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Most Scientists 'Can't Replicate Studies By Their Peers' (bbc.com)
Science is facing a "reproducibility crisis" where more than two-thirds of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, research suggests. From a report: This is frustrating clinicians and drug developers who want solid foundations of pre-clinical research to build upon. From his lab at the University of Virginia's Centre for Open Science, immunologist Dr Tim Errington runs The Reproducibility Project, which attempted to repeat the findings reported in five landmark cancer studies. "The idea here is to take a bunch of experiments and to try and do the exact same thing to see if we can get the same results." You could be forgiven for thinking that should be easy. Experiments are supposed to be replicable. The authors should have done it themselves before publication, and all you have to do is read the methods section in the paper and follow the instructions. Sadly nothing, it seems, could be further from the truth.
If you can't reproduce it, it's either fake or you were just being sloppy. Either way, it's no wonder ordinary civilians have doubts.
Drug trials are limited in scope because there are restrictions on the patents of the studied compounds, which greatly limits the capacity to replicate the trial. Multiple studies have been done on climate, which is more open access.
As per the subject, this comes from the collision of two things that are completely counter to the process of science.
1) Patent theory. Since many more nations have access to patents than actually respect patents, it is self-destructive to put enough detail in a patent to actually build what the patent is for. For research papers, this has the benefit of being informed of any attempts to replicate the study, because the other labs will call in and ask questions to find out what was left out. This lets the guy who signed the paper know who is working in the same field and can decide whether to be helpful or antagonistic.
2) Fiction. "Publish or perish! " "No one actually reads the papers!" "Everyone else is too busy writing their own papers to even look at replicating the experiment, who cares if it doesn't actually work?" And other little labor-saving excuses that show scientists are just as dishonest and self-serving as politicians.
From the article, it seems like people are trying to write things in a way to make them prettier... and less accurate. Quote: "The trouble is that gives you a rose-tinted view of the evidence because the results that get published tend to be the most interesting, the most exciting, novel, eye-catching, unexpected results. "
This is slightly on topic... take the wording from wikipedia that seems to be designed to appeal to the masses and probably has misinformation (looks like big pharmacy got their hands in this entry, phobia of skin thinning is mostly unfounded?) and then the words from an Indian dermatology website with lots of actual biology verbiage and sure seems to support the fact that steroid use for your skin is bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Indian Journal of Dermatology:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
Random thing I found about scientists having problems with bad wikipedia entries:
http://www.raysahelian.com/wik...
The controlled, careful experiments which prove anthropogenic global warming are easily reproducible and their results incontrovertible. These experiments are real, really exist, completely account for every single relevant confounding factor in rigorous detail, and have been reproduced under identical conditions time and time again. That anthropogenic global warming is a fact on the same level of the facts that all effects have caused, or that true is a tautology and false a contradiction.
In the experimental protocols listed in a paper, it is not unusual to have a method's section that is more or less an executive summary rather than a very detailed account of the underlying protocol. This is for two reasons: to great a level of detail leads to a methods section as big as the publication that the paper appears in, and second because many protocols more or less boil down to using a particular series kit or out-sourced lab service. Most journals require data supplements where an author must share their datasets in electronic form as an online addendum to the publication. I would support a similar requirement for a long-form protocol for reproduction of the study.
That said, some protocols necessarily take a lot of money, special equipment, a carefully selected population of volunteers, and time. Reproducing some studies can be outright impractical.
In computational biology and other computational extensions of the physical science, the reproducibility basically comes in the form of requirements to provide the software and raw data for a study. It's easy for the individual that compiles this information to verify that they get the same result as the one they report in the article. The concern there boils down to the provenance of the source data, which may be from registries, public data sets, or some combination of public and private data.
getting the results you need means you can push a drug through trials and make a lot of money
if you hurt or kill someone it won't happen for 20-30 years and by that time you will be retired and the person in charge at the time will be legally responsible while you chill in your nice house
Many studies have been done on anthropic climate change, but almost no experiments.
You forgot the greatest food toxin of them all: sugar.
That is how science works. Replicate, or it isn't true as presented.
The authors should have done it themselves before publication
In the rush to "publish or perish," you don't have time to re-run your experiment.
A "solution" would be "split publication" - publish results after the first experiment but call it "unverified." Then when you or another researcher reproduces the experiment, publish again.
The first researcher would receive the primary "credit" but only if the results held up under scrutiny.
Over time, researchers who accumulated a lot of "un-verified" initial publications would see their reputations suffer.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If they have trouble reproducing studies maybe they need to go back to science school. Or look up "science" on wikipedia and do more learning.
Ah, because there's no way in hell that the initial experiments could have been fabricated to favor certain outcomes, especially within the trillion-dollar Cancer Treatment Complex, right?
Yeah, you're right. Over 65% of trained researchers must be stupid or something...
Scientists are not rewarded for reproducing/debunking previous work. You can't easily get it published, because it is not regarded as new. Honestly, I think grad student projects should be almost entirely reproducing other results. It would insure that every important result is reproduced, and increase the emphasis of doing the science correctly rather than finding some novel result (which is usually a 2 sigma result which again can't be reproduced).
The purpose of peer review is to identify incorrect theories and throw them out. This article says an awful lot more about the state of research today than it does about peer review which is doing what it's supposed to be doing.
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
This is medical research, not science. Medicine uses science because often the best way to cure something is to understand it but, very importantly, it has a very different motivation to science. Finding a "magic" pill which cures disease X without side effects but whose mechanism is completely unknown is great medicine but appalling science. Science is all about understanding how things work, medicine is all about treating human ailments.
This leads to a different approach using the tools of science. Medical researchers tend to focus far more on correlation over causation because that is what is most important to this. Unfortunately this approach leaves them open to random statistical effects which require a very good understanding of statistics to avoid and even then it can still be very easy to fool yourself e.g. the Monty Hall effect.
So lets call this problem what it is: a problem with medical research.
That's a very misleading headline. Since 'more than two-thirds of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments' perhaps a more accurate headline would be 'Most Scientists Haven't Been Able to Replicate at Least One Study by their Peers'. While I have occasionally had difficulty in replicating experiments (and so fall into the category of 'Most Scientists') this didn't make me feel that science is in a 'crisis'. Plus, as anyone who cooks will know, simply following the recipe doesn't always guarantee good results - some experiments may require a certain degree of skill (manual dexterity, etc.) to perform, some may fail to clarify leave important points unsaid. These are problems of course, but it's not exactly the same as the 'Science in crisis' viewpoint or the massive intentional fraud implications that the summary seems to be pushing. On the other hand, it does seem to focus on biomedical studies while I am at the harder end of the scientific spectrum so YMMV.
Greed?
Whose greed?
Foolish you. You assume greed == corporations.
Greed for fame?
Greed for advancement?
Greed for pushing a personal agenda?
Publish or Perish.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
The human body is the most complex organism in the known universe so there's nothing to be sneezed at or be surprised by. For instance recent studies have shown that for a lot of people placebo works even when people have a perfect knowledge that they are given placebo.
As another confirmation, the brain has the ability to directly change/affect the chemical processes in the body as demonstrated by Wim Hof who can manage his body's temperature at will.
For a different view:
Science Isn't Broken (It’s just a hell of a lot harder than we give it credit for.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
If I were publishing a paper on something that could lead to a serious pile of greenbacks, you can be damn sure my paper is going to exclude some details that would prevent others from monetizing off of my work...
After all, science these days is not solely for the pursuit of truth and knowledge. Research is bought and paid for, and like any venture capital, the investments are expected to pay off.
$$$
lots and lots of money since insurance will pay for virtually everything these days and so many more people have it now
Many studies have been done on anthropic climate change, but almost no experiments.
The infrared absorption of carbon dioxide is experimentally measured in the laboratory. And there is a vast amount of measured data on the earth's atmosphere and climate, from surface, atmospheric, and orbital probes, not to mention probes of other planets; and we acquire terabytes of additional data every year.
The basics of Earth's energy balance are well understood, and they are understood, in part, because of this vast amount of experimental and observational data.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The purpose of peer review is to identify incorrect theories and throw them out.
Not even that much, really. You can't generally detect an incorrect theory in a paper you're reviewing.
Basically peer review can only ensure that the authors have done their homework, are aware of all the other relevant literature, explain themselves clearly, thought of obvious problems and alternative explanations, and don't invoke any logical fallacies.
In practice a lot of it gets dedicated to a grad student who can't even do that much.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's not heresy if the science is sound. Simply questioning isn't valid, though.
Questioning, of course, is always valid. But "questioning" is useless when the questioner has no interest in listening to anybody answering the question.
Far too much of the "questioning" about climate science is from people who have no interest in any of the science, the measurements, or the data, and won't bother to learn anything about it.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Can two thirds of the results not be reproduced? That is a huge problem with our academic credibility and what we consider science.
Can two thirds of the scientists not reproduce results? That's a huge problem with our academic standards and what we consider scientists.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Greed? Whose greed? Foolish you. You assume greed == corporations. Greed for fame? Greed for advancement? Greed for pushing a personal agenda? Publish or Perish.
A landmark study can drive policy. It can shift entire ideologies. It can change a cultural mindset.
If you want answers to your questions, then I challenge you to dig into the five landmark cancer studies that they have found to be unrepeatable. I can think of a trillion reasons why studies might prove to be bullshit to benefit the Cancer Treatment Complex.
Do I need to research or even assume what would motivate Greed to twist facts and distort truth? No. All I have to do is look at history.
From TFA:
"Without efforts to reproduce the findings of others, we don't know if the facts out there actually represent what's happening in biology or not...It could be that we would be much further forward in terms of developing new cures and treatments."
Ah, there it is ...the other c-word no one ever wants to hear within the Cancer Treatment Complex.
'Nuff said.
In fairness, if I found out that teh guvmnt was putting significant quantities of sugar in my water I'd be a little upset too. It would certainly make washing up more challenging.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Yeah, yer right, dumping gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere has absolutely no effect we could measure. Shame on us.
"Peer review" means "reviewed by a person with doctorate". Scientists are people, too, and they have even beliefs/bias. They throw very valid research because it contradicts their ideas.... and they also miss details that might be obvious to others (papers are reviewed by 2-3 reviewers only, maybe 4 if the review is inconclusive).
So, no, peer review is not a magic bullet.
Many studies have been done on anthropic climate change, but almost no experiments.
There's one rather large experiment going on right now. Unfortunately we're all inside the test tube. So far it's turning out more or less how we expected.
If at first you don't succeed, try try again. Then if you succeed, try try again. Carry on until you have constructed a body of results you can evaluate as a whole.
There is a reproducibility problem for who have a model of the universe that works like this: If A is true, then investigation will uncover evidence supporting A, and no evidence supporting not-A. If this is your world view, then the instant you have any contradictory data you have a worldview crisis.
It is perfectly normal for science to yield contradictory results. That's why when you see a study reported saying taking Garcina Cambogia yields astonishing weight loss results you don't immediately run out to the health food store to buy miracle pills. It's absolutely routine for results like this not to stand up. The problem is that journalists are too ignorant of how science works to understand this.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Name one study offering a credible alternative explanation for observed phenomena.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I'd say that peer review is a misnomer - if you can't replicate the experiment, you're not a peer.
Not saying that all peer reviewers should replicate the experiments before approving articles for publication, but I am saying that if they are truly incapable of replicating the experiment, then they have no place judging the fitness for publication.
This would leave the "top labs" in the world "peerless" - and they could be published in separate "peerless" sections of respected publications - get their studies out faster, and encourage other labs to come up to speed in reproducing the experiments so as to both validate their results and bring up the capabilities of labs worldwide.
Consensus is about acceptance of theory and is highly interpretive. Reproducing a study is just a question of whether you get the same data when following the same procedure. Most scientific disagreement is not over such facts, but over what they mean, and perhaps whether the procedure itself is flawed in some way that invalidates the supposedly meaningful results.
While reproducibility is an important aspect of science (though difficult for practical reasons and often taken on faith until fraud is reasonably suspected), consensus should only matter within a particular research program - anything more can lead to group think and academic stagnation, with important avenues of research being left unexplored. So I don't think it is a double standard to hold scientists accountable to two different aspects of scientific behavior.
"measured in the laboratory"
What climate-related factors are *not* measured? Clouds? Water vapor? Convection?
When instrument calibration is examined and bad data thrown out, the researcher involved is accused of manipulation of the data to suit nefarious ends.
This of course presumes the experiment **can** be replicated.
As for "peerless", there have been researchers at top labs (Bell, for one) that have fabricated their research.
If you are unable to reproduce the results of a certain study, it appears to me that there may just not be enough knowledge of all the factors that affect the end result. For example, if you study something believing the main factors that determine the outcome are 'A', 'B', and 'C', but do not have the insight (yet) that factor 'D' is also very influential, then factor 'D' may have value '1' for the original study but value '2' for the reproduction study, influencing the end result and resulting in the different outcomes. This does not mean that the 'scientific method' is incorrect, or that the research was 'fake' or 'sloppy'. It just means that more research is needed, to determine those missing factors that determine the results, leading to (more) accurate and reproducible studies.
The same experiment has been done for 100 years, and consistently reproduces the same results. Take a sealed, transparent tank of air. Shine sunlight on it. Take the temperature. Increase the percentage of CO2 in the tank. Shine sunlight. Take the temperature. The CO2-richer air has a higher temperature.
Yet another nail in the coffin for Intellectual property. Missionary_Church_of_Kopimism
A lot of times stuff is not replicatable (suck it spellchecker, i just invented the word) because it's fucking difficult. I mean I have spent thousands of dollars and even worse wasted many hours in the lab on getting something I thought should be straightforward, obvious, and simple to work. Sometimes you want things to work so badly, you might even see things (usually fluorescence) where there is none. It's like how Percival Lowell saw canals on Mars. As a scientist you have to fight hard against your own bias, and not take it personally when someone attacks your work. Biological systems are unreliable (or not easily modeled), it's not like a computer program where everything follows a known deterministic path. In biology, the conditions in which something happens may not be known. It may work in one lab because they are using a reagent with a trace contaminant of salt whereas in another it won't work because the conditions are too pure.
So anyway, I reckon we have 3 reasons why studies are not reproducible (here they are in order of unethicalness/immorality):
1. The actual conditions are not what the researcher thinks it is. (The reagent constituents are not normal for example).
2. The researcher wants to believe a result so badly that they see an effect that doesn't exist. (Nowadays you have to photograph your results and/or use software, so this *should* get caught in peer review).
3. The research was published due to pressure to get grants combined with confidence that a particular hypothesis is real and should work -- in spite of lab failure (which the researcher ignores, telling themselves somebody in their lab made a "pipetting error").
Obviously, #3 is the most evil of the above. None of these are an excuse for publishing bad science. In terms of mitigating effects, #1 is the hardest to avoid. #3 should be very avoidable if you have scruples.
Name one study offering a credible alternative explanation for observed phenomena.
What observed phenomena?
Most published papers are so condensed with so many steps in the process brushed over it is not straight forward to actually recreate it. The devil is in the details is the apt description of the process of actually implementing something. Insignificant details which are not important in describing the concepts and results can be essential for implementation. Sometimes luck, skill and sometimes there is a bit of trial of and error which does not get described. Sure, there is an assumption of skill level but even so, it can waste plenty of time and introduce errors in the process. I'm not saying it should be like software; however, software always reproduces results (including the bugs.) To be fair, software runs on machines, not humans.
Journals are no longer printed and distributed. We shouldn't be trying to condense so much to save space (still being concise is important.)
I'm just bringing up another issue. Also, simplistic idiotic metrics applied to publishing does not promote quality work. Quantity is rewarded and how many times it is cited. This promotes vague conceptual work that is more broadly applicable.
We should have well edited larger summaries; followed by longer more detailed procedures. Since almost nobody will recreate, the summaries will likely be used most and then a quick skimming of parts of the details... it's that skimming part that is probably why the details are condensed so much. Even two experts will differ slightly on how they condense the details... look at how much variation we have in textbooks describing in detail the SAME information.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The commodification of science has crippled science, in my opinion. Scientists are forced to publish for a number of reasons; their publications are the basis for subscription services to various journal services, it helps establish their reputation in their corner of academia and contributes to padding their CV, etc. However, it's a horrificially broken idea.
We should be promoting *robust* science, not just *prolific* authorship.
I deal with peer review every day in my job, and it's not what people think it is. It's little more than a third party looking over a manuscript deciding that it looks sufficient to publish (i..e., no *glaring* errors that stand out). There's no fact-checking of equations, methodologies, etc. If any methodology geets through this phase without being confirmed, it's going to make it to publication and exacerbate the problem.
However, this does open a market for robust academic experimentation, but at a certain financial and temporal cost: establish a journal where studies submitted *have* been replicated. Take peer review up a notch to *peer replication*.
I was just commenting on the premise that greed == always bad == corporations.
Greed can also exist in individual scientists and bureaucrats and can be against the best interest of the corporation (or the funders of the project).
Cancer cures are a good thing.
Cancer cures requires work and investment capital.
Scientists need to be paid (along with everyone else including HR and people mopping the floors)
Investment capital needs to be repaid with dividends.
All the above are good good things.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
he infrared absorption of carbon dioxide is experimentally measured in the laboratory
No one rational doubts this. That has never been what the climate change debate was about. But the atmosphere is not a bottle of air, or even a bottle of air and water (any modern meteorological model treats modeling he ocean at least as importantly as modeling the air). The atmosphere+hydrosphere is a complex, evolving system with many feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative.
I mean, really, do you think a climate model is simply modeling a static stack of air with some CO2 in it? Really?
The question is: quantitatively, what rate of human CO2 emission with create what effects, in detail. This is not the sort of science that lends itself to reproducible experiments, but that's fine, neither does astronomy or cosmology. It is, like any science, required to make falsifiable quantitative predictions.
And, frankly, the best models aren't doing so well, giving about 2 sigmas of accuracy. If you generated hundreds of models at random, you'd expect a couple dozen to have 2 sigmas of accuracy. That doesn't mean the models are flawed in any fundamental way, but there's a big gap between "not fundamentally flawed" and "great, proven science".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Record high temps, record low temps. record rain, record drought.
In other words, the weather is getting more extreme and less predictable. Our only options are 1) accept it, and build bigger reservoirs, flood canals, and levees. 2) try to fight back. or 3) ignore it and hope it goes away.
Refusing to accept weather record data falls into the 3rd category, BTW
and doesn't need no stinking experiments.
"You didn't use the right technique" is the first excuse used by researchers when their results don't hold up.
In Bio science this reproducibility problem is, at heart, a problem with having an experimental system that is under control, well defined and "stable".
There are plenty of very precise measurements made that are not accurate because there is something about the experiment that is not under control.
In biology, even if you do your best to account for statistical variation, it can often be the case that your results are bunk because there are things going on beyond your ken.
This is a real problem, people are now taking it seriously. It has impacted on my life in science on numerous occasions. I don't start something based on others' work unless I've tested the underlying rationale.
That must be nice to know for people who live in sealed transparent tanks of air.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
"Yes, but how FAST is it sinking?"
"We're not entirely sure, but we know it is because we keep drilling holes."
"Well, we better keep drilling until we know how fast, just to be safe."
Of course it has an effect, all of those CO2 starved plants on the planet are starting to flourish!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Record high temps, record low temps. record rain, record drought.
That's actually what you'd expect with a chaotic system built of multiple random variables. It would be unnatural for weather to always be the same.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Incidentally, if we just looked at the temperature increase from CO2, without feedbacks, then it is not enough to worry about. Positive feedbacks are necessary before the temperature change will be enough to cause problems.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Name one study offering a credible alternative explanation for observed phenomena.
What observed phenomena?
This, for a start: http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-co... . On the subject of replication, note that this image graphs results from four different research groups.
Here is the fit of theory to experiment:
http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-co...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The suspicion is not as much as others can't replicate, but that the even original researchers can't replicate; and it's not the same as the old "don't get your glassware too clean" in organic chemistry either.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Honestly? In my experience, this is more a result of materials sections in papers being incomplete than it is evidence of poor science. Oftentimes, procedures just aren't described in enough detail to repeat something unless you already know how to do it, and even then, small differences in the way you do things can add up. Journals need to raise the word limit on materials and methods sections, because those are usually too low.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
No, that's the whole point of your debate. Sadly you are outshouted by the people who deny that its happening. I'm all for the debate you want to have.
Yet in this chaotic system, the record highs increasingly outweigh the record lows, suggesting an increasing upward trend.
Ezekiel 23:20
Those people aren't the Slashdot crowd, though. There's way to much "shouting general talking points" on Slashdot these days, when we'd all be better served by reasonable debate.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Calling something expensive doesn't make it less urgent. Humans will suffer (possibly) from the increased cost of building solar and wind plants (even though that will create a crap ton of jobs and reduce dependency on foreign energy sources.) But HUMANKIND will suffer for our shortsightedness if we delay indefinitely. And trust me, just because you don't know how soon, doesn't mean it won't be SOON. All in all, I think my point was salient. Already, in my life, glaciers here as long as humankind have just melted right a way. Assuming more adverse effects won't happen in your human lifetime is like standing in a storm shouting "It can't rain any more than it already has." You might want to meditate on that for a minute before you go around accusing people of being ignorant. Sometimes things are hard, that doesn't mean they aren't the right thing to do. You know there is a problem, put on your big boy breeches and help fix it.
Are you suggesting that the scientific fields are just as full of political motivation, need for personal gain, fear of embarrassment, unwillingness to admit when wrong, and truth-stretching/outright lying as every other field of work in which humans take part? And that this means that the information that they come up with should not be trusted by default? Hogwash! It can't be so!
I was just commenting on the premise that greed == always bad == corporations. Greed can also exist in individual scientists and bureaucrats and can be against the best interest of the corporation (or the funders of the project). Cancer cures are a good thing. Cancer cures requires work and investment capital. Scientists need to be paid (along with everyone else including HR and people mopping the floors) Investment capital needs to be repaid with dividends. All the above are good good things.
Common F. Sense agrees that all of the above are good things
The problem is Greed N. Corruption isn't really interested in curing jack shit anymore, and will always favor perpetual treatments to feed profits.
Treatments create unending profits.
Treatments create unending jobs.
Cures ultimately destroy jobs and severely limit perpetual revenue and profits, which does not pay the dividends that Wall Street now demands.
Those running counter to the best interests of those in Control will ultimately be removed from the equation.
Record high temps, record low temps. record rain, record drought.
That's actually what you'd expect with a chaotic system built of multiple random variables. It would be unnatural for weather to always be the same.
Actually it's not. It's a simple fact that in a stable system, as time goes on, there are fewer and fewer "record" events because each new record needs to be more extreme than all previously recorded events. Over time, record-breaking events decline significantly. So, an increase in record events is, by itself, evidence that the system is undergoing change.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
------------------
0.5 0.91
0.2 0.80
0.1 0.67
0.05 0.50
0.01 0.16
0.001 0.02
Fighting back means mass production of carbon sequestration devices yet to be invented or large scale environmental manipulation. Horseshit like carbon credits is the climate change equivalent of pissing in the wind.
You'd expect *occasional* records - and increasingly infrequently, as each new record would require an ever-more-unlikely combination of random variables, like flipping coins and getting a new record number of heads in a row.
What we're actually seeing today is a steady progression of new records, each slightly exceeding the record set only a few years earlier - so commonly that people like yourself are starting to dismiss this situation as "expected". It is absolutely *not* expected from a normal Gaussian distribution of chaotic variables - unless you add a rising trend underneath. Then a whole stream new records is no longer ridiculously improbable, but inevitable.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Of course you are right, (we are both right), the question is how many events do you need for it to 'stabilize'? In some places we've only had good weather station coverage for less than a hundred years, so it really depends on the variance, and how many random variables are involved. Obviously with climate, there are quite a number of random variables.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What I see in your post is "I don't care how many people are hurt, do what I say!" That's how you got Trump, just so you know. You can't dodge the question of minimizing harm to people, especially not by handwaving. Science or STFU.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
How improbable is it? I'm interested in your analysis. Unless you're saying that based on 'gut feeling' or hearsay.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Sadly, you are outshouted by the people who deny that emitting less CO2 will also be bad for humanity. By the way, I live in Canada. I see winters becoming warmer each year. And you know what? That's a good thing for us! But that again is a debate we are not allowed to have.
Good argument. But wall street isn't the only player. And some (say Bill Gates) have made their money and have no problem funding cures.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Carbon credits are garbage, I agree. It basically allows one company to pay another company to pollute less, in order to allow them to pollute more.
That doesn't mean we can't mandate carbon scrubbers, catalytic converters and other devices to at least reduce the amount of crap we put in the air each day.
This is where it gets political, because the companies who would have to install these devices don't want to pay for them, and would rather put that money towards convincing politicians that the problem doesn't exist.
It will be tough to make a switch now but doing so will make it better and in the long run less painful.
How much of a switch? What's the benefit of the switch? What's the cost of the switch? No matter how frantically you wave your hands, you're not providing numbers.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Are you unfamiliar with the phrase "hand waving", or just being deliberately obtuse?
Science is about numerically accurate, falsifiable predictions. We need some of those in the Climate Change debate, but the science isn't there yet. Non-scientists like yourself, however, are happy to substitute hand waving (like a magician, hoping to distract the audience from the lack of substance).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Consider that the global average land+sea temperature for this month (February), averaged over the entire 20th century, was 12.1 C. In a chaotic system, one would expect a roughly equal probability of seeing a cooler temperature as a hotter one, individually or averaged, though the average of large numbers of readings are less likely to show outliers. Seasonal and other cyclical factors would skew temperatures one way for a while, then the other way, balancing out over time.
For 2015, the globally-averaged temperature for February was 0.86 C higher than that 20th century average. If that was a single reading, or a local average, that wouldn't be at all noteworthy. Even averaged across the entire globe for the month, it was merely the second-highest February recorded, next to 1998. Similarly for land-only average temperatures, though with larger variations.
But when you consider that 2015 was the 30th hotter-than-average February in a row, the odds shift dramatically. If there's a 50/50 chance that we would see a hotter-than-average February any given year, then there's 1 chance in 2^30 that we would get 30 hotter "heads" in a row - ridiculously improbable. There hasn't been a cooler-than-average February since 1985 - and February 2016 was even hotter, setting a new record at 1.21 C above the average. Clearly the global average temperature isn't stable, but is showing a long-term underlying rising trend, which makes the new highest-temperature-ever records not only more likely, but bound to happen eventually. (Incidentally, if you use yearly averages instead of just February, it's now been 38 years of above-average temperatures.)
So the existence of a rising temperature trend is virtually certain. Whether it's anthropic or caused by a hitherto-undiscovered long-term natural cycle is a separate discussion, but the probability of the former is very high indeed.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Here's a more deeply thought-out perspective from a respected biologist (and one of my professors). He discusses a similar reproducibility study done at Amgen. It turns out that the several significant variables were altered in the "reproductions," and some of the experiments weren't successful for unrelated reasons (bad knockdowns). TFA covers a reproducibility study looking at just five papers in one narrow field - then uses this sample to draw broad conclusions about "science" in general. It's about as valid as similar articles making similar statements based on failed reproductions in psychology or sociology.
.:Semper Absurda:.
The notion that "publish or perish" hurts science is apparently widespread, but its misguided. Now, as a researcher, it's tempting to agree in the interest of making my life easier, but the truth is that the need to publish creates an environment in which there is both competition for excellence and a strong incentive to document and share results. The problem isn't "publish or perish" as such, but rather simple inadequacy of funding. Our competitive grant system was intended to fund around 30% of proposals, not the ~5% that receive funding today. We spend a total of just 2.7% of GDP on R&D (public and private), and the highest spender is South Korea at 4.3%. I think these amounts are shockingly low considering the benefits to society.
The result is that instead of competition for excellence, we now have competition because there isn't enough to go around. That leads to an environment where excellence and reproducibility can fall by the wayside in the context of a desperate need for funding. If you think about it, it's clear that publications should be a requirement for continued funding. But every such statement about how science should be funded, and conducted, are predicated on a reasonable proportion of worthy projects receiving funding.
.:Semper Absurda:.
The phrase when used is "hand waving", you didn't say "hand waving", thus I didn't catch that your goal was for me to react to "hand waving" so I went for the "frantic" accusation. How about if I had said "wave your hands in the air like you don't care"? Would you have caught that I was referring to your "hand waving"? Probably not. Lesson to you here lgw is, use phrases in their familiar form not some new random arrangement just because you were feeling rushed and afraid.
I was responding to the frantic nature of your emails, the visceral panic that transcends the words you write. Did you know that most of human communication is non-verbal? Probably not, being that your faux news echo chamber doesn't delve into topics that don't drive FUD, oh but those girl "news"-casters are hot so they must be right. Will you be hot because you watch and agree with them? No, but the aspiration of social proofing with such hotness keeps you on the treadmill.
Do you really feel you know me enough to judge me to be a non-scientist? The problem with the climate change debate is that the data is overwhelming and the models sketchy regarding long term predictions. The thing with models is that they are simplifications of reality by nature. Has Breitbart or "Faux News" invested the necessary effort to come up with a model that uses all available data which states that we can look forward to a rosy future? What would you, being the brilliant armchair scientist that you are propose we do other than make predictions and use the best available models?
Any thoughts on my health advice to you? I shouldn't care since we barely know each other but, I think that a healthier population is less expensive for society and also generally more compassionate.
Only I can judge you.
What I see in your post is "I don't care how many people are hurt, do what I say!" Nah man, you're just butthurt. Go back and read it again when you calm down. It'll make more sense.
I am not inferring the motive. I am saying that the person who is accusing the researcher of manipulating the data is also inferring the motive of that researcher is to suit nefarious ends.
Unexpected extreme low temperatures = weather
Unexpected extreme high temperatures = AGW
Duh!
Oh, and Failing Dam Spillways is caused by AGW, and not by the government who was supposed to be doing maintenance but failed. Yes, Gov Brown said that the failed spillway was caused by Global Warming.
And now, you know why a lot of people do not take it seriously.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Carbon Credits are how elitist liberals get around their overly large carbon footprints. "I bought Carbon Offsets from myself"
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
"records" in modern human terms. But failure to mention "other" records like the hurricane lull in the Atlantic is quickly forgotten. After all, "MORE EXTREME WEATHER" should have produced more and more extreme hurricanes .... but those simply haven't appeared.
I have no doubt carbon is increasing, I have plenty of doubt that it is actually "bad" for the planet. It might be bad for humans, but I am pretty sure plants love it. More plants = more life.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Shifting the goal posts, are we? I'm pretty sure there's no falsified predictions about hurricanes in the Atlantic specifically before 2020, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. As we get further into the red zone, there's some evidence to suggest that hurricane intensity might increase, though frequency is less certain.
Maybe you should skim through the IPCC AR5 WGII impacts summary, to see what we're actually expecting. There's much more to be concerned about than just hurricanes, and the risks and damages far outweigh any small plant growth benefit we might expect from boosted CO2 (which is discussed in Chapter 7 - studies suggest that food production will see a net negative effect).
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
frustration is a true sign of continued optomism. never give up. you will figure it out, now, get back on the horse and ride.
Indeed. Carbon Credits are, effectively, the return of the selling of Indulgences. It's just the Church of Gaia, not the Catholic Church
A question I have is whether you are actually interested, or if you merely pretending interest, Indeed, if you're actually interested, there is a lot of work being done in analyzing data and comparing data from different times, which is (as you imply) indeed not always trivial. And there is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" problem for the people doing the actual work, of course, because if they don't correct the data errors, they're criticized for not correcting them, and if they do, they're criticize for "adjusting" the data. They deal with this by being very transparent in how they analyze the data, which is extensively documented.
The first thing to know is not the sensitivity of the thermometer, though; it is the statistics of measurement. I do assume you're aware that a large number of measurements is more precise than a single measurement, right? So the first question you should be asking is, how many measurements are being incorporated into each statistical data point. Ten thousand measurements with a precision of 1 degree, for example, give an average with a precision of 0.01 degrees. Good introductions to statistics of data analysis are available many places, including on the web, for example:
https://www.princeton.edu/~cap/AEESP_Statchap_Peters.pdf or somewhat more detailed,
http://www-library.desy.de/preparch/books/vstatmp_engl.pdf
Moving in to measurements: there are four main institutions that are doing the reconstruction of long-term temperature measurements; most of your questions about thermometry are answered by citations in the references of the papers they publish on their technique. It does take some work to dig down through the references, though. If you want to start, most of the recent papers are online. I would start with the Goddard Institute of Space Studies papers. The full list is here:
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov
The two papers you should probably start with are Hansen and Lebedeff 1987,
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha00700d.html
and Hansen et al 2010:
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha00510u.html
If you don't want to dive that deep, there are some review papers that cover most of the material you're interested in. The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project has a couple of good top-level papers, with an overview:
http://static.berkeleyearth.org/papers/Methods-GIGS-1-103.pdf
and a paper on data quality:
http://static.berkeleyearth.org/papers/Station-Quality.pdf
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Not to judge, but it is somewhat funny that you're presenting this as a "Gotcha!" If you would stop pretending your ignorance is just as good as anyone else's knowledge then this will suddenly become a real discussion.
So to answer your question, there are obviously things that happen on Earth which can't be easily replicated in a lab, but the problem is that the H2O-CO2 feedback ls so strong that we need a very large negative feedback to cancel it out. Some massive misunderstanding of the water cycle is pretty much all that would have saved us due to that, but as it happens we've looked at every known atmospheric phenomenon and ruled out any large negative feedbacks.
Global warming is the default, natural reaction of an increase of atmospheric carbon, and we've spent the last 121 years trying to disprove it. We actually thought we had disproved it right up until the mid-1950s. Unfortunately for us all, this really is settled science. What will happen as a result of AGW is a more open question, especially as this will depend on what we choose to do about it, but you really can prove AGW in your basement. Tyndall did it in 1859, you should be able to significantly improve on his results.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Good argument. But wall street isn't the only player. And some (say Bill Gates) have made their money and have no problem funding cures.
When it comes to Bill Gates or any other human on this planet, I only have one thing to say regarding cures, and the ability to disrupt the Cancer Treatment Complex.
Fucking Prove It.
Well, there is a misconception that "it is published therefore it has been thoroughly reviewed". That is not what the reviewing part of the publication process does. Peer reviewing actually start at publication when other lab will try to reproduce the result or incorporate parts of the work into their own work. And at that point you will see whether it is correct or not.
You never have complete experimental protocols today. Because it is not often clear what matters and what doesn't. Also these protocols can be very complex to write. So you provide only a high level view of the experiments. And when others will try to reproduce it, they will use their own setting. If they can reproduce it as is, perfect. If they can't, they'll start trying to narrow down the important parameters. And we will get a better understanding of the phenomenon as a result.
Yeah. No doubt. People can say what they want. But, as a moderately interested outsider, he *seems* to be putting his money where his mouth is regarding mosquito netting and malaria medication.
... but. It's a start. It's something.
That is not a cure but prevention is better than a cure. Of course the argument can be made that there was no money to be made in Africa anyway
As per our conversation - it's a good thing.
There will always be a need for pharma companies. There will always be diseases (especially as lifespans increase).
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Fortunately for you, burning straw men is carbon-neutral.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Carbon credits or carbon taxes are a way to use the free market to reduce carbon dioxide emissions efficiently.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Sure, just let every researcher have an additional section in the budget for money for reproducing things before publication. Shouldn't be a problem, the man on the street absolutely loves science and is always bugging the government to spend more on it.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
In fairness, if I found out that teh guvmnt was putting significant quantities of sugar in my water I'd be a little upset too. It would certainly make washing up more challenging.
I'd bottle it and sell it.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I was just commenting on the premise that greed == always bad == corporations. Greed can also exist in individual scientists and bureaucrats and can be against the best interest of the corporation (or the funders of the project). Cancer cures are a good thing. Cancer cures requires work and investment capital. Scientists need to be paid (along with everyone else including HR and people mopping the floors) Investment capital needs to be repaid with dividends. All the above are good good things.
Common F. Sense agrees that all of the above are good things
The problem is Greed N. Corruption isn't really interested in curing jack shit anymore, and will always favor perpetual treatments to feed profits.
Treatments create unending profits.
Treatments create unending jobs.
Cures ultimately destroy jobs and severely limit perpetual revenue and profits, which does not pay the dividends that Wall Street now demands.
Those running counter to the best interests of those in Control will ultimately be removed from the equation.
Not being argumentative here, but many forms of cancer are, in fact, things where successful treatment nowadays does mean a cure with no further treatment required; like in the old days when the main job of pharmacology was curing infections, and unlike the current paradigm of lifelong treatments of things that would otherwise be fatal, like HIV or diabetes or autoimmune stuff. In fact, it seems to me that the occasions where people are not cured and require lifelong treatments for cancer tend not to last for a particularly long life, by and large.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
That must be nice to know for people who live in sealed transparent tanks of air.
You live where the land/sea/air is not a closed system with regard to chemical constituents? Wow! Tell us about it.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Many years a Los Alamos physicist [Reader] told me of reading a peer reviewed paper. The author used the phrase "it follows with a little math that..." This research was right up Reader's alley. It took him over a week to solve it. IIRC, it required a transformation to a non-orthogonal space. Reader cursed the author and his progeny to the 4th generation. When they met again at a conference, Reader told Author, "Oh yeah, I worked through your paper. You used a simple transformation."
There have been numerous cases of scientific discoveries which were reproduced by many investigators and whole scientific models developed which turned out to be entirely imaginary. N-rays are a terrific and lesser known example, but there's also the maps of the Martian Canals, cold fusion, polywater, in addition to the classic fields, still extensively researched vi the scientific method with full faith in the hypothetical reproducibility, such as homeopathy, ESP, magnetic medical therapy, wearing-copper medical therapy, dowsing, witchcraft/spellcasting, ghost/spirit/seances, UFOs, spinal surgery, etc.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Not being argumentative here, but many forms of cancer are, in fact, things where successful treatment nowadays does mean a cure with no further treatment required; like in the old days when the main job of pharmacology was curing infections, and unlike the current paradigm of lifelong treatments of things that would otherwise be fatal, like HIV or diabetes or autoimmune stuff.
Your prescribed current paradigm tends to contradict your initial statement, but does tend to reinforce what I've been saying all along. More on that below.
In fact, it seems to me that the occasions where people are not cured and require lifelong treatments for cancer tend not to last for a particularly long life, by and large.
There's a reason that lifelong treatments are limited. It has to do with the average bank account that can afford to pay for it. I can assure you that Big Data has carefully calculated the MSRP of unending treatments down to the penny to maximize revenue streams while minimizing burden. In other words, they know how long they can suck you dry from a financial standpoint, and know when to call Hospice.
Record high temps, record low temps. record rain, record drought.
That's actually what you'd expect with a chaotic system built of multiple random variables. It would be unnatural for weather to always be the same.
It's pretty easy to demonstrate mathematically what you should also see intuitively, i.e. that in a stable process which is not "moving" (where the mean and variation do not change over time, which is what the "no climate change" folks propose), that the frequency of any sort of record should fall off as you accumulate more data. For instance, the first year every measurement will be a record, the second year each has a 50% chance of being the record, the third year every measurement has a 1/3 chance, etc. So the fact that we're seeing a high frequency of records now is enough to demonstrate a change in the basic underlying process.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Change "drug trials" to "climate change", though, and watch the true believers react....
You don't get to cite "lack of reproducibility" as a criticism of fields of science where it is physically impossible to reproduce an experiment. For instance, even those who are skeptical of the big bang theory do not argue that it has never been reproduced independently. Change origin of the universe to climate change, however, and watch the false skeptics react.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Many studies have been done on anthropic climate change, but almost no experiments.
As in the old joke about the final exam for the cosmology course, which states "Construct a functional universe. You will find the materials you need in a box under your desk"
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
"measured in the laboratory" What climate-related factors are *not* measured? Clouds? Water vapor? Convection?
These are, however, measured in the actual environment. Along with the variables from the lab experiments. https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibl... for example.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
he infrared absorption of carbon dioxide is experimentally measured in the laboratory
No one rational doubts this. That has never been what the climate change debate was about. But the atmosphere is not a bottle of air, or even a bottle of air and water (any modern meteorological model treats modeling he ocean at least as importantly as modeling the air). The atmosphere+hydrosphere is a complex, evolving system with many feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative.
I mean, really, do you think a climate model is simply modeling a static stack of air with some CO2 in it? Really?
The question is: quantitatively, what rate of human CO2 emission with create what effects, in detail. This is not the sort of science that lends itself to reproducible experiments, but that's fine, neither does astronomy or cosmology. It is, like any science, required to make falsifiable quantitative predictions.
And, frankly, the best models aren't doing so well, giving about 2 sigmas of accuracy. If you generated hundreds of models at random, you'd expect a couple dozen to have 2 sigmas of accuracy. That doesn't mean the models are flawed in any fundamental way, but there's a big gap between "not fundamentally flawed" and "great, proven science".
But even when you have a "complex, evolving system with many feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative," the default assumption is not that underlying well established physical principles are therefore negated; nobody argues that the fact that each hemisphere of the earth gets warmer during the daytime and colder at night is not due to the effect of IR from the sun, because the laboratory observations of IR heating things up in the lab are not relevant to a "complex, evolving system with many feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative," in the wild. Nobody argues that the fatal effects of arsenic in vivo are not related to the effect seen in vitro, because the human body is a "complex, evolving system with many feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative."
If you want to argue that a set of well established mechanisms consistent with a particular result do not operate in a particular system, you need to specify why they do not operate, and also what, then is responsible for that result, rather than just a shrug and "It might not work that way, it might be something completely different" with no evidence as to 1) what prevents the CO2 absorbance of IR from operating, and 2) what is therefore causing the warming.
In fact, the entire collection of climate change "skeptics" are at this point only united in a belief that something is preventing the CO2 absorbance of IR from operating, with a set of hypotheses varying from clouds to the will of God, and that something is causing the warming, with a set of hypotheses varying from cosmic rays to a hoax by the Chinese. The only coherent theory that has any relationship to reality at all is anthropogenic carbon dioxide from fossil fuels.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Bad analogy. It's very expensive to emit less CO2. Humans will suffer from the reduced standard of living. What's the right trade off to minimize harm to people? That's the whole point of the debate. Dismissing people you disagree with without understanding what they're talking about is popular today, because it's easy, but it's not smart.
The same arguments were used against slavery, for instance, and yet we managed to struggle along without it. The track record of predictions from economics is not the kind of thing that leads one to believe that estimates of economic destruction from emitting less CO2 are more reliable than the estimates of climate change from continued production of CO2 we get from typical methods of estimation from physics.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Name one study offering a credible alternative explanation for observed phenomena.
What observed phenomena?
How about the higher average temperature of the surface of the earth as compared to that of the moon, despite being exposed to the same insolation? Which happens to be pretty much what was estimated by Svante Arrhenius in the 19th century from his studies of IR absorption by CO2, and led him to predict that further increases in CO2 as a result of human industry would lead to global warming?
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Yet in this chaotic system, the record highs increasingly outweigh the record lows, suggesting an increasing upward trend.
So, we've moved on from debating whether the change in temperature is caused by anthropogenic CO2 or not, to discussing whether there is any change in temperature at all, really. Our president says it's a hoax by the Chinese, who are we to disagree with someone of that stature?
This is why it's futile for us to argue with climate change "skeptics". As long as skeptic1 says "there is no actual warming in reality" and skeptic2 says "nobody denies that the climate is changing, just whether humans are responsible" or "nobody denies that the climate is changing, just how harmful it will be", and both nod their heads in agreement, it's clear that logic is not a winning strategy.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
the second year each has a 50% chance of being the record, the third year every measurement has a 1/3 chance, etc.
No lol, get a book on probability, I recommend this one.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I have no idea what you are talking about.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The reason I referenced Galileo was specific. If you remember (I bet you don't because of how full of talking points, unground axes, and shoulder chips your phrasing is) Galileo was "persecuted" not only by the religious power structure of the time, but also by sycophantic "scientists" looking to curry favor with the pope and the power structure in Rome.
Draw what conclusions you want with current events, the underlying principle is what I was pointing to. You can see it is a constant in human behavior. It is still happening today.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
The state of research today is to write garbage to acquire federal grants.
That's not very good mathematical analysis, but it's a good intuitive explanation.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It's called earth? Maybe you missed the physics lessons where the atmosphere is bleeding off into space at a certain rate, but gas emissions from within the earth tend to keep the atmosphere is a semi-constant state of pressure and composition?
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?