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Posted on 11/04/2009 10:37:40 AM PST by bs9021
Finding Critics for Science
Allie Winegar Duzett, November 4, 2009
There are many fields with rigorous critics; many writers make a living critiquing music, dance, art, and literature. At Accuracy in Media and other media watchdog groups, employees critique the claims of major news organizations. But one crucial field regularly goes without any public criticism: the field of science, and scientific discovery.
“Science lacks for critics,” David Berlinski claimed at a recent Heritage Foundation Bloggers’ Briefing. “It is really remarkable that in the sense in which literature or dance or music has always entered public consciousness with a very rich body of criticism…, science really lacks for its critics entirely.”
Berlinski did mention peer review, noting that “there is certainly a great deal of internal criticism within every scientific field.” However, Berlinski said, “when I’m talking about criticism I’m talking about criticism in a far broader sense, criticism that goes beyond the boundaries of peer reviews and become a cultural philosophy.”
Berlinski’s idea is a revolutionary one: that scientific claims and discoveries ought to be critiqued in popular culture just as the arts are critiqued. His idea is not only revolutionary, however; it is also crucial to the continued freedom of American society. America today runs on technology, and therefore, on scientific discovery. President Obama promised in his inaugural speech that he would work to “put science in its rightful place” as the center of policy. Is it safe to make “science” central to policy, when for all Americans know, the “science” may be deeply flawed?...
(Excerpt) Read more at academia.org ...
Well said.
i was going to post a profound agreement with your comment, but then i read the whole article. its author is a whacko.
Yep.
It ain’t called the “scientific method” for nothing.
Ernest Lawrence, a pure experimentalist... said, "Don't you worry about it -- the theorists will find a way to make them all the same." -- Alvarez by Luis Alvarez (page 184)
I must reiterate my feeling that experimentalists always welcome the suggestions of the theorists. But the present situation is ridiculous... In my considered opinion the peer review system, in which proposals rather than proposers are reviewed, is the greatest disaster to be visited upon the scientific community in this century. No group of peers would have approved my building the 72-inch bubble chamber. Even Ernest Lawrence told me that he thought I was making a big mistake. He supported me because my track record was good. I believe U.S. science could recover from the stultifying effects of decades of misguided peer reviewing if we returned to the tried-and-true method of evaluating experimenters rather than experimental proposals. Many people will say that my ideas are elitist, and I certainly agree. The alternative is the egalitarianism that we now practice and that I've seen nearly kill basic science in the USSR and in the People's Republic of China. -- ibid (pp 200-201)
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Junk Science Returns to the White House
realclearmarkets.com | November 2, 2009 | Bill Frezza
Posted on 11/03/2009 12:00:15 PM PST by neverdem
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2377630/posts
Met him last Saturday...very interesting person!
We discovered that the “science” was not up to par on the Klamath system in California when we had two highly qualified scientists volunteer to serve on the federal salmon Task Force and to represent the County. They found a lot of rot in the science being used to support pro fish politics. The Bush Admin. had the NAS come out and did some analysis of the science and they found erroneous conclusions had been made by the agencies. (Such as the claim that a turn on of irrigation water in the upper Klamath had directly caused a giant fish kill.)
We have a local scientist who reviewed the science supporting the morratorium on suction dredge mining and there is faulty science there. A recent published paper linking irrigation to lower instream flows was found to have been based on invented data.
After years of experience with this, the County hired a consultant to review the science behind the plans to remove the Klamath dams. He found that sediment transport models being used were experimental - not up to accepted engineering standards and assumed the wrong partical size. He found that, when PCBs/dioxin and cyanide had been found in the very limited sampling of sediment behind the dams, further sampling for these problems was shut down and other sampling limited to areas where such sediments would not be found. (Clean up of toxic substances would add astronomically to the cost of dam removal.) The County has had to force them through press releases into further sampling and using a more appropriate model.
Just recently, the County found that a sampling report had found PCBs in the water. The agencies issued a report trying to twist the findings by attributing the PCBs to atmospheric sources - which they were not.
Scientific integrity is a thing of the past. It is shocking when a County has to hire someone to serve as a watchdog to protect the public by keeping the state and federal agencies honest.
Clean up in the science aisle!!!
I know, lets all vote on Science! Lets vote down The Speed Of Light, so we can travel to the stars in a few days instead! Yeah, thats the ticket.....
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