Science Needs Vigilantes

[longknife]

By Neuroskeptic | December 31, 2013

Lately, there have been increasing numbers of online, unofficial – what might be called vigilante – investigations into published scientific work.

vigilance

The blog Retraction Watch and its comment section are a good example of this. Commenters, often anonymous, will get onto the trail of a certain researcher (generally following a retraction) and scrutinize their publications (e.g. here) looking for plagiarism, image manipulation, statistically improbable data, or other evidence of bad practice.

At last, people are beginning to question “scientific findings” to determine whether or not they're politically motivated or actually good science. This article has lots of links and is well-worth reading @ Science Needs Vigilantes - Neuroskeptic | DiscoverMagazine.com

 

[Steven_R]

Before we condone scientific vigilantism, how do we know the vigilantes even know what they are reading, much less why a paper is wrong? I don't want scientists spending all their time defending themselves from the allegations that some neckbeard that failed College Algebra makes.

 

[Old Rocks]

By Neuroskeptic | December 31, 2013

Lately, there have been increasing numbers of online, unofficial – what might be called vigilante – investigations into published scientific work.

vigilance

The blog Retraction Watch and its comment section are a good example of this. Commenters, often anonymous, will get onto the trail of a certain researcher (generally following a retraction) and scrutinize their publications (e.g. here) looking for plagiarism, image manipulation, statistically improbable data, or other evidence of bad practice.

At last, people are beginning to question “scientific findings” to determine whether or not they're politically motivated or actually good science. This article has lots of links and is well-worth reading @ Science Needs Vigilantes - Neuroskeptic | DiscoverMagazine.com

And when we find that some idiot has been doing nothing but lying on his or her allegations, the scientist has every right to sue the living shit out of that person. Cuccinelle, ex-attorney general of Virginia, and failed Governortorial candidate comes to mind. What a complete asshole.

 

[longknife]

By Neuroskeptic | December 31, 2013

Lately, there have been increasing numbers of online, unofficial – what might be called vigilante – investigations into published scientific work.

vigilance

The blog Retraction Watch and its comment section are a good example of this. Commenters, often anonymous, will get onto the trail of a certain researcher (generally following a retraction) and scrutinize their publications (e.g. here) looking for plagiarism, image manipulation, statistically improbable data, or other evidence of bad practice.

At last, people are beginning to question “scientific findings” to determine whether or not they're politically motivated or actually good science. This article has lots of links and is well-worth reading @ Science Needs Vigilantes - Neuroskeptic | DiscoverMagazine.com

And when we find that some idiot has been doing nothing but lying on his or her allegations, the scientist has every right to sue the living shit out of that person. Cuccinelle, ex-attorney general of Virginia, and failed Governortorial candidate comes to mind. What a complete asshole.

And you just have no choice but to bring politics into a discussion of science?

How calm and reasoned.

 

[flacaltenn]

By Neuroskeptic | December 31, 2013

Lately, there have been increasing numbers of online, unofficial – what might be called vigilante – investigations into published scientific work.

vigilance

The blog Retraction Watch and its comment section are a good example of this. Commenters, often anonymous, will get onto the trail of a certain researcher (generally following a retraction) and scrutinize their publications (e.g. here) looking for plagiarism, image manipulation, statistically improbable data, or other evidence of bad practice.

At last, people are beginning to question “scientific findings” to determine whether or not they're politically motivated or actually good science. This article has lots of links and is well-worth reading @ Science Needs Vigilantes - Neuroskeptic | DiscoverMagazine.com

There's a need for review of ANY science that affects public policy. Currently we have all KINDS of vigilantes weighing in.. CongressCritters, Sierra Club, consumer groups, corporations, and a long list of folks that aren't known FIRST for their social awkwardness and academic credentials.

Can scientists COPE with that? Sure.. Because if they don't WANT all that attention, they will refrain from "stirring the pot"..

Just finished reading Richard Feynmanns excellent autobio... He not only was a Manhattan Project bomb scientist, but contributed WIDELY outside his field of physics and was a beloved professor who taught WHAT SCIENCE REALLY IS..

"Cargo Cult Science" - by Richard Feynman

From a Caltech commencement address given in 1974
Also in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!


It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

In summary, the idea is to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another.

Wouldn't NEED vigilantes if those concepts didn't get lost every time science merged with Industry or Government to promote a position.. Since we lost the giants like Feyman, science has been TAUGHT and PROMULGATED as an advocacy weapon. Even HS texts rush to use highly charged cultural examples instead of better and broader application examples. Young student minds are not yet SKEPTICAL enough to separate authority from proof. And the general public and press are not skeptical enough by nature.

If it takes vigilantes to RESTORE a sense of service and humility to science and method, then maybe its a good thing..

 

[flacaltenn]

Might as well toss in the most important of those Feyman words. Here's the hell he sees for scientists that DON'T show enough honesty and humility..

We've learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven't tried to be very careful in this kind of work. And it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in cargo cult science

That speech ought to be the required reading for all College of Arts and Sciences freshman..

 

[rdean]

Before we condone scientific vigilantism, how do we know the vigilantes even know what they are reading, much less why a paper is wrong? I don't want scientists spending all their time defending themselves from the allegations that some neckbeard that failed College Algebra makes.

Top 10 NASA Inventions You Use Everyday

NASA's inventions benefit our lives on Earth - Technology & science - Space - Space.com | NBC News

Apollo 11 moon landing: top 15 Nasa inventions - Telegraph

Republicans think science is a faith. Like religion. They simply don't connect the computer they use or the tools the doctor uses. Or the medicines they take. Or what farmers have been taught and the feed they use. None of it to "scientists". Or alloys. Or what keeps food safe. The list of how science touches us is endless. And Republicans simply don't see the connection.

In fact, most Republicans actually believe most scientists are employed by government.

It's not just Democrats or Independents, but the entire world shakes it's collective head at the ignorance of such a large group of white people who live in both ignorance and the most advanced country in the world. Thank God for Blue States.

 

[rdean]

By Neuroskeptic | December 31, 2013

Lately, there have been increasing numbers of online, unofficial – what might be called vigilante – investigations into published scientific work.

vigilance

The blog Retraction Watch and its comment section are a good example of this. Commenters, often anonymous, will get onto the trail of a certain researcher (generally following a retraction) and scrutinize their publications (e.g. here) looking for plagiarism, image manipulation, statistically improbable data, or other evidence of bad practice.

At last, people are beginning to question “scientific findings” to determine whether or not they're politically motivated or actually good science. This article has lots of links and is well-worth reading @ Science Needs Vigilantes - Neuroskeptic | DiscoverMagazine.com

And when we find that some idiot has been doing nothing but lying on his or her allegations, the scientist has every right to sue the living shit out of that person. Cuccinelle, ex-attorney general of Virginia, and failed Governortorial candidate comes to mind. What a complete asshole.

And you just have no choice but to bring politics into a discussion of science?

How calm and reasoned.

Climate change, evolution, Republicans have been bringing politics into science for the last 30 years.

 

[ScienceRocks]

This means it needs to be defunded!!! The conslosetives want too

DEFUND SPACE TRAVEL
DEFUND NEW TELESCOPES TO discover more extraplanets
DEFUND the next generation of weather satellites
Defund nws
Defund nhc
Defund and leave to die the people surviving extreme events

Fuck you republicans.

 

[ScienceRocks]

I don't know what kind of brain disfuction can lead some moron to hate science so much? Do they wish we never developed the tech to double life spans, do they wish we never started to give our children education???

What kind of shit is this????

 

[JimBowie1958]

Before we condone scientific vigilantism, how do we know the vigilantes even know what they are reading, much less why a paper is wrong? I don't want scientists spending all their time defending themselves from the allegations that some neckbeard that failed College Algebra makes.

Top 10 NASA Inventions You Use Everyday

NASA's inventions benefit our lives on Earth - Technology & science - Space - Space.com | NBC News

Apollo 11 moon landing: top 15 Nasa inventions - Telegraph

Republicans think science is a faith. Like religion. They simply don't connect the computer they use or the tools the doctor uses. Or the medicines they take. Or what farmers have been taught and the feed they use. None of it to "scientists". Or alloys. Or what keeps food safe. The list of how science touches us is endless. And Republicans simply don't see the connection.

In fact, most Republicans actually believe most scientists are employed by government.

It's not just Democrats or Independents, but the entire world shakes it's collective head at the ignorance of such a large group of white people who live in both ignorance and the most advanced country in the world. Thank God for Blue States.

Yep, leave it to a libtard to bring race and politics into a discussion of science.

 

[JimBowie1958]

This means it needs to be defunded!!! The conslosetives want too

DEFUND SPACE TRAVEL
DEFUND NEW TELESCOPES TO discover more extraplanets
DEFUND the next generation of weather satellites
Defund nws
Defund nhc
Defund and leave to die the people surviving extreme events

Fuck you republicans.

What are you talking about? Sequestration?

Seems like you drank some Kool Aid somewhere.

 

[JimBowie1958]

I don't know what kind of brain disfuction can lead some moron to hate science so much? Do they wish we never developed the tech to double life spans, do they wish we never started to give our children education???

What kind of shit is this????

People that double check published papers are doing the scientific establishment a FAVOR.

If the peer review process would do due diligence none of this would be an issue.

And you can start tossing out the garbage with Mann whose hockey stick graph and anti-science efforts are a shame to real science, Matthew.

 

[Old Rocks]

By Neuroskeptic | December 31, 2013

Lately, there have been increasing numbers of online, unofficial – what might be called vigilante – investigations into published scientific work.

vigilance

The blog Retraction Watch and its comment section are a good example of this. Commenters, often anonymous, will get onto the trail of a certain researcher (generally following a retraction) and scrutinize their publications (e.g. here) looking for plagiarism, image manipulation, statistically improbable data, or other evidence of bad practice.

At last, people are beginning to question “scientific findings” to determine whether or not they're politically motivated or actually good science. This article has lots of links and is well-worth reading @ Science Needs Vigilantes - Neuroskeptic | DiscoverMagazine.com

And when we find that some idiot has been doing nothing but lying on his or her allegations, the scientist has every right to sue the living shit out of that person. Cuccinelle, ex-attorney general of Virginia, and failed Governortorial candidate comes to mind. What a complete asshole.

And you just have no choice but to bring politics into a discussion of science?

How calm and reasoned.

This is not a discussion of science, it is a discussion of vigilantes destroying science. We have judgment on science, it is called peer review. Many do not like it because the people the do the judging are fellow experts on the subject, rather than political appointees that the 'vigilantes' would be.

I see this kind of thing all the time. And inevitably the person pushing the idiocy has zero scientfic credentials.

 

[Old Rocks]

I don't know what kind of brain disfuction can lead some moron to hate science so much? Do they wish we never developed the tech to double life spans, do they wish we never started to give our children education???

What kind of shit is this????

People that double check published papers are doing the scientific establishment a FAVOR.

If the peer review process would do due diligence none of this would be an issue.

And you can start tossing out the garbage with Mann whose hockey stick graph and anti-science efforts are a shame to real science, Matthew.

Really? So, link to scientific papers in peer reviewed journals that declare the Mann paper garbage. In the meantime, here you can find papers that support the Mann graph;

What evidence is there for the hockey stick?

A critique of the hockey stick was published in 2004 (McIntyre 2004), claiming the hockey stick shape was the inevitable result of the statistical method used (principal components analysis). They also claimed temperatures over the 15th Century were derived from one bristlecone pine proxy record. They concluded that the hockey stick shape was not statistically significant.

An independent assessment of Mann's hockey stick was conducted by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (Wahl 2007). They reconstructed temperatures employing a variety of statistical techniques (with and without principal components analysis). Their results found slightly different temperatures in the early 15th Century. However, they confirmed the principal results of the original hockey stick - that the warming trend and temperatures over the last few decades are unprecedented over at least the last 600 years.

While many continue to fixate on Mann's early work on proxy records, the science of paleoclimatology has moved on. Since 1999, there have been many independent reconstructions of past temperatures, using a variety of proxy data and a number of different methodologies. All find the same result - that the last few decades are the hottest in the last 500 to 2000 years (depending on how far back the reconstruction goes). What are some of the proxies that are used to determine past temperature?

Changes in surface temperature send thermal waves underground, cooling or warming the subterranean rock. To track these changes, underground temperature measurements were examined from over 350 bore holes in North America, Europe, Southern Africa and Australia (Huang 2000). Borehole reconstructions aren't able to give short term variation, yielding only century-scale trends. What they find is that the 20th century is the warmest of the past five centuries with the strongest warming trend in 500 years.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Science Needs No Vigilantes

Peer review fulfills the role of keep science on track, because it is motivated by the review of empirical data bedrocking conclusions.

Vigilantes review the philosophy bedrocking the assertions: very, very poor attempts at review.

 

[Old Rocks]

I don't know what kind of brain disfuction can lead some moron to hate science so much? Do they wish we never developed the tech to double life spans, do they wish we never started to give our children education???

What kind of shit is this????

People that double check published papers are doing the scientific establishment a FAVOR.

If the peer review process would do due diligence none of this would be an issue.

And you can start tossing out the garbage with Mann whose hockey stick graph and anti-science efforts are a shame to real science, Matthew.

So, you are suggesting that people like you do the review? No education in science, but you consider yourself capable of judging scientists papers? Wow.

 

[JimBowie1958]

And when we find that some idiot has been doing nothing but lying on his or her allegations, the scientist has every right to sue the living shit out of that person. Cuccinelle, ex-attorney general of Virginia, and failed Governortorial candidate comes to mind. What a complete asshole.

And you just have no choice but to bring politics into a discussion of science?

How calm and reasoned.

This is not a discussion of science, it is a discussion of vigilantes destroying science. We have judgment on science, it is called peer review. Many do not like it because the people the do the judging are fellow experts on the subject, rather than political appointees that the 'vigilantes' would be.

I see this kind of thing all the time. And inevitably the person pushing the idiocy has zero scientfic credentials.

There is nothing 'destroying' science when amateurs get it right and correct the experts, which has happened a few times, doofus.

 

[JimBowie1958]

I don't know what kind of brain disfuction can lead some moron to hate science so much? Do they wish we never developed the tech to double life spans, do they wish we never started to give our children education???

What kind of shit is this????

People that double check published papers are doing the scientific establishment a FAVOR.

If the peer review process would do due diligence none of this would be an issue.

And you can start tossing out the garbage with Mann whose hockey stick graph and anti-science efforts are a shame to real science, Matthew.

Really? So, link to scientific papers in peer reviewed journals that declare the Mann paper garbage. In the meantime, here you can find papers that support the Mann graph;

What evidence is there for the hockey stick?

A critique of the hockey stick was published in 2004 (McIntyre 2004), claiming the hockey stick shape was the inevitable result of the statistical method used (principal components analysis). They also claimed temperatures over the 15th Century were derived from one bristlecone pine proxy record. They concluded that the hockey stick shape was not statistically significant.

An independent assessment of Mann's hockey stick was conducted by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (Wahl 2007). They reconstructed temperatures employing a variety of statistical techniques (with and without principal components analysis). Their results found slightly different temperatures in the early 15th Century. However, they confirmed the principal results of the original hockey stick - that the warming trend and temperatures over the last few decades are unprecedented over at least the last 600 years.

While many continue to fixate on Mann's early work on proxy records, the science of paleoclimatology has moved on. Since 1999, there have been many independent reconstructions of past temperatures, using a variety of proxy data and a number of different methodologies. All find the same result - that the last few decades are the hottest in the last 500 to 2000 years (depending on how far back the reconstruction goes). What are some of the proxies that are used to determine past temperature?

Changes in surface temperature send thermal waves underground, cooling or warming the subterranean rock. To track these changes, underground temperature measurements were examined from over 350 bore holes in North America, Europe, Southern Africa and Australia (Huang 2000). Borehole reconstructions aren't able to give short term variation, yielding only century-scale trends. What they find is that the 20th century is the warmest of the past five centuries with the strongest warming trend in 500 years.

Bullshit.

Mann used proxy tree ring data until it became inconvenient then he tossed it in favor of actual measured temps while the proxy data showed a continued drop in temperature for the past 50 years.

You establishment ass wipes cant think about science without appealing to authority like some half wit legal clerk, 'But Dr. So-n-so says it is valid...' but never dealing with the evidence directly.

Mann should be shot for fraud like they do in China.

 

[Old Rocks]

And you just have no choice but to bring politics into a discussion of science?

How calm and reasoned.

This is not a discussion of science, it is a discussion of vigilantes destroying science. We have judgment on science, it is called peer review. Many do not like it because the people the do the judging are fellow experts on the subject, rather than political appointees that the 'vigilantes' would be.

I see this kind of thing all the time. And inevitably the person pushing the idiocy has zero scientfic credentials.

There is nothing 'destroying' science when amateurs get it right and correct the experts, which has happened a few times, doofus.

Yes it has. But I see no amateurs getting the science right on AGW. Most that have published on that subject, such as Monkton, are total fruitloops and have got it totally wrong. And having really stupid politically driven people judging what is science is the best way in the world to get it all wrong. An example of that, exactly the kind of thing you are promoting, was agriculture in the Soviet Union.