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A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

andrewgelman.com

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Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#51

Post by mafribe »

theWatcher37 wrote: post #44
kem wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had this same conversation with colleagues. I think there's a mixture of things going on. There's a lot more of this going on in a lot of fields, especially the biomedical and social sciences, but probably everywhere. I think conservatives are correct to pick up on this general phenomenon. They know there's a lot of systemic problems with research and academics, and approach things from that perspective. The pro…

Also some of them are older and remember the "2nd iceage" and "uncontrollable acid rain" doom and gloom. Unfortunately the media has done a lot to poison the well on these topics, coupled with politicians all too happy to never let a crisis go to waste. Republicans yelling "small government" while trying to make a government big enough to police your bedroom. Democrats yell about stopping climate change and pump bill…

   "2nd iceage" and "uncontrollable 
   acid rain" doom and gloom.
It would be an interesting object of study in the history of science to look at old papers in these fields, and at the structure of funding, who was benefitting from funding given to these research subjects, how political pressure was used to silence critics of the scientific merit e.g. forest dieback etc. In retrospect we know that none of the hypotheses held up. Why did they gain such a currency at the time?

The "acid rain will destroy our forests" doom/gloom seems to have originated from a single person, Bernhard Ulrich [1] from the University of Göttingen. His dire warning gained immediate currency in a political climate where a new form of left-wing activism (now known as "Green Party" in various countries) was beginning to emerge. Political activists from the "Green" side of the spectrum effectively demonised all criticism of "acid rain will destroy our forests" and lead to generous funding for any research that seemed to corroborate the doom/gloom, triggering a self-reinforcing spiral.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Ulrich_(Forstwissensc...

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#52

Post by throwanem »

staticautomatic wrote: post #42
mythrwy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be noted that some conservatives believe in man made climate change. (although they may differ on an appropriate response). And presumably (although I've never seen it) there is at least one liberal who doesn't.

Why should there be liberals who do not believe in global warming?

Why shouldn't there?

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#53

Post by mafribe »

froindt wrote: post #12
Andys wrote: post #4

I still don't understand: Is there any good reason that raw data should not be published along with each paper?

It depends on the situation. I work with a professor who came from industry. He once worked on a project where they did massive data collection inside the military. Over $1 million was spent over 2 weeks collecting data. A couple months after, some researcher called and said "Hey, I heard about the data you collected. Would you mind passing it on to me?". Of course the answer was no, not until we publish damn near ev…

Where's the problem? If that $1 million came from public sources, then the data should have been shared from day one. If others use the data they should put the originators on the data as coauthors on the resulting papers.

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#54

Post by watwut »

froindt wrote: post #25
nonbel wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be certain. A lot of researchers really are clueless about anything to do with statistics. It takes much more work/time to do real research, so the funding system has actually been selecting for people who can remain ignorant (so it is not fraud) and just produce p-hacked "results". In many areas, this has been going on for multiple generations now and you are trained to do it as a grad student.

> I wouldn't be certain. A lot of researchers really are clueless about anything to do with statistics. This is definitely true. I once saw a book with a title similar to "Statistics for Dummies" in a professors office. He had plenty of access to staticians at the university too. Unfortunately if a given field involves many people with ignorance of statistics, these problems may not be called out during the peer revi…

> He had plenty of access to staticians at the university too.

Assuming the book is for his own learning, as opposed just curiosity or for students etc, there is still nothing wrong with learning from book. Assuming he really dont know the statistics.

And it definitely beats up people who don't know either, but prefer to stay ignorant just so they don't look like someone who reads beginners book.

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#55

Post by sideshowb »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #24

A sidenote: Using a snappy XKCD is not a valid logical argument even though the poster might think it makes one look hip and cool. I wish researchers were not this lazy. There are at least a handful of valid arguments that one could use rather than an XKCD cartoon.

That XKCD cartoon succinctly shows the problem with multiple testing. If every scientific paper were as clear, accurate and impactful as that we would have solved half the issues with science discussed on this comment thread.

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#56

Post by makomk »

theWatcher37 wrote: post #44
kem wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had this same conversation with colleagues. I think there's a mixture of things going on. There's a lot more of this going on in a lot of fields, especially the biomedical and social sciences, but probably everywhere. I think conservatives are correct to pick up on this general phenomenon. They know there's a lot of systemic problems with research and academics, and approach things from that perspective. The pro…

Also some of them are older and remember the "2nd iceage" and "uncontrollable acid rain" doom and gloom. Unfortunately the media has done a lot to poison the well on these topics, coupled with politicians all too happy to never let a crisis go to waste. Republicans yelling "small government" while trying to make a government big enough to police your bedroom. Democrats yell about stopping climate change and pump bill…

Yeah. It's certainly interesting watching conservatives pointing to the fact that acid rail didn't turn into a catastrophe to justify their opposition to the kinds of emission limit that actually put a stop to acid rain in the first place.

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#59

Post by closed »

froindt wrote: post #39
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I once saw a book with a title similar to "Statistics for Dummies" in a professors office. // Could easily have been a handy reference text for lending or showing to erring students/faculty.

I really hope so. It was a stat strong department (but not statistics).

I have all kinds of books like that, for teaching / perusing, but now am going to sandwich them with hardcore math books out of paranoia

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#60

Post by skj »

theWatcher37 wrote: post #43
throwaway729 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thought: ridiculous false equivalency. Conservatives don't distrust science carte blanc. Many of them will chuck money at asinine bullshit as long as it's billed as a way to kill the other team. Check out some of the more ridiculous stuff to come out of DoD. They distrust climate science. And they don't distrust the actual science, just the conclusions. And increasingly not even the most basic conclusion, just the…

Meanwhile, anti-vax is huge in liberal soccer-mom only-shops-at-whole-foods cities. The left has its fair share of science-denying morons as well.

Plenty of anti-vaxers on the right, and the left makes plenty of fun of the ones on the left. Not really the same as climate deniers.
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