Posts Tagged ‘United States’

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Peer review for funding is different to that for publication

May 8, 2013

I note that battle lines are being drawn in the US between the parties concerning peer review and the NSF. The Republicans are questioning a number of NSF grants and demanding some justification of the review process for funding awards.  The Democrats are taking this as an heretical attack on SCIENCE. But I also note that one important distinction is not being drawn.

Choosing projects for funding from the public purse is fundamentally a political process and requires justification in simple terms to the providers of that funding (the taxpayer). While peer review – for all its faults – may be used to select projects the reviewers cannot escape the responsibility to justify their selections to the funders (and not just to the funding organisation – NSF – set up to channel the funds). Of course the NSF would prefer that they have complete freedom in disbursing the funds allocated to them in any way they please – but that won’t wash. The acceptance of public funds demands public accountability.

Peer review for publication is a very different thing. This should be in – engineering terms – a “Quality gate”. It should be a check of the quality of the work done and its independence. But here reviewers also carry  a “fiduciary” responsibility which is not always met. The reviewers carry an obligation of trust and ethical propriety not only to the journals they serve but also to the readers and subscribers of that journal. Where funding is involved this “fiduciary” responsibility extends to the providers of the funds. Unlike reviewers for funding selection who – I think – must be able to justify their choices to a wider audience than the “in-crowd”, the publication reviewer does not need to provide explanations for his opinions. But his opinions cannot be secret opinions – and that requires that such reviewers not be anonymous and that their opinions be available. Journal editors have the final responsibility for what is published or not. But reviewers should not escape being held responsible and accountable for their share of such decisions. They cannot escape from ownership and consequences of their own opinions and judgements on which decisions to publish or reject may be based.

Financial auditors cannot escape their fiduciary responsibilities (though they often escape accountability). Can the scientific community continue to take – or appear to take –  less responsibility than the financial community? Accountability is quite another matter.

ScienceInsider: 

The new chair of the House of Representatives science committee has drafted a bill that, in effect, would replace peer review at the National Science Foundation (NSF) with a set of funding criteria chosen by Congress. For good measure, it would also set in motion a process to determine whether the same criteria should be adopted by every other federal science agency.

The legislation, being worked up by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), represents the latest—and bluntest—attack on NSF by congressional Republicans seeking to halt what they believe is frivolous and wasteful research being funded in the social sciences. Last month, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) successfully attached language to a 2013 spending bill that prohibits NSF from funding any political science research for the rest of the fiscal year unless its director certifies that it pertains to economic development or national security. Smith’s draft bill, called the “High Quality Research Act,” would apply similar language to NSF’s entire research portfolio across all the disciplines that it supports.

Nature: 

In a brief 15-minute speech today, US President Barack Obama championed independence for the peer-review process, in front of an audience of elite researchers at the 150th annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC.

“In order for us to maintain our edge, we’ve got to protect our rigorous peer review system,” Obama said. His support comes on the heels of draft legislation, dated 18 April, that ScienceInsider reports is being discussed by the chairman of the US House of Representatives Science Committee, Lamar Smith (Republican, Texas). That legislation would overhaul peer review of grants submitted to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and require the NSF director to certify each funded project as benefitting the economic or public health of the United States.

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Politics, Science | Comments Off on Peer review for funding is different to that for publication

Too many coincidences? 70 feared dead in Waco explosion after Boston marathon bombs

April 18, 2013

April 18th today.

Update 2! The Waco blast is more likely to have resulted from an industrial fire. Coincidences do happen.

A case of cum hoc ergo propter hoc perhaps.

Update! Upto 70 15 feared dead

=============================

The name “Waco” had not entered my consciousness for many, many years until a TV commentator brought it up after the Boston Marathon bombs on April 15th. He pointed out that it was close to the 20th anniversary of  the Waco siege ending (April 19th  1993) and the 18th anniversary of the Oklahoma bombing (April 19th, 1995) and that it was Patriots Day and Income Tax day and that some form of anti-government, domestic, fanatic, loony-right group could be implicated.

Two letters containing ricin have also been intercepted (one to a Senator and one to the President) but the previous ricin laters were sent in 2003 and 2004 by a “Fallen Angel” – but not in April. Fallen Angel was never caught.

It was all pure speculation  and I dismissed it as yet another “conspiracy theory” (though there are so many of these, that statistics says that some few of these probably must be true).

But I woke up this morning to news reports about a massive explosion at a fertiliser factory in (or near) Waco and that another explosion was expected and that 70 people were feared dead. Fertiliser plants are no strangers to explosions  and “powder” borne explosions can be particularly devastating, and yet … .

To have “Waco” enter my consciousness twice in just 3 days seems weird – and my clear perception is that this is too much of a coincidence:

News.com.au: 

  • Explosion at fertiliser plant north of Waco,Texas
  • Up to 70 people believed to have died  
  • Several people, including children, trapped in buildings

The grim death toll was given by a senior doctor at West hospital following the blast, and reported by local station KHTX, but has yet to be confirmed by other officials.

While West’s Emergency Medical Services Director Dr George Smith was cited as saying as many as 60 or 70 people died, doctors at Hillcrest Medical Centre in Waco said none of the 66 injured taken there had died.

Babies and the elderly are among those injured in the blast, with homes within a four-block radius of the fertiliser plant flattened and several more on fire.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, psychology, US | Comments Off on Too many coincidences? 70 feared dead in Waco explosion after Boston marathon bombs

Another Clinton, another Bush

March 15, 2013

From across the Atlantic, Hillary Clinton versus Jeb Bush is not only plausible, it now seems to me to be becoming inevitable. It is not so very far away to 2016 in calendar time – though it could be an eternity in political time.

But all those who harbour any pretensions to standing for President of the US in 2016 must already be planning their campaigns – at least in the confines of their own minds. But the crucial need for financing means that they have probably confided their ambitions to a very small and select group who are already sounding out potential donors for a potential campaign.

The energised campaign of 2008 was exciting (to an observer) but it has proven to be extremely divisive for the country. Perhaps campaign energy – if it is at too high a level – actually leads to divisions. But a lack of energy does not correlate with unity or a removal of divisions. This energy of 2008 was certainly missing in 2012 but the parties remain just as far apart and divisions among the electorate are not being bridged. Perhaps there is some optimum level of energy which is desirable for a campaign. It remains to be seen how the legacy of Obama’s Presidency will be seen but I think there is a large risk that the divisiveness during his two terms will mean that he is remembered primarily as the first “black” President. Any other achievements will seem quite mundane. He has proven to very risk-averse and so it is unlikely he will be remembered for any catastrophic blunders either. A Hillary Clinton – Jeb Bush race may actually get the balance right; an energised campaign which captures the imagination of the bulk of the electorate but does not drive them to the extreme positions of the fanatics.

I cannot see Jeb Bush bringing an Obama-style energy into either the Primaries or the Presidential Campaigns but he will not be devoid of energy. From the splinters of the Tea Party and the depths to which the Republicans have sunk, having another Bush scion to call on may seem to provide a “safe”, low-energy, compromise choice for the GOP. But Jeb Bush may actually be the brightest of all the Bushes.

NPR: The former two-term governor of Florida has not run for office since 2002, and has up to now refused to get caught up in public presidential speculation. Widely acknowledged as a power behind the scenes, he is seen as politically savvy and astute. It’s long been thought that had he won his 1994 gubernatorial campaign against Lawton Chiles in Florida, it would have been Jeb — not brother George W. — whom the GOP turned to in 2000. What he says carries great weight, and when he criticized his party last year for its approach to overhauling the nation’s immigration laws, people sat up and paid attention. You’re not going to win over the hearts of Latino voters, Bush said over and over, by talking about self-deportation and blocking paths to citizenship for those who are here illegally.

But in his new book, Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution (co-authored with Clint Bolick), Bush is no longer focusing on a path to citizenship. Let’s talk instead about residency rights. “A grant of citizenship,” Bush now says, “is an undeserving reward for conduct we cannot afford to encourage.” Pay a fee, he says of those 11 million people here illegally. Pay back taxes. Do community service. Learn English. But the end would be residency, not citizenship. For many, however, the headline was about 2016.

Hillary Clinton is the heir apparent.  She is uniquely qualified of course. If  her health is up to it and she runs, it is unlikely that any other Democratic candidate will challenge her seriously except to get some exposure and her attention. She cannot any longer be held responsible for any blunders the administration now makes. As potentially the first woman President she will arouse much of the same energy that Obama did in 2008 but perhaps without the same divisiveness and with a reach that – unlike Obama’s – could cut across party lines.

Politico: The ranks of Democratic governors are filled with ambitious politicians boasting records that would probably play well with primary voters in 2016.

But even as they eye a move from the statehouse to the White House, there’s broad recognition among the chief executives that the next generation of Democrats may have to wait longer than four more years to take their place as President Barack Obama’s heir.

Nowhere is The Hillary Factor felt more acutely, and painfully, than in the same elite club of policy innovators and budget balancers that vaulted her husband onto the national political scene in the 1980s. ….

“It’s just a very unique situation in which an extremely qualified candidate with a long history of public service who has been fully vetted is considering running for the presidency,” noted Nixon, who easily won reelection last year to his second term in conservative-leaning Missouri. “She’s entitled to her time of analysis. It does, I think, in many ways freeze the field until she more clearly states what she wants to do with the rest of her life”. ….

So Clinton-Bush in 2016 may not be such a bad thing. Bush may actually be able to bring the Republican Party together again and repair the self-inflicted damage wrought by the loony right. Clinton would energise – for or against – every woman in the US and that energy will spread to others. The winner would have a much less divided country to contend with. I think Hillary Clinton would win such a race but with Jeb Bush as her opponent it will not be a walk-over. She will provide the US – at long-last – with a female head of state. And the Democrats will have been in power for 16 years in 2024 when she leaves office after her second term.

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Politics, US | Comments Off on Another Clinton, another Bush

US approves sale of taxpayer subsidised battery maker to China

January 30, 2013
Image representing A123 Systems as depicted in...

Image via CrunchBase

Not just irony but also further evidence that subsidies are fundamentally unsound.

Back in October last year the US lithium-ion battery maker, A123 Systems, filed for bankruptcy.

10/15/2012: A123 Systems, which had received a $249 million grant from the U.S. government, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, giving Republicans fresh ammunition to attack the Obama administration’s subsidies for green energy.

The filing came after the lithium-ion battery maker’s $465 million rescue deal with Chinese auto parts supplier Wanxiang Group collapsed, hobbled by “unanticipated and significant challenges,” A123 said on its website. A123 has agreed to sell its automotive operations, including two factories in Michigan, for $125 million to Johnson Controls Inc, a leading battery supplier and another recipient of federal green subsidies.

….. The U.S. Department of Energy allotted about $90 billion for various clean-energy programs through the administration’s stimulus package. Of that, at least $813 million went to energy companies that eventually filed for bankruptcy, including A123, Solyndra, Beacon, Abound Solar and EnerDel.

But Wanxiang Group persevered and the US Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) has granted its approval for a revised deal to go ahead. In addition to the automotive business divested to Johnson Controls, all government related business was also divested by the bankrupt A123 Systems to Navita Systems (at a fire-sale price of $2.25 million).

Bloomberg: Wanxiang Group Co., China’s biggest auto-parts maker, won approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to buy most of the assets of A123 Systems Inc. (AONEQ), the bankrupt electric-car battery maker backed with U.S. government funds.

Approval from CFIUS, as it is known, was the final hurdle that Wanxiang needed to overcome to complete the deal. The federal interagency group led by the Treasury Department was reviewing the sale after members of Congress expressed national- security concerns over allowing a foreign competitor to obtain the technology developed with government backing. 

…… “Nothing provided by CFIUS has changed my opinion that the core technology developed by A123,” and the related intellectual property, “can be separated along A123’s business lines,” said Representative Bill Huizenga, a Republican representing Michigan’s 2nd Congressional District, in an e- mailed statement. “American taxpayers should not be funding technology that will in turn be used in competition against American companies,” he said, adding that he will look into legislation to prevent sales of taxpayer-funded “sensitive technologies” to foreign companies in the future.

….. “The Energy Department’s Recovery Act grant to A123 was used for the construction of brick and mortar advanced battery manufacturing facilities at two Michigan locations,” Bill Gibbons, a department spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement. The funds weren’t used for the company’s research and development of battery technology, he said.

“The purchase of these assets includes the Energy Department’s requirement that the plants and equipment partially paid for by the Recovery Act stay in Michigan and continue to operate, generating job opportunities for American workers,” Gibbons said.

….. As part of the purchase Wanxiang, based in Hangzhou, China, will get A123’s cathode powder plant in China and its share of a joint venture with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., called Shanghai Advanced Traction Battery Systems Co., in addition to the battery technology used in Fisker Automotive Inc.’s Karma sedan. Fisker, A123’s main customer, said it was awaiting the sale of the company’s Michigan plant so it could resume production of the $103,000 plug-in Karma sedan. A123, whose automotive business supplies electric-car batteries to about a dozen customers, has facilities in the Michigan cities of Livonia and Romulus.

The A123 Systems bankruptcy itself raised some questions about who had walked away with all the benefits. In a sense the subsidies have served the purpose of those investors who got away in time! For the US this now appears to be a damage control exercise to stop the bleeding where some local jobs are temporarily “saved” but the long term benefits are all to the account of Wanxiang. If indeed A123 Systems used government funds only for the building of factories and not for R & D, then Wanxiang have – fairly cheaply – bought themselves a foothold into the US market But if the US market develops – which it may not – then some or all of these jobs will eventually move to a low-cost country. Wanxiang has in any case bought themselves a technology cheaply which may address a world-wide market. But the jobs that creates will not be in the US. If the technology fails or the US market does not develop, then Wanxiang can just walk away from the US but they will retain the technology for whatever it is worth.

Paradoxically the only way in which the US taxpayer wins is if the technology is a dud and the deal represents future losses and liabilities being exported to Wanxiang!

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Automobiles, Business, China, Energy, Engineering, Technology, US | Comments Off on US approves sale of taxpayer subsidised battery maker to China

A “right” to bear arms must be constrained not to be a “freedom” to kill

December 16, 2012

I don’t believe there is any such thing as a “fundamental” human “right” or “freedom”.

Of course any society can establish whatever laws or rules and regulations it likes and insist – if it can – that its members follow these. Societies can define and adopt long lists of “fundamental human rights” or “freedoms” as privileges for their members. The granting of such “rights” does not – in itself – guarantee that members of that society always enjoy the rights accorded. Compliance with laws and rules and regulations is not in-built as with natural laws. Many of these “rights” and “freedoms” are contradictory and can be in conflict with each other. Some rights are used by some members to breach other rights and freedoms accorded to others. “Fundamental” freedoms are found to be unworkable and are then constrained or subjugated to other laws or rights. Some are made applicable to some and not to others. The will of the majority is expressed as laws for the majority which are sometimes used as a means for the oppression of minorities. Rights granted to individuals are subjugated to the rights assumed by the state. (It strikes me also that any “law” which does not in itself guarantee compliance is just a made-up rule and has no special “sanctity”. The “sanctity” of human laws is fundamentally suspect.)

None of the so-called human rights or freedoms are in fact fundamental or absolute in practice. Nor should they be. Common sense dictates that they must be constrained and circumscribed. But common sense is lost when the fanatical defense of any particular “right” takes on ideological proportions.

  1. The “right to life” is never absolute and is always circumscribed. States – and their organs – ascribe to themselves the right to take life in specific circumstances. Exceptions are made in cases of self-defense or abortions or accidents or actions in the service of the state.
  2. The “right of universal suffrage” is never absolute. There are always groups of individuals who are denied the right to vote (children, mentally disabled, resident non-citizens, criminals, certain occupations….)
  3. “Freedom of speech” is never absolute. What society considers to be libel, slander, blasphemy, hate or even politically incorrect is banned under pain of punishment.
  4. “Freedom of thought” is not as absolute as one may think. Thinking “terrorist” or “conspiratorial” thoughts is a punishable crime in many societies.
  5. The “right to liberty” is always constrained by the right of a state to incarcerate those it considers dangerous to society. Parents are allowed to curtail this right for their children. Doctors and hospitals are allowed to curtail the movement of their patients.

In the US it is self-evident that the “right to bear arms” is not sufficiently circumscribed. In spite of its implied “freedom to kill” it is fanatically defended to the point of absurdity.

The latest tragedy at Sandy Hook is part of a  long history of school shootings in the US  but the almost religious fanaticism surrounding  gun rights has so far held common sense at bay.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Politics, US | Comments Off on A “right” to bear arms must be constrained not to be a “freedom” to kill

On the shoulders of midgets:10 years of scientific fraud at University of Kentucky

November 29, 2012

Maybe the detection of fraud has improved lately but it is still highly unlikely that the majority of cases are being discovered. I have the clear perception that the increasing number of cases of manipulating or faking data that are being discovered is just the tip of the iceberg. These cases – as with the case described in my previous post about Diedrik Stapel – also demonstrate the systemic disinclination of peers to be critical or to find fault with their colleagues. Traditional peer review has always had its failings but  is now also proving to be incapable of handling the huge increase in the number of papers being published. And the apparently increasing incidence of fraud among scientists will not change until scientists can be held liable for their misconduct. Academic freedom is all very well but it needs to be tempered with some responsibility and some corresponding accountability.

In the long run – over a few centuries – it probably does not matter. Scientific cheating does not alter natural laws or relationships but in the short term of our lifetimes the damage is considerable. Not only does it waste resources but the the misdirection of other scientific efforts leads to much work being done on a foundation of quicksand. On the shoulders of midgets!

In this case where Eric Smart has been found to have been falsifying data for a decade, the Office of Research Integrity has published its findings and 10 papers are to be retracted and he will not seek grants for 7 years. 13 researchers at his lab “have moved on to other projects and endeavors.” The papers to be withdrawn have been cited over 100 times.

(more…)

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Academic misconduct, Behaviour, Science, scientific misconduct | 1 Comment »

Is the US throwing the UNFCCC and COP18 under the bus?

November 17, 2012

Hot on the heels of the report that the IPCC has not been invited to the COP18 meeting in Doha later this month comes this report that the US is trying to funnel large parts of what is to be discussed at Doha into other forums and effectively bypass and undermine the UNFCCC

Could it be the US and China and India and other non-European countries who are disillusioned with the IPCC, are responsible for the snub?

EurAktiv reports:

The US is considering a funnel of substantive elements of the Doha Climate Summit away from the UN framework and into the Major Economies Forum (MEF), a platform of the world’s largest CO2 emitters, EurActiv has learned.

Since 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has provided an umbrella for talks to curb global greenhouse gas emissions, and on 26 November, will host the COP18 Climate Summit in Qatar.

But it has been confirmed to EurActiv that Washington is increasingly looking to shift policy action to the MEF whose members account for some 85% of global emissions, and which the US views as a more comfortable venue for agreeing climate goals.

If the idea gains traction, it could demote the UNFCCC to a forum for discussing the monitoring, reporting and verification of emissions reductions projects, sources say. …

…… The MEF is a successor to the Major Economies Meetings set up by President Bush, and criticised by several governments for undermining the UN process.

Its participants include: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Politics, UN, US | 1 Comment »

Massive shale oil reserves in Utah and Colorado

November 14, 2012

The reserves are massive but not yet technologically exploitable. I have little doubt that human ingenuity will prevail and before too long. It is just a matter of time and engineering before this oil starts flowing.

Malthusians must be gnashing their teeth as “Peak Oil”  is pushed back – again – by a few hundred years!!

ABC News:

Drillers in Utah and Colorado are poking into a massive shale deposit trying to find a way to unlock oil reserves that are so vast they would swamp OPEC.

A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated that if half of the oil bound up in the rock of the Green River Formation could be recovered it would be “equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.”

Both the GAO and private industry estimate the amount of oil recoverable to be 3 trillion barrels.

“In the past 100 years — in all of human history — we have consumed 1 trillion barrels of oil. There are several times that much here,” said Roger Day, vice president for operations for American Shale Oil (AMSO).

The Green River drilling is beginning as shale mining is booming in the U.S. and a report by the International Energy Agency predicts that the U.S. will become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020. That flood of oil can have major implications for the U.S. economy as well as the country’s foreign policy which has been based on a growing scarcity of oil. …..

The cost of extracting the Green River oil at the moment would be higher than what it could be sold for. And there are significant environmental obstacles. ….. Nevertheless, the federal government has authorized six experimental drilling leases on federal land in an effort to find a way to tap into the riches of the Green River Formation. …….

Getting oil from Green River shale is a different proposition than getting gas and oil from other sites by using the controversial method of “fracking,” fracturing the underground rock with pressurized, chemical-infused water.

The hydrocarbons in Green River shale are more intimately bound up with the rock, so that fracking cannot release them. The shale has to be heated to 5,000 degrees Farenheit before it will give up its oil. ….

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Alarmism, Energy, Engineering, Oil, Technology, US | 2 Comments »

Opposition to shale gas and cheap US coal only leads to greater use of coal in Europe

September 26, 2012

Not that there is anything wrong with using coal when it makes commercial sense. The demonisation of carbon dioxide is a religion built on a hypothesis which in turn is based on “it must be the cause of global warming” and not on any evidence whatever. In consequence the world-wide drive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is an unnecessary, expensive and ultimately pointless exercise.

The religious and thoughtless opposition of the “greens” to any use of fossil fuels has led them – especially in Europe – to trying to block exploration, production and exploitation of shale gas. But as with so many “environmentally correct” decisions it turns out to be counter-productive to their own misguided objectives. In Europe this together with the availability of cheap US coals has only served to promote the greater use of coal and an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. The blind pursuit of renewable energy in Europe has already given the highest electricity prices in the world. While the increased emissions of carbon dioxide through greater coal use does not itself matter, the consumer will have to pay even higher electricity prices than would prevail if shale gas were exploited.

Reuters reports:

BRUSSELS/LONDON, Sept 25 (Reuters) – Shale gas has jolted traditional roles in the planet’s climate drama, giving cleaner fuel to the United States, whose displaced coal has headed to Europe to pollute the old continent.

It is an ironic twist for the European Union, whose energy policy is largely based on promoting renewables and a target to cut emissions b y 20 percent by 2020. The U.S. did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol to combat global emissions and its national goals are far less ambitious than Europe’s.

(more…)

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Alarmism, Energy, Europe, US | Comments Off on Opposition to shale gas and cheap US coal only leads to greater use of coal in Europe

Tax on income is easy to levy but fundamentally unsound

September 18, 2012

The latest Mitt Romney “gaffe” is getting much attention. But I was a little surprised to find that while what he said may well be a gaffe in electoral terms – and he may even have lost the Presidential election here – his statement was actually quite correct. I had not appreciated that almost half of all US households paid no federal income tax at all. In the US, federal income tax is a major source of tax revenues and contributes about half of all tax revenues (tax revenues about 15.4% of gdp in 2011 with federal income tax providing 7.3% of gdp). Romney in his leaked video said:

(more…)

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Economy, Politics, US | Comments Off on Tax on income is easy to levy but fundamentally unsound

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »