Posts Tagged ‘Science’

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Et tu IAC? Time for Pachauri to exit.

August 30, 2010

The IAC report is in.

And this is a report by a “friend”.

It is time for Pachauri to leave the reform and the improvement of the IPCC (assuming such a politically charged body can ever be reformed) to somebody else since he has clearly not been up to the task.

http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2009/11/22/129033627605776300.jpg

The Telgraph: The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should only make predictions when it has solid scientific evidence and avoid straying into policy advocacy, a group of national science academies has warned in a report.

The report said the chairman of the IPCC should be limited to one six year term. Its current head Rajendra Pachauri of India, is in the middle of his second term. It called for an overhaul of the panel’s management, including the creation of an executive committee that would include people from outside the IPCC. Regarding the errors that appeared in the IPCC reports, the review group’s report called for stronger enforcement of the panel’s scientific review procedures to minimise future mistakes.

Professor Mike Hulme, a professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia, is due to deliver a keynote lecture to the Royal Geographical Society Annual conference this week in which he will call for a dramatic changes to the way the IPCC operates. Speaking ahead of his lecture, he said: “The IPCC has not sufficiently adapted to the changing science and politics of climate change, nor to the changing expected and demanded role of science and expertise in society. “The IPCC’s approach of seeking consensus obscures and constricts both scientific and wider social debates about both knowledge-driven and value-driven uncertainties that surround climate change politics.”

Rajendra Pachauri

The BBC: UN climate body ‘needs reforms’, review recommends.

Among the IAC committee’s recommendations was that the UN body appoint an executive director to handle day-to-day operations and speak on behalf of the body. It also said the current limit of two six-year terms for the chair of the organisation is too long. The report also suggests the UN body establish an executive committee which should include individuals from outside the IPCC or even outside the climate science community in order to enhance the UN panel’s credibility and independence.

The use by the IPCC of so-called “grey literature” – that which has not been peer-reviewed or published in scientific journals – has been subjected to particular scrutiny of late, partly because this type of material was behind the glacier error. The committee said that such literature was often relevant and appropriate for inclusion in the IPCC’s assessment reports. But it said authors needed to follow the IPCC’s guidelines more closely and that the guidelines themselves are too vague.

Bishop Hill: “Furthermore, by making vague statements that were difficult to refute, authors were able to attach “high confidence” to the statements. The Working Group II Summary for Policy Makers contains many such statements that are not supported sufficiently in the literature, not put into perspective, or not expressed clearly.”

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Posted in Alarmism, Bureaucracy, Environment, Science, Scientific Fraud | Comments Off on Et tu IAC? Time for Pachauri to exit.

Climategate and Hausergate: Different routes to the faking of science

August 30, 2010

Clearly academia can only reflect surrounding society. Scientists are not saints and political motives, financial greed and fame-seeking will be just as prevalent within academia as in the surroundings. Frauds and fakers will inevitably exist. Nevertheless it is peer review – by colleagues within the organisation and within the peer-review process – which is supposed to maintain the quality of scientific work but perhaps it must now be expanded to protect and maintain the integrity of scientific work as well. Reviewers cannot continue to use the independence of the review process as an excuse to remain cocooned within their comfort zones of anonymity. They do need to stand up and be counted.

In recent months two very different scandals in the scientific world but both relying on fake science have surfaced. In one peer-review has been lax and in the other it has been perverted to a cause.

In the case of Climategate (and the IPCC), the peer-review process was perverted to falsify scientific conclusions and suppress dissent in support of a particular political (and financial) agenda.

In the case of Hausergate predetermined conclusions were supported by falsified data which were then endorsed by the peer-review process to make non-science seem to be science. The financial motive is probably only secondary to the primary motive of seeking acclaim and reputation.

http://www.stochasticgeometry.ie/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/snakeoil.jpg?w=257

In both cases the normal sequence of the scientific method of

Question > research >hypothesis > experiment /test > analysis > conclusion

has been distorted.

In the case of Climategate a small clique of academics perverted the peer-review process to control and prevent the publication of opposing views. The IPCC (where the authors were often the same academics with a few charlatans, railway engineers, thrill seekers, politicians and financiers thrown in for good measure) not only prevented the consideration of alternate views but went further by including non-peer-reviewed advocacy reports, newspaper articles and the like when they were favourable to their cause. Of course the IPCC is a political institution so perhaps it is asking too much to expect it to be a force to maintain scientific integrity.

“Since the IPCC gives Lead Authors the sole right to determine content and accept or dismiss comments, it is more like a weblog than an academic report.”

See “Fix the IPCC process” by Ross McKitrick at http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/08/27/fix-the-ipcc-process/

An alarmist agenda was used to satisfy the greed associated with the Carbon Offset and Trading scams. Some data manipulation is also evident from the Climategate e-mails but the control of peer-review was the main tool used.

In the case of Marc Hauser he simply fabricated data to fit the conclusions he had already come to (and it is irrelevant that his theories or conclusions may or may not be correct). It is stated that he was publishing at the rate of a paper – each one peer-reviewed – every month for 4 years. Obviously not too difficult to do or too time-consuming  if data only had to be fabricated whenever needed. What were the peers and reviewers doing? Had his colleagues and reviewers no suspicions or doubts?

What is not clear is why Hauser felt it was advantageous to fake the science instead of doing the science. Clearly he could not have been as prolific if he had to actually do the science and perhaps account for data which did not support his  theories. It would seem therefore to be connected with the gaining of an academic reputation quickly and perhaps also with the financial benefits flowing from that.

But the message coming through is that peers and peer-review must be transparent and very much more rigorous. They cannot restrict themselves to quality control alone – which itself is not applied uniformly – and not take a position on the integrity of the work. Reviewers are effectively servants of the Journals they serve and the Journals too cannot escape responsibility for what they publish and what they choose not to.

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Posted in Non-Science, Science, Scientific Fraud | 3 Comments »

Most detailed image of a sunspot ever by Big Bear

August 27, 2010

No wonder sunflowers are obsessed !!

Researchers at Big Bear Solar Observatory have tuned their adaptive optics array and achieved first light, capturing this image of a sunspot that is now the most detailed ever captured in visible light. The image was captured with Big Bear’s New Solar Telescope (NST), a brand new instrument (as the name implies) with a resolution of just 50 miles on the sun’s surface.
http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/011-03410-01high.jpg

The NST is the precursor to an even-larger telescope, the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST), which will be constructed over the next decade, allowing Big Bear researchers to build a new kind of adaptive optics system known as multi-conjugate adaptive optics, that should provide them with a clear, distortion-free means of observing the sun from Earth in unrivaled detail.

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Posted in Art, Science | Comments Off on Most detailed image of a sunspot ever by Big Bear

Solar Flares may dampen radioactive decay on Earth !

August 24, 2010

A detective story from Stanford University News. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/sun-082310.html

When researchers found an unusual linkage between solar flares and the inner life of radioactive elements on Earth, it touched off a scientific detective investigation that could end up protecting the lives of space-walking astronauts and maybe rewriting some of the assumptions of physics.

BY DAN STOBER

http://www.pcaire.com/images/solar_flares.png

(more…)

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Increasing whiskey production can save the environment

August 21, 2010

By-products from distilling whiskey produce a biofuel with 30% more power output than ethanol !

Using samples from the Glenkinchie Distillery in East Lothian, researchers at Edinburgh Napier University have developed a method of producing biofuel from two main by-products of the whisky distilling process – “pot ale”, the liquid from the copper stills, and “draff”, the spent grains. The new method developed by the team produces butanol, which gives 30% more power output than the traditional biofuel ethanol. It is based on a 100-year-old process that was originally developed to produce butanol and acetone by fermenting sugar. The team has adapted this to use whiskey by-products as a starting point and has filed for a patent to cover the new method. It plans to create a spin-out company to commercialise the invention. Butanol is superior to ethanol — with 25 – 30% t more energy per unit volume. The biofuel can also be introduced to unmodified engines with any gasoline blend, whereas ethanol can only be blended up to 85 percent and requires engine modification.

Read more:http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100817/scottish-scientists-develop-whisky-biofuel

Professor Martin Tangney, who directed the project said that using waste products was more environmentally sustainable than growing crops specifically to generate biofuel. “What people need to do is stop thinking ‘either or’; people need to stop thinking like for like substitution for oil. That’s not going to happen. Different things will be needed in different countries. Electric cars will play some role in the market, taking cars off the road could be one of the most important things we ever do.”

“The production of some biofuels can cause massive environmental damage to forests and wildlife. So whisky powered-cars could help Scotland avoid having to use those forest-trashing biofuels,” said Dr Richard Dixon, of WWF Scotland.

“DRINK IT and then DRIVE IT” has a nice ring to it and  is something I could enjoy supporting.

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Posted in Energy, Environment, Science | Comments Off on Increasing whiskey production can save the environment

Hausergate: An utter lack of ethics

August 19, 2010

Fiction passed of as science

Further revelations in The Chronicle of Higher Education provides sordid details about the Hauser paper published in 2002 in Cognition and which is now being retracted. But the pattern of behaviour described is that of an accomplished liar well-versed in creating bogus data. To become such an accomplished inventor of data must have taken years of practice.

For how long has Hauser been passing off works of fiction as works of science?

Hauser’s hectoring tone towards his research assistants to try and force his false interpretations on them are also very revealing. The author of Moral Minds exhibits an utter lack of ethics.

Rather than getting a year off to write another work of fiction should he not be required to return all the salary and grant money he has enjoyed as the fruits of his inventiveness?

Where are all the peers who have recommended his being published?

Document Sheds Light on Investigation at Harvard 1

An internal document, however, sheds light on what was going on in Mr. Hauser’s lab. It tells the story of how research assistants became convinced that the professor was reporting bogus data and how he aggressively pushed back against those who questioned his findings or asked for verification.

(more…)

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Posted in Ethics, Science, Scientific Fraud | 1 Comment »

Climate models don’t need the sun – “Venus is similar to Earth” !!!

August 17, 2010

Japanese Spacecraft Approaches Venus

Venus Climate Orbiter “AKATSUKI”

This from NASA Science News:

[Global view of Venus]

Imamura is the project scientist for Akatsuki, a Japanese mission also called the Venus Climate Orbiter. The spacecraft is approaching Venus and will enter orbit on December 7, 2010. Imamura believes a close-up look at Venus could teach us a lot about our own planet.

“In so many ways, Venus is similar to Earth. It has about the same mass, is approximately the same distance from the sun, and is made of the same basic materials,” says Imamura. “Yet the two worlds ended up so different. We want to know why.”

Considering NASA’s own Venus fact sheet and the fact that Venus is about 41 million km closer to the sun it is – in the kindest interpretation – sloppy to permit a statement that “Venus is similar to earth.. approximately the same distance from the sun”.

“By comparing Venus’s unique meteorology to Earth’s, we’ll learn more about the universal principles of meteorology and improve the climate models we use to predict our planet’s future” says Imamura.

Of course the models will no doubt take into account that solar radiation on Venus is about  2688 J while the Earth receives 1365 J or perhaps the models don’t need the sun and will base everything on the heating effects of carbon dioxide.

I would have thought that it is the differences between Venus and Earth which can be revealing and to consider a distance of 41 million km closer to the sun as being negligible does not inspire confidence in any subsequent climate modelling.

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“Hausergate” and the perversion of peer review

August 14, 2010

It would seem that  Marc Hauser fudged or exaggerated or imagined or just plain made up some of the results in at least 3 papers which were published after peer review.

Predictably, Harvard is being very reticent with information but as reported by The Boston Globe the university has assured the world that all necessary corrections will be made. Harvard University confirmed yesterday that it has examined concerns about scientific work by prominent psychology professor Marc Hauser and said it has “taken steps to ensure that the scientific record is corrected’’ in three journal articles for which he was a coauthor.

Also predictably others at Harvard are rationalising and taking a sympathetic view. Greg Laden says: “I know Marc Hauser, and I trust him.”

http://homelessmanspeaks.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/circling-wagons-nov-27-2008.jpg

Hauser himself is taking a year off as penance and to purge himself of his misconduct.

1. A 2002 paper published in the journal Cognition is being retracted by Hauser and two coauthors. The retraction notes that an internal Harvard examination found that the data do not support the findings.

The journal ( or is it magazine) and Elsevier need to now defend their editorial process. Who were the peers and what did they review?

2. Also called into question by the investigation is a 2007 paper in the journal Science. Ginger Pinholster, a spokeswoman for the journal, said that one of the coauthors — Justin Wood, a former graduate student at Harvard who now is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Southern California — wrote a letter to the journal in late June. According to Pinholster, the letter stated that an internal investigation at Harvard found there were missing field notes and that the team at Harvard had recreated its research as a result. Science has yet to make a formal change to the article.

Did the missing notes ever exist? Time for Science to open up.

3. A 2007 paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B has already been corrected, because of missing video records and field notes. Earlier this week, Victoria Millen, publishing editor of the British journal, confirmed that the authors contacted the journal last month and informed it of the investigation. The correction notes that incomplete video records and field notes were collected by “the researcher who performed the experiments,’’ a scientist named David Glynn, who has not responded to multiple e-mail and voicemail messages.

Hausergate and Climategate and all its associated “gates” show that the peer review process is sufficiently perverted and corrupted that it needs an overhaul. It is time for the assenting and dissenting peers to stand up and be counted and not hide behind the skirts of anonymous independance.

The Harvard statement said that in cases like Hauser’s, Harvard reports its findings to federal funding agencies, which do their own reviews.

But Harvard cannot pass the buck.

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Posted in Ethics, Science, Scientific Fraud | 2 Comments »

La Niña conditions now established?

August 9, 2010

It would seem that La Niña conditions are no longer just a probability.  La Niña conditions are expected to strengthen towards the end of the year and through the first quarter of 2011.

In the latest bulletin issued by the NOAA (Update prepared by Climate Prediction Center / NCEP 9 August 2010) we see that

  • La Niña conditions are present across the equatorial Pacific. Negative sea surface temperature anomalies continue to strengthen across much of the Pacific Ocean.  La Niña conditions are likely to continue through early 2011
  • Since March 2010, positive SST anomalies have decreased across much of the equatorial Pacific. Since the beginning of May 2010, SST anomalies have become increasingly negative in the eastern half of the Pacific.
  • During the last four weeks, equatorial SST anomalies have been negative in the eastern half of the Pacific. During the last 30 days, negative SST anomalies increased in magnitude in the central equatorial Pacific
  • Since mid-June 2010, negative subsurface temperature anomalies have dominated the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, with only slight variations in the magnitude of the anomalies.

The formal designation of a La Niña is keyed to a 3 month mean of the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) in Region 3.4 and is likely to happen in the first two weeks of September.



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Posted in Environment, Science | 1 Comment »

Has “peer review” failed??

August 7, 2010

An interesting, provocative and thought provoking post by Nigel Calder here.

It would seem that “peer review” which was intended to improve the quality of scientific papers has actually been a hindrance to new discoveries rather than a help. As Climategate has shown very clearly the “peer review” process is easily perverted by the ruling clique preventing anything opposing their views to be published and the prevailing group-think ensuring that anything “heretical” is suppressed.

“As there is not the slightest sign of any end to science, as a process of discovery, a moment’s reflection tells you that this means that the top experts are usually wrong. One of these days, what each of them now teaches to students and tells the public will be faulted, or be proved grossly inadequate, by a major discovery. If not, the subject must be moribund.”

Back in 1989, James Lovelock had this to say about “peer review”: ‘Before a scientist can be funded to do a research, and before he can publish the results of his work, it must be examined and approved by an anonymous group of so-called peers. This inquisition can’t hang or burn heretics yet, but it can deny them the ability to publish their research, or to receive grants to pay for it. It has the full power to destroy the career of any scientist who rebels.’

Galileo facing the inquisition

Calder continues: ” This month the life sciences magazine The Scientist has interesting articles on peer review.

One, entitled “Breakthroughs from the Second Tier”, describes five “high-impact” papers that should have been published in more prestigious journals than they were. You can see it here http://www.the-scientist.com/2010/8/1/30/1/.

Also in The Scientist is “I Hate Your Article” by Jef Akst, who quotes David Kaplan, professor of pathology at Case Western Reserve University:

Theoretically, peer review should “help [authors] make their manuscript better,” [Kaplan] says, but in reality, the cut-throat attitude that pervades the system results in ludicrous rejections for personal reasons—if the reviewer feels that the paper threatens his or her own research or contradicts his or her beliefs, for example—or simply for convenience, since top journals get too many submissions and it’s easier to just reject a paper than spend the time to improve it. Regardless of the motivation, the result is the same, and it’s a “problem,” Kaplan says, “that can very quickly become censorship.”

Akst’s full article is here: http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/57601/ . It goes on to discuss some of the ideas on offer for easing the peer review problem. That’s the basis for this brief update to be added to Magic Universe.

Amid growing recognition of problems with peer review, a few scientific journals tested various remedies. As reported by The Scientist magazine, by 2010 they included ending the anonymity of reviewers, so that they could both be held responsible for their comments and be acknowledged for their work, which was time-consuming. Another policy was to insist that reviewers should concern themselves only with the rigour and proper reporting of the work, not with its impact or scope. And to speed up publication, reviewers’ comments made for one journal might be passed on to others. Some journals went so far as to publish preliminary versions of papers before the peer-review process was complete.

Peer review has to get back to being strictly a review of the quality of the work done and not a commentary on or a review of the conclusions to be drawn.

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Posted in Ethics, Science | Comments Off on Has “peer review” failed??

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