Monthly Archives: December 2011
Make it So
What If There Were Rules for Science Journalism?
The media were not solely responsible for the MMR scare, but some of the news values that caused the problem are alive and well: the appetite for a great scare story; the desire to overstate a claim made by one expert in a single small study; the reluctance to put one alarming piece of research into its wider, more revealing context; journalistic “balance”—which creates the impression of a significant divide in scientific opinion where there is none; the love of the maverick; and so on.
It's Not as Hard as All That
In Physics, Telling Cranks from Experts Ain’t Easy
Somewhat ironic that a story about science is just anecdotes, but the larger issue is that they are inappropriate ones.
She shares my sense that some popular suppositions—notably the notion that reality consists of extremely tiny strings wriggling in hyperspaces of a dozen or more dimensions, or that our universe is just one of an infinite number of universes—verge on pseudoscience, because they are even less experimentally testable than Jim Carter’s circlon theory.
String theory is a work in progress and isn’t the basis for, well, anything as far as I know. Does anybody outside of string theory actually use it? But it’s going through the process, which is important — it just hasn’t completed it. If for some reason relativity had not panned out it would not be crank physics, it would just be wrong, unless Einstein (and followers) had continued to push it even after it had been falsified.
Quantum mechanical interpretations should not be interpreted as science. They are a bridge to understanding, of visualizing concepts, because so much of physics is a construct of the models — we occasionally forget that nobody is guaranteeing that the components of these models are real, just that nature behaves that way.
I have no knowledge of circlon theory, but if it holds to form as crank science it will have little to no math and be of limited application, solving one or two problems in science, but failing to address the broad scope that conventional science does. Thus it will not make specific predictions and would not be falsifiable.
As for the respected-scientist-as-crackpot, one has to remember we follow the evidence, not the person. You give deference to people who have made great advances, but you still test the claims.
10 Steps to Better Blogging
In recognition and preparation for next month’s ScienceOnline 2012 conference, a good list of blogging tips: 10 steps to better blogging
More Bang for the Calorie
Why Calorie Counts Are Wrong: Cooked Food Provides a Lot More Energy
[T]he Atwater Convention has two big flaws. First, it pays no attention to the extent to which food has been processed. For example, it treats grain as the same calorie value whether it is eaten whole or as highly milled flour. But smaller particles are less work to digest, and therefore provide more net energy. Second, it treats foods as equally digestible (meaning, having the same proportion digested) regardless of processing. But cooked foods, as we’ve seen, are more digestible than raw foods.
"Goodnight Dune"
Why You Won't Win the Argument
How to argue with a scientist: A guide
I have created this handy guide to arguing with a scientist precisely for people like you! I’ve collected the most commonly used phrases and translated them into everyday English, so that the next time you argue with a scientist, you’ll not only better understand their arguments, but you might learn how to make yours better, too.
Only applies to people for whom facts actually matter. But if they do, these are the things that make for more solid support of a position.
A Quint of Quads
In the first part of the video, the destination points are selected ahead of time and collision-free trajectories are pre-computed. All the trajectories are stored before execution. In the second part of the video, however, the next set of destination points is picked at random while the vehicles are still en-route, demonstrating that the algorithm is fast enough to be used in real-time.
I looked into buying one of these kinds of toys a little while ago, but there were numerous warnings about how, no matter how careful you are, you will crash and things will break, so you need to buy a spare parts amounting to a second unit, at least (and I didn’t find it to be a bargain at twice the price).
That Other Roach in Florida
The Innumeracy of Educators, or Mark Twain Was Right
Just for fun, here’s a selection of a few of the problems from the 2006 math test given to tenth graders, the one where Mr. Roach didn’t know how to answer any of them, and “Not a single one of [his friends] said that the math I described was necessary in their profession.” See if you’re smarter than a Florida school board member
It's Not Just Energy
Why energy journalism is so bad
Citing subject matter authorities is a necessary element of journalism, but so is casting a critical eye on what they say. Unfortunately, most journalists repeat what their selected authorities say verbatim, and rarely mention contrary views.
While some of the examples cited are specific to energy journalism, overall I think it’s a journalism problem, not an energy journalism (or science journalism) problem. There are far too many examples of journalists being credulous parrots or not checking what they say for reasonability.