Maybe they should rename Slashdot to Science Digested...
What's especially amusing is that I (I'm actually the editor of the IEEE Spectrum space elevator article) submitted the original article by Edwards twice to Slashsot, once on the day of its publication, and then again when researchers announced a breakthrough in producing carbon nanotube ribbons in Science. Clearly my error was in not realising that slashdot readers would much prefer 2nd-hand references to articles 6 weeks after the fact.:)
Actually, I'm not really bitter, I understand that what works for slashdot, or any publication, on one day may not be right on another. Timing really is everything, so c'est la vie, and I'm glad the blogverse has picked up and is discussing the story. But while I have your attention, maybe I can direct you to another Spectrum story slashdot passed on in the last few weeks before it comes back from the blogverse: a colleague of mine did a stonking piece of investigative journalism into the gory details of how the FBI blew millions of dollars on the software development debacle known as the Virtual Case File.
You could probably human-rate it without too much effort, given that the major components are all shuttle-derived and therefore already human-rated.
I wonder what the acceleration profile would be
The shuttle was a fairly gentle ride (3 g's max), but earlier human-rated boosters had higher peak g loads, so you got some wiggle room. Anyway, to quote from NASA's factsheet:
"Although primarily designed to carry cargo, this system can be human-rated to carry crew into orbit. "
Re:I like it, but I also have questions and doubts
on
NASA's New Shuttle
·
· Score: 4, Informative
we were still using vacum tubes
A nit, but I don't think there were any vacuum tubes in the Apollo/Saturn stack -- transistors were already commonplace, and the Apollo Guidance computer pioneered the use of ICs, albeit not microprocessors. But if you've got a reference that describes tubes, I really would like to see it (I'm not being snarky, I really would!)
Re:based on Space Shuttle technology
on
NASA's New Shuttle
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
One of the points Griffin made at the press conference was that, apart from electronics, there sadly hasn't been huge strides in space materials and technology since Apollo (think alloys, restartable engines, cryogenic liquid storage, etc).
Well, they're still using the SSME's on the heavy lift vehicle and on the second stage of the crew launch vehicle. Only the Earth transfer stage will use the J-2S. The CEV and ascent stage of the lander will used methane-based engines (based on the RL-10 perhaps? Maybe an americanised RD-x, given the Russians have much more recent experience with CH4-based engines), and the descent stage will use a LOX/LH2 engine.
I guess it's because it's a well characterised, qualified engine with a functioning supply chain. Unlike, say, space shuttle frames, new SSME's have been rolling off the line for twenty years (they are replaced after a few missions), which means there's a functioning network of suppliers and contractors to construct them. To develop a new engine means you have to invest in not just R&D and huge amounts of testing for the engine itself, but tooling, contractors, materials etc.
The fact sheet that accompanied the announcement, here, explictly states they'll be using the J2-S. Astronautix.com notes that "It was estimated by ATK Thiokol in 2005 that restarting the J-2S program, including engine fabrication, design and reliability verification, certification, and production, would require four years." Looks like the ghost of the S-IVB (America's favourite stage!) will live on yet...
SatanicPuppy made most of my points for me, but as a science journalist who only sends portions of an article to sources for review, I'll explain one more reason that is rooted in ethics. Say I send the entire, non-reviewed article to all my sources, including Mr. Jones and Mr. Jones's boss Mr. Smith, and in it Mr Jones says something awful about the technology his company is working on. Mr Jones rings me back urgently -- he never said that, I double check my notes, and oops, he's right! Well, that's okay: catching mistakes is what source review is all about! But Mr Jones has to hang up the phone now because Mr. Smith has come into his office demanding Mr Jones clean out his desk.
That said, I do routinely send more than just bare quotes to sources -- as well as anything derived from my interview with them, such as facts that don't get placed in quotes, I try to include enough surrounding material so they can be sure the context is right. We also do independant peer review on many feature articles as another check.
But what colleague? -- the Schon debacle at Bell Labs demonstrated that even co-authors on a paper can be rountinely ignorant of key details of an experiment's methodology, let alone other researchers at the same institution! I'm not saying this kind of investigative leg work can't be done, but its not part of routine reporting because it's a line of enquiry that would probably never produce a payoff in many reporter's careers, given that most scientists are scientifically honest, even if sometimes mistaken. Instead we have do things like ask for general assesements from other researchers, gauge the reputation of the supervising body, estimate how radical the idea is (extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, etc) as a substitute.
After all, even Avon, one of the most suspicious individuals of all time, didn't ask about Ensor's lab notes!
Well, as I say in my earlier post, I agree the state of science journalism in many general interest news publications is poor, but I believe the fault lies not with some inherent flaw in journalists, such as they being "retard sensationalists", but with the tone and standards set by the publishers of these organs.
I can't see many scientists objecting to being asked, say, to explain their logging methods
Alas, that explanation wouldn't be very useful as routine piece of verification: if they're making up or fudging results in the first place, it would be very easy to promise a journalist that, say, everything was done using double blind controls and the statistical analysis produced a confidence level of 99%, which brings us back to trusting the researcher.
And all the computers of the Federation are one thing, the mind of a single scientist quite another!:)
They are always wrong at least once... the fact that all journalists are arts majors shows you exactly why they get the science wrong.
Sweeping generalities also makes for bad arguments:) -- my degree was in experimental physics, and several of my co-workers have hard science degrees, even up to Ph.D level, yet we're journalists all. And my magazine isn't exactly unique in that, there are a lot of scientifically trained people on the staff of science/tech publications. But even then, we've staff with humanities backgrounds that are top notch, mainly because at a science/tech publication, the staff is more likely to have the time to learn something in depth, with management that can demand and recognize good quality science reporting.
Oops, I should clarify my point about other scientists having to take a researcher's word that they're Not Making Shit Up: while it's true the backbone of science is independant reproduction of results, manuscript reviewers for journals do not generally attempt to experimentally verify claimed results prior to publication, especially in the case of complex, lengthy, expensive, or unique experiments.
This one is hard to guague, if you're not in the field, but you can look for tell-tale signs of a problem. If you can't see the methods used, if they didn't keep logs or lab notes of what they did, if they are vague about how you get from the data to the conclusions - these should tip off any competent journalist that something isn't right.
I think that you make some excellent points, but I'm afraid that ferreting out the state of logs, raw data, notebooks, etc (even to verify that they do in fact exist in any form), is not realistic, except in very unusual circumstances -- even the best peer reviewed scientific journals do not normally demand to see lab notes, after all. It's only when there's already heavy suspicion something is wrong that an investigation with enough authority to demand researchers produce their notes is formed. Obviously, if a journalist is making a site visit as part of their reporting, then he or she should be on the lookout for the Dodgy or the Shoddy, but even then they will only be able to make a superficial examination. In practice, unless there's some good reason not to, journalists -- just like other scientists -- have to take a researcher's word for it that they're not Making Shit Up.
As a science journalist working for Another Science/Tech Publication, I can second that -- New Scientist is worth reading.
The publication, not the college major, is the key
on
Bad Science in the Press
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I think the type of publication is a very significant contributor to the prevalance of Bad Science reporting, even more so than the article's thesis of "Humanties Majors run amok."
If you look at many general interest news publications, whether they be monthly magazines or daily papers, you'll find they don't often even have a dedicated science reporter. Even when they claim to, it's really a "Health" reporter, who's often much more likely to cover the latest exercise craze or green tea fad than actual metabolic research from the NIH (incidently, at least one major science journalism prize now specifically excludes "health" articles for this reason.) Even when they do have science reporters, the Guardian's article makes a good point: unlike the financial or politics pages, the science beat reporter must assume no, or very little, prior knowledge of science, and this is enforced by their editors. While this may (sadly) be a perfectly reasonable thing to do, as scientific literacy among the public is appalling, you can see how it's a vicious cycle kind of thing. And it's the rare general interest publication indeed that would have more than one staff reporter or editor dedicated to covering science.
But I think there's still good science journalism out there, in the science and tech magazines, like New Scientist or Discover. Not only can you assume the audience knows what the terms "volt" or "DNA" mean, you can get much more space to give a real explanation of what's going on. While stories are still supposed to be timely, they're not usually tied to the daIly press release cycle either. And this type of publication is much more likley to employ people with science backgrounds. Here I should state my possible bias: I'm a science journalist for a monthly emerging technology magazine with a university education in experimental physics! But I should say that one of our best writers here, if not the best, was an English major in college. But after a few years now on the semiconductor beat he probably knows more about, say, dielectrics, than I ever did, not least because he had the time to learn, time often in short supply when one is the sole science reporter on a newsstand publication, and so have to cover the entire scientific waterfront. Reporters for science/tech publications can usually focus on a few areas at a time and really learn them in depth, and that makes a huge difference.
This is why I feel the publication makes a much bigger difference than some seething secret Romantic resentment from journalists to the quality of science reporting. It's the publishers and editors which set the standards for articles, not individual reporters, after all.
Weird. This is second example of sharp writing I've seen on slashdot today, and both attached to the same article, when normally one goes weeks between occurances of such an event!
Yes! I too felt your pain: an awesome 16 bit processor trapped by system clunkiness... My first machine too, but soon supplanted by the awesome BBC model-B, the only computer I ever felt got everything right until the more recent generations of OS X-enabled PowerBooks.
It can however, take a very long time for bad science to be disproved for various reasons.
One is that no-one goes all the way back to first principles when doing an experiement or making observations (for example, when measuring the charge to mass ratio of an electron, I don't first redo the experiments that prove that electrons exists, I just set up my cathode ray tube!). Every experiment is based on assumptions, and these assumptions are sometimes socially constructed. Entire, internally consistent, edifices can be built in strict accordance with the scientific principle, and still be wrong because the underlying assumptions are invalid. The history of scientific rascism is a good example of this.
Another reason is that sometimes it is very difficult, expensive, or impractical to repeat the experiment / observations. Large clinical trials are a good example of this. It's not like every doctor who has a hunch that the latest drug might have undesirable side effects or is ineffective can go out and prove that on their own.
What I'm saying is that indeed, over long periods of time, science will eventually fall in line with what the universe is actually doing, but over shorter periods of time (years to decades) science can suffer from contextual defects just as much as journalism.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe they should rename Slashdot to Science Digested...
:)
What's especially amusing is that I (I'm actually the editor of the IEEE Spectrum space elevator article) submitted the original article by Edwards twice to Slashsot, once on the day of its publication, and then again when researchers announced a breakthrough in producing carbon nanotube ribbons in Science. Clearly my error was in not realising that slashdot readers would much prefer 2nd-hand references to articles 6 weeks after the fact.
Actually, I'm not really bitter, I understand that what works for slashdot, or any publication, on one day may not be right on another. Timing really is everything, so c'est la vie, and I'm glad the blogverse has picked up and is discussing the story. But while I have your attention, maybe I can direct you to another Spectrum story slashdot passed on in the last few weeks before it comes back from the blogverse: a colleague of mine did a stonking piece of investigative journalism into the gory details of how the FBI blew millions of dollars on the software development debacle known as the Virtual Case File.
You could probably human-rate it without too much effort, given that the major components are all shuttle-derived and therefore already human-rated.
I wonder what the acceleration profile would be
The shuttle was a fairly gentle ride (3 g's max), but earlier human-rated boosters had higher peak g loads, so you got some wiggle room. Anyway, to quote from NASA's factsheet:
"Although primarily designed to carry cargo, this system can be human-rated to carry crew into orbit. "
we were still using vacum tubes
A nit, but I don't think there were any vacuum tubes in the Apollo/Saturn stack -- transistors were already commonplace, and the Apollo Guidance computer pioneered the use of ICs, albeit not microprocessors. But if you've got a reference that describes tubes, I really would like to see it (I'm not being snarky, I really would!)
One of the points Griffin made at the press conference was that, apart from electronics, there sadly hasn't been huge strides in space materials and technology since Apollo (think alloys, restartable engines, cryogenic liquid storage, etc).
Well, they're still using the SSME's on the heavy lift vehicle and on the second stage of the crew launch vehicle. Only the Earth transfer stage will use the J-2S. The CEV and ascent stage of the lander will used methane-based engines (based on the RL-10 perhaps? Maybe an americanised RD-x, given the Russians have much more recent experience with CH4-based engines), and the descent stage will use a LOX/LH2 engine.
why use SSMEs?
I guess it's because it's a well characterised, qualified engine with a functioning supply chain. Unlike, say, space shuttle frames, new SSME's have been rolling off the line for twenty years (they are replaced after a few missions), which means there's a functioning network of suppliers and contractors to construct them. To develop a new engine means you have to invest in not just R&D and huge amounts of testing for the engine itself, but tooling, contractors, materials etc.
OT, but if you're interested in the elevator, you may want to check this feature by elevator guru Brad Edwards in last month's IEEE Spectrum magazine.
The fact sheet that accompanied the announcement, here, explictly states they'll be using the J2-S. Astronautix.com notes that "It was estimated by ATK Thiokol in 2005 that restarting the J-2S program, including engine fabrication, design and reliability verification, certification, and production, would require four years." Looks like the ghost of the S-IVB (America's favourite stage!) will live on yet...
Because it's more authorative & acurate than anything else out there, including print?
... Oh wait, were you being serious?
Ahaha! Good one!
SatanicPuppy made most of my points for me, but as a science journalist who only sends portions of an article to sources for review, I'll explain one more reason that is rooted in ethics. Say I send the entire, non-reviewed article to all my sources, including Mr. Jones and Mr. Jones's boss Mr. Smith, and in it Mr Jones says something awful about the technology his company is working on. Mr Jones rings me back urgently -- he never said that, I double check my notes, and oops, he's right! Well, that's okay: catching mistakes is what source review is all about! But Mr Jones has to hang up the phone now because Mr. Smith has come into his office demanding Mr Jones clean out his desk.
That said, I do routinely send more than just bare quotes to sources -- as well as anything derived from my interview with them, such as facts that don't get placed in quotes, I try to include enough surrounding material so they can be sure the context is right. We also do independant peer review on many feature articles as another check.
You then check with a colleague
But what colleague? -- the Schon debacle at Bell Labs demonstrated that even co-authors on a paper can be rountinely ignorant of key details of an experiment's methodology, let alone other researchers at the same institution! I'm not saying this kind of investigative leg work can't be done, but its not part of routine reporting because it's a line of enquiry that would probably never produce a payoff in many reporter's careers, given that most scientists are scientifically honest, even if sometimes mistaken. Instead we have do things like ask for general assesements from other researchers, gauge the reputation of the supervising body, estimate how radical the idea is (extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, etc) as a substitute.
After all, even Avon, one of the most suspicious individuals of all time, didn't ask about Ensor's lab notes!
Well, as I say in my earlier post, I agree the state of science journalism in many general interest news publications is poor, but I believe the fault lies not with some inherent flaw in journalists, such as they being "retard sensationalists", but with the tone and standards set by the publishers of these organs.
I can't see many scientists objecting to being asked, say, to explain their logging methods
:)
Alas, that explanation wouldn't be very useful as routine piece of verification: if they're making up or fudging results in the first place, it would be very easy to promise a journalist that, say, everything was done using double blind controls and the statistical analysis produced a confidence level of 99%, which brings us back to trusting the researcher.
And all the computers of the Federation are one thing, the mind of a single scientist quite another!
They are always wrong at least once ... the fact that all journalists are arts majors shows you exactly why they get the science wrong.
:) -- my degree was in experimental physics, and several of my co-workers have hard science degrees, even up to Ph.D level, yet we're journalists all. And my magazine isn't exactly unique in that, there are a lot of scientifically trained people on the staff of science/tech publications. But even then, we've staff with humanities backgrounds that are top notch, mainly because at a science/tech publication, the staff is more likely to have the time to learn something in depth, with management that can demand and recognize good quality science reporting.
Sweeping generalities also makes for bad arguments
Oops, I should clarify my point about other scientists having to take a researcher's word that they're Not Making Shit Up: while it's true the backbone of science is independant reproduction of results, manuscript reviewers for journals do not generally attempt to experimentally verify claimed results prior to publication, especially in the case of complex, lengthy, expensive, or unique experiments.
This one is hard to guague, if you're not in the field, but you can look for tell-tale signs of a problem. If you can't see the methods used, if they didn't keep logs or lab notes of what they did, if they are vague about how you get from the data to the conclusions - these should tip off any competent journalist that something isn't right.
I think that you make some excellent points, but I'm afraid that ferreting out the state of logs, raw data, notebooks, etc (even to verify that they do in fact exist in any form), is not realistic, except in very unusual circumstances -- even the best peer reviewed scientific journals do not normally demand to see lab notes, after all. It's only when there's already heavy suspicion something is wrong that an investigation with enough authority to demand researchers produce their notes is formed. Obviously, if a journalist is making a site visit as part of their reporting, then he or she should be on the lookout for the Dodgy or the Shoddy, but even then they will only be able to make a superficial examination. In practice, unless there's some good reason not to, journalists -- just like other scientists -- have to take a researcher's word for it that they're not Making Shit Up.
As a science journalist working for Another Science/Tech Publication, I can second that -- New Scientist is worth reading.
I think the type of publication is a very significant contributor to the prevalance of Bad Science reporting, even more so than the article's thesis of "Humanties Majors run amok."
If you look at many general interest news publications, whether they be monthly magazines or daily papers, you'll find they don't often even have a dedicated science reporter. Even when they claim to, it's really a "Health" reporter, who's often much more likely to cover the latest exercise craze or green tea fad than actual metabolic research from the NIH (incidently, at least one major science journalism prize now specifically excludes "health" articles for this reason.) Even when they do have science reporters, the Guardian's article makes a good point: unlike the financial or politics pages, the science beat reporter must assume no, or very little, prior knowledge of science, and this is enforced by their editors. While this may (sadly) be a perfectly reasonable thing to do, as scientific literacy among the public is appalling, you can see how it's a vicious cycle kind of thing. And it's the rare general interest publication indeed that would have more than one staff reporter or editor dedicated to covering science.
But I think there's still good science journalism out there, in the science and tech magazines, like New Scientist or Discover. Not only can you assume the audience knows what the terms "volt" or "DNA" mean, you can get much more space to give a real explanation of what's going on. While stories are still supposed to be timely, they're not usually tied to the daIly press release cycle either. And this type of publication is much more likley to employ people with science backgrounds. Here I should state my possible bias: I'm a science journalist for a monthly emerging technology magazine with a university education in experimental physics! But I should say that one of our best writers here, if not the best, was an English major in college. But after a few years now on the semiconductor beat he probably knows more about, say, dielectrics, than I ever did, not least because he had the time to learn, time often in short supply when one is the sole science reporter on a newsstand publication, and so have to cover the entire scientific waterfront. Reporters for science/tech publications can usually focus on a few areas at a time and really learn them in depth, and that makes a huge difference.
This is why I feel the publication makes a much bigger difference than some seething secret Romantic resentment from journalists to the quality of science reporting. It's the publishers and editors which set the standards for articles, not individual reporters, after all.
Hey, at least it wasn't in Mission to Mars: you'd have to nova the Sun.
Actually, Edwards' scheme explictly includes the construction of multiple elevators (at least two) to provide down and up capability.
What you're describing is called a 'cycler', and Buzz Aldrin, among others, has been kicking the idea along for years, see here.
Weird. This is second example of sharp writing I've seen on slashdot today, and both attached to the same article, when normally one goes weeks between occurances of such an event!
the type of gratuitous geekery that induces mob beatings in grade school, and polite yet uncomfortable chuckles in the working world.
Good writing on Slashdot? The sky is falling!
Yes! I too felt your pain: an awesome 16 bit processor trapped by system clunkiness... My first machine too, but soon supplanted by the awesome BBC model-B, the only computer I ever felt got everything right until the more recent generations of OS X-enabled PowerBooks.
It can however, take a very long time for bad science to be disproved for various reasons.
One is that no-one goes all the way back to first principles when doing an experiement or making observations (for example, when measuring the charge to mass ratio of an electron, I don't first redo the experiments that prove that electrons exists, I just set up my cathode ray tube!). Every experiment is based on assumptions, and these assumptions are sometimes socially constructed. Entire, internally consistent, edifices can be built in strict accordance with the scientific principle, and still be wrong because the underlying assumptions are invalid. The history of scientific rascism is a good example of this.
Another reason is that sometimes it is very difficult, expensive, or impractical to repeat the experiment / observations. Large clinical trials are a good example of this. It's not like every doctor who has a hunch that the latest drug might have undesirable side effects or is ineffective can go out and prove that on their own.
What I'm saying is that indeed, over long periods of time, science will eventually fall in line with what the universe is actually doing, but over shorter periods of time (years to decades) science can suffer from contextual defects just as much as journalism.