So you're saying that if you're trying to do research into a the answer to a subject, and that's the answer that's generally considered "wrong" by the scientific community it won't be harder to get funding from said scientific community?
I should touch on some of the other points you brought up as well. After reading my reply I realized I skipped over a few.
What you find in science is that funding at a large, big money level is very trendy. You'll get funding bursts for anywhere from 10 to 40 years at a time. To get this big funding, you need to have a problem that's a "world problem". Something where you can look someone straight in the eye and sell them on the idea that if something isn't done, everyone might die.
Fear sells when you're offering a solution, Business 101.
So usually the way this starts out is that some grad student or small time researcher decides for the sake of knowledge to find out what would happen if some current trend were to continue indefinitely, or something to that effect.
The research is done, the findings are published and usually the researcher will find another project. How this turns into a big money project is usually by one of two things. Either some idiot journalist or politician will read it, misinterpret it and then start screaming the sky is falling, or a politically savvy researching will realize it has potential for some major NSF type funding and take it and run with it.
Some more research is done, it's found out that this really could be a serious global problem, and yesterday's acid rain is today's global warming.
Now though is when you have a problem. Scientists start picking sides, and once they do that become as annoying as Windows/Mac/Linux zealots. Their side is *right*. You're side is wrong. In this case most people have fallen into the camp of "Global Warming is caused by people".
Your question was, how do the people who disagree with the majority not get published. I say that the answer is simple. If you're on a committee and you have in front of you a paper that casts serious doubt on the fundamental idea that's been your funding source for the last ten years, and your only realistic funding source in the foreseeable future, do you publish it? For those who are money and fame grubbers, of course not. For those that are more altruistic?
In this case, if the 15% of scientists are right, then no harm, no foul. At worst we spent a lot of money on research that wasn't strictly necessary.
However, if you're in that 85% that's right, then anything that might stop research into this problem could be life threatening to anyone on earth. There's concern that (for example the Bush administration) will cut federal funding to global warming research if anything comes out that doesn't support it. This is a valid concern, so there's pressure not to publish it.
"In a certain sense it's provided more funding, but there's a fear that our science will be driven strictly by political decisions," she says. For instance, political decisions were made on how to deal with sulfur emissions that cause acid rain. The research budget was cut by 40 percent in the fiscal year 1990 budget, the acid rain reductions strategies were embodied in the Clean Air Act passed in 1991, and the issue has been relegated to the back burner, Penner says. She fears a similar fate for global warming research. "People are concerned about the policy going forward without the knowledge base being there. Once a decision is made, the funding base is cut and you never get to know if you made the right choice," she says. "I think it's dangerous to make expensive political decisions now. Later, you'll have more reasons and abilities." For now, she advocates a go-slow approach to policymakers."
There are people who have political motivations on either side of the fence, looking to lock-in final policy on the "Global Warming" issue and move on. This problem is more complex than that. Anyone looking to give you an easy answer on global warming and/or climate change is looking to sell you something.
Global warming is the change in average temperature across the entire world. Climate change (with regards to global warming) is what effect that overall change in temperature will have on the climate of a given area.
Those who say that global warming is creating climate change will point to severe drought in areas, significant increases in rainfall in others etc. That's the climate change. The idea is that global warming is the engine driving that climate change.
Most people who talk about global warming (esp. with regards to the human element in it) say things like "Increased CO2 in the atmosphere has caused a shift in where the Gulf Stream occurs". While it's true that there's more CO2 in the atmosphere now than 50 years ago, and it's true that the Gulf Stream has shifted course, it's not proven by any stretch that one has caused the other.
Climate change occurs and has been occurring on Earth for billions of years. Natural global warming and cooling has been occurring on Earth for billions of years. The effect that people have had on this process is what is being debated, but that's a distinction that most people gloss over.
Granted I haven't had a chance to read the entire article yet, but it sounds like it's in line with what the climate scientists at my University have been saying for a while. Two things actually.
The first is that funding shapes science whether you want it to or not. If the general consensus is that global warming is happening, you're much more likely to get funded if you decide to do research on "why global warming is going on" or "what are the major contributors to global warming" etc. However, if you were to submit a proposal along the lines of "what if any effect has global warming had on climate change", good luck.
Therefore there's going to be a lot of science out there saying "Yes, global warming is happening and is the reason for climate change!", since that's what pays the bills, gets you published, and gets you invited to all sorts of posh international conventions on global warming. No one wants to invite the guy/gal that says "yes it's happening but it's not the cause, or certainly not the only cause behind global climate change".
Just my two cents. Keep and open mind, even when reading "science". At the end of the day scientists are human beings too, they have to pay the bills, report to a boss, have a reputation among their peers. Science is rarely about pure facts. The facts usually need to be teased out of the agenda, aggrandizing and ego of those doing the work.
Anything that makes it "really easy" for me to move/save/delete files while online from any computer means that unless you're amazingly careful, you're also making it that much easier for someone else to do it for you.
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I have yet to see *any* vendor, be it closed source or open source take enough time and care with their code to write something that doesn't have gaping security holes in it.
What's going to happen when what was a simple browser problem becomes a file system problem? Drive by downloads that wipe your machine.
Might want to double check with your doctor about how long you wait after getting one before you have sex with your partner. There's a reason they tell you to wait at least for weeks. My friend's fifth child is evidence of that.
He waited four weeks instead of six and had another kid for his trouble.
Up until now the RIAA has been living off of lawyers who are working off of retainers. Now that they'll have to shell out a grand or so to "inspect" someone's hard drive for stolen works it should get interesting. How eager will they be to charge 100 people if each one is going to run them $1,000 up front?
I think a difference is that to the best of people's knowledge, the holes in Apple's OS weren't being exploited in the wild prior to the patch. Apple is fixing the problems before they're exploited, not a week or two after.
I don't know that that's really what they want, although supposedly that's what they're shooting for. MySpace had it's 15 seconds, and IMO is heading out the door. I don't know that you'd want to take a brand new, unbranded product and slap a "It's like MySpace, only you carry it WITH YOU!" label on it.
If MS really wants to scare Apple, they need to come out with a way to make it cooler than Apple's product. MySpace ain't it.
I'm getting the impression that a number of third party developers had somewhat written the Wii off initially, and have since changed their tune post E3.
Between Nintendo's good showing there, and Sony's lukewarm reception, I know I'd sure as hell want a few Wii titles if I were a third party shop.
I was at the second largest University in the U.S. All of our papers, whether for research or not, became the property of the University once turned in. This included, English, Math, Psych etc. Even as undergrads all of our work belonged to them once turned in. The policy wasn't widely known, and certainly wasn't publicized, but it was there. You might want to reread your school's policy.
At most major Universities your work is owned by them once produced, not you. You can, in theory, get in trouble for using parts of your own papers as they aren't yours, but belong to the school.
Anyone else notice that in a race to lower production costs to their absolute minimum, companies are spending more and more money fixing problems down the line?
I would love to see the bid contracts that went out. Odds are that someone who's a little more reputable was within a few cents per battery of this outfit, but lost out because they weren't the lowest cost bid.
Now you have a piece of paper worth a fraction of a cent costing Sony at least $50 to $100 per battery.
So if you're a black hat and you've found a new, as yet undiscovered hole in Vista, would you really go running to MS to tell them all about it so they can patch it?
Or would you keep it to yourself in hopes that the final release will still contain the hole so you can pwn millions of new adoptors?
So did Apple pay Adobe for this feature in their OS? If so, why wouldn't Adobe want MS to license this as well? It would just make PDF's that much more standard for sending documents that aren't OS/Software dependant.
So what happens when they find that homemade video a friend is sending you from their trip overseas?
Unless they decide to actually play every DVD, or open the packaging to see what inside a case, how are they going to know?
All a pirate would have to do is ship them in unmarked cases, or ones marked "Vacation video" and mail them to the US, where their partner opens them up and puts them in the final packing material.
Sounds like a giant waste of time to me. And for what? DVD's. We can't even be bothered to search all of the crates coming into our ports, but hell, the MPAA has enough time and money to look for fake fucking DVD's.
That was one of the best things to do with an SI. I used to make them somewhat regularly, they were fun and great conversation pieces. Plus they were the perfect size for a college desk.
I need to patent a system whereby I collect money from people intelligently. If they have more money than I do, I'll intellegently collect it from them. They can even stream me money directly to my bank account!
Does it make me bad that I laughed when I read this?
Oh well, on topic. It seems kind of stupid to toss out a lawsuit because of a typo. If everyone knows it was a typo, couldn't they just correct the mistake and continue? Why make Lucent refile?
Seems like a GIANT waste of everyone's time and money.
Slashdot Mirror
So you're saying that if you're trying to do research into a the answer to a subject, and that's the answer that's generally considered "wrong" by the scientific community it won't be harder to get funding from said scientific community?
I should touch on some of the other points you brought up as well. After reading my reply I realized I skipped over a few.
What you find in science is that funding at a large, big money level is very trendy. You'll get funding bursts for anywhere from 10 to 40 years at a time. To get this big funding, you need to have a problem that's a "world problem". Something where you can look someone straight in the eye and sell them on the idea that if something isn't done, everyone might die.
Fear sells when you're offering a solution, Business 101.
So usually the way this starts out is that some grad student or small time researcher decides for the sake of knowledge to find out what would happen if some current trend were to continue indefinitely, or something to that effect.
The research is done, the findings are published and usually the researcher will find another project. How this turns into a big money project is usually by one of two things. Either some idiot journalist or politician will read it, misinterpret it and then start screaming the sky is falling, or a politically savvy researching will realize it has potential for some major NSF type funding and take it and run with it.
Some more research is done, it's found out that this really could be a serious global problem, and yesterday's acid rain is today's global warming.
Now though is when you have a problem. Scientists start picking sides, and once they do that become as annoying as Windows/Mac/Linux zealots. Their side is *right*. You're side is wrong. In this case most people have fallen into the camp of "Global Warming is caused by people".
Your question was, how do the people who disagree with the majority not get published. I say that the answer is simple. If you're on a committee and you have in front of you a paper that casts serious doubt on the fundamental idea that's been your funding source for the last ten years, and your only realistic funding source in the foreseeable future, do you publish it? For those who are money and fame grubbers, of course not. For those that are more altruistic?
In this case, if the 15% of scientists are right, then no harm, no foul. At worst we spent a lot of money on research that wasn't strictly necessary.
However, if you're in that 85% that's right, then anything that might stop research into this problem could be life threatening to anyone on earth. There's concern that (for example the Bush administration) will cut federal funding to global warming research if anything comes out that doesn't support it. This is a valid concern, so there's pressure not to publish it.
This is an old article about global warming, that actually has a very relevant passage.
4 /
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/1134
"In a certain sense it's provided more funding, but there's a fear that our science will be driven strictly by political decisions," she says. For instance, political decisions were made on how to deal with sulfur emissions that cause acid rain. The research budget was cut by 40 percent in the fiscal year 1990 budget, the acid rain reductions strategies were embodied in the Clean Air Act passed in 1991, and the issue has been relegated to the back burner, Penner says. She fears a similar fate for global warming research. "People are concerned about the policy going forward without the knowledge base being there. Once a decision is made, the funding base is cut and you never get to know if you made the right choice," she says. "I think it's dangerous to make expensive political decisions now. Later, you'll have more reasons and abilities." For now, she advocates a go-slow approach to policymakers."
There are people who have political motivations on either side of the fence, looking to lock-in final policy on the "Global Warming" issue and move on. This problem is more complex than that. Anyone looking to give you an easy answer on global warming and/or climate change is looking to sell you something.
Global warming is the change in average temperature across the entire world. Climate change (with regards to global warming) is what effect that overall change in temperature will have on the climate of a given area.
Those who say that global warming is creating climate change will point to severe drought in areas, significant increases in rainfall in others etc. That's the climate change. The idea is that global warming is the engine driving that climate change.
Most people who talk about global warming (esp. with regards to the human element in it) say things like "Increased CO2 in the atmosphere has caused a shift in where the Gulf Stream occurs". While it's true that there's more CO2 in the atmosphere now than 50 years ago, and it's true that the Gulf Stream has shifted course, it's not proven by any stretch that one has caused the other.
Climate change occurs and has been occurring on Earth for billions of years. Natural global warming and cooling has been occurring on Earth for billions of years. The effect that people have had on this process is what is being debated, but that's a distinction that most people gloss over.
Granted I haven't had a chance to read the entire article yet, but it sounds like it's in line with what the climate scientists at my University have been saying for a while. Two things actually.
The first is that funding shapes science whether you want it to or not. If the general consensus is that global warming is happening, you're much more likely to get funded if you decide to do research on "why global warming is going on" or "what are the major contributors to global warming" etc. However, if you were to submit a proposal along the lines of "what if any effect has global warming had on climate change", good luck.
Therefore there's going to be a lot of science out there saying "Yes, global warming is happening and is the reason for climate change!", since that's what pays the bills, gets you published, and gets you invited to all sorts of posh international conventions on global warming. No one wants to invite the guy/gal that says "yes it's happening but it's not the cause, or certainly not the only cause behind global climate change".
Just my two cents. Keep and open mind, even when reading "science". At the end of the day scientists are human beings too, they have to pay the bills, report to a boss, have a reputation among their peers. Science is rarely about pure facts. The facts usually need to be teased out of the agenda, aggrandizing and ego of those doing the work.
Anything that makes it "really easy" for me to move/save/delete files while online from any computer means that unless you're amazingly careful, you're also making it that much easier for someone else to do it for you.
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I have yet to see *any* vendor, be it closed source or open source take enough time and care with their code to write something that doesn't have gaping security holes in it.
What's going to happen when what was a simple browser problem becomes a file system problem? Drive by downloads that wipe your machine.
Might want to double check with your doctor about how long you wait after getting one before you have sex with your partner. There's a reason they tell you to wait at least for weeks. My friend's fifth child is evidence of that.
He waited four weeks instead of six and had another kid for his trouble.
Up until now the RIAA has been living off of lawyers who are working off of retainers. Now that they'll have to shell out a grand or so to "inspect" someone's hard drive for stolen works it should get interesting. How eager will they be to charge 100 people if each one is going to run them $1,000 up front?
I think a difference is that to the best of people's knowledge, the holes in Apple's OS weren't being exploited in the wild prior to the patch. Apple is fixing the problems before they're exploited, not a week or two after.
Time will tell though.
Must have been the part where the machine can dual boot into native WinXP or OSX. You know, the part that makes your comment stupid.
I don't know that that's really what they want, although supposedly that's what they're shooting for. MySpace had it's 15 seconds, and IMO is heading out the door. I don't know that you'd want to take a brand new, unbranded product and slap a "It's like MySpace, only you carry it WITH YOU!" label on it.
If MS really wants to scare Apple, they need to come out with a way to make it cooler than Apple's product. MySpace ain't it.
I'm getting the impression that a number of third party developers had somewhat written the Wii off initially, and have since changed their tune post E3.
Between Nintendo's good showing there, and Sony's lukewarm reception, I know I'd sure as hell want a few Wii titles if I were a third party shop.
I know it's fun to bash Sony and all lately, but the caption below the title is talking about XBOX 360 games being $72. Is that $3 newsworthy?
I was at the second largest University in the U.S. All of our papers, whether for research or not, became the property of the University once turned in. This included, English, Math, Psych etc. Even as undergrads all of our work belonged to them once turned in. The policy wasn't widely known, and certainly wasn't publicized, but it was there. You might want to reread your school's policy.
At most major Universities your work is owned by them once produced, not you. You can, in theory, get in trouble for using parts of your own papers as they aren't yours, but belong to the school.
Anyone else notice that in a race to lower production costs to their absolute minimum, companies are spending more and more money fixing problems down the line?
I would love to see the bid contracts that went out. Odds are that someone who's a little more reputable was within a few cents per battery of this outfit, but lost out because they weren't the lowest cost bid.
Now you have a piece of paper worth a fraction of a cent costing Sony at least $50 to $100 per battery.
Nice cost savings.
Since Apple hasn't come out with a video sharing service yet, MS doesn't have a template for what theirs will look like.
So if you're a black hat and you've found a new, as yet undiscovered hole in Vista, would you really go running to MS to tell them all about it so they can patch it?
Or would you keep it to yourself in hopes that the final release will still contain the hole so you can pwn millions of new adoptors?
So did Apple pay Adobe for this feature in their OS? If so, why wouldn't Adobe want MS to license this as well? It would just make PDF's that much more standard for sending documents that aren't OS/Software dependant.
As if a million seeders and leechers cried out in agony, then were gone.....
So what happens when they find that homemade video a friend is sending you from their trip overseas?
Unless they decide to actually play every DVD, or open the packaging to see what inside a case, how are they going to know?
All a pirate would have to do is ship them in unmarked cases, or ones marked "Vacation video" and mail them to the US, where their partner opens them up and puts them in the final packing material.
Sounds like a giant waste of time to me. And for what? DVD's. We can't even be bothered to search all of the crates coming into our ports, but hell, the MPAA has enough time and money to look for fake fucking DVD's.
Morons.
Available in 2075. No, really this time. We're serious.
That was one of the best things to do with an SI. I used to make them somewhat regularly, they were fun and great conversation pieces. Plus they were the perfect size for a college desk.
I need to patent a system whereby I collect money from people intelligently. If they have more money than I do, I'll intellegently collect it from them. They can even stream me money directly to my bank account!
Big bucks here I come!
Does it make me bad that I laughed when I read this?
Oh well, on topic. It seems kind of stupid to toss out a lawsuit because of a typo. If everyone knows it was a typo, couldn't they just correct the mistake and continue? Why make Lucent refile?
Seems like a GIANT waste of everyone's time and money.