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Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science

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Re: Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science

#41

Post by SoftwareMaven »

nanairo wrote: post #29

I think this is one of the most important points: "That said, they can also find support for their ideas in the mainstream media—because when the mainstream media gives a so-called balanced view, it’s often misleading. The media thinks that because one side says climate change is real and dangerous, the other view is that it’s not real and not dangerous. That doesn’t reflect the fact that something like 98 percent of…

Given CNN's new behavior of reporting news as defined by their viewers on Twitter, this is not too surprising.

It would be nice if news organizations went back to being cost centers separated from the organization's entertainment center.

Re: Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science

#42

Post by adolph »

nanairo wrote: post #20
adolph wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the interview: Don’t come up with a view, find everybody who agrees with it, and then say, “Look at this, I must be right.” Start off by saying, “Who do I trust?” On global warming, for example, I happen to trust climate experts, world academies of science, Nobel laureates, and certain science journalists. You have to decide who you trust before you decide what to believe. It sounds like he is advocating a trust…

What's wrong with that? I mean it's not like you get a noble prize by winning the lottery! You take random wacko on TV and noble laureate, each tells you their theory, and you (so far) don't know anything else. Who do you trust? Why? I think the title _does_ mean something: it was neither bestowed upon him randomly nor inherited by blood. Let me ask you another question: who do you think runs faster, a random guy I p…

Chill out. There is nothing in my comment to imply that there is anything wrong with title, or authority, or pink ponies. The author of the proceeding comment wrote "Trusting scientists because they use controlled experiment, peer review and other similar tools is quite a different thing than trusting them based on authority." The purpose of my comment is to say that the words attributed to Singh indicate trust based on authority indicated by title, membership, etc.

Re: Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science

#43

Post by TheAmazingIdiot »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #24
PhilipM wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, and all these bodies that the public no longer trusts should be defunded 200%. Why throw good money after bad? Defund congress, the presidency, economist liars, education bureaucrats, and especially the thieves that make up academia with its 50k a year tuitions and grad student slave labor. But getting back to Singh, he's pretty clearly an idiot on a lot of things. Cars are not the issue, global warming i…

I think your tinfoil hat is on a little tight...

I wouldnt quite say so. Perhaps, it appears that way with some of those lines...

---Absolutely, and all these bodies that the public no longer trusts should be defunded 200%. Why throw good money after bad?---

Good point. There was an idea that voters should number from 1 to N the importancy of their money going to that department. And after the votes tallied, the % of the national budget would go proportionately to those departments.

---Defund congress, the presidency, economist liars, education bureaucrats,---

Pointless. But the next part:

---and especially the thieves that make up academia with its 50k a year tuitions and grad student slave labor.

I believe e just had some interesting conversations about "How to Fail a PhD" that described the situation with upper academia. One person even alluded that the upper tiers are the last holdouts of the ancient guild system, a view I agree with. And especially, with public universities, there's no reason the exorbitant price on said degree. But he hit this one squarely.

---But getting back to Singh, he's pretty clearly an idiot on a lot of things. Cars are not the issue, global warming is man made only to the degree pigs can fly and that you believe that a functionaly retarded government buraucrat should randomly assign 20% of your money to various propaganda projects.---

When I was reading American Scientist, I paid close attention to the "Sigma XI UN Global Warming Report". It has detailed factoids of when this happens or why and such and such. And of course, the doom and gloom of (shudder) GLOBAL WARMING.

And the 2nd paragraph, not quite in the paper, but skewed aside the main article was a note saying that no test was made to determine the effects of humans.

Hmm, back up there. I can tentatively accept that GW is haappening. However, we do not know the causes. And we're arrogant enough to believe we can solve it without scientific proof of why? And some of these ideas are "Dump lime in the ocean"??

---Chiropractors are quacks, but regular doctors are even bigger quacks. And least the chiropractors do something mildly positive for your money. Surgeons are ok, but they are very deficient in whole body well being.---

Id agree. I've never been to a chiropracter, but have been to GP's before. Most of them aren't worth a damn except for the pills they push. Heck, even the doctor I was going to for my shoulder surgery was a narco-pusher. I needed them, and he provided. He would have done it over the phone, but DEA says they cant.

The fact is, yes, they have medical experience, but I know my body better than they do. And for the longest time, doctors did not listen. I, instead, found a malleable doctor and bend him to my will. If I need drugs, I get drugs. If I need tests, he finds a way to push it through insurance.

---I support the right of chiropractors to say that singh is an idiot and that of signh to say they are liars. Both viewpoints are correct and they should argue for 10s of years. The only reason 200k had to be spent was because of the corrupt laws of the fascist government of britain. The parties should have argued without money or lawyers.---

A damn true statement.

---Don't trust anyone, and don't let anyone hold your nice money. The sucker MBAs/politicians will rob you blind every time the second you trust them with any amount of money.---

Same as above. Still true.

Re: Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science

#44

Post by nanairo »

zeteo wrote: post #40
nanairo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what you mean but I think you are overlooking how easy it is to muddy the waters. You come up with a good evidence of evolution. Great: but it will take the anti-evolution just one guy that makes a somehow plausible alternative scenario, or finds one whole in your argument and suddenly people are back to square one. Despite we are _not_ back on square one. Between a theory that almost works (like evolution) and…

It's true that there's a certain amount of fuzziness, but also there's a gradient of trust between 100% and zero. Predictions that consistently come true start to dwarf alternative explanations after a while. Darwin said that the great apes are our closest living relatives, and 150 years later research finds the genetic code similarities in the 90+% range. That's pretty strong. On the other hand, it is indeed possibl…

Indeed I agree that there exist a gradient of trust. But it is this that seems to be so difficult for the non-scientific literate to understand. In part I think it's a problem that society seem to use "shown scientifically" for "it's true". If there is one thing that people should learn at school is statistics and the scientific method: a LOT more useful than trigonometry nowadays!

However my point is that it's not enough to have consistent predictions to show you are right. The examples of alternative medicine or even evolution are a good case. In the former we can do new tests, and we have: a lot of money has been spent trying and trying again different studies on homeopathy and friends. However the alternative practitioners always come up with an excuse why the scientist is wrong, or his result not meaningful. Their answers are not scientific in any way, but they can muddy the water enough that the audience feels they can't know either way.

As for climatology, I agree with you that it's hard to call those predictions. Partially I think the very clear statements of the scientists get lost and simplified through different layers of repetitions so that when you read it in the mainstream newspaper you get a very partial version.

There is also a problem that part of IPCC was _not_ strictly science. The IPCC has 3 panels from what I remember: the scientific stuff, the effect these will have on society, and ways to prevent them. The former gives proper scientific assessment but the later two less so. One of the problem of the IPCC is that many of its complains came from mistakes in the latter two groups, but they cast a shadow of doubt to the first one (the scientific one) despite the three groups have little connection to each other. (the stuff about the Himalaya melting, for example was something added by the second group, not the first one).

I am not sure how easy it is to predict climate. We do better than random guesses, so I guess there's some help there, but it's not great so it shouldn't be reported as such. (of course if people knew what error bars and standard deviation were it wouldn't be so difficult).

One problem though with chaotic systems is how difficult is to "fix" them. Maybe you can increase a variable (say pollution) up to 1000 (in an arbitrary scale) without any effect. Then if you take it that extra 10 points the whole system goes bad. People seem to think that in that case we can simply fix it by lowering the variable again, but that's not how it works. If your system moved from one attractor to another (in state space) it may be extremely hard to move back. This is why I think our best bet by far is to keep things as they are: better to err on the side of caution. (of course those are just my opinions: scientist should make predictions, but then it's society that decide what to do with them ^_^).

Re: Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science

#45

Post by nanairo »

adolph wrote: post #42
nanairo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with that? I mean it's not like you get a noble prize by winning the lottery! You take random wacko on TV and noble laureate, each tells you their theory, and you (so far) don't know anything else. Who do you trust? Why? I think the title _does_ mean something: it was neither bestowed upon him randomly nor inherited by blood. Let me ask you another question: who do you think runs faster, a random guy I p…

Chill out. There is nothing in my comment to imply that there is anything wrong with title, or authority, or pink ponies. The author of the proceeding comment wrote " Trusting scientists because they use controlled experiment, peer review and other similar tools is quite a different thing than trusting them based on authority. " The purpose of my comment is to say that the words attributed to Singh indicate trust bas…

No worries: I wasn't angry or shouting. Sorry for coming too strongly. :)

I understand what you are saying, but my point is that those two are in science a lot closer than you seem to suggest. Titles (such as a noble prize) are won thanks to reputation gained from those experiments and peer reviews. If your karma system is based on what you published and that is subjected to peer review and scientific methodology, then your reputation (i.e. your karma) are a good hint that the person knows what they are talking about.

In other words: trust scientist --> high authority --> gained by good experiments and subjected to peer review

Re: Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science

#46

Post by zeteo »

nanairo wrote: post #44
zeteo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that there's a certain amount of fuzziness, but also there's a gradient of trust between 100% and zero. Predictions that consistently come true start to dwarf alternative explanations after a while. Darwin said that the great apes are our closest living relatives, and 150 years later research finds the genetic code similarities in the 90+% range. That's pretty strong. On the other hand, it is indeed possibl…

Indeed I agree that there exist a gradient of trust. But it is this that seems to be so difficult for the non-scientific literate to understand. In part I think it's a problem that society seem to use "shown scientifically" for "it's true". If there is one thing that people should learn at school is statistics and the scientific method: a LOT more useful than trigonometry nowadays! However my point is that it's not e…

I agree with most of your points, and the info about the IPCC's inner workings is particularly interesting. And yes, we can't expect the larger part of the public to become sufficiently informed to properly evaluate even the bases of scientific discourse (at least until, as you point out, the educational system changes considerably).

My point was directed more at the _intellectually curious_ laypersons (which is, I believe, a superset of HN's readership). It's practically impossible, in this age of extremely specialized science, for outsiders to understand exactly how various scientific conclusions are arrived at. Fortunately, the task of verification is much easier, and with a small amount of self-training it is possible, I believe, to judge whether or not a certain set of scientists consistently make verifiable predictions that come true.

Re: Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science

#47

Post by [deleted] »

nanairo wrote: post #32
ErrantX wrote: post #4

Singh has, I think, won the first battle in two very long wars. The first is, of course, the science one. The other being our idiotic libel laws. From this it's clear he's very switched on too (well, that was probably not in doubt but still). This, in particular, is an important point we face: ''Scientists aren’t necessarily good communicators, because they aren’t trained to be good communicators. A researcher could…

About your last quote, I think what we need is to have scientist dedicated to the communication side of science: aka scientific journalists. I know there are a few, but we need a lot more, and like many bits of science they'll need to be sometimes paid with public money. This seems to me the only way that you can keep the scientist working on the science, and still answer all the questions that people have. Basically…

[deleted]

Re: Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science

#48

Post by oihuyjfrgtdfghj »

ErrantX wrote: post #4

Singh has, I think, won the first battle in two very long wars. The first is, of course, the science one. The other being our idiotic libel laws. From this it's clear he's very switched on too (well, that was probably not in doubt but still). This, in particular, is an important point we face: ''Scientists aren’t necessarily good communicators, because they aren’t trained to be good communicators. A researcher could…

And he hasn't won the libel war battle, the other side simply retracted the case.

So no court decision, no new case law and nothing to stop them issuing a new writ tomorrow and doing it all over again - or them doing it to somebody else who can't afford $200,000 in legal fees to defend themselves.

Re: Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science

#49

Post by ugh »

josefresco wrote: post #37
ugh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authority can be useful. I know, it’s usually scoffed at because there is a fallacy named after it. Yet there is no conceivable way in which you can be an expert in all the big fields and little niches of science. You have to use the authority shortcut. You have to find people who you can trust and let them figure it out for you. That’s just a reality of the human condition. All Singh says is that you should trust pe…

I couldn't agree more about your statement regarding authority. But oppose the behavior of trusting only those who "deal" with a subject every day. History shows many medical and scientific advances were made by smart people working outside their field.

If you are not an expert there is no reliable way for you to tell whether someone outside the field is a genius or a crank. Both is possible (though I would argue that the cranks vastly outnumber the geniuses) but if even the experts inside the field are unable to tell the difference there is no chance in hell you can. That’s the big problem.

I doesn’t really help you that scientific discoveries are from time to time made by people outside the respective fields, if you are not an expert you have no way to discern the good stuff from the bad stuff.

Re: Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science

#50

Post by anamax »

nanairo wrote: post #44
zeteo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that there's a certain amount of fuzziness, but also there's a gradient of trust between 100% and zero. Predictions that consistently come true start to dwarf alternative explanations after a while. Darwin said that the great apes are our closest living relatives, and 150 years later research finds the genetic code similarities in the 90+% range. That's pretty strong. On the other hand, it is indeed possibl…

Indeed I agree that there exist a gradient of trust. But it is this that seems to be so difficult for the non-scientific literate to understand. In part I think it's a problem that society seem to use "shown scientifically" for "it's true". If there is one thing that people should learn at school is statistics and the scientific method: a LOT more useful than trigonometry nowadays! However my point is that it's not e…

> The IPCC has 3 panels from what I remember: the scientific stuff, the effect these will have on society, and ways to prevent them. The former gives proper scientific assessment but the later two less so. One of the problem of the IPCC is that many of its complains came from mistakes in the latter two groups, but they cast a shadow of doubt to the first one (the scientific one) despite the three groups have little connection to each other. (the stuff about the Himalaya melting, for example was something added by the second group, not the first one).

Which group was Hansen part of when he said that "deniers" should be jailed?

Scientists are people and often behave as such.

For example, most of the scientists who sign the various petitions don't have relevant qualifications and haven't done relevant work. Their signatures are tribal support, not scientific evaluations.

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