The original post made a point that "In almost all cases, the only people who actually benefit from access to particular data are a small handful of specialists." I completely agree with him. Public mostly has no use to any of such data unless they know how to process the data and all the rationale behind them (which implies that they must know all the underlying scientific process). I agree to that as well. However, you stressed the communication issue to the uninitiated--which I think is misleading. And that accounts to the data? If it were only main results and summaries, I would heartily agree. But the data? No! The public doesn't know anything about the process behind them. They don't care about the data in general.
I agree that the results have to be communicated to general public, but that's not the primary goal of typical scientific papers: It's to inform other scientists in the field. For general public, there are popsci magazines, textbooks, and universities. And that has NOTHING to do with the data.
physics and math are up there too but that's got more to do with the common-sense and intelligence of the community surrounding those subjects
Yet there are lots of pro contras in that issue alone even with many PhDs with lots of brain powers are on both sides. If you don't follow the math and understand the assumption to the gory details, it's virtually impossible to decide which analysis is valid and which is not. You can use your so-called common-sense and intelligence. After all, this is our environment and we've got to do something regardless of the analysis of global warming, right? Now, you can safely chuck all valid analyses that belong to the "other camp" and subscribe into whatever analyses of "your camp". Presto, problem solved, right? What I know is each side has their valid points, but I'm not qualified to judge them because I don't know the gory details.
If only the results or summaries are of importance to you, you don't need any access to those papers (and thus saving $$$) and subscribe to your favorite popsci magazines (cost much less, thus invalidate your ivory-tower $$$ claim). While the papers discuss how the data was gathered, processed, and transformed into the result, numerous subtleties on the assumptions, and inherent limitations on the employed methods, they are of no use to the general public. Without knowing them, however, the understanding of the result would not be complete and might be misleading. If you only read the scientists' conclusions / results, like general public would, you're essentially taking their words at face value. This is dangerous since I've seen too many occassions that even so-called seasoned scientists are not aware of the subtleties of the methods they're using and thus misinterpreting their reports (yes, that's despite the peer review).
While I agree that reading the original paper is very important to make an informed decision, it's inaccessible to general public anyway due to the sheer amount of required background knowledge. Even the so-called simple three-page paper of Einstein that you've linked actually fail to provide any sufficient elucidation for the general public. I doubt that any general public would benefit from open access to any actual research paper, let alone the data. So, your accusation of elitism is completely unfounded. It's not elitism. It's the way the science is done.
I would urge the public to educate themselves far beyond popsci writings so that they make an informed decision, but that's not for everyone. Those who are really interested should devote their time to study the subject and only then they're worthy of the access of the data.
Anything that complicates the retrieval of knowledge ends up reducing access to that knowledge. Why should someone have to put up with manual process, when we have this things called the internet. The internet is designed to facilitate access of knowledge, so it is the tool of choice.
Yes, and there are open-access journals already. Guess what? The scientists (i.e. the paper authors) are required to pay much more for the open access. Heck, they're required to pay for non-open journals as well. Don't believe me? Ask your fellow scientists. Some scientists simply wise up and not pay the extra charges and still fulfill the publish or perish call.
While some readers of papers may not understand the content fully, it is sometimes enough to start the quest of understanding.
That's the task of textbooks, popsci magazines, universities, or even wiki/encyclopedias. In general, papers are to communicate novel results among scientists of the field, not newcomers.
Science suffers from a lack of people entering the field, so anything that can make it easier to access knowledge makes the idea of entering less daunting. In many ways this can be seen as part of the PR process.
Anything to make it easier? I think there's no shortcuts in science, much like there's no shortcuts in computer programming. Shortcuts make bad scientists just like shortcuts make bad programmers. PR process doesn't do any good. Aren't you afraid of quantum physics scientists that don't know squat about calculus? You should, just like you would OS programmers who don't know squat about subroutines. Getting papers is the least daunting task for a budding scientist (unless perhaps he/she has a phobia to libraries). The most daunting task is typically the math and finding a suitable mentor.
The other way of approaching the issue, is simply asking why journals should be the only ones allowed to publish the information? They aren't paying anyone for the content, yet they are requiring a monopoly of the publishing of the given paper.
Journal double-dips. They charge the scientists who author the papers and their customer who read the papers. I agree that there should be a free no-charge journal should be formed. But somebody needs to pay the bills.
Establishing a journal is tedious and very involved (get the scientists to do peer review, get the papers edited, published, build reputation, get $$$, etc). I can't foresee how we could solve this problem. It's a chicken-and-egg problem. Scientists won't volunteer doing review for no-name journals. But journals' reputation is built upon quality publications, which are highly peer-reviewed. Scientists won't publish their quality works to no-name journal either. After all, scientists need to get tenures, right? Tenures are evaluated upon how many publications are published in famous journals. I think that having "a competition" won't solve the problem much. But some journals already open-access their paper collections. I think it's a matter of time that open access will be a norm.
Einstein managed to get away with three elegant pages and zero refrences
Science has evolved much from 1905. Even with his zero references, he's still implicitly citing the results of Lorentz. By today's standard, no citation like that is unacceptable.
Let me ask you this: Can you honestly ask a high school student or a freshman to understand even that paper without grasping the concepts of differential equation (DE)? They can't. Sure, you can understand the motivation and introduction of that paper, just like those of typical scientific papers. But when you start to delve into the formulas, i.e. what the "meat" is all about, you suddenly need to know everything involved much beyond words explained by the scientists. I have no backgrounds in physics and I can't even follow the derivations of the formula in section I.3 of that paper although I know DE. In other words, I'm lost at section I.3 and I cannot see how Einstein arrived at his conclusions. Maybe a little knowledge of physics will help. There are some baseline knowledge you'd expect your audience to know. You can't explain everything.
Let's face it: English is an ambiguous medium of transfer for scientific knowledge. Mathematical formulas are far more succinct and far less ambiguous. If you think you can sidestep the formula part of the paper, you're dreaming. You might be better off reading popular science magazines.
The folks at RealClimate are just commenting on their results, not real papers. This sort of writing is more of popsci magazine style. They're glossing over way much on how they arrive at their results. To some degree, it's useful. But to me, the gory details is of more importance because only then can I know their assumptions and theoretical limitations on the underlying assumptions or formulas and how to further advance the knowledge or make the estimates more precise.
Scientists do not take other scientists' words at face values and neither should laymen. Given the climate crisis pro-contra, I think reading just the research comments will add to the confusion to the public minds. Or worse, creating camps. We don't want that to happen. So, I think it's wise for the public to read far beyond pop sci writings.
To be honest, if your institution does not foot the bill for subscription, try inter-library loans. That's easy. Most credible institutions in the US do have some subscription for more mainstream journals. Unless you're in third world countries.
The problem with scientific publication is that you need to be terse. They're limited to 8-12 pages. If you are required to spend time for background knowledge for the uninitiated, you'll produce a 1000 page book instead. Moreover, the reviewers will think that you spend your time too much on things that are assumed to be familiar to the intended audience.
Face it: The knowledge we have so far is the agglomeration of previous knowledge. Those who are in the cutting-edge are expected to know the background already. Try explaining measure theory to high school students that has no idea what calculus is. And then if your research has anything to do with measure theory, your result is pretty much unreachable to those students. Let alone any data that correspond to that research.
Scientists want to have their work known. But they don't have the patience and 5 years to explain to aspiring noobs. Sorry. They have a lot more research to do. If you want to know the research, do your homework and study the subject carefully for a few years. Then you'll appreciate whatever data or paper the scientists are publishing.
It depends on what you do. If you're doing a mere run-the-mill database programming, then no advanced math is necessary. But if you're building an expert system (that's not only about simple average or variance), a good grasp of integration will help because you need to know the concepts of cdf, expectation, moment generating function, etc., which are explained in integration.
It's a simple application of Rao-Blackwell theorem at work. Making use of useful information (in this case, movie genre) makes the estimate more precise.
I've been in similar situation, except that we chose Java as opposed to C++ for the "lower" level language. For the higher level langauge, we have both Matlab and R. We're also dealing with research situation. Here's my experience...
Prototypes are best done in higher level language, in this case, Matlab. Hands down. You want to test a new research methodologies fast. You don't want to get bogged down by unneccessary programming constructs. Moreover, it's the scientist's job who do the prototyping (since he invents the algorithm, right?). Scientists are more familiar with Matlab than C++ or Java.
Be aware that prototypes are ALWAYS poorly structured. More often than not, they're more like spaghetti code and/or copy and paste. Prototypes are just prototypes. They're just proof of concepts that a particular method works.
Consequently, you may want a cadre of C++/Java developers to do the structuring. It's more like 4 low level developers per 1 scientist who does the prototyping. Often times the scientists don't know low level languages well. So, it's the C++/Java developers' job to figure out the scientist's program. Of course, the scientist would have to explain how the algorithm / source code works. On the contrary, reading MatLab / R is NOT as hard as what people says here (they must be smoking cracks. Don't listen to them). The only trouble is to familiarize yourself with Matlab / R API, which can be cryptic for some.
With respect to libraries, Matlab / R have a throng of ready made scientific libraries. Of course, for C++ you can use GSL, LAPACK, ATLAS, etc. But the problem is that sometimes the library call does NOT correspond one-to-one. So, you'll need to tinker around to find out how each library call behaves. Moreover, for some operations, like Matrix / Vector operations, are very simple in Matlab / R, since matrices / vectors can be treated as if they were scalars. Be careful in porting those.
In addition, you'll need to profile the library call. Make sure you actually GAIN speed with such library calls (or else you'll need to use something else). In addition, speed is NOT the only concern. Accuracy is VERY important. You don't want to use a speedy library with expense of accuracy. In scientific programs, this tradeoff is OFTEN NOT desirable. Make SURE the libraries have the same accuracy level. This is often the grounds to dismiss some unknown library who only claims that they're fast. Losing one degree of accuracy is often a BIG issue in scientific library. For example: If a library is at least 10^-16 accurate may not be acceptable as opposed to a library with an accuracy of at least 10^-17. Think of simulations, which may have millions upon millions of iterations. One degree difference in accuracy often makes a HUGE difference in the final result. Therefore, it is OFTEN more desirable to obtain an open source library where you can inspect the algorithm and point out places where a library call may lose accuracy.
Familiarize yourselves with many scientific algorithms that improves accuracy. In Matlab or R, they autodetect pathological situations where accuracy can lose. You'll need to do that manually in C++. For example: If you have a nearly singular matrix, you'll need SVD for better accuracy. In general, you can use QR decomposition. If the accuracy is not really an issue, LU decomposition might be enough. In Matlab / R, it can detect the matrix automatically when you try to invert the matrix and use the appropriate algorithm. Pay attention to that. Make sure your C++ program also behaves similarly.
You MUST make A LOT of regression tests. If it is possible, make the prototype run with the same file format as in the final product. If it isn't possible, convert the file format first and then confirm with the scientist that both of them are exactly the same. Make sure that for all tests, both returns the same numbers
Well, I for one, want to have a smarter AI in all games. Unloading the "mundane" physics engine to the graphic card will hopefully spare more CPU cycles for the AI. After all, it's not graphics that matter in games. It's the gameplay.
Patches for both 3.2.x - 3.3.x and 3.4.x-3.5.0 are the same except for the revision number. I think Slashdot got the link switched around.
Although Apple does use some of the Konqueror's core, I believe that the bug does not affect it at all. At least there is no such vulnerable function as in KDE is in their JS core code.
Well, SP2 adoption is slow because piracy abounds in foreign land, especially in Asia. Windows updater checks the authenticity of the installed windows and refused to install SP2 (and other updates) if the check fails. For some reasons, critical updates can be downloaded from time to time, but not always. Coupled with lack of broadband internet and clueless users, I'm not surprised at all to hear this news.
Having failed to do the experiments once and declare the thing as "most likely a myth"! Even today, many, if not most, of the experiments are non-replicable. Well, for most cases they are probably myths or hoaxes, but some of them are genuinely very hard to replicate. The reason can range from precision requirements to hazy details. The latter is the usual suspect, which, I believe, applies in this case as well.
The present invention simplifies the data modeling process and enables its full dynamic versioning by employing a non-hierarchical non-integrated structure to the organization of information.
XML is hierarchical data structure. Hence, his claim isn't valid.
This is exactly where Open Source community should come in and fill the gap and jumpstart the whole thing. The only thing they need is just will power... and perhaps some access to the internet... which perhaps is not available in most areas....
Well... Is it possible that Oracle "bought" Innobase is to "kill" MySQL (the company)? Look at this: MySQL allied with SCO, which is to me like a poisoning tactic. If there were legal battles, Oracle would likely win. When this is the case, SCO/MySQL alliance roll out. If they lost, Oracle will develop InnoDB using GPL license only, forcing SCO/MySQL to roll out in either case. When MySQL the company is over, Oracle abandon InnoDB with one less (albeit lesser) competitor.
Though you might argue that someone in the future will pick up MySQL code, I'd say that it's less likely. It's far easier to switch to other alternatives such as PostgreSQL.
You just simply can't infect AVI/WMV/MPEG/MP3 files
You could. Just construct a malicious AVI/WMV/MPEG/MP3 file that exploit buffer overflow bug and insert malicious binary over there. Unsuspecting user will say bad movie. The uploader will say sorry and reupload the fixed movie the next time around (next week / day). Unbeknownst to the users, their computers have been 0wn3d. Think of creative ways that hackers could do. Not even hash could help with this issue.
That's true. Not to mention the pressure of not to challenge mainstream ideas. That would be a career suicide. This is why scientists tried to fudge their data / experiments so that it looks like they agree on mainstream ideas and add things a little bit. This is quite common.
When you have something controversial that contradicts mainstream ideas, you will be frowned upon during the peer reviews and most likely will receive really really bad review that your paper get rejected almost immediately without further reconsideration. Things change when you attend prestigious universities such as MIT or Stanford where you do have benefit of doubts. When this is the case, the reviewers will praise you instead.
People may think that the review process is double-blind. Yes, that's true. However, that simply doesn't stop the reviewer to guess who is the author or which research group they belong to. The simplest way to guess it is just to see the papers they cited. Typically, scientists build upon their previous similar works. On the top of that, scientists have quirks on their diction and choice of greek letters or formula representations, too. This way, we can guess the authors most of the time. So, erasing the names of the authors is not quite as useful.
Oh, I don't disagree with the news. However, if you just use one incident to generalize over all scientific frauds, would that ring you as logic generalization error?
I'm not a fan of Bush administrator either. But using one incident to blame them is simply FUD. Pure FUD.
BS. Any funded research has similar pressures. Many of those have hidden agendas too. So, it's not "encouraged by the Bush Administration". Your post is simply FUD.
It's not as simple as that. Many research actually are reproducible. However, in most cases, they only show specific datasets that highlight of their research without mentioning that for other datasets the result of their research would be abysmal.
Another common misuse is that they handwave intermediary processes so that it's completely impossible to duplicate. The scientists have the alibi for the limit on the number of pages imposed by the scientific journal.
Slashdot Mirror
The original post made a point that "In almost all cases, the only people who actually benefit from access to particular data are a small handful of specialists." I completely agree with him. Public mostly has no use to any of such data unless they know how to process the data and all the rationale behind them (which implies that they must know all the underlying scientific process). I agree to that as well. However, you stressed the communication issue to the uninitiated--which I think is misleading. And that accounts to the data? If it were only main results and summaries, I would heartily agree. But the data? No! The public doesn't know anything about the process behind them. They don't care about the data in general.
I agree that the results have to be communicated to general public, but that's not the primary goal of typical scientific papers: It's to inform other scientists in the field. For general public, there are popsci magazines, textbooks, and universities. And that has NOTHING to do with the data.
physics and math are up there too but that's got more to do with the common-sense and intelligence of the community surrounding those subjects
Yet there are lots of pro contras in that issue alone even with many PhDs with lots of brain powers are on both sides. If you don't follow the math and understand the assumption to the gory details, it's virtually impossible to decide which analysis is valid and which is not. You can use your so-called common-sense and intelligence. After all, this is our environment and we've got to do something regardless of the analysis of global warming, right? Now, you can safely chuck all valid analyses that belong to the "other camp" and subscribe into whatever analyses of "your camp". Presto, problem solved, right? What I know is each side has their valid points, but I'm not qualified to judge them because I don't know the gory details.
If only the results or summaries are of importance to you, you don't need any access to those papers (and thus saving $$$) and subscribe to your favorite popsci magazines (cost much less, thus invalidate your ivory-tower $$$ claim). While the papers discuss how the data was gathered, processed, and transformed into the result, numerous subtleties on the assumptions, and inherent limitations on the employed methods, they are of no use to the general public. Without knowing them, however, the understanding of the result would not be complete and might be misleading. If you only read the scientists' conclusions / results, like general public would, you're essentially taking their words at face value. This is dangerous since I've seen too many occassions that even so-called seasoned scientists are not aware of the subtleties of the methods they're using and thus misinterpreting their reports (yes, that's despite the peer review).
While I agree that reading the original paper is very important to make an informed decision, it's inaccessible to general public anyway due to the sheer amount of required background knowledge. Even the so-called simple three-page paper of Einstein that you've linked actually fail to provide any sufficient elucidation for the general public. I doubt that any general public would benefit from open access to any actual research paper, let alone the data. So, your accusation of elitism is completely unfounded. It's not elitism. It's the way the science is done.
I would urge the public to educate themselves far beyond popsci writings so that they make an informed decision, but that's not for everyone. Those who are really interested should devote their time to study the subject and only then they're worthy of the access of the data.
Anything that complicates the retrieval of knowledge ends up reducing access to that knowledge. Why should someone have to put up with manual process, when we have this things called the internet. The internet is designed to facilitate access of knowledge, so it is the tool of choice.
Yes, and there are open-access journals already. Guess what? The scientists (i.e. the paper authors) are required to pay much more for the open access. Heck, they're required to pay for non-open journals as well. Don't believe me? Ask your fellow scientists. Some scientists simply wise up and not pay the extra charges and still fulfill the publish or perish call.
While some readers of papers may not understand the content fully, it is sometimes enough to start the quest of understanding.
That's the task of textbooks, popsci magazines, universities, or even wiki/encyclopedias. In general, papers are to communicate novel results among scientists of the field, not newcomers.
Science suffers from a lack of people entering the field, so anything that can make it easier to access knowledge makes the idea of entering less daunting. In many ways this can be seen as part of the PR process.
Anything to make it easier? I think there's no shortcuts in science, much like there's no shortcuts in computer programming. Shortcuts make bad scientists just like shortcuts make bad programmers. PR process doesn't do any good. Aren't you afraid of quantum physics scientists that don't know squat about calculus? You should, just like you would OS programmers who don't know squat about subroutines. Getting papers is the least daunting task for a budding scientist (unless perhaps he/she has a phobia to libraries). The most daunting task is typically the math and finding a suitable mentor.
The other way of approaching the issue, is simply asking why journals should be the only ones allowed to publish the information? They aren't paying anyone for the content, yet they are requiring a monopoly of the publishing of the given paper.
Journal double-dips. They charge the scientists who author the papers and their customer who read the papers. I agree that there should be a free no-charge journal should be formed. But somebody needs to pay the bills.
Establishing a journal is tedious and very involved (get the scientists to do peer review, get the papers edited, published, build reputation, get $$$, etc). I can't foresee how we could solve this problem. It's a chicken-and-egg problem. Scientists won't volunteer doing review for no-name journals. But journals' reputation is built upon quality publications, which are highly peer-reviewed. Scientists won't publish their quality works to no-name journal either. After all, scientists need to get tenures, right? Tenures are evaluated upon how many publications are published in famous journals. I think that having "a competition" won't solve the problem much. But some journals already open-access their paper collections. I think it's a matter of time that open access will be a norm.
Einstein managed to get away with three elegant pages and zero refrences
Science has evolved much from 1905. Even with his zero references, he's still implicitly citing the results of Lorentz. By today's standard, no citation like that is unacceptable.
Let me ask you this: Can you honestly ask a high school student or a freshman to understand even that paper without grasping the concepts of differential equation (DE)? They can't. Sure, you can understand the motivation and introduction of that paper, just like those of typical scientific papers. But when you start to delve into the formulas, i.e. what the "meat" is all about, you suddenly need to know everything involved much beyond words explained by the scientists. I have no backgrounds in physics and I can't even follow the derivations of the formula in section I.3 of that paper although I know DE. In other words, I'm lost at section I.3 and I cannot see how Einstein arrived at his conclusions. Maybe a little knowledge of physics will help. There are some baseline knowledge you'd expect your audience to know. You can't explain everything.
Let's face it: English is an ambiguous medium of transfer for scientific knowledge. Mathematical formulas are far more succinct and far less ambiguous. If you think you can sidestep the formula part of the paper, you're dreaming. You might be better off reading popular science magazines.
The folks at RealClimate are just commenting on their results, not real papers. This sort of writing is more of popsci magazine style. They're glossing over way much on how they arrive at their results. To some degree, it's useful. But to me, the gory details is of more importance because only then can I know their assumptions and theoretical limitations on the underlying assumptions or formulas and how to further advance the knowledge or make the estimates more precise.
Scientists do not take other scientists' words at face values and neither should laymen. Given the climate crisis pro-contra, I think reading just the research comments will add to the confusion to the public minds. Or worse, creating camps. We don't want that to happen. So, I think it's wise for the public to read far beyond pop sci writings.
To be honest, if your institution does not foot the bill for subscription, try inter-library loans. That's easy. Most credible institutions in the US do have some subscription for more mainstream journals. Unless you're in third world countries.
The problem with scientific publication is that you need to be terse. They're limited to 8-12 pages. If you are required to spend time for background knowledge for the uninitiated, you'll produce a 1000 page book instead. Moreover, the reviewers will think that you spend your time too much on things that are assumed to be familiar to the intended audience.
Face it: The knowledge we have so far is the agglomeration of previous knowledge. Those who are in the cutting-edge are expected to know the background already. Try explaining measure theory to high school students that has no idea what calculus is. And then if your research has anything to do with measure theory, your result is pretty much unreachable to those students. Let alone any data that correspond to that research.
Scientists want to have their work known. But they don't have the patience and 5 years to explain to aspiring noobs. Sorry. They have a lot more research to do. If you want to know the research, do your homework and study the subject carefully for a few years. Then you'll appreciate whatever data or paper the scientists are publishing.
It depends on what you do. If you're doing a mere run-the-mill database programming, then no advanced math is necessary. But if you're building an expert system (that's not only about simple average or variance), a good grasp of integration will help because you need to know the concepts of cdf, expectation, moment generating function, etc., which are explained in integration.
It's a simple application of Rao-Blackwell theorem at work. Making use of useful information (in this case, movie genre) makes the estimate more precise.
Well, I for one, want to have a smarter AI in all games. Unloading the "mundane" physics engine to the graphic card will hopefully spare more CPU cycles for the AI. After all, it's not graphics that matter in games. It's the gameplay.
Patches for both 3.2.x - 3.3.x and 3.4.x-3.5.0 are the same except for the revision number. I think Slashdot got the link switched around.
Although Apple does use some of the Konqueror's core, I believe that the bug does not affect it at all. At least there is no such vulnerable function as in KDE is in their JS core code.
Well, SP2 adoption is slow because piracy abounds in foreign land, especially in Asia. Windows updater checks the authenticity of the installed windows and refused to install SP2 (and other updates) if the check fails. For some reasons, critical updates can be downloaded from time to time, but not always. Coupled with lack of broadband internet and clueless users, I'm not surprised at all to hear this news.
That's copyright infringemnt! Those mice songs are rip off from our records! ;P
And... they expect to run the game under Linux? Where's the OS cost?
Having failed to do the experiments once and declare the thing as "most likely a myth"! Even today, many, if not most, of the experiments are non-replicable. Well, for most cases they are probably myths or hoaxes, but some of them are genuinely very hard to replicate. The reason can range from precision requirements to hazy details. The latter is the usual suspect, which, I believe, applies in this case as well.
From the patent abstract:
The present invention simplifies the data modeling process and enables its full dynamic versioning by employing a non-hierarchical non-integrated structure to the organization of information.
XML is hierarchical data structure. Hence, his claim isn't valid.
This is exactly where Open Source community should come in and fill the gap and jumpstart the whole thing. The only thing they need is just will power... and perhaps some access to the internet... which perhaps is not available in most areas....
Well... Is it possible that Oracle "bought" Innobase is to "kill" MySQL (the company)? Look at this: MySQL allied with SCO, which is to me like a poisoning tactic. If there were legal battles, Oracle would likely win. When this is the case, SCO/MySQL alliance roll out. If they lost, Oracle will develop InnoDB using GPL license only, forcing SCO/MySQL to roll out in either case. When MySQL the company is over, Oracle abandon InnoDB with one less (albeit lesser) competitor.
Though you might argue that someone in the future will pick up MySQL code, I'd say that it's less likely. It's far easier to switch to other alternatives such as PostgreSQL.
Discounts or free phones are disappearing? Maybe in a short term. Later they will reemerge as the competition goes fiercer. I wouldn't worry for that.
It's not Kerry Mullis. It's Kary Mullis
HP? How about Alan Kay?
You just simply can't infect AVI/WMV/MPEG/MP3 files
You could. Just construct a malicious AVI/WMV/MPEG/MP3 file that exploit buffer overflow bug and insert malicious binary over there. Unsuspecting user will say bad movie. The uploader will say sorry and reupload the fixed movie the next time around (next week / day). Unbeknownst to the users, their computers have been 0wn3d. Think of creative ways that hackers could do. Not even hash could help with this issue.
Slashdot of course. Imagine all the searchable insightful posts.
Nah... it would still be useless. We'll get dupes anyway... ;P
That's true. Not to mention the pressure of not to challenge mainstream ideas. That would be a career suicide. This is why scientists tried to fudge their data / experiments so that it looks like they agree on mainstream ideas and add things a little bit. This is quite common.
When you have something controversial that contradicts mainstream ideas, you will be frowned upon during the peer reviews and most likely will receive really really bad review that your paper get rejected almost immediately without further reconsideration. Things change when you attend prestigious universities such as MIT or Stanford where you do have benefit of doubts. When this is the case, the reviewers will praise you instead.
People may think that the review process is double-blind. Yes, that's true. However, that simply doesn't stop the reviewer to guess who is the author or which research group they belong to. The simplest way to guess it is just to see the papers they cited. Typically, scientists build upon their previous similar works. On the top of that, scientists have quirks on their diction and choice of greek letters or formula representations, too. This way, we can guess the authors most of the time. So, erasing the names of the authors is not quite as useful.
Did you even read the link provided?
Oh, I don't disagree with the news. However, if you just use one incident to generalize over all scientific frauds, would that ring you as logic generalization error?
I'm not a fan of Bush administrator either. But using one incident to blame them is simply FUD. Pure FUD.
BS. Any funded research has similar pressures. Many of those have hidden agendas too. So, it's not "encouraged by the Bush Administration". Your post is simply FUD.
It's not as simple as that. Many research actually are reproducible. However, in most cases, they only show specific datasets that highlight of their research without mentioning that for other datasets the result of their research would be abysmal.
Another common misuse is that they handwave intermediary processes so that it's completely impossible to duplicate. The scientists have the alibi for the limit on the number of pages imposed by the scientific journal.
Both of these need an immediate attention.