In testimony before Congress on March 5th Bruce Alberts, then the editor of Science, outlined what needs to be done to bolster the credibility of the scientific enterprise. Journals must do more to enforce standards. Checklists such as the one introduced by Nature should be adopted widely, to help guard against the most common research errors. Budding scientists must be taught technical skills, including statistics, and must be imbued with scepticism towards their own results and those of others. Researchers ought to be judged on the basis of the quality, not the quantity, of their work. Funding agencies should encourage replications and lower the barriers to reporting serious efforts which failed to reproduce a published result. Information about such failures ought to be attached to the original publications.
And scientists themselves, Dr Alberts insisted, “need to develop a value system where simply moving on from one’s mistakes without publicly acknowledging them severely damages, rather than protects, a scientific reputation.” This will not be easy. But if science is to stay on its tracks, and be worthy of the trust so widely invested in it, it may be necessary.
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If anything, then surely the fact that Science is done via peer-reviewed publications in respectable journals following the Scientific Method.
Mr Brown did not write blog posts about his discoveries nor did he give multiple TV interviews nor write op-eds. He made a discovery, he sought help from a real psychology professor and a real mathematician and physicist and together they wrote a peer-reviewed paper on the issue which got published.
I do hope that all those who so frequently get their denial climate 'science' from blogs, articles and op-eds written by TV weathermen, fake lords, and industry funded 'experts' take note. But I guess that too is Wishful Thinking.
I am not sure about lessons for climate science. At least there is some science involved, I am never quite so sure about psychology.
If we are quoting favourite funny bits here is mine:
"One could describe a team’s interactions as 'sparky' and con?dently predict that their emotions would be subject to the same laws that govern the dielectric breakdown of air under the in?uence of an electric ?eld. Alternatively, the interactions of a team of researchers whose journal articles are characterized by 'smoke and mirrors' could be modeled using the physics of airborne particulate combustion residues, combined in some way with classical optics."
I guess I never considered psychology a true science. It sometimes tries to be but usually fails IMO. Climate science should be a true science but it too seems to fail all too often in maintaining rigorous scientific standards (e.g Mann). It does show how often things are simply accepted instead of maintaining a skeptical scientific attitude. I thought Ottawa Mike's quote was quite appropriate.
Nice post! Short-term memories seem to be prevalent in the science community. The Earth has a memory that is billions of years old. Scientific arrogance has run amok. Enough with scientific claims of catastrophic analysis from so-called experts!
I'm sure Gringo and all of the other fear-mongers here will remain showing their scientific arrogance though.
Well that was an interesting read and I encourage people to spend the 15-20 minutes doing so. It gives insight for anybody who is unclear what Richard Feynman meant when he was famously quoted: “Science Is The Belief In The Ignorance Of Experts”.
My favorite line, which is new to my vocabulary, is: “I don’t like people who take the p-iss,”. I had to look that one up and found it is British in origin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taking_the_... There's your connection to climate science, or more accurately, select "rock star" climate scientists, many followers of AGW, the media, many YA members here, activists, some politicians, etc.
A fascinating article that has absolutely nothing to do with climate science.
Yes, be careful using any results from psychology papers, and don't pay attention to climate deniers that make mistakes constantly but won't admit them (e.g. Zippi62, Ottawa Mike).
Perhaps. But don't park your Smart Car and dust off your Hummer, yet.
This has no impact on GW
http://narrative.ly/pieces-of-mind/nick-brown-smelled-bull/
“For me, the real question is not about X or Y or Z,” Sokal says. “It’s about the whole community. Why is it that no one before N―and I mean N was a first semester part-time Master’s student, at, let’s be honest, a fairly obscure university in London who has no particular training in mathematics―why is it that no one realized this stuff was bullshit? Where were all the supposed experts?”
“Is it really true that no one saw through this,” he asks, “in an article that was cited 350 times, in a field which touts itself as being so scientific?”
