disciplining them in one way or another, feels
guilty for the rest of her life because she didn't do "the right
thing," according to the experts.

So we really ought to look into theories that don't work, and
science that isn't science.

I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are
examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the
South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw
airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same
thing to happen now. So they've arranged to imitate things like
runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a
wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head
like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's
the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're
doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the
way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So
I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the
apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but
they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.

Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they're missing.
But it would be just about as difficult to explain to the South Sea
Islanders how they have to arrange things so that they get some
wealth in their system. It is not something simple like telling
them how to improve the shapes of the earphones. But there is one
feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science.
That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying
science in school--we never explicitly say what this is, but just
hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific
investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now
and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity,
a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of
utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if
you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you
think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about
it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and
things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other
experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can
tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be
given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know
anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you
make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then
you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well
as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem.
When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate
theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that
those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea
for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else
come out right, in addition.

In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to
help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the
information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or
another.

The easiest way to explain this idea is to contrast it, for
example, with advertising. Last night I heard that Wesson oil
doesn't soak through food. Well, that's true. It's not dishonest;
but the thing I'm talking about is not just a matter of not being
dishonest, it's a matter of scientific integrity, which is another
level. The fact that should be added to that advertising statement
is that no oils soak through food, if operated at a certain
temperature. If operated at another temperature, they all will--
including Wesson oil. So it's the implication which has been
conveyed, not the fact, which is true, and the difference is what
we have to deal with.

We've learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other
experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you
were wrong or right. Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll
disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some
temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation
as a scientist if you haven't tried to be very careful in this kind
of work. And it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to
fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the
research in cargo cult science.

A great deal of their difficulty is, of course, the difficulty of
the subject and the inapplicability of the scientific method to the
subject. Nevertheless it should be remarked that this is not the
only difficulty. That's why the planes didn't land--but they don't
land.

We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of
the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the
charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and
got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a
little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the
viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of
measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you
plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little
bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than
that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until
finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

Why didn't they discover that the new number was higher right away?
It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because
it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a
number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something
must be wrong--and they would look for and find a reason why
something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to
Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated
the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that.
We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that
kind of a disease.

But this long history of learning how not to fool ourselves--of
having utter scientific integrity--is, I'm sorry to say, something
that we haven't specifically included in any particular course that
I know of. We just hope you've caught on by osmosis.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are
the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about
that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other
scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after
that.

I would like to add something that's not essential to the science,
but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool
the layman when you're talking as a scientist. I am not trying to
tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your
girlfriend, or something like that, when you're not trying to be
a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We'll
leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I'm talking about
a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending
over backwards to show how you are maybe wrong, that you ought to
have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as
scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.

For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a
friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology
and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the
applications of this work were. "Well," I said, "there aren't any."
He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of
this kind." I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're
representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to
the layman what you're doing--and if they don't want to support you
under those circumstances, then that's their decision.

One example of the principle is this: If you've made up your mind
to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should
always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only
publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look
good. We must publish both kinds of results.

I say that's also important in giving certain types of government
advice. Supposing a senator asked you for advice about whether
drilling a hole should be done in his state; and you decide it
would be better in some other state. If you don't publish such a
result, it seems to me you're not giving scientific advice. You're
being used. If your answer happens to come out in the direction the
government or the politicians like, they can use it as an argument
in their favor; if it comes out the other way, they don't publish
it at all. That's not giving scientific advice.

Other kinds of errors are more characteristic of poor science. When
I was at Cornell, I often talked to the people in the psychology
department. One of the students told me she wanted to do an
experiment that went something like this--it had been found by
others that under certain circumstances, X, rats did something, A.
She was curious as to whether, if she changed the circumstances to
Y, they would still do A. So her proposal was to do the experiment
under circumstances Y and see if they still did A.

I explained to her that it was necessary first to repeat in her
laboratory the experiment of the other person--to do it under
condition X to see if she could also get result A, and then change
to Y and see if A changed. Then she would know that the real
difference was the thing she thought she had under control.

She was very delighted with this new idea, and went to her
professor. And his reply was, no, you cannot do that, because the
experiment has already been done and you would be wasting time.
This was in about 1947 or so, and it seems to have been the general
policy then to not try to repeat psychological experiments, but
only to change the conditions and see what happens.

Nowadays there's a certain danger of the same thing happening, even
in the famous (?) field of physics. I was shocked to hear of an
experiment done at the big accelerator at the National Accelerator
Laboratory, where a person used deuterium. In order to compare his
heavy hydrogen results to what might happen with "light hydrogen"
he had to use data from someone else's experiment on light
hydrogen, which was done on different apparatus. When asked why,
he said it was because he couldn't get time on the program (because
there's so little time and it's such expensive apparatus) to do the
experiment with light hydrogen on this apparatus because there
wouldn't be any new result. And so the men in charge of programs
at NAL are so anxious for new results, in order to get more money
to keep the thing going for public relations purposes, they are
destroying--possibly--the value of the experiments themselves,
which is the whole purpose of the thing. It is often hard for the
experimenters there to complete their work as their scientific
integrity demands.

All experiments in psychology are not of this type, however. For
example, there have been many experiments running rats through all
kinds of mazes, and so on--with little clear result. But in 1937
a man named Young did a very interesting one. He had a long
corridor with doors all along one side where the rats came in, and
doors along the other side where the food was. He wanted to see if
he could train the rats to go in at the third door down from
wherever he started them off. No. The rats went immediately to the
door where the food had been the time before.

The question was, how did the rats know, because the corridor was
so beautifully built and so uniform, that this was the same door
as before? Obviously there was something about the door that was
different from the other doors. So he painted the doors very
carefully, arranging the textures on the faces of the doors exactly
the same. Still the rats could tell. Then he thought maybe the rats
were smelling the food, so he used chemicals to change the smell
after each run. Still the rats could tell. Then he realized the
rats might be able to tell by seeing the lights and the arrangement
in the laboratory like any commonsense person. So he covered the
corridor, and still the rats could tell.

He finally found that they could tell by the way the floor sounded
when they ran over it. And he could only fix that by putting his
corridor in sand. So he covered one after another of all possible
clues and finally was able to fool the rats so that they had to
learn to go in the third door. If he relaxed any of his conditions,
the rats could tell.

Now, from a scientific standpoint, that is an A-number-one
experiment. That is the experiment that makes rat-running
experiments sensible, because it uncovers the clues that the rat
is really using--not what you think it's using. And that is the
experiment that tells exactly what conditions you have to use in
order to be careful and control everything in an experiment with
rat-running.

I looked into the subsequent history of this research. The next
experiment, and the one after that, never referred to Mr. Young.
They never used any of his criteria of putting the corridor on
sand, or being very careful. They just went right on running rats
in the same old way, and paid no attention to the great discoveries
of Mr. Young, and his papers are not referred to, because he didn't
discover anything about the rats. In fact, he discovered all the
things you have to do to discover something about rats. But not
paying attention to experiments like that is a characteristic of
cargo cult science.

Another example is the ESP experiments of Mr. Rhine, and other
people. As various people have made criticisms--and they themselves
have made criticisms of their own experiments--they improve the
techniques so that the effects are smaller, and smaller, and
smaller until they gradually disappear. All the parapsychologists
are looking for some experiment that can be repeated--that you can
do again and get the same effect--statistically, even. They run a
million rats no, it's people this time they do a lot of things and
get a certain statistical effect. Next time they try it they don't
get it any more. And now you find a man saying that it is an
irrelevant demand to expect a repeatable experiment. This is
science?

This man also speaks about a new institution, in a talk in which
he was resigning as Director of the Institute of Parapsychology.
And, in telling people what to do next, he says that one of the
things they have to do is be sure they only train students who have
shown their ability to get PSI results to an acceptable extent--
not to waste their time on those ambitious and interested students
who get only chance results. It is very dangerous to have such a
policy in teaching--to teach students only how to get certain
results, rather than how to do an experiment with scientific
integrity.

So I have just one wish for you--the good luck to be somewhere
where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have
described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain
your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on,
to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom.

 

[Epmd607]

Posting a link to an article and then explaining why someone should follow the link and read the article works better.

 

[Dragonlipz]

Posting a link to an article and then explaining why someone should follow the link and read the article works better.

Good advice but extremely difficult for Mon Ami and 3Sale to follow: they already know the answers, so why should they ask any questions? Or answer yours?
Intelligent discourse is predicated by just that: intelligent discourse and respectful inquiry. Incendiary and confrontational nonsense begets: incendiary and confrontational nonsense....so it goes and they reap what they sow.....
You can attempt to communicate with these misanthropes but I find it much more satisfying to use their tactics on them........

My hogs are done with the tentpoles and are workin' on the fabric.....very little substance, not very filling.....they'll need another snack before dinner......

 

[trysail]

The bottom line is that the chemistry of the atmosphere can get hideously complicated,” said [Gavin] Schmidt. “Sorting out what affects climate and what affects air quality isn’t simple, but we’re making progress.”

Translation: "I really don't understand this stuff but that's no reason not to behave as if I did."



http://www.physorg.com/news176058147.html

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Translation: "I really don't understand this stuff but that's no reason not to behave as if I did."



http://www.physorg.com/news176058147.html

Funny. Article also says: "We’ve known for years that methane and carbon monoxide have a warming effect,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York and lead author of a study published this week in Science. “But our new findings suggest these gases have a significantly more powerful warming impact than previously thought.” "

And:

We’ve known for years that methane and carbon monoxide have a warming effect,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York and lead author of a study published this week in Science. “But our new findings suggest these gases have a significantly more powerful warming impact than previously thought.”

It then goes on to say how these findings might be used to better control the greenhouse gas emissions that are having the greatest effect on global warming.

Nowhere does it say that these results contradict what's currently known about AGW or cast doubt on the reality of AGW. It's just about refining the model to get better results.

I suppose the fact that the atmosphere is a complicated system is supposed to make us throw our hands in the air and go back to building coal-fired power plants. Is that the point of that quote?

 

[trysail]

Funny. Article also says: "We’ve known for years that methane and carbon monoxide have a warming effect,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York and lead author of a study published this week in Science. “But our new findings suggest these gases have a significantly more powerful warming impact than previously thought.” "

And:

We’ve known for years that methane and carbon monoxide have a warming effect,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York and lead author of a study published this week in Science. “But our new findings suggest these gases have a significantly more powerful warming impact than previously thought.”

It then goes on to say how these findings might be used to better control the greenhouse gas emissions that are having the greatest effect on global warming.

Nowhere does it say that these results contradict what's currently known about AGW or cast doubt on the reality of AGW. It's just about refining the model to get better results.

I suppose the fact that the atmosphere is a complicated system is supposed to make us throw our hands in the air and go back to building coal-fired power plants. Is that the point of that quote?

Zoot,
The polemicists may label it "settled science" but that doesn't make it so. You can call it anything you want but don't call it "settled science" because it isn't. You and I both know it.

A measure of the weakness of the case is the very fact that the sophists have desperately attempted to wrap this rush to judgment in a blanket of "the debate is over" or "the science is settled." The only thing that sort of appeal does is make a sentient and inquiring mind doubtful.

Even an attempt to invoke a "precautionary principle" fails the test of logic if one truly weighs the costs and benefits of precipitous and ill-considered action on the totality of human population.

...suppose astronomy became overrun with astrologers, so that to keep a job or get funding in the field an astronomer had to "toe the astrology line". Then the vast majority of astronomers would say that astrology is a perfectly acceptable as science -- and "the Moon is in the Seventh House", or whatever. It's tragic.

There are various theories of how science works, and I'm a bit suspicious of any that says it's simply a matter of following an algorithm or a clear-cut set methodological steps.

The reality is much messier, but I would say it goes roughly like this. It starts off with some bafflement, which begins to clear when some genius comes up with a clever but highly speculative/tentative explanation. Really it is just a guess. Then someone (perhaps the same genius as before, perhaps not) shows that this guess plus some other assumptions yields a prediction of some sort, which can be observed directly.

If the prediction turns out to be true, the guess looks better than it did before, because it passed a test. If the prediction turns out to be false, the guess looks worse than it did before, because it failed the test. But in neither case can the guess ever be considered conclusively established or conclusively refuted. There is never any certainty.

There are endless variations on the above, and sciences differ. All require a considerable amount of imagination, creativity, and cunning. But no science worth the name simply "starts off with some data and then extrapolates". That's one of my problems with "climate change science".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/climate_issue.html#P87116662

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'm not aware of anyone saying AGW is "settled science". I'm aware of them saying that there's sufficient evidence to accept AGW as a fact and that it warrants doing something about it now. The fact that we don't know exactly how mutations work doesn't invalidate the theory of evolution. The fact that we don't fully understand the chemical dynamics of the atmosphere is no grounds for rejecting AGW. It may be an excuse for ignoring it, but it's not a reason.

You can do two cost/benefits analyses. How much will it cost to fix it versus how much will it cost to ignore it if it's TRUE.

And how much will it cost to fix it versus how much will it cost to ignore it if it's FALSE.

The cost of ignoring it if it's true is several orders of magnitude greater than the cost of doing something about it if it's false.

And having doubts about a theory is a long, long way from disproving a theory. Scientific consensus seemed to tip the way of the AGW believers sometime in the mid oughts, and whether you think all these scientists are dupes or chiselers or idiots, the consensus is that it's real. The ball's now in the doubters' court and it's their job to provide proof that it's false, and not just accusations and innuendo.

So far they haven't been able to do so.

 

[DeeZire]

...At Esalen there are some large baths fed by hot springs situated on a ledge about thirty feet above the ocean.

I used to sneak into the hot baths at Esalen with my hippie friends back in the day. In fact, I think I saw that same naked woman mentioned in the article. Thanks for posting that, Trysail. I will leave the AH with a smile on my face tonight.

 

[Epmd607]

Either god exists and I'm going to hell because I haven't met the requirements to go to heaven or god does not exist.

Either Global Warming exists and human beings have a hand in it or Global Warming exists and human beings have no hand in it.

More people believe in god than anthropo GW. But GW exists, whether god exists or not. We can't make a wager that maybe anthropo GW doesn't exist, it's completely irrational to do so.

 

[rgraham666]

Unfortunately, humans tend to be rationalizing animals rather than rational ones.