Do you feel this in America?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

you people obviously don't know anything about the scientific process if you think that political bias determines what gets published and what gets funded

 

you obviously know nothing about politics and reality if you think political bias does NOT determine what gets published and what gets funded

[KaskadskyjKozak]

And that work does not get published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

 

Oh it does happen. And there are different "tiers" of journals, AND somehow news reporters don't differentiate between them, and policy-makers pick and choose from the "studies" that support their agendas.

[rbw1966]

Lots of science is influenced by political or economical agendas. Bias is something that I don't think you can possibly exclude from the scientific process--isn't the very reason you are studying something in the first place an example of bias?

 

I invite you to read Galileo's Revenge for some great examples of bias in science. It also shows how the scientific method tends towards self-correction over time because it requires reproducibility.

[j_b]

 

you obviously know nothing about politics and reality if you think political bias does NOT determine what gets published and what gets funded

 

i only know about the reality of the scientific process which is very different from that portrayed in right wing lalaland. as for funding, i edited my comment to differentiate between different levels of the funding process.

 

do you have evidence supporting your contention that politics determines what is published in independent (non-industry funded) peer-reviewed journals?

[Dechristo]

Science is science - there is no "political bias" in it.

 

There is no bias in the object of study. There is bias in the selection of the object to be studied, the manner in which the object will be studied, the interpretation of the result of the study, and the choice of application of the result of the study.

 

This observable world is ruled by physical laws; one of the components of those laws is Time. A temporal effect is the mechanism of Cause and Effect. All sentient Beings within a temporal environment formulate, as they are able, categories of Good and Bad based on their experience of Cause and Effect. Each Being, due to their unique perception and inimitable history of experience , owns unique categorizations of Good and Bad differing slightly and greatly from others; relative to all others, each has their own view and perception.

 

Bias, we all have it and operate within it. The object is not biased, the objectifier cannot escape bias.

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

i only know about the reality of the scientific process which is very different from that portrayed in right wing lalaland.

 

I love watching the pseudo-scientists squirm when their orthodoxy is challenged. I doubt very highly that you know much about the "scientific process".

 

Let me tell you out of personal experience how bias enters into the scientific "process". In a former position, we paid an outside agency to perform certain screening measurements for phenotypes "of interest" on lines of mutagenized mice. The lines of animals, and all their screening measurements were made available to staff at the site - a necessity for data entry. There was a vested interest in finding lines of animals exhibiting the phenotypes of interest, and prove the results were reproducible, inheritable, and penetrable. We noticed many false positives in lines where an initial erroneous measure, or simple outlier led over-eager lab staff to "find" more of the same. A classic example of self-fulfilling prophesy. If you believe that in the real world, measurements are taken in a vacuum in pure, completely controlled studies with no possibility of bias, data-massaging, or other corrupting factor entering the collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data, then you are the one living in "la-la" land.

[j_b]

the issue isn't individual bias which i don't think anyone is claiming doesn't exist, but the leap of logic which consist in claiming that since 'bias' exists, there is an institutional political bias with regard to issues like climate change, evolution, environment, etc ...

[archenemy]

Agencies beyond the scientific world are feeling the effect from Bush's tactics as well. Volunteering with a non-profit that focuses on harm reduction for injection drug users and sex workers, I have watched our budget get cut to almost nothing because we work with people who don't fit into the "no sex before marriage" and "just say no" groups.

We are also struggling with the self-censorship issue of not being able to refer using common words like homosexual or addict. It has made grant writing impossible. Funny though, if we added the words "faith based" to our mission statement, we would qualify for ungodly amounts of money.

It's disgusting. It's unrealistic. It's killing people.

[j_b]

i only know about the reality of the scientific process which is very different from that portrayed in right wing lalaland.

 

I love watching the pseudo-scientists squirm when their orthodoxy is challenged. I doubt very highly that you know much about the "scientific process".

 

Let me tell you out of personal experience how bias enters into the scientific "process". In a former position, we paid an outside agency to perform certain screening measurements for phenotypes "of interest" on lines of mutagenized mice. The lines of animals, and all their screening measurements were made available to staff at the site - a necessity for data entry. There was a vested interest in finding lines of animals exhibiting the phenotypes of interest, and prove the results were reproducible, inheritable, and penetrable. We noticed many false positives in lines where an initial erroneous measure, or simple outlier led over-eager lab staff to "find" more of the same. A classic example of self-fulfilling prophesy. If you believe that in the real world, measurements are taken in a vacuum in pure, completely controlled studies with no possibility of bias, data-massaging, or other corrupting factor entering the collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data, then you are the one living in "la-la" land.

 

classic. from anecdotal evidence to the indictment of an entire field. laughable. this certainly would not pass review.

Edited April 11, 2005 by j_b

[archenemy]

At what stage does discussion become bickering?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

classic. from anecdotal evidence to the indictment of an entire field. laughable. this certainly would pass review.

 

The "evidence" you ask for is out there, Sir. You just refuse to see it, because it challenges your orthodoxy. And that is truly "classic".

 

[j_b]

funny how the "evidence is out there", yet you can't name it ...

[catbirdseat]

All we are saying is that although we will grant you that there are individual scientist that are biased, the entire field is not, and in fact other scientists love nothing better than to root out and refute bad or biased science if it is in their field of interest.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

the issue isn't individual bias which i don't think anyone is claiming doesn't exist, but the leap of logic which consist in claiming that since 'bias' exists, there is an institutional political bias with regard to issues like climate change, evolution, environment, etc ...

 

An example of recent institutional bias is the research concerning migrations of native peoples, who supposedly settled N. America from Siberia around 10,000+ years ago in a single migration. Scientists challenging this idea with credible evidence that migrations occurred in waves, from multiple locations, beginning much earlier were mocked, and rejected by their "scientific" peers for years. There was a great documentary on this on cable recently.

 

This type of story has been repeated over and over again in science. Scientists are just as prone to the herd mentality and are just as disposed to jump on some band-wagon with blinders on. And damned be you if your research challenges the established orthodoxy in some field of study.

[Squid]

And damned be you if your research challenges the established orthodoxy in some field of study.

 

...and we've come full cirlce. Thanks for agreeing with the original article.

 

The whole point of science is that it is an ongoing discussion. Of course each lab will have some skew to it's data, that's why folks publish, collaborate and challenge. Some funky results in a single lab (your phenotype example) in no way weaken the process.

 

Cutting the funding does weaken the process, and silences the discussion. There's nothing 'left' or 'right' about that.

[j_b]

There was a great documentary on this on cable recently.

 

so, your interpretation of a program on cable about migrations to America is the evidence you provide to support your claim of a systematic political bias w.r.t evolution or climate change?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Cutting the funding does weaken the process, and silences the discussion. There's nothing 'left' or 'right' about that.

 

The question is not whether the discussion is "silenced", but whether it is skewed based on who is in power to fund - and that is a question of 'left' or 'right'. One side gets a louder voice based not solely (or even predominantly) on scientific merit, but on political motivations.

[AlpineK]

I'm sure you can find lots of science that has flaws in logic or is biased, however if somebody conducts a study and reports it others are bound to try and reproduce the experiment, especially if the results are unexpected. In the long run bad science can not be reproduced.

 

It seems to me the whole cold fusion thing is a good example. The idea was presented and other scientists tried to duplicate the experiment. In relativly short order the idea of cold fusion was dismissed.

 

In the case of global warming the majority of science has supported the findings since 1995. The real question right now is more of an economic decision, however folks resistant to changes in the status quo try and prevent change by claiming bad science.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

In the case of global warming the majority of science has supported the findings since 1995. The real question right now is more of an economic decision, however folks resistant to changes in the status quo try and prevent change by claiming bad science.

 

If you look at plots of the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (as ascertained from ancient glacial ice) to world temperatures, you will see that the two are linked - and are cyclical in nature. Moreover, the recent increases in temperature and green house gases are part of a trend that started over **10,000** years ago.

 

Since, man-made emissions have only been significant in the last 100+ years, one must ask how to explain the trend starting 10,000 years ago, and how it has repeated itself earlier in the Earth's geologic history when man could NOT have been a factor. In other words, how can current data prove man is the cause of a current trend that has repeated itself in the absence of man, and how can measurements taken over a short period of time (geologically speaking) explain a 10,000 year-old trend?

 

It seems to me that the "bad" science regarding this issue revolves around huge, leaping conclusions (and concomitant policy recommendations) that are made based on studies that can truly only "prove" much more restricted sets of facts (i.e. in the last ten years temperatures have gone up x degrees on average, the polar ice is x millimeters thinner than 10 years ago).

 

When I see data and reports on global warming, I conclude that a lot of this is out of our control. The earth's temperatures rise and fall over time, and, although we may contribute to it, I am not convinced we cause it, or that we can reverse the trend (short of launching all our atomic weapons and inducing a "nuclear winter"). The predominant reporting out there seems to claim as FACT that humans caused global warming and just cutting emissions by some magical percentage will be a silver bullet to make it all go away.

[AlpineK]

From what I've read you are right in saying that there is a general warming trend that is outside of human control however the majority of science supports the conclusion that humans have had major impact on the rate of warming over the last 100+ years.

 

Now I'm no scientist, so I'm just relaying what I've read that by all accounts is the majority view. I'm not sure what you do, but I don't think you are an atmospheric scientist, so I'm not going to put much weight to your, "views," on climate change.

 

The real question is one of how bad it's going to be and what we should do about it, which is like I said above more of an economic and thus political decision.

[Squid]

KK, can I come visit your world someday? Everything seems happy there, and just a little simpler. It must be a great place.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

KK, can I come visit your world someday? Everything seems happy there, and just a little simpler. It must be a great place.

 

Happy? I think the climate is changing, the consequences will be dire, and we have little control over reversing that trend. How is that a "happy" scenario? As for simplicity, you must be joking, if anything my propensity is to complicate, not simplify.

[catbirdseat]

It is so much easier on your conscience to "know" that there is nothing that could be done to reverse global warming.

[Dru]

KK say -

If you look at plots of the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (as ascertained from ancient glacial ice) to world temperatures, you will see that the two are linked - and are cyclical in nature. Moreover, the recent increases in temperature and green house gases are part of a trend that started over **10,000** years ago.

 

But a March 2005 article in Scientific American say:

 

How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate?; March 2005; by William F. Ruddiman; 8 page(s)

 

The scientific consensus that human actions first began to have a warming effect on the earth's climate within the past century has become part of the public perception as well. With the advent of coal-burning factories and power plants, industrial societies began releasing carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases into the air. Later, motor vehicles added to such emissions. In this scenario, those of us who have lived during the industrial era are responsible not only for the gas buildup in the atmosphere but also for at least part of the accompanying global warming trend. Now, though, it seems our ancient agrarian ancestors may have begun adding these gases to the atmosphere many millennia ago, thereby altering the earth's climate long before anyone thought.

New evidence suggests that concentrations of CO2 started rising about 8,000 years ago, even though natural trends indicate they should have been dropping. Some 3,000 years later the same thing happened to methane, another heat-trapping gas. The consequences of these surprising rises have been profound. Without them, current temperatures in northern parts of North America and Europe would be cooler by three to four degrees Celsius--enough to make agriculture difficult. In addition, an incipient ice age--marked by the appearance of small ice caps--would probably have begun several thousand years ago in parts of northeastern Canada. Instead the earth's climate has remained relatively warm and stable in recent millennia.

[j_b]

"In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].

 

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).

 

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).

 

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."

 

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686