Category Archives: Science-general

This Could Get Ugly

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Global warming views ‘are philosophical belief’ for UK law

“A belief in man-made climate change, and the alleged resulting moral imperatives, is capable if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations,” ruled Justice Michael Burton (Guardian, Independent). “If a person can establish that he holds a philosophical belief which is based on science as opposed, for example, to religion, then there is no reason to disqualify it from protection”

It is true, I suppose, that a view can be philosophical even if science addresses it — one can accept gravity without ever having taken a physics class, meaning that one believes in gravity in a dogmatic sense. I think this is easier to see if one’s belief were to contradict science: one could sincerely believe that they can defy gravity and fly, though if that were ever put to the test they would have a hard time reconciling their belief with the fact that they did not fly so much as plummet. (Then again, having witnessed a lot of discussions involving cdesign proponentsists, I’ve seen fervent belief allow for some pretty wicked mental contortions). Certainly there are people out there that zealously believe that they can build a perpetual motion device, or that relativity is wrong. And it just boils down to this: if facts will not dissuade you, then your belief is religious.

But we have words to describe those who tenaciously hold to beliefs that have been empirically tested, and found to be wanting: cranks, crackpots, woomeisters, kooks, loons, quackademics, wackjob, etc. You now appear to have the problem of not being able to fire an engineer or a scientist for believing in perpetual motion, simply because they hold that belief religiously. On the other hand, if the boss is a free-energy believer, how do you protect the science-minded employee from being dismissed for mentioning the second law of thermodynamics in front of the boss? Citing facts/truth has to be what’s protected, not fanatically held lies or untruths. Between this and the libel laws in England, it’s kind of a wacky place for the intersection of science and speech (Can I say that?)

Update: some commentary on the situation, which cautions us that by reducing science to belief, we lose something: beliefs are created equal, and it’s far easier to dismiss a belief or an opinion — all you have to do is disagree.

Religions have beliefs. Science is not a belief system but the best process we have for establishing the truth, piece by independently replicated piece. Nicholson should be appalled by the ruling he has won.

How Not to Be Seen

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How to Reject a Paper: Advice from a Chain Letter

You have to keep in mind that no matter how crappy the paper is, the authors are going to be pissed that it is rejected, and they are going to immediately begin wracking their brains to identify referees who might have done the dirty on them. Most will form a list of at least 5 or 6 people that they think are likely to have screwed them. Since most papers are reviewed by no more than 2-3 reviewers, this means you have a good chance of being on the list even if you were NOT the reviewer. Thus, particular pains must be taken to direct the authors ire elsewhere.

…

1. Pretend that you are British. (Note — this does not work well if you actually are British).

Most importantly, it tells you how to pretend to be British (though not necessarily being Mr. Nesbitt of Harlow New Town), or how to be obviously pretending to be British in case you are, as well as some other tactics.

H1B to be Square

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In the past we’ve been told that there is a shortage of tech workers (or rather , there isn’t because we can import them), and businesses have demanded more visas or suggested other solutions to the problem.

Now they’re saying we have enough, they just are leaving the field for richer professions:

The supply has actually remained steady over the past 30 years, the researchers conclude from an analysis of six longitudinal surveys conducted by the U.S. government from 1972 to 2005. However, the highest-performing students in the pipeline are opting out of science and engineering in greater numbers than in the past, suggesting that the threat to American economic competitiveness comes not from inadequate science training in school and college but from a lack incentives that would make science and technology careers attractive.

In addition, the current economy has temporarily eased the problem (if it is a problem)— applications are down because fewer companies are hiring.

I’m beginning to see a more consistent picture here, if it is indeed the case that potential sci/tech workers simply choose other, more lucrative fields. Recipients of H-1B visas only have to be paid the higher of the prevailing wage for the region, or the employer’s actual average wage, but if that average wage is for an average employee, and your visa recipient is more capable than that, you can drive the salaries down, much like evaporative cooling lowers temperatures. Employers are not forced to pay higher wages for highly skilled US workers, so they diffuse to different fields. The average salary can drop, but the skill level increases, and average skill levels must accept lower wages as long as there is a supply via the visa program. Whether this is actually what’s happening, I don’t know. I don’t think the “we’re not capturing their interest” model is discounted, and it’s likely that multiple factors come into play in figuring out why there aren’t more science students entering the workforce.

I disagree with the proposal that we need fewer science students. There’s a mistaken notion that if you don’t directly use your degree in your adult life that the system has somehow failed, and I’d hate for the result to be less emphasis on science. The utility of learning science isn’t that everyone will become a scientist by profession; we want students to learn English literature and philosophy and some even major in these subjects, but do we expect philosophy majors to all become professional philosophers? The utility of science is that it helps teach us critical thinking, and the ability to separate truth from fraudulent mumbo-jumbo helps protect us from those charlatans who would try and peddle perpetual motion machines, or tell you the earth is 6000 years old, or convince you that vaccines cause autism. I agree with Zapperz on this

As far as I’m concerned, my interest in physics education is more towards having student be literate in physics and how it is done, rather than trying to gear them towards specializing or majoring in physics. I don’t care if they end up as physicist or not, but they shouldn’t be ignorant of what physics is, and how we gather our knowledge.

Young Science

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One thing I noted last summer when the STS-124 shuttle astronauts visited was that the kids asked some great questions. And that’s the theme of a new Boing-Boing column:

Submit your toddler’s science questions!

The child does not have to be your own. Questions do not have to be cute or “Kids Say the Darndest Things-ish” in any way. They do not even have to be current. (Baby boomers, got a query that’s been nagging at you since 1975? I don’t care if the toddler is now in their 30s, send the question!) All I’m looking for are things you can’t answer off the top of your head and don’t feel like researching yourself. Easy stuff!

Do turtles have eyelashes?

Communication Breakdown

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Chad was recently at the Perimeter Institute’s Quantum to Cosmos Festival, on a panel discussion called Communicating Science in the 21st Century. (Direct link to the video is here). It’s a pretty good discussion, I think, but a few things are left open — discussions have their way of drifting off in a particular direction, and going back to cover a point isn’t always possible, especially with a moderator and a time constraint.

Very early on, there’s a general point about traditional journalism and the various requirements of it, including being balanced. Later on, Ivan Semeniuk goes into some detail about this, in the context of reporting vs. getting involved in a story — reporting science is not the same thing as promoting science. And there’s something to that, but I think a larger point was missed. A lot of the so-called controversy that is reported in various stories is not scientific in origin. I think “I’m only reporting the story” and “I have to be balanced” is a bit of a dodge, because if one is truly reporting the science, one often finds that there is no balance in what the science says — it’s very one-sided, and creating the illusion that this isn’t the case is not a responsible act. And yes, this falls under the rants-about-science-journalism umbrella that Chad mentions, early in the video.

The Large Hadron Collider was mentioned as one of the big stories of the past year, boding well for the public’s interest in science; even though the topic of “the LHC will kill us all” was discussed, it’s not clear how much that type of story is represented in the popularity numbers, but those stories were out there. Giving equal representation to Chicken-Littles grossly distorts the merit of their objections.

At least the LHC stories were about science, even if it’s bad science. Other stories where equal time is given are not. Stories involving creationism or intelligent design vs evolution, for example, are stories about ideology masquerading as science. Here the desire to provide both perspectives can be even more damaging, because it presents the illusion that this is a scientific conflict, rather than the truth that this is a political battle, with precious little actual science being presented by the cdesign proponentsists. One finds similarities with the “controversies” over global warming and vaccinations, where the detractors use rhetoric and distortion, but not a whole lot of legitimate science, and make their case in the popular press instead of in the science journals. Science is not a democracy, and equal time is not a right guaranteed to any particular proposition — scientific ideas are accepted because of merit, demonstrated by experiment. Not only is it OK to point this out, it’s something that should be demanded to consider a science story to be responsible journalism.

Quantifying Doubt

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Science as a Religion that Worships Doubt as its God

A rebuttal to the notion that science worships truth.

What science is all about, in contrast, is the quantification of doubt.

I’ve seen this from a sightly different angle. Some people like to say “For all we know, blah, blah, blah,” with the implication that some result or its opposite, or just a complete spectrum of outcomes, are equally likely. And it usually isn’t so — statements like that are from people trying to portray “not being sure” as being the same as “not having a clue.” What science does is limit the uncertainty involved in “for all we know,” and it does this by quantifying it. The answer may not be (for example) exactly 3, but knowing that 5 is right out adds to our knowledge. That’s something that a result of 3 ± 0.1 tells us.

I Believe I'll Have Another Drink

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if you believe in science, you’re doing it wrong

The post-modernists can complain about the limitations of our senses and our technology but what seems to be lost on them is the cardinal rule of the scientific thought process. If you have no proof for it, you can’t insist that it’s real or objective. Because we don’t know something, we can’t randomly jam anything we want in there and pretend it’s a good idea. And this is exactly what we do when we involve deities for which we don’t have a shred of proof into processes we otherwise understand and want to explore in farther depth. To equate a way to describe the natural world through objective means with simply inserting one’s own opinion in the gaps of our knowledge and chalk both up to belief is an absurd assertion that can only be made by people who don’t understand the nature of science and can’t wrap their minds around the fact that it’s simply a methodology by which people accumulate and connect facts, not a set of answers to questions or ready made opinions.

Be a Choosy Mother

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Choose to give to Donor’s Choice.

Two physics-y blogs that have set up links are Cosmic Variance and Uncertain Principles

Last year Chad collected more than a monkeydance worth of donations, and he is once again offering various kickbacks for donations exceeding a certain threshold. Cosmic Variance will put your name in lights, if the coin is big enough.

If any other physics blogger has their chapeau in the torus, let me know and I’ll add the link, or you can do so in the comments.