While the media is a large contributor, science itself has several other major failings. I end up doubting several 'mainstream' theories in science these days.. global warming, cell phone radiation being harmless, even things like string theory. I don't doubt the power and reality of physical science, and it benefit and overall enlightenment it has granted to mankind. Having taken all the science I did in engineering school, I found out that the universe is odd mix of being a precise, clocklike place, with a lot of underlying chaos.
I believe science it only as good as the people who work in it. Since it's practiced by actual human beings, it's ultimately prone to the failings that affect every other large human institution.. governments, corporations, churches, militaries, etc. There've been many individual and collective demonstrations in these group of greed, envy, corruption, secrecy, nepotism, stubbornness, overt competitiveness, aggression, defensiveness, and others. Large self-organized groups can show personality traits. A small group of leaders typically sets the message down for the masses of laypersons, who then think in bandwagon mode and rationalize the reasons given for the direction.
Historically speaking, science has needed constant revision and correction. When new evidence comes to light, new thinkers do the best they can with it. Changes in common belief though are typically slow to happen not as much to vet the results, but because of resistance to alterations in the power base of 'experts' in the field. Due to the esoteric nature of scientific subspecialites, we typically have to trust a relatively small number of people who research a given field. This leads too often to homogeneity. Peer review in science and other mechanisms ostensibly are supposed to mitigate some human failings, but that is not a perfect insulator. When the reviewer strongly shares (or opposes) the starting mental disposition as the writer, that process fails. There also is today more than any other time in history, more of a dependence on money in science. Funding is the lifeblood of research, and if you don't get it then you die a quick professional death. This corrupts the integrity of the research process by catering to the desired conclusions of the funders.
This is in addition to the problems listed in the junk media reporting article. To be the first to announce something to the media, and the prestige to brings to the individual or institution, has been to blame in many cases of questionable science and in these cases the scientists are as much at fault.
As I said, I don't doubt the truth of science as a physical reality, what I doubt is how it is often used by fallible people and processes. In certain cases, I question the motives, integrity, and reliability of the people and organizations who USE scientific authority for their own self-interested ends.
What you hear a scientific claim, what is your criteria for believing it or not? To me, some of the things that feed in to it:
Number and type of people making/attacking the claim. Are they scientifically grounded specialists, or self-styled or self-educated experts?
The length of time (months, years, decades, more) available to challenge/test/gather more data on the claim.
The typical defenses to attacks on the claim.. are they based in basic science, or are they ad hominem (attack the arguer) attacks?
Possible political/economic/cultural ulterior motives of both proponents and opponents. Money to be made somewhere? Elections to be won?
The 'smell' factor for the scientific methods being used, based on my engineering training.
The certainty level attached to the claim.. sure when they should be questioning? Or questioning what they should be sure of? Based on raw evidence.
Gaps in the theory that proponents will figure will be filled in eventually (or not).
This is what leads me to completely reject both the intelligent design and global warming theories. I also have my layman's doubts about black holes.
I do believe science invests far too much confidence in what seems to appear on a chalkboard without much in the way of direct physical evidence. Yes, there is some observation, but it's also selective observation (picking one star out of millions that fits a certain 'predicted' profile). Mainly for the seemingly undeservedly high confidence level attributed to much of astrophysical science, I will take time to listen to alternate theories. Doesn't matter to me how many PhD's line up to support something, that alone isn't enough. Peer review in that community is far too monolithic as it is. In it's time, many PhD's have scientifically supported eugenics, race/intelligence links, global cooling, Gaia, and many various global catastrophe theories. A good track record overall, but some dismal misses included.
For example, I have my (admittedly amateur) doubts about the true existence of singularities. I don't doubt relativity or the existence of objects for which light is bent around and/or cannot escape. Many of these things have been pretty much directly observed, and relativity has been well lab-tested. The singularity is the thing however which is the practically 'mystical' aspect of black holes and serve to make them sound so mysterious. I've read alternate theories about matter that state that there could be one more plateau of stability beyond neutronium for which there is no test to detect. It's possible in theory then that a ball of this stuff is what is inside of a black hole, and not a singularity. The matter is so densely packed together that light cannot escape, but it IS still a form of physical 3-dimentional matter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_matter
The belief in singularities are based on extrapolations of chalkboard charts and graph trends. Newton made a similar type of mistake thinking his equations and graphs of classical physics extended to the very big, the very small, and the very fast. In reality, the charts don't extend out, other phenomenons take over, namely quantum dynamics and relativity--some new thing just arbitrarily takes over after certain extremes are passed. When we eventually made direct observations that conflicted with the classical theory, we came up with a more refined theory. So, if we somehow get clever and find a way to peek inside a black hole (maybe collide two together or something), then we will have definite evidence. Until then, I have to reserve some skepticism against a 'mystical' claim that isn't based on direct evidence, just charts and graphs that extrapolate out that way.
I would have to disagree with thinking offshore folks are better at development, or even cheaper in the long run. I've seen several large unsuccessful offshoring projects, ones driven in to the ground through overreaching management style. I'm a Java technical developer who first worked for a big-6 firm, then contracted through a small firm locally for some years so as to avoid traveling, then finally after becoming fed up with the attitude taken toward consultants in general (and it being a shaky local job market), took a permanent position at Fortune 100 firm. I've managed offshore resources, and worked with them in teams. Here's my take on the whole thing..
In the 1990's, offshore companies (Tata, Virtusa, Wipro, etc.) typically partnered with big-6 (big-4) management consulting firms in order to get their foot in the door in America. Toward the end of the 90's, the big-6 track record of project delivery was poor in light of the cost-benefit ratio. MC companies (most of which were not solicited by the client companies) were coming in and recommending either centralization or decentralization IT work at the enterprise strategy level that usually didn't deliver the promised level of productivity boost or cost savings. Some firms raked in hundreds of millions off single companies--average individual billing rates ranged around $150-$300/hour. This is despite the intense positive spin on it given by the firms. Professional big-6 consulting firms eventually came to be seen as having an unhealthy long-term parasitic relationship with large companies. A shake-out has been occurring among them in recent years, and lots of mergers have occurred. After the dot-com bust, and being mostly driven out as a company by management because of a desire for cost savings, they were openly being called parasites by executive-level management. Many savvy big-6 firm employees then transitioned over to work for their client companies as a job-parachute and brought their old contacts and subcontractor outsourcing strategies with them. After mostly being autonomously spun off of main accounting parent companies, the management consulting industry is still surviving and evolving and seeking opportunistic niches today.
There's sometimes a rush-in-to-it 'fad' mentality to technology (EJB's,.NET etc.), and management techniques (extreme programming, total quality management, etc.). These things can take years before they find a point of proper usage. Outsourcing to some degree is like a fad. Before it has a proven track record, one company simply commits to it, and then the competition naturally feels obliged to copy the same technique. Many companies jumped on the big-6 project-led remediation bandwagon in the late 90's, especially for Y2K. After spending a few or many millions of dollars then, they learned better.
There are currently some government-set tax benefits for using offshore contractors in 'throwaway-code' conversion projects. Enterprise-level strategy at many companies has been set down to leverage this. There is an explicit preference for offshore workers for this type of project. Some time ago my company had instituted an enterprise-wide limit for contractors, ones who have been at the company for over 2 years. The ban mostly affects Americans and small local contracting companies. The same parasitic stigma was (unjustifiably) applied to the small-fry guys. I left contracting at this stage.
If requirements and design are documented very thoroughly, then off-shoring may be used effectively. Senior personnel must define precisely what must be coded, leaving no unanswered questions and no unexpected contingencies. They must specify all technology and architecture choices ahead of time appropriate to the solution design. Even when this is even possible to do however, it is very labor-intensive on the SME's to write this sort of document. Many natural assumptions and extra pockets of extraneous information must be defined and
The number of people newly retiring and drawing SS versus the number of people dying every year are tightly balanced pair of numbers with a slow growth rate, like 100 of the one to every 99 of the other each year.
If someone found a way to generally arrest aging and it caught on within a year--a great new miracle drug or something--and people would begin the path to living to 933, then the ratio would be instantly altered. The ratio might go to 100 to 1, which would probably melt down the system within just a couple of years. If medical science has any big breakthroughs in the next 50-75 years (anyone think they won't?), then SS is in fairly big trouble.
Doesn't seem like anyone has considered this possibility even on the pessimistic side.
Slashdot Mirror
While the media is a large contributor, science itself has several other major failings. I end up doubting several 'mainstream' theories in science these days.. global warming, cell phone radiation being harmless, even things like string theory. I don't doubt the power and reality of physical science, and it benefit and overall enlightenment it has granted to mankind. Having taken all the science I did in engineering school, I found out that the universe is odd mix of being a precise, clocklike place, with a lot of underlying chaos.
I believe science it only as good as the people who work in it. Since it's practiced by actual human beings, it's ultimately prone to the failings that affect every other large human institution.. governments, corporations, churches, militaries, etc. There've been many individual and collective demonstrations in these group of greed, envy, corruption, secrecy, nepotism, stubbornness, overt competitiveness, aggression, defensiveness, and others. Large self-organized groups can show personality traits. A small group of leaders typically sets the message down for the masses of laypersons, who then think in bandwagon mode and rationalize the reasons given for the direction.
Historically speaking, science has needed constant revision and correction. When new evidence comes to light, new thinkers do the best they can with it. Changes in common belief though are typically slow to happen not as much to vet the results, but because of resistance to alterations in the power base of 'experts' in the field. Due to the esoteric nature of scientific subspecialites, we typically have to trust a relatively small number of people who research a given field. This leads too often to homogeneity. Peer review in science and other mechanisms ostensibly are supposed to mitigate some human failings, but that is not a perfect insulator. When the reviewer strongly shares (or opposes) the starting mental disposition as the writer, that process fails. There also is today more than any other time in history, more of a dependence on money in science. Funding is the lifeblood of research, and if you don't get it then you die a quick professional death. This corrupts the integrity of the research process by catering to the desired conclusions of the funders.
This is in addition to the problems listed in the junk media reporting article. To be the first to announce something to the media, and the prestige to brings to the individual or institution, has been to blame in many cases of questionable science and in these cases the scientists are as much at fault.
As I said, I don't doubt the truth of science as a physical reality, what I doubt is how it is often used by fallible people and processes. In certain cases, I question the motives, integrity, and reliability of the people and organizations who USE scientific authority for their own self-interested ends.
This is what leads me to completely reject both the intelligent design and global warming theories. I also have my layman's doubts about black holes.
I do believe science invests far too much confidence in what seems to appear on a chalkboard without much in the way of direct physical evidence. Yes, there is some observation, but it's also selective observation (picking one star out of millions that fits a certain 'predicted' profile). Mainly for the seemingly undeservedly high confidence level attributed to much of astrophysical science, I will take time to listen to alternate theories. Doesn't matter to me how many PhD's line up to support something, that alone isn't enough. Peer review in that community is far too monolithic as it is. In it's time, many PhD's have scientifically supported eugenics, race/intelligence links, global cooling, Gaia, and many various global catastrophe theories. A good track record overall, but some dismal misses included.
For example, I have my (admittedly amateur) doubts about the true existence of singularities. I don't doubt relativity or the existence of objects for which light is bent around and/or cannot escape. Many of these things have been pretty much directly observed, and relativity has been well lab-tested. The singularity is the thing however which is the practically 'mystical' aspect of black holes and serve to make them sound so mysterious. I've read alternate theories about matter that state that there could be one more plateau of stability beyond neutronium for which there is no test to detect. It's possible in theory then that a ball of this stuff is what is inside of a black hole, and not a singularity. The matter is so densely packed together that light cannot escape, but it IS still a form of physical 3-dimentional matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_matter
The belief in singularities are based on extrapolations of chalkboard charts and graph trends. Newton made a similar type of mistake thinking his equations and graphs of classical physics extended to the very big, the very small, and the very fast. In reality, the charts don't extend out, other phenomenons take over, namely quantum dynamics and relativity--some new thing just arbitrarily takes over after certain extremes are passed. When we eventually made direct observations that conflicted with the classical theory, we came up with a more refined theory. So, if we somehow get clever and find a way to peek inside a black hole (maybe collide two together or something), then we will have definite evidence. Until then, I have to reserve some skepticism against a 'mystical' claim that isn't based on direct evidence, just charts and graphs that extrapolate out that way.
I would have to disagree with thinking offshore folks are better at development, or even cheaper in the long run. I've seen several large unsuccessful offshoring projects, ones driven in to the ground through overreaching management style. I'm a Java technical developer who first worked for a big-6 firm, then contracted through a small firm locally for some years so as to avoid traveling, then finally after becoming fed up with the attitude taken toward consultants in general (and it being a shaky local job market), took a permanent position at Fortune 100 firm. I've managed offshore resources, and worked with them in teams. Here's my take on the whole thing..
.NET etc.), and management techniques (extreme programming, total quality management, etc.). These things can take years before they find a point of proper usage. Outsourcing to some degree is like a fad. Before it has a proven track record, one company simply commits to it, and then the competition naturally feels obliged to copy the same technique. Many companies jumped on the big-6 project-led remediation bandwagon in the late 90's, especially for Y2K. After spending a few or many millions of dollars then, they learned better.
In the 1990's, offshore companies (Tata, Virtusa, Wipro, etc.) typically partnered with big-6 (big-4) management consulting firms in order to get their foot in the door in America. Toward the end of the 90's, the big-6 track record of project delivery was poor in light of the cost-benefit ratio. MC companies (most of which were not solicited by the client companies) were coming in and recommending either centralization or decentralization IT work at the enterprise strategy level that usually didn't deliver the promised level of productivity boost or cost savings. Some firms raked in hundreds of millions off single companies--average individual billing rates ranged around $150-$300/hour. This is despite the intense positive spin on it given by the firms. Professional big-6 consulting firms eventually came to be seen as having an unhealthy long-term parasitic relationship with large companies. A shake-out has been occurring among them in recent years, and lots of mergers have occurred. After the dot-com bust, and being mostly driven out as a company by management because of a desire for cost savings, they were openly being called parasites by executive-level management. Many savvy big-6 firm employees then transitioned over to work for their client companies as a job-parachute and brought their old contacts and subcontractor outsourcing strategies with them. After mostly being autonomously spun off of main accounting parent companies, the management consulting industry is still surviving and evolving and seeking opportunistic niches today.
There's sometimes a rush-in-to-it 'fad' mentality to technology (EJB's,
There are currently some government-set tax benefits for using offshore contractors in 'throwaway-code' conversion projects. Enterprise-level strategy at many companies has been set down to leverage this. There is an explicit preference for offshore workers for this type of project. Some time ago my company had instituted an enterprise-wide limit for contractors, ones who have been at the company for over 2 years. The ban mostly affects Americans and small local contracting companies. The same parasitic stigma was (unjustifiably) applied to the small-fry guys. I left contracting at this stage.
If requirements and design are documented very thoroughly, then off-shoring may be used effectively. Senior personnel must define precisely what must be coded, leaving no unanswered questions and no unexpected contingencies. They must specify all technology and architecture choices ahead of time appropriate to the solution design. Even when this is even possible to do however, it is very labor-intensive on the SME's to write this sort of document. Many natural assumptions and extra pockets of extraneous information must be defined and
The number of people newly retiring and drawing SS versus the number of people dying every year are tightly balanced pair of numbers with a slow growth rate, like 100 of the one to every 99 of the other each year. If someone found a way to generally arrest aging and it caught on within a year--a great new miracle drug or something--and people would begin the path to living to 933, then the ratio would be instantly altered. The ratio might go to 100 to 1, which would probably melt down the system within just a couple of years. If medical science has any big breakthroughs in the next 50-75 years (anyone think they won't?), then SS is in fairly big trouble. Doesn't seem like anyone has considered this possibility even on the pessimistic side.