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To an alarming degree, science is not self-correcting

economist.com

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Re: To an alarming degree, science is not self-correcting

#131

Post by unhammer »

tokenadult wrote: post #14

This is an excellent overview article on an important topic. It mentions many of the most influential authors on the topic of accuracy of scientific publications. Hacker News readers may enjoy "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation"[1] by Peter Norvig, a LISP hacker who is now director of research at Google, on how to interpret scientific research. Norvig's essay is my all-time favorite link to shar…

For people interested in reproducability in computational linguistics and NLP, I recommend http://lingpipe-blog.com/2013/09/25/fokkens-et-al-on-reprodu... and the article linked within. One of the authors of "Replication Failure" has another, slightly older but really awesome paper: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse/Pubs/pedersen-last-word-2008....

Re: To an alarming degree, science is not self-correcting

#132

Post by dekhn »

Alex3917 wrote: post #88
tokenadult wrote: post #14

This is an excellent overview article on an important topic. It mentions many of the most influential authors on the topic of accuracy of scientific publications. Hacker News readers may enjoy "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation"[1] by Peter Norvig, a LISP hacker who is now director of research at Google, on how to interpret scientific research. Norvig's essay is my all-time favorite link to shar…

> Warning Sign I5: Taking p too Seriously What does it say about X when you have 10 studies saying X is true with p Also, while I do like norvig's essay, all the errors he goes through are fairly pedestrian. If you read the modern scientific literature on research, the rabbit hole goes vastly deeper. (Assuming researchers researching researchers are more trustworthy than researchers.)

Nothing is ever "proven". We merely make statements that become increasingly challenging to show are likely to be false based on human judgement of experimental methods.

P values are estimates of the probability that a given observation is likely to have come about by chance, rather than due to a hypothetical model. They have many problems and it is best to think about them with a solid understanding of probability.

If there was a case where you have as many conflicting results as you say, then it would be indicative of a very active scientific community and problem. People would be working hard to resolve the problem!

Re: To an alarming degree, science is not self-correcting

#133

Post by dekhn »

vortmeester wrote: post #32
pnathan wrote: post #13

In my experience at the university performing graduate research - * Newness is prized * Replicating old science is not prized * Funding and papers happens for breakthroughs In software engineering - * many bugs in code creep through exacting peer reviews. Recapping the short list: new things make you money, reviewing things is error prone, replicating old things doesn't make you money until someone wants to rely on t…

As an experimental physicist, I want to point out that negative results do get published -- for example, much of the experimental work on gravity amounts to the showing of no measurable difference from theoretical expectation, to a high degree of accuracy [1] -- but writing the papers for them is much harder than writing up positive results. The reason is simple: you have to convincingly show that your failure to sho…

Even positive results aren't always convincing when they go against the scientific mainstream. For example, consider the Avery/Macleod experiment that showed genes and chromosomes (and thus the heredity) were made of DNA- positive result, easy to analyze the methods and results- and frequently ignored.

It wasn't until the far simpler and more unambiguous experiment- that even physicists could understand- Hershey/Chase was done. But oddly, it was a negative result when it was published: "protein is not the heredity molecule" although by reasonable exclusion, one could easily conclude that DNA was almost certainly the heredity molecule.

Even then, a lot of other evidence was required for the mainstream community to accept this. Protein bias is long and exists today.

Re: To an alarming degree, science is not self-correcting

#134

Post by pbhjpbhj »

TillE wrote: post #43
saraid216 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sort of amuses me that there are HN climate change denialists, but there aren't really any HN creationists.

It makes sense, though. AGW denialism is very much a part of "pro-business" ideology, because it's uncomfortable to accept things that don't align with your worldview, even when there's a mountain of evidence behind it. HN has no particular attraction for fundamentalist Christians.

>HN has no particular attraction for fundamentalist Christians. //

Totally OT as it is, what are you getting at here?

Re: To an alarming degree, science is not self-correcting

#135

Post by pbhjpbhj »

guscost wrote: post #58
timr wrote: post #24

What a weird article. I agree with nearly every individual fact within it, but after reading it, I still don't know the point of the piece. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but given that this piece is mostly criticism of science the part of me that associates "conservatives" with "anti-intellectual reactionaries" suspects a hidden agenda to undermine science or give climate change "skeptics" something to point a…

Thanks for avoiding the strawman "denier" nonsense, but I think you're looking for the phrase "CAGW-informed-legislation critics." Why would a rational person criticize the assumption that climate changes?

"Climate change" in this context is short-hand for "human modified climate change" and generally refers to climate change accelerated by human production of CO2.

That said, criticising assumptions is perfectly rational.

Re: To an alarming degree, science is not self-correcting

#136

Post by pdonis »

snowwrestler wrote: post #107
pdonis wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You expect us to believe that you have developed substantive critiques of a 3-year research project in 24 minutes of reading. I don't expect you to "believe" anything. I expect you to look at the items I pointed out and see what you think of them. If you don't agree with them, feel free to give specific reasons why not. your un-ironic reliance on the blog of a retired TV weather guy. I didn't bring Watts into it; the…

Sorry, that was a snap response. Once again I've taught myself the value of posting slowly. c) is wrong; I mistook you for someone else in the discussion. I noted so in an edit. For the rest, I think lamontcg put it better than I could have.

c) is wrong; I mistook you for someone else in the discussion. I noted so in an edit.

I just saw the edit, thanks for clarifying.

Re: To an alarming degree, science is not self-correcting

#137

Post by pdonis »

XorNot wrote: post #125
pdonis wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look at it. The data back to 1860 are also sufficient to establish the current warming trend Only if you assume that there are no significant cyclic effects on longer time scales. Climate science as a discipline does not hinge on knowing exactly how warm it was 250 years ago within +/- 0.5C. It does if you're claiming, as the IPCC does based on the input of climate scientists, that te…

This is not as relevant as you're implying - if there are cyclic effects on long time scales, you're implying they're highly exponential - long periods of no warming, and then sudden periods of rapid warming (oddly correlated with the rise in human CO2 emissions at that). There's no postulated mechanism for how this could be the case - where is the extra energy or heat retention coming from and managing to come into…

if there are cyclic effects on long time scales, you're implying they're highly exponential

I'm implying no such thing. Consider an analogy: I look at the temperature trend from February through May and conclude that I have enough data to show a significant warming trend. I therefore predict that by November, the planet will be dangerously overheated.

Obviously I have ignored a cyclic effect on a longer timescale. Is it "highly exponential" as you describe?

long periods of no warming, and then sudden periods of rapid warming

This is not what the data shows; at least, not if you look at all the data, not just a few selected temperature reconstructions that are questionable (at best) anyway. The data in full, looking at a number of different fields, shows a cycle with a period of about 800 to 1000 years; the last iteration of the cycle consisted of the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, and we are nearing the next maximum of the cycle now.

This is not to say that human activities (of which CO2 emissions are only one component: why is it that nobody talks about land use?) have had no effect on the climate. (Arguably, humans terraforming the planet has been a significant factor in keeping another Ice Age from starting.) But if you're using the wrong baseline, it's tough to separate the human effects from the other effects.

Re: To an alarming degree, science is not self-correcting

#138

Post by XorNot »

pdonis wrote: post #137
XorNot wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not as relevant as you're implying - if there are cyclic effects on long time scales, you're implying they're highly exponential - long periods of no warming, and then sudden periods of rapid warming (oddly correlated with the rise in human CO2 emissions at that). There's no postulated mechanism for how this could be the case - where is the extra energy or heat retention coming from and managing to come into…

if there are cyclic effects on long time scales, you're implying they're highly exponential I'm implying no such thing. Consider an analogy: I look at the temperature trend from February through May and conclude that I have enough data to show a significant warming trend. I therefore predict that by November, the planet will be dangerously overheated. Obviously I have ignored a cyclic effect on a longer timescale. Is…

Except no one is simply curve fitting the data - you haven't proposed any alternative mechanism that leads to a multi-decadal warming cycle.

That's what anthropogenic climate change is - since the only effect that suitably explains warming is increased eCO2 in the atmosphere.

Absent (effective)CO2 increases, you can't explain the warming trend. There shouldn't be one as pronounced.

If you're going to say "well what if there's a long cycle" - then well, what is it exactly? Where is all this additional heat retention in the atmosphere coming from? There are no multi-decadal phenomena on Earth which can explain the temperature record.

EDIT: The data for example, does not show a 1000 year cycle. You're inferring there's a cycle, by doing what you accuse others of - pointing to a graph, and declaring that because it looks "roughly" cyclical it is.

Re: To an alarming degree, science is not self-correcting

#139

Post by guscost »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #135
guscost wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for avoiding the strawman "denier" nonsense, but I think you're looking for the phrase "CAGW-informed-legislation critics." Why would a rational person criticize the assumption that climate changes?

"Climate change" in this context is short-hand for "human modified climate change" and generally refers to climate change accelerated by human production of CO2. That said, criticising assumptions is perfectly rational.

Perhaps I meant to say "practical person" instead.

Re: To an alarming degree, science is not self-correcting

#140

Post by lamontcg »

pdonis wrote: post #101
lamontcg wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They looked at siting effects as well: http://www.scitechnol.com/2327-4581/2327-4581-1-107.php They used Watts own siting data and showed that both poor and good sites showed the same temperature trend over time. The data back to 1860 are also sufficient to establish the current warming trend and through other analysis (e.g. Meehl, et al's work) to establish the climate sensitivity. Climate science as a discipline do…

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look at it. The data back to 1860 are also sufficient to establish the current warming trend Only if you assume that there are no significant cyclic effects on longer time scales. Climate science as a discipline does not hinge on knowing exactly how warm it was 250 years ago within +/- 0.5C. It does if you're claiming, as the IPCC does based on the input of climate scientists, that te…

"Only if you assume that there are no significant cyclic effects on longer time scales."

We know about cyclical effects on longer time scales like Milankovich cycles, we understand solar variation and volcanic effects. We know about the Younger Dryas and Daansgard-Oeschger cycles. We know about shorter term oscillations like the AMO and PDO.

You apparently know nothing of any of this, and have never heard of Muller's BEST study even though it was splattered all over the New York Times a few years back. Yet, you feel competent enough to make statements about how climatology isn't a real science.

We also know about something called the Dunning-Kruger effect.

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