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Junk Science Alert!
The Chronicle of Higher Education ^ | 1/31/03 | ROBERT L. PARK

Posted on 03/12/2003 9:21:09 AM PST by gomaaa

The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science By ROBERT L. PARK

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is investing close to a million dollars in an obscure Russian scientist's antigravity machine, although it has failed every test and would violate the most fundamental laws of nature. The Patent and Trademark Office recently issued Patent 6,362,718 for a physically impossible motionless electromagnetic generator, which is supposed to snatch free energy from a vacuum. And major power companies have sunk tens of millions of dollars into a scheme to produce energy by putting hydrogen atoms into a state below their ground state, a feat equivalent to mounting an expedition to explore the region south of the South Pole.

There is, alas, no scientific claim so preposterous that a scientist cannot be found to vouch for it. And many such claims end up in a court of law after they have cost some gullible person or corporation a lot of money. How are juries to evaluate them?

Before 1993, court cases that hinged on the validity of scientific claims were usually decided simply by which expert witness the jury found more credible. Expert testimony often consisted of tortured theoretical speculation with little or no supporting evidence. Jurors were bamboozled by technical gibberish they could not hope to follow, delivered by experts whose credentials they could not evaluate.

In 1993, however, with the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. the situation began to change. The case involved Bendectin, the only morning-sickness medication ever approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It had been used by millions of women, and more than 30 published studies had found no evidence that it caused birth defects. Yet eight so-called experts were willing to testify, in exchange for a fee from the Daubert family, that Bendectin might indeed cause birth defects.

In ruling that such testimony was not credible because of lack of supporting evidence, the court instructed federal judges to serve as "gatekeepers," screening juries from testimony based on scientific nonsense. Recognizing that judges are not scientists, the court invited judges to experiment with ways to fulfill their gatekeeper responsibility.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer encouraged trial judges to appoint independent experts to help them. He noted that courts can turn to scientific organizations, like the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to identify neutral experts who could preview questionable scientific testimony and advise a judge on whether a jury should be exposed to it. Judges are still concerned about meeting their responsibilities under the Daubert decision, and a group of them asked me how to recognize questionable scientific claims. What are the warning signs?

I have identified seven indicators that a scientific claim lies well outside the bounds of rational scientific discourse. Of course, they are only warning signs -- even a claim with several of the signs could be legitimate.

1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media. The integrity of science rests on the willingness of scientists to expose new ideas and findings to the scrutiny of other scientists. Thus, scientists expect their colleagues to reveal new findings to them initially. An attempt to bypass peer review by taking a new result directly to the media, and thence to the public, suggests that the work is unlikely to stand up to close examination by other scientists.

One notorious example is the claim made in 1989 by two chemists from the University of Utah, B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, that they had discovered cold fusion -- a way to produce nuclear fusion without expensive equipment. Scientists did not learn of the claim until they read reports of a news conference. Moreover, the announcement dealt largely with the economic potential of the discovery and was devoid of the sort of details that might have enabled other scientists to judge the strength of the claim or to repeat the experiment. (Ian Wilmut's announcement that he had successfully cloned a sheep was just as public as Pons and Fleischmann's claim, but in the case of cloning, abundant scientific details allowed scientists to judge the work's validity.)

Some scientific claims avoid even the scrutiny of reporters by appearing in paid commercial advertisements. A health-food company marketed a dietary supplement called Vitamin O in full-page newspaper ads. Vitamin O turned out to be ordinary saltwater.

2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work. The idea is that the establishment will presumably stop at nothing to suppress discoveries that might shift the balance of wealth and power in society. Often, the discoverer describes mainstream science as part of a larger conspiracy that includes industry and government. Claims that the oil companies are frustrating the invention of an automobile that runs on water, for instance, are a sure sign that the idea of such a car is baloney. In the case of cold fusion, Pons and Fleischmann blamed their cold reception on physicists who were protecting their own research in hot fusion.

3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection. Alas, there is never a clear photograph of a flying saucer, or the Loch Ness monster. All scientific measurements must contend with some level of background noise or statistical fluctuation. But if the signal-to-noise ratio cannot be improved, even in principle, the effect is probably not real and the work is not science.

Thousands of published papers in para-psychology, for example, claim to report verified instances of telepathy, psychokinesis, or precognition. But those effects show up only in tortured analyses of statistics. The researchers can find no way to boost the signal, which suggests that it isn't really there.

4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal. If modern science has learned anything in the past century, it is to distrust anecdotal evidence. Because anecdotes have a very strong emotional impact, they serve to keep superstitious beliefs alive in an age of science. The most important discovery of modern medicine is not vaccines or antibiotics, it is the randomized double-blind test, by means of which we know what works and what doesn't. Contrary to the saying, "data" is not the plural of "anecdote."

5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries. There is a persistent myth that hundreds or even thousands of years ago, long before anyone knew that blood circulates throughout the body, or that germs cause disease, our ancestors possessed miraculous remedies that modern science cannot understand. Much of what is termed "alternative medicine" is part of that myth.

Ancient folk wisdom, rediscovered or repackaged, is unlikely to match the output of modern scientific laboratories.

6. The discoverer has worked in isolation. The image of a lone genius who struggles in secrecy in an attic laboratory and ends up making a revolutionary breakthrough is a staple of Hollywood's science-fiction films, but it is hard to find examples in real life. Scientific breakthroughs nowadays are almost always syntheses of the work of many scientists.

7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation. A new law of nature, invoked to explain some extraordinary result, must not conflict with what is already known. If we must change existing laws of nature or propose new laws to account for an observation, it is almost certainly wrong.

I began this list of warning signs to help federal judges detect scientific nonsense. But as I finished the list, I realized that in our increasingly technological society, spotting voodoo science is a skill that every citizen should develop.

Robert L. Park is a professor of physics at the University of Maryland at College Park and the director of public information for the American Physical Society. He is the author of Voodoo Science: The Road From Foolishness to Fraud (Oxford University Press, 2002).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Volume 49, Issue 21, Page B20


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: antigravitymachine; crevolist
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The prevalence of junk science today is truly disturbing. Judges are not the only ones who can benefit from knowing these warning signs. Circulate this among friends and family!
1 posted on 03/12/2003 9:21:09 AM PST by gomaaa
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To: gomaaa
Yep, I agree. After all, "everything that could ever be invented has already been invented..."
2 posted on 03/12/2003 9:23:18 AM PST by RoughDobermann
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To: RoughDobermann
Out of curiousity, who said that?
3 posted on 03/12/2003 9:25:05 AM PST by gomaaa
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To: gomaaa
Good rules of thumb.
4 posted on 03/12/2003 9:27:04 AM PST by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: gomaaa
IIRC, some English twit. I'll see if I can find out...
5 posted on 03/12/2003 9:28:14 AM PST by RoughDobermann
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To: gomaaa
I think I misquoted. I believe that it was actually, "Everything worth having must already have been invented."
6 posted on 03/12/2003 9:30:19 AM PST by RoughDobermann
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To: gomaaa
Here ya go.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Charles H. Duell

Questionably attributed to him anyway.

7 posted on 03/12/2003 9:33:00 AM PST by RoughDobermann
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To: gomaaa
He was American Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents
8 posted on 03/12/2003 9:33:37 AM PST by RoughDobermann
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To: RoughDobermann
Gracias.
9 posted on 03/12/2003 9:33:57 AM PST by gomaaa
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To: gomaaa
I believe it came from the head of the US patent office in the late 1800's.... whoever he was...
10 posted on 03/12/2003 9:36:03 AM PST by tje
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To: RoughDobermann
Of course, they are only warning signs -- even a claim with several of the signs could be legitimate.

As rules of thumb, I think the author has a good point. However, just because someone thinks something is impossible, doesn't necessarily make it so.

11 posted on 03/12/2003 9:42:41 AM PST by Hodar (American's first. .... help the others, after we have helped our own.)
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To: RoughDobermann
That isn't what he said.
12 posted on 03/12/2003 9:44:55 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets
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To: Hodar
Yeah, they don't always apply. Einstein was a lowly patent clerk who worked largely alone and suddenly turned physics on its head. Then again he did have a good physics education and published first in a good journal. The rules here will allow people to filter out the vast majority of cranks.
13 posted on 03/12/2003 9:47:50 AM PST by gomaaa
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets
Yes, like I said, questionably attributed to him.
14 posted on 03/12/2003 9:47:51 AM PST by RoughDobermann
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To: gomaaa
The Patent and Trademark Office recently issued Patent 6,362,718 for a physically impossible motionless electromagnetic generator

There could be a few dozen claims in the original application and the patent granted to only one of the claims. For example, the PTO might grant a design patent for the shape of a magnet without granting a patent for a ZPE machine in its entirety.

15 posted on 03/12/2003 9:48:04 AM PST by RightWhale (Theorems link concepts: Proofs establish links)
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To: Hodar
Indeed
16 posted on 03/12/2003 9:48:18 AM PST by RoughDobermann
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To: gomaaa
Judges are not the only ones who can benefit from knowing these warning signs.

1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media
"I did not have sex with that woman"

2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work
"It's a Right Wing Conspiracy"

3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.
"Stained blue dress"

4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal.
"It was just about sex"

5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries
"Everybody cheats"

6. The discoverer has worked in isolation
"It's the hardest he's ever worked in his life, and it's for the children!"

7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.
Define what "is" is.

17 posted on 03/12/2003 9:48:47 AM PST by husky ed (FOX NEWS ALERT "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead" THIS HAS BEEN A FOX NEWS ALERT)
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To: gomaaa
While I do tend to hate junk science myself, you have to consider the source. Dr. Park is not exactly impartial about things outside of scientific establishment. He also is hard-wired against human space travel, and wastes no opportunity to bash NASA for it's fixation upon it. It seems this article is meant to merely bolster his "NASA is just nutty" premise in a general way. Character assasination, if you will.

The field of electrogravitics (his first example in the article) is subject to the whims of peer review and scientific community peer pressure. In the 40's and 50's a fellow by the name of T.Townsend Brown had government backing for such research, and the results of his work still stand as valid. I've seen his stuff denegrated a goodly bit, though, and researchers who try to realistically follow up on his work often find themselves unpublished and alone. Such is the capricious nature of scientific circles.

Park's rules are useful, when it is assumed that they'll be applied scientifically. Often, however, they are abused.
18 posted on 03/12/2003 9:50:17 AM PST by Frank_Discussion (Time is the fire in which we burn...)
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To: RightWhale
True, and it's my understanding (though this could be wrong) that the gadget in question doesn't have to actually work in order to get a patent on it. That doesn't make it any less rediculous that someone thought this sort of thing COULD work, but the system gives them the benefit of the doubt.
19 posted on 03/12/2003 9:51:41 AM PST by gomaaa
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To: gomaaa
the gadget in question doesn't have to actually work

That's true. One thing the PTO refused to consider last time I checked is any kind of perpetual motion device. I assume a ZPE device would be considered a perpetual motion device if the claims present it as such. It's all in how the claims are written.

20 posted on 03/12/2003 9:56:08 AM PST by RightWhale (Theorems link concepts: Proofs establish links)
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