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Billionaire Technologist Accuses NASA Asteroid Mission of Bad Statistics (sciencemag.org)
Taco Cowboy quotes a report from Science Magazine: Nathan Myhrvold, ex-CTO of Microsoft, is accusing NASA of providing bad statistics on asteroid size. Mr. Myhrvold alleged that scientists using a prominent NASA space telescope have made fundamental mistakes in their assessment of the size of more than 157,000 asteroids they have observed. In a paper posted to the arXiv.org e-print repository on 22 May, Myhrvold takes aim at the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), a space telescope launched in 2009, and a follow-on mission, NEOWISE, which together are responsible for the discovery of more asteroids than any other observatory. Yet Myhrvold says that the WISE and NEOWISE teams' papers are riddled with statistical missteps. "None of their results can be replicated," he tells ScienceInsider. "I found one irregularity after another" Myhrvold says the NASA teams have made mistakes, such as ignoring the margin of error introduced when extrapolating from a small sample size to an entire population. They also neglected to include Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation in their thermal models of the asteroids. Based on his own models, Myhrvold says that errors in the asteroid diameters based on WISE data should be 30%. In some cases, the size errors rise to as large as 300%. "Asteroids are more variable than we thought they were," he says. He has submitted the paper to the journal Icarus for review. However, the WISE and NEOWISE teams are standing by their results, and say that Myhrvold's criticism should be dismissed. "For every mistake I found in his paper, if I got a bounty, I would be rich," says Ned Wright, the principal investigator for WISE at the University of California, Los Angeles. Wright says that WISE's data match very well with two other infrared telescopes, AKARI and IRAS. To find out how accurately those infrared data determine the size of an asteroid, scientists have to calibrate them with radar observations, other observations made when asteroids pass in front of distant stars, and observations made by spacecraft up close. When they do that, Wright says, WISE's size errors end up at roughly 15%. Wright says his team doesn't have Myhrvold's computer codes, "so we don't know why he's screwing up." But Wright archly noted that Myhrvold once worked at Microsoft, so "is responsible in part for a lot of bad software."
He has also attacked other researchers in other fields: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/science/earth/outsider-challenges-papers-on-growth-of-dinosaurs.html
Shame he's been unable to locate the stick lodged in his butt.
" we're witnessing a new class of rich assholes who think they're superman or something"
er, no, that class is as old as civilization. We used to call them kings or lords.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The last statement in the summary is completely uncalled for.
Ned Wright is known to have a pretty sharp wit. Besides, Myhrvold used his notoriety to grandstand with the press before his work was peer-reviewed, basically calling Wright a moron. I would get a little testy too.
The burden of proof here is on both sides.
Really. What the fuck does that even mean?
WISE has publicly released its data, and published multiple analysis papers in peer-reviewed journals . What, exactly, more do you expect them to do?
Isn't that this patent troll?
Yes, he turned to the Dark Side. I have nothing but revulsion for the disgusting douche that Myhrvold has become.
There is a lot of misinformation below. Myhrvold was, in fact, a huge part of the development of the Win32 API, essentially the architect. Win32 is and was Windows. I understand he also pushed to have that little code snippet at the bottom of all the official API documentation that was shipped with many MS products and more. That documentation ended up in all kids of things including the Borland C++ compiler, competing products, et cetera. Anyone old enough to remember what developing professionally for Windows was like in the early nineties should remember how helpful Win32 and that documentation was.
Apparently working for and observing uber-douches like Gates and Ballmer convinced Myhrvold to become a true Piece of Shit(r)(c) bad human being and go the route of a revolting Patent Troll, one of the worst. I used to practically worship the guy, his work, and his story. That old saying of "never meet your heroes" is oh so true. I wish nothing but the worst for what he is now, a complete failure, in every sense of the word. He is such a fool now, he is doing low-life crap like this article recounts. Pathetic.
On the other hand, Myhrvold made verifiable claims and corrections, whereas the NASA guys basically just went full ad hominem.
1. The NASA WISE team released all their data to the public, and publish their results in peer-reviewed journals. The whole reason he can do this analysis is because they are open with the data. I think it's a little disingenuous to say that they don't make "verifiable claims and corrections."
On the other hand, Myhrvold has not made verifiable claims, and hasn't published in peer-reviewed journals. He says he's done a reanalysis, but according to the article: "Wright says his team doesn’t have Myhrvold’s computer codes, “so we don’t know why he’s screwing up.”
2. What NASA guys are "basically full ad hominem"? In the article cited, there was one-- count it, one-- snarky comment. Which I think was deserved.
I can't say who's right either, but I think NASA is showing a serious lack of professionalism.
You know, sometimes you get tired of people who basically don't seem to know anything about a subject telling you that you are completely wrong and don't know what you're doing. One guy made one snarky comment. Give them a little slack, "NASA guys" are human, too.
Shit happens, and yes, it's possible that someone outside the inner circle calls you up on it.
And crackpots happen, and yes, it's possible that somebody who is completely full of confidence but doesn't really know the field and has never done this kind of analysis before is full of s**t.