I've been fascinated lately with what seems to be a plague of inversions of cause and effect in things that I read. Using an unprecedented collection of historical and recent oceanographic data, a team from Canada's Dalhousie University documented phytoplankton declines of about 1% of the global average per year. This trend is particularly well documented in the Northern Hemisphere and after 1950, and would translate into a decline of approximately 40% since 1950. The scientists found that long-term phytoplankton declines were negatively correlated with rising sea surface temperatures and changing oceanographic conditions. . . To extend the record into the past, the authors analysed a unique compilation of historical measurements of ocean transparency going back to the very beginning of quantitative oceanography in the late 1800s, and combined these with additional samples of phytoplankton pigment („chlorophyll') from ocean-going research vessels. The end result was a database of just under half a million observations which enabled the scientists to...

Some comments about Venter's JVCI chemically synthesised genome. Ken Macleod: As a proof of concept, the creation by Craig Venter et al of a bacterial cell controlled by a chemically synthesised genome is definitive. For the first time an organism exists that got its genome not from the direct replication of another organism's, but from a description of another organism's, stored in a computer – and slightly modified, at that, to include a distinguishing "watermark" that might as well be, and perhaps already is, a trademark. It's also a landmark. This is a moment in evolution, the origin of a new kingdom: the Synthetica, as artist Daisy Ginsberg has suggested we call it, supplementing nature's bacteria, eukarya, and archaea. Freeman Dyson: This paper reminds me of a saying that is well-known to pure mathematicians: "Every big discovery starts with a bad proof'". This is true in mathematics. The first proof in a new subject is bad, because the discoverer...

Robin tries to explain malpractice in science journalism. In Nature, Colin Macilwain says science reporting is too uncritical: [Science journalism] converts original scientific findings, via a production line of embargoed press releases from journals and universities, into a steady stream of largely uncritical stories. … In stark contrast to proper investigations of issues such as public corruption, corporate maleficence or industrial health and safety — essentially silly stories about science continue to fill newspapers and news broadcasts. Some science reporters are uneasy about this situation, but most accept it. … Most [scientists] seem to be largely content with a system that disguises the very human process of scientific discovery as a seamless stream of ingenious and barely disputed ‘breakthroughs’. Like other elites, researchers feel no great yearning to be held to account by the press. . . Yes, science reporting is less critical than political, business, or sports reporting. Since the media is very competitive, readers/viewers must prefer it...

A continuation of earlier thoughts about the differences between expertise and experts, science and scientists. the standard account of the history textbooks — with the Renaissance giving rise to the Scientific Revolution and thus preparing the way for the Enlightenment — fails to identify the primary causal relationship. Democratic governance and individual rights did not emerge from some amorphous “brew of humanistic and scientific thinking,” he [Timothy Ferris in The Science of Liberty] argues, but were “sparked” by science itself — the crucial “innovative ingredient” that “continues to foster political freedom today.” . . . science was an integral part of the intellectual equipment of the great pioneers of political and individual liberty. John Locke was not just the most eloquent philosophical advocate of the social contract and natural rights. He was an active member of the emerging scientific culture of 17th-century Oxford, and his intimates included Isaac Newton, who likewise was a radical Whig, supporting Parliament against the...

I keep six honest serving-men: (They taught me all I knew) Their names are What and Where and When And How and Why and Who. - - Rudyard Kipling However, talk precedes walk. We believe that a just-so story is simply a story, a tentative, speculative answer to a question, and, as such, a clarification of one's thinking, ideally a goad to further thought, and, not incidentally, a necessary preliminary to obtaining the kind of additional information that helps answer a question (which, in the best cases, leads to yet more queries). When that happens—when the narrative is testable and generates fact-based research—then, in a sense, it is no longer a just-so story, but science, pure and … rarely simple. It bears emphasizing that not all explanations are equally valid, since science arrives at conclusions based on evidence, as opposed to postmodernist poppycock in which every "reality" is imagined to be a culturally constructed "narrative," all equally true. On...

One of the year-in-review themes of 2009 is the year that scientists fell from grace. It may not be that anything unusual happened, but it happened publicly, got a lot of political attention and public discussion, and so exposed what had been largely ignored or excused in the past. One of the tawdrier revelations has been the intolerance of diversity within disciplines. Is it truly worse than in the past? the science selection process ruthlessly weeds-out interesting and imaginative people. At each level in education, training and career progression there is a tendency to exclude smart and creative people by preferring Conscientious and Agreeable people. The progressive lengthening of scientific training and the reduced independence of career scientists have tended to deter vocational ‘revolutionary’ scientists in favour of industrious and socially adept individuals better suited to incremental ‘normal’ science. Well, that seems fairly normal. It's true of any discipline or institution as it becomes established. It's why institutions need...

One of the fall back positions of climate alarmists is that even if we are able to fend off warming using some geoengineering hack, and even if we are able to scrub the air of the accumulated CO2 so that concentrations fall back to earlier levels, that the oceans will still have become acidic due to their absorption of CO2. It has been argued that this will dissolve reefs and the carbonate shells of seas creatures (the polar bears daddy!). As noted in earlier posts 1,2,3 there are defects in this argument. First, the seas are alkaline now and will remain alkaline. They will not become acidic though they can become less alkaline. It just isn't as scary to say that they are becoming less alkaline than it is to say that they are becoming acidic. How much does it matter? That depends. The argument that the concentration of the carbonate ions from which shells are made is balanced...

Mike Hulme in WSJ. Science never writes closed textbooks. It does not offer us a holy scripture, infallible and complete. This is especially the case with the science of climate, a complex system of enormous scale, at every turn influenced by human contingencies. Yes, science has clearly revealed that humans are influencing global climate and will continue to do so, but we don't know the full scale of the risks involved, nor how rapidly they will evolve, nor indeed—with clear insight—the relative roles of all the forcing agents involved at different scales....

Judy Curry in National Journal. the motivation of the skeptic isn't really the point. The point is whether or not they have a valid argument....

Science is a method to gain knowledge, but knowing what to do with it is another matter entirely. Making bales with 30 percent of global crop residues – the stalks and such left after harvesting – and then sinking the bales into the deep ocean could reduce the build up of global carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by up to 15 percent a year, according to just published calculations. . . The proposed process would remove only above-ground residue. Strand bases his calculations on using 30 percent of crop residue because that's what agricultural scientists say could sustainably be removed, the rest being needed to maintain carbon in the soil. . . Strand says he thinks any method for removing excess carbon dioxide must do seven things: move hundreds of megatons of carbon, sequester that carbon for thousands of years, be repeatable for centuries, be something that can be implemented immediately using methods already at hand, not cause unacceptable...

I'm only human. And so is science. . . . not reading the papers one is citing or arguing from is pretty common. It happens all the time in science and blogging too. We rely to an amazing degree on surface information, skimmed impressions and inferred contents. Very human, not always wrong, but risky. One should increase one's intellectual due diligence proportional to the stakes of the claims. I wish that more papers were open access so that we could all read them. We'd still skimp and skim, but perhaps less. Update: The right place for science Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth. That endeavor, which has transformed the world in the last few centuries, does indeed teach values. Those values, among others, are honesty, doubt, respect for evidence, openness, accountability and tolerance and indeed hunger for opposing points of view. These are the unabashedly pragmatic working principles...

Support for a pet notion. "Successful research groups are those that grow and evolve on their own over time," Bejan said. "For example, an individual comes up with a good idea, gets funding, and new group begins to form around that good idea. This creates a framework where many smaller groups contribute to the whole." However, extremes at either end of the spectrum are not conducive to productive science, Bejan said. "If an institution is made up only of solitary researchers, it would have many ideas but little support," he said. "On the other hand, a group that is large for the sake of size would have a lot of support, but would comparatively have fewer ideas per investigator." Such an extreme example would be that of the old Soviet-style research, where the government decreed the goal and scope of research and populated its monolithic structures with like-minded scientists. The more efficient laboratory model would be one that grows...

How to teach science. 1. Let students get their hands dirty. . . 2. Yes, spend more money on science. . . 3. Celebrate mistakes. Why bother? . . . the U.S. is falling behind other countries in science: By 2010, Asia will have 90 percent of the world’s Ph.D. scientists and engineers. It sounds threatening, but I don't think that this is the true concern, the most damaging effect of science illiteracy and disinterest. The real problem is that failure to gain skill in scientific thought processes cripples everyone no matter what their academic specialty. Historians and English majors need it as much as engineers. Our work is less involved with physical reality since we have become a nation of cubicle dwellers. We work with abstractions and live sedentary lives. We have fewer opportunities to engage with tasks that informally instill some of the skills of engineering and scientific thought. If such thinking is not taught in the...

Does Hindsight Devalue Science? Cullen Murphy, editor of The Atlantic, said that the social sciences turn up "no ideas or conclusions that can't be found in [any] encyclopedia of quotations... Day after day social scientists go out into the world. Day after day they discover that people's behavior is pretty much what you'd expect." . . Daphna Baratz exposed college students to pairs of supposed findings, one true ("In prosperous times people spend a larger portion of their income than during a recession") and one the truth's opposite. In both sides of the pair, students rated the supposed finding as what they "would have predicted". Perfectly standard hindsight bias. Which leads people to think they have no need for science, because they "could have predicted" that. (Just as you would expect, right?) Hindsight will lead us to systematically undervalue the surprisingness of scientific findings, especially the discoveries we understand - the ones that seem real to us, the ones...

Philip is back and posting again, though it's not clear where he's been. He's a bit excited about a new paper, 'Do electrons help to make the clouds?', (press release). A team at the Danish National Space Center has discovered how cosmic rays from exploding stars can help to make clouds in the atmosphere. The results support the theory that cosmic rays influence Earth’s climate. An essential role for remote stars in everyday weather on Earth has been revealed by an experiment at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen. It is already well-established that when cosmic rays, which are high-speed atomic particles originating in exploded stars far away in the Milky Way, penetrate Earth’s atmosphere they produce substantial amounts of ions and release free electrons. Now, results from the Danish experiment show that the released electrons significantly promote the formation of building blocks for cloud condensation nuclei on which water vapour condenses to make clouds. Hence, a causal...

... is wrong. I'm OK with that now. It's happened so many times this year I've gotten used to it. It was always a theoretical truth - in the fullness of time all our facts would be revealed as partial or mistaken - but it's been actualized so much recently that I had to adjust. What burns me isn't that I learned something new which over turned something old, it's that it could have happened long ago. [via A&L Daily] When Battisti and I had finished our study of the influence of the Gulf Stream, we were left with a certain sense of deflation: Pretty much everything we had found could have been concluded on the basis of results that were already available. Ngar-Cheung Lau of the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) and Princeton University had published in 1979 an observational study in which he quantitatively demonstrated the warming and cooling effects that large-scale...

Terence Kealey makes an interesting claim: SCIENCE POLICY across the globe is but a series of footnotes to Vannevar Bush’s 1945 book Science: The Endless Frontier. Before the Second World War the US Government spent little on applied science and nothing on pure science. In 1940 its total research budget was only $74 million, mainly for defence and agriculture, when the private sector was spending $265million, of which $55 million was for pure science. Yet by 1940 America had long been the richest country in the world, and its researchers, including Edison and the Wright brothers, had transformed the world — on private money. Meanwhile, Einstein flourished at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, which had been privately endowed by the Bambergers with $25 million. But the Second World War thrust America into funding military science, and by 1945 Vannevar Bush, a brilliant scientific manager, was administering a federal research budget of $1.6 billion, supporting the Manhattan and other projects....

Self-punking, said another way, is Nightmare Science. [again, via Prometheus] What, then, are the nightmares of the scientific discourse or, more precisely, the environmental science discourse? Surely a major one is that, despite the claim of the scientific discourse to primacy in creating a valid understanding of the world, the reality is that the postmodernist critique is right, and science is no more than another normative discourse, of no greater ontological value than any other. Evaluating the potential for this nightmare science scenario is tricky, but a few observations are possible. To begin with, it is useful to recall perhaps the principal way science distinguishes itself from other discourses: the reliance on discovery of facts through observation, and validation of theory through test and falsification - in short, the scientific method. This procedure evolved in Western Europe in contrast to the medieval mechanism for establishing truth, which was reference to authority, in the form of the Church Fathers, Aristotle,...

And statistics. Hah! Until now, it has been assumed that biogenic methane is formed anaerobically, that is, via micro-organisms and in the absence of oxygen. In this way, acetate or hydrogen and carbon dioxide are transformed into methane; they themselves are created in the anaerobic decomposition of organic materials. The largest anoxic sources of methane are wetlands and rice fields, as well as the digestion of ruminants and termites, waste disposal sites, and the gas produced by sewage treatment plants. According to previous estimates, these sources make up two-thirds of the 600 million tonnes worldwide annual methane production. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics have now discovered that plants themselves produce methane and emit it into the atmosphere, even in completely normal, oxygen-rich surroundings. The researchers made the surprising discovery during an investigation of which gases are emitted by dead and fresh leaves. Then, in the laboratory and in the wild, the scientists looked at the...

Philip Small posts on a theme that has fascinated me for some time. The current round of research into soil microbial life holds the door open onto insights that stagger the imagination. . . The following was reported earlier today in What's New in Science and Technology. Ironically, in the diversity of soil bacteria, the otherwise species-rich Amazon is a more like a desert, while the arid desert is a teeming microbial Amazon, researchers have found. Their first-ever continental-scale genetic survey of soil bacteria revealed that the primary factor that seems to govern the diversity of soil bacteria is soil pH. Thus, the acidic soils of topical forests harbor fewer bacterial species than the neutral soils of deserts. The researchers said that, since soil bacteria play a fundamental role in a vast array of ecological processes, their survey constitutes an initial step in a new research pathway to understanding that role. As exciting as these studies are, they are...

One of the themes here has been the falseness of the great man theory of progress and the falseness of systems of meritocracy and expertise - mandarins, elites and the like - and stratified, exclusionary institutions. Earlier posts about James Surowieki, Scott Page and Lu Hong among others grappled with the deficiencies of expertise as we commonly think of it, suggesting that there are ways to overcome them with group approaches. Another thread is critical of the blunders of supposed experts who seemed unaware of information and relationships that were common knowledge among practitioners, and an intellectually crippling dismissal of the accomplishments of ancient people and native societies. Though not explicitly dicussed there have been allusions to Philip Tetlock’s new book, “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?” It has been discussed on many blogs and I expect that you have already read a few reviews and comments about it. This Louis Menand review has...

Looking at the current state of world development and trends over the past few decades can give another perspective on the seeming confusions in the report from the InterAcademy Council, Inventing a Better Future: A Strategy for Building World Capacities in Science and Technology. (See previous post) Stronger S&T capacity in the developing nations is not a luxury but an absolute necessity if these nations are to participate as full partners in the world’s fast-forming, knowledge-based economy. There seems to be an assumption throughout the report that developing nations are not currently improving and that things must change, something must be done that is not already being done. As noted in the previous post the rate of publication of scientific papers in the developing world has risen dramatically according to the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). Global hunger, poverty and inequality are also dropping. This article in The Economist, the most recent of many, discusses these trends. The dour...

This editorial in The Scientist by Richard Gallagher attempts to grapple with the implications of globalization for science. A report from the InterAcademy Council, Inventing a Better Future: A Strategy for Building World Capacities in Science and Technology is discussed. ... the report sums up the current situation thus: "Business-as-usual will leave an ever-growing gap between 'have' and 'have-not' nations .... The current disparity is likely to grow even wider as the industrialized nations continue to master the tools of science and invention, vastly outspend the developing nations in research and development (R&D), and even capture some of the developing nations' most precious human resources for their own use." While I wholeheartedly support the aims of the report, my pessimistic view is that "business as usual" will prevail. Here's why: Scientists themselves often lack a vision of global community. The recent advances from South Korea in human cloning,4 for example, far from drawing congratulations, attracted sullen comments,5 such as...

In an earlier post, The Unexamined Life, Jacob Levy's knowledge of research funding was questioned as part of a larger argument. Levy is also wrong in his understanding of science research funding. The national currency and The Federal Reserve are nothing like national science research funding because it is not and cannot be The science research funding. National funding of science research is the purely political branch of the science funding stream. It has nothing to do with "the value of getting good science and good research" since that is always available whether nations fund research or not. G. Paschal Zachary has an opinion piece about terrorism and technology (via Future Now) that quotes some funding statistics that are also relevant to Levy's misunderstanding of science funding. The figures speak for themselves. From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, the federal government provided two-thirds of all research-and-development spending in the United States, with industry providing the remaining third. The proportion...

Chris Mooney continues his silly political attacks on the current administration as "anti-science" noted earlier in Witch Hunts. He has a political bias and a book to sell but is not making useful commentary about science. I noted earlier that... Mooney carries on in the political tradition of the environmental "movement", using popular media to advance theses not supported by science. Mooney isn't unique or unusual in this, many are far worse, he's just a well known example for blog readers. His primary method is to claim "consensus" for his political views and attack opponents credentials while evading their arguments. It is, in other words, pure politics untainted by science. He selects his data points to support his politics and dismisses all else. There is no debate of evidence... Gullible and uninformed pundits such as Tyler Cowen regularly parrot Mooney's nonsense on their blogs. Chris is the guy who keeps us all honest when it comes to politics and...