Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses peer review and scientific thinking

Which is why we -- and by that I mean you -- need to exercise skepticism.

Like the linked papers...?

But accepting false claims about what the majority of scientists in the field actually say is an improvement on consumption of science...?

Yes, it's something called "exercising discernment."

I.e., methods that meet with your personal approval?

Especially not if the "conspiracy theory" happens to be true...?

 

We need to be skeptical of the "discernment" of individuals on this board. This board is not qualified to be the judge on this topic, even though it can certainly be discussed.

Presenting one paper has the problem that there are huge numbers of other papers, plus this venue offers no possibility of rebuttal by other scientists. Even when the author has a history, there is still the problem of it being one paper with no response by other scientists in the field.

 

Which some of us are.

There is no mechanism whereby this board could judge anything. It's up to each individual member to judge for themselves.

Wrong. Any scientist who wanted to could post to this board.

There are lots of forums where other scientists can respond. Some post on WUWT.

 

I think you can see that this is NOT a method of vetting papers cited on this board.

You claim you are qualified. But, there is no evidence of that.

And, it's fatuous to suggest that most on this board are as qualified as you claim you are.

 

Anyone who can read and understand a paper can vet it. Just not all with equal skill.

No, I have merely identified the formal post-secondary studies in related fields that make me much more qualified than most here to judge climate-related science, and I have backed that up with the quality of my posts.

That is a bald falsehood. There is ample evidence of it in how easily I demolish CO2 climate narrative nonscience with fact and logic.

Speaking of fatuous, I made no such claim. I doubt that more than a single-digit percent of the people on this board are as qualified as I am to judge the quality of climate science research.

 

I'm not convinced that you are an expert of the characteristics that justify you trashing the majority of those working in the field of climatology. And, more specifically, hand picking papers that support a personal opinion is WAY not good enough. This venue is not oriented to vetting papers by scientists in the field.

You suggest I should be skeptical.

 

I never claimed to be an expert. What justifies me trashing the majority of those pushing the CO2 climate narrative -- they are not a majority of those working in the field, whatever liars claim -- are a bit of subject knowledge, a lot of training in, alertness to, and experience with logical issues, and honesty.

That depends entirely on how good the chosen papers are relative to ones with contrary opinions.

Why would that stop anyone from doing it?

Yep.

 

Yikes!
‘Violated’: Engineering professor found her name on four papers she didn’t write

Laura Schaefer

On a Friday in July, Laura Schaefer Googled herself to find her ORCID researcher ID for a paper submission.

To her surprise, a paper popped up with her name in a journal she’d never published in. Her surprise quickly turned to concern – had someone copied one of her articles?

As she searched the site where the work appeared, she found more articles with her name, covering subjects she had never written about and with co-authors she didn’t know.

“ became angrier the more I found, and also started feeling really violated that someone had used my name and title to put forward something that wasn’t scientifically rigorous,” Schaefer, a professor of mechanical engineering at Rice University in Houston, said.

Continue reading

 

I have worked as a scientist ( published) for over40 years now. I invite critical review of my publications or of my anudiences in my presentation/seminars. Anyny new community knowledge resulting is in part because I published my work tas a catalyst for moving things along. If in my work I later find I have done or said something wrong I publish that; there is no fear in science and it’s not about me coming off as right, just increasing general understanding; I don’t care who gets credit.
I once gave session entitled ‘Every major mistake I have made in my work’; it was the best attended sessionI have ever had. I believe in admitting my mistakes or correcting myself publicly; I think there is as much value in that as there is in being right. In science multiple wrongs can be right, more right when shared.

 

That sadly is often not the case anymore. It is more likely they will spin a new thesis to explain the shortcomings of the previous one. It is very rare for somebody to actually admit they were wrong.

One of the few that I can actually think of is Dr. Carl Sagan. Back in 1983, he was the S in the TTAPS study, named for Richard P. Turco, Owen Toon, Thomas P. Ackerman, James B. Pollack and Carl Sagan. That is the report that got the entire ball rolling on "Nuclear Winter". And for decades now, people keep pointing back to that over and over again and far too many still believe in it.

However, that theory was completely busted in the 1990 Gulf War. Iraq was threatening to blow up the Kuwaiti oil fields if the Coalition did not leave him alone, and Dr. Sagan announced that after running the numbers threw their model, if Iraq blew up 100 oil wells, that would create a global nuclear winter. That even 100 oil fires would be a repeat of the Tambora event of 1815 that created the "Year Without a Summer", and might slide the planet into an ice age.

Well, as we all know Iraq blew up over 600 oil wells. And most of them burned for four to eight months. And the impact to the climate was insignificant at best. And to give Dr, Sagan credit, he disowned the report. Even stating that their goal was to help achieve nuclear disarmament, and that the premise of "Nuclear Winter" was incorrect when compared to a scenario that was similar but produced nothing of note globally.

I admit, I am not a big fan of Dr. Sagan. But he did have the courage to stand up and admit one of his theories was complete nonsense. Yet over 3 decades later, people still believe in it.

Meanwhile, I am still waiting on a more complete scientific discussion on “The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline”.

 

…I am a huge Sagan fan;s he’s was alway willing to talk about the provisional nature knowledge

bit I’d have to say his description of the pale blue dot, put things into perspective even far more pertinent than enemies views from the moon… a puny people with inflated sense of importance. But when I see the image of the pale blue dot, an image he was instrumental in getting it taken and shared by NASA , I think on Saga’s words ‘


Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there, on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

His words, brilliant and humbling;..apply to every life on that pale blue dot.one of the two most influential quotes that have influenced my life, the other being from MLK.

 

Science has been corrupted by progressive dogma.
DEI v. Science

John Tierney, City Journal

Progressives on campus have quietly undermined scientific research for decades, but in the past year the corruption has become blatant. A series of scandals has exposed widespread bias, incompetence, plagiarism, and censorship. The publicity has prompted some modest changes, but the prospects for science are unclear: nonideological practitioners are outnumbered on campus today, and their ranks are thinning.

Scientific institutions have traditionally flourished by recruiting the most proficient researchers and promoting vigorous competition as they freely debate and test their theories. Those traditions remain sacrosanct among older professors, particularly older men with moderate or conservative political views, but not among the younger progressives and women who increasingly dominate academia. These younger professors, administrators, and journal editors are more likely to champion the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) regime: they value ethnic and gender diversity over originality and productivity, and they are far more eager to silence and punish scientists daring to challenge progressive orthodoxy. . . .

 

But the thing is, none of that is "science". That is philosophy, not science.

And that is all to often the problem we are having now. Where people and their "beliefs" have become a driving force, and not the science itself. Actually ignoring scientific proof because it does not agree with their philosophy and beliefs.