Category Archives: Science-general

No Confidence

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Odds Are, it’s Wrong

They seem to be looking specifically at medical (and related) research; I don’t know if there is a greater prevalence of an underlying problem — not publishing null results — in those fields as compared to elsewhere.

Over the years, hundreds of published papers have warned that science’s love affair with statistics has spawned countless illegitimate findings. In fact, if you believe what you read in the scientific literature, you shouldn’t believe what you read in the scientific literature.

“There is increasing concern,” declared epidemiologist John Ioannidis in a highly cited 2005 paper in PLoS Medicine, “that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims.”

Why the Science Media is Not Your Friend

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Advice to Climate Scientists on how to Avoid being Swift-boated and how to become Public Intellectuals

Even though this is written in terms of climate science, it really applies in general to science and science reporting, but has added importance for any science that has political controversy attached to it — politics involves swaying public opinion, and that often doesn’t involve (indeed, often actively avoids) factual information.

Media thrives on controversy, which produces ratings and advertising revenue. As a result, it is structured into an ‘on the one hand, on the other hand’ binary argument. Any broadcast that pits a climate change skeptic against a serious climate scientist is automatically a win for the skeptic, since a false position is being given equal time and legitimacy.

This doesn’t have to be in the context of a debate — it is true in stories as well. Any story about how vaccinations don’t cause autism but included any response from Jenny McCarthy, was giving credence to a position that has no scientific support. This is playing out even now as the creationists try to adopt global warming as another cause, and attempt the balanced teaching/teach the controversy approach. Which, scientifically speaking, is insane, because schoolchildren aren’t in a position to decide what constitutes good science.

Science is a meritocracy, not a democracy. Crappy ideas, ones without the support of evidence, do not merit equal time in scientific discussions. You do not get free admission and a seat at the table — there’s a “you must be this tall” sign against which you must compare your evidence and methodology. The media need to learn this.

Newsworthy

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Several more global warming pieces have popped up on my radar recently.

Al Gore’s NYT op-ed We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change

While I have pointed out before that you should not hold out much hope for science on the op-ed page, Mr. Gore’s piece has links to actual scientific work, which is generally more than you get from the other side.

Mann Bites Dog: Why ‘Climategate’ Was Newsworthy

The Dunning-Kruger effect and the climate debate

Why?

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Feynman discusses the “why” question, and why he can’t give a satisfactory explanation of magnetic attraction/repulsion.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

When you explain a “why,” you have to be in some framework that you allow something to be true. Otherwise you are perpetually asking, “Why?”

I’ve pointed out before that science doesn’t really address the question of “why,” and this is the reason.

I really can’t do a good job, any job, of explaining magnetic force in terms of something else that you’re more familiar with, because I don’t understand it in terms of anything else you’re more familiar with.

In other words, you have to explain to the level of your audience.

No, You Can't Have It

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I can recall one of the very first creationist types I met, way back when I was in the navy. He proudly proclaimed that he knew evolution was false, because a dog would never give birth to a cat. It floored me that someone with a tech background could have so completely failed in both the application of logic and in having the requisite knowledge to be preaching on the subject.

Through the years I’ve seen far too many similar argument, in which the demand for some evidence, either unreasonable at its face or required of the strawman version of the theory, is made, and the inability to provide said evidence is immediately (and erroneously) taken as the death knell of the theory in question. Basically these people are insisting on seeing a smoking gun, when the victim has been quite obviously stabbed to death.

Here’s a nice article that addresses this phenomenon:

Less Wrong: You’re Entitled to Arguments, But Not (That Particular) Proof

(ceteris paribus is a Latin phrase used in the post, and one I can’t recall having seen before. It means “all other things being equal” and has nothing to do with stories about whales)

And in a burst of evolutionary irony, the post has some useful appendices