Science Research Is Flawed, Needs Freeing From Stagnation

[From article]
Science is broken.
That's the thesis of a must-read article in First Things magazine, in which William A. Wilson accumulates evidence that a lot of published research is false. But that's not even the worst part.
Advocates of the existing scientific research paradigm usually smugly declare that while some published conclusions are surely false, the scientific method has "self-correcting mechanisms" that ensure that, eventually, the truth will prevail. Unfortunately for all of us, Wilson makes a convincing argument that those self-correcting mechanisms are broken.
[. . .]
In 2011, the pharmaceutical company Bayer looked at 67 blockbuster drug discovery research findings published in prestigious journals, and found that three-fourths of them weren't right. Another study of cancer research found that only 11 percent of preclinical cancer research could be reproduced. Even in physics, supposedly the hardest and most reliable of all sciences, Wilson points out that "two of the most vaunted physics results of the past few years — the announced discovery of both cosmic inflation and gravitational waves at the BICEP2 experiment in Antarctica, and the supposed discovery of superluminal neutrinos at the Swiss-Italian border — have now been retracted, with far less fanfare than when they were first published."
[. . .]
In a 2011 survey of 2,000 research psychologists, over half admitted to selectively reporting those experiments that gave the result they were after. The survey also concluded that around 10 percent of research psychologists have engaged in outright falsification of data, and more than half have engaged in "less brazen but still fraudulent behavior such as reporting that a result was statistically significant when it was not, or deciding between two different data analysis techniques after looking at the results of each and choosing the more favorable."
[. . .]
Less famous is a similar hoodwinking of the very prestigious British Medical Journal, to which a paper with eight major errors was submitted. Not a single one of the 221 scientists who reviewed the paper caught all the errors in it, and only 30 percent of reviewers recommended that the paper be rejected.
[. . .]
This gets into the question of the sociology of science. It's a familiar bromide that "science advances one funeral at a time." The greatest scientific pioneers were mavericks and weirdos. Most valuable scientific work is done by youngsters. Older scientists are more likely to be invested, both emotionally and from a career and prestige perspective, in the regnant paradigm, even though the spirit of science is the challenge of regnant paradigms.
[. . .]
Why, then, is our scientific process so structured as to reward the old and the prestigious? Government funding bodies and peer review bodies are inevitably staffed by the most hallowed (read: out of touch) practitioners in the field. The tenure process ensures that in order to further their careers, the youngest scientists in a given department must kowtow to their elders' theories or run a significant professional risk. Peer review isn't any good at keeping flawed studies out of major papers, but it can be deadly efficient at silencing heretical views.
All of this suggests that the current system isn't just showing cracks, but is actually broken, and in need of major reform. There is very good reason to believe that much scientific research published today is false, there is no good way to sort the wheat from the chaff, and, most importantly, that the way the system is designed ensures that this will continue being the case.
[. . .]
This is a big problem, one that can't be solved with a column. But the first step is admitting you have a problem.
Science, at heart an enterprise for mavericks, has become an enterprise for careerists. It's time to flip the career track for science on its head. Instead of waiting until someone's best years are behind her to award her academic freedom and prestige, abolish the PhD and grant fellowships to the best 22-year-olds, giving them the biggest budgets and the most freedoms for the first five or 10 years of their careers. Then, with only few exceptions, shift them away from research to teaching or some other harmless activity. Only then can we begin to fix Big Science.

http://theweek.com/articles/618141/big-science-broken

Big Science is broken
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
April 18, 2016

Shipwreck Yields Secret to First Computer 2,000 Years Ago

[Don't know when this feature will be rebroadcast. Check with local PBS schedule.]
Scientists decide it was Archimedes who invented the first computer with accurate ability to predict sun and moon eclipses. Prime numbers play a role. One more contribution from the ancient Greeks, though Archimedes lived in Syracuse in Sicily.  


PBS
Ancient Computer

http://www.pbs.org/video/2364988981/

52:51Aired: 04/03/13Rating: TV-G
A Greek shipwreck holds the remains of an intricate bronze machine that turns out to be the world’s first computer.

Science Graduate Student Sues Harvard University For Intellectual Property Rights, Royalties From His Work

This is not "extreme" arrogance. It is the usual arrogance of the richest, most prominent University in the United States. 

[From article]
Brian D. O’Reilly, who is representing Charest in the case, called the University’s position one of “extreme arrogance.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/3/23/charest-royalties-lawsuit-liability-relief-issues/

Years-Long Royalties Dispute Moves to Questions of Liability and Relief
By LUCA F. SCHROEDER,

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
March 23, 2016

Scientists Grow Human Vocal Cords, May Lead To Voice Transplants

Dr. Nathan Welham, right, and his team in the Welham Lab at the Wisconsin Institute for Medical Research
AP

[From article]
Human vocal cords have been grown in the laboratory for the first time in a development that could one day lead to “voice” transplants for people who cannot speak because of a permanently damaged larynx.
Scientists said that the bioengineered vocal cords grown from individual cells produced sounds similar to those made by the human voice box when warm, moist air was passed over them to make them vibrate.
The researchers believe that it may be possible to generate a variety of synthetic vocal cords which can be used “off the shelf” for transplant operations to suit the individual needs of different patients who cannot speak.
At present there are limited treatment options available for people with a larynx damaged by cancer or other disorders because of the highly specialised nature of the vibrating cells of the vocal cords.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/voice-transplants-one-step-closer-after-scientists-grow-human-vocal-chords-a6739516.html

'Voice transplants' one step closer after scientists grow human vocal chords
'Voice is a pretty amazing thing, yet we don’t give it much thought until something goes wrong'
Steve Connor Science Editor
@SteveAConnor
November 18, 2015

German Scientists Develop Facial Recognition Technology For Low Level Light And Darkness

© Jung Yeon-je / Reuters
[From article]
German researchers have developed a new technology that can identify a person in poor lighting or even in absolute darkness thus potentially solving one of the main issues of the modern face recognition systems.
Today’s facial recognition systems are based on matching clean and well-lit photos taken in the broad light. This poses a problem for law enforcement and security services when their object is in the shade.
However, a group of German scientists claim to have found a solution to this as they develop a new type of face-recognition system that analyzes a person’s thermal signature instead of relying on traditional methods.

http://www.rt.com/news/311003-new-technology-face-recognition/

Out of Shadows: New tech allows face recognition in utter darkness
Published time: 28 Jul, 2015 18:31

Dangers of Artificial Intelligence Research to Humans

Science research run amok, as at the Broad Institute at MIT investigating how the mind works, is an issue I raised with a research scientist. I asked "What if scientists learned how to completely control the mind?" Someone always comes along to use new technology for evil purposes. He said "You can't stop it." If he is right the same conclusion applies to AI research. Researcher scientists are so intent on learning everything they can, they cannot be stopped. In a portion of a painting by Pieter The Elder Brueghel, called The Blind Leading The Blind, he shows how close to oblivion scientists lead us in their never ending search to know.  

The Blind Leading The Blind

[From article]
Artificial intelligence has the potential to be as dangerous to mankind as nuclear weapons, a leading pioneer of the technology has claimed.
Professor Stuart Russell, a computer scientist who has lead research on artificial intelligence, fears humanity might be 'driving off a cliff' with the rapid development of AI.
He fears the technology could too easily be exploited for use by the military in weapons, putting them under the control of AI systems.
Professor Russell, who is a researcher at the University of California in Berkeley and the Centre for the study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University, compared the development of AI to the work that was done to develop nuclear weapons.
[. . .]
In an interview with the journal Science for a special edition on Artificial Intelligence, [Professor Stephen Hawking] said: 'From the beginning, the primary interest in nuclear technology was the "inexhaustible supply of energy".
'The possibility of weapons was also obvious. I think there is a reasonable analogy between unlimited amounts of energy and unlimited amounts of intelligence.
'Both seem wonderful until one thinks of the possible risks.
[. . .]
Professor Russell, however, cautions that this unchecked development of technology can be dangerous if the consequences are not fully explored and regulation put in place.
[. . .]
'To those who say, well, we may never get to human-level or superintelligent AI, I would reply: It's like driving straight toward a cliff and saying, 'Let's hope I run out of gas soon!'
In April Professor Russell raised concerns at a United Nations meeting in Geneva over the dangers of putting military drones and weapons under the control of AI systems.
He joins a growing number of experts who have warned that scenarios like those seen in films from Terminator, AI and 2001: A Space Odyssey are not beyond the realms of possibility.
[. . .]
Professor Russell said computer scienitsts needed to modify the goals of their research to ensure human values and objectives remain central to the development of AI technology.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3165356/Artificial-Intelligence-dangerous-NUCLEAR-WEAPONS-AI-pioneer-warns-smart-computers-doom-mankind.html

'Artificial Intelligence is as dangerous as NUCLEAR WEAPONS': AI pioneer warns smart computers could doom mankind
Expert warns advances in AI mirrors research that led to nuclear weapons
He says AI systems could have objectives misaligned with human values
Companies and the military could allow this to get a technological edge
He urges the AI community to put human values at the centre of their work
By RICHARD GRAY FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 09:30 EST, 17 July 2015 | UPDATED: 10:12 EST, 17 July 2015

Scientists Warn of Potential Extinction Of Humans

[From article]
The planet is entering a new period of extinction with top scientists warning that species all over the world are “essentially the walking dead” – including our own.
The report, authored by scientists at Stanford, Princeton and Berkeley universities, found that vertebrates were vanishing at a rate 114 times faster than normal.
In the damning report, published in the Science Advances journal, researchers note that the last similar event was 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs disappeared, most probably as a result of an asteroid.
[. . .]



The research examined historic rates of extinction for vertebrates, finding that since 1900 more than 400 vertebrates have disappeared – an extinction rate 100 times higher than in other – non-extinction – periods.
"There are examples of species all over the world that are essentially the walking dead,” said Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich.
He added: "We are sawing off the limb that we are sitting on."
The research, which cites climate change, pollution and deforestation as causes for the rapid change, notes that a knock-on effect of the loss of entire ecosystems could be dire.

[. . .]

The report, which builds on findings published by Duke University last year, does note that averting this loss is “still possible through intensified conservation effects,” but that “window of opportunity is rapid closing.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/earth-is-entering-sixth-extinction-phase-with-many-species--including-our-own--labelled-the-walking-dead-10333608.html

Earth enters sixth extinction phase with many species – including our own – labelled 'the walking dead'
ROSE TROUP BUCHANAN
Saturday 20 June 2015

Documentary About Madam Marie Curie

Marie Curie (1867 – 1934)
Image from 1920

[English version video removed from BBC and YouTube due to copyright claims]
[Description]
Nearly 80 years after her death, Marie Curie remains by far the best known female scientist. In her lifetime, she became that rare thing: a celebrity scientist, attracting the attention of the news cameras and tabloid gossip. They were fascinated because she was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize and is still the only person to have won two Nobels in two different sciences. But while the bare bones of her scientific life, the obstacles she had to overcome, the years of painstaking research, and the penalty she ultimately paid for her discovery of radium have become one of the iconic stories of scientific heroism, there is another side to Marie Curie: her human story.
This multi-layered film reveals the real Marie Curie, an extraordinary woman who fell in love three times, had to survive the pain of loss, and the public humiliation of a doomed love affair. It is a riveting portrait of a tenacious mother and scientist, who opened the door on a whole new realm of physics, which she discovered and named: radioactivity.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s954d

The Genius of Marie Curie - The Woman Who Lit Up the World
WGBX-TV

PBS Boston, MA
May 28, 2015

* * *

[From article]
Initially, she was buried at a modest cemetery in Sceaux, a Parisian suburb. In 1995, she was exhumed and became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.
First, however, her body had to be tested for traces of radiation. One of the revelations in the superb documentary was that she was unlikely to have died of radiation poisoning, as folklore would have one believe. A radiology expert interviewed by the programme recalled that when he tested her remains by “rubbing the forehead and pelvis of Marie Curie with blotting paper”, he found that the levels were low. He speculates that Curie in fact died of X-Ray poisoning sustained during her service in mobile X-Ray units in the Great War (which, incidentally, were her idea).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/10036675/The-Genius-of-Marie-Curie-the-Woman-Who-Lit-Up-the-World-BBC-Two-review.html

The Genius of Marie Curie - the Woman Who Lit Up the World, BBC Two, review
Jake Wallis Simons is entranced by this highly informative documentary on one our greatest scientists.
By Jake Wallis Simons
10:02PM BST 03 May 2013

MIT Climate Scientist Questions Global Warming Alarmists

[From article]
his opponents characterize him—variously, a liar, a lunatic, a charlatan, a denier, a shyster, a crazy person, corrupt
[. . .]
A pioneering climate scientist with decades at Harvard and MIT, Lindzen sees his discipline as being deeply compromised by political pressure, data fudging, out-and-out guesswork, and wholly unwarranted alarmism.
[. . .]
In the 1970s, while a professor at Harvard, Lindzen disproved the then-accepted theory of how heat moves around the Earth’s atmosphere,
[. . .]
Over the decades, he’s authored or coauthored some 200 peer-reviewed papers on climate.
[. . .]
an issue of Newsweek declaring all scientists agreed. And that was the beginning of a ‘consensus’ argument.
[. . .]
he is voluminously on record disputing the predictions of catastrophe.
[. . .]
The question at issue is how sensitive the planet is to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (this is called climate sensitivity), and how much the planet will heat up as a result of our pumping into the sky ever more CO2, which remains in the atmosphere for upwards of 1,000 years.
[. . .]
he contends that the “alarmists” vastly overstate the Earth’s climate sensitivity. Judging by where we are now, he appears to have a point; so far, 150 years of burning fossil fuels in large quantities has had a relatively minimal effect on the climate. By some measurements, there is now more CO2 in the atmosphere than there has been at any time in the past 15 million years.
[. . .]
over the past 15 years, as man has emitted record levels of carbon dioxide year after year, the warming trend of previous decades has stopped. Lindzen says this is all consistent with what he holds responsible for climate change: a small bit of man-made impact and a whole lot of natural variability.
[. . .]
The IPCC report itself, weighing in at thousands of pages, is “not terrible. It’s not unbiased, but the bias [is] more or less to limit your criticism of models,” he says. The Summary for Policymakers, on the other hand—the only part of the report that the media and the politicians pay any attention to—“rips out doubts to a large extent. .  .  . [Furthermore], government representatives have the final say on the summary.” Thus, while the full IPPC report demonstrates a significant amount of doubt among scientists, the essentially political Summary for Policymakers filters it out.
[. . .]
the most glaring failure of the models: their inability to predict the 15-year-long (and counting) pause in warming
[. . .]
Almost all funding for climate research comes from the government, which, he says, makes scientists essentially vassals of the state. And generating fear, Lindzen contends, is now the best way to ensure that policymakers keep the spigot open.
[. . .]
“But the environmental movement is highly organized. There are hundreds of NGOs. To coordinate these hundreds, they quickly organized the Climate Action Network, the central body on climate. There would be, I think, actual meetings to tell them what the party line is for the year, and so on.” Skeptics, on the other hand, are more scattered across disciplines and continents. As such, they have a much harder time getting their message across.
[. . .]
Because climate change is invisible, only the experts can tell us whether the planet is sick or not. And because of the way funds are granted, they have an incentive to say that the Earth belongs in intensive care.
[. . .]
One frustrating feature of the climate debate is that people’s outlook on global warming usually correlates with their political views. So if a person wants low taxes and restrictions on abortion, he probably isn’t worried about climate change. And if a person supports gay marriage and raising the minimum wage, he most likely thinks the threat from global warming warrants costly public-policy remedies.
[. . .]
it is well known that the vast majority of “alarmist” climate scientists, dependent as they are on federal largesse, are liberal Democrats.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/what-catastrophe_773268.html

What Catastrophe?
MIT’s Richard Lindzen, the unalarmed climate scientist
JAN 13, 2014

VOL. 19, NO. 17

BY ETHAN EPSTEIN

Scientists Try To Erase Memory

[From article]
The idea of scientists manipulating memory does, naturally, sound a bit creepy. But it also points to some possible good: treatment for millions of people tormented by real memories. And that’s something worth remembering.

http://www.popsci.com/article/science/how-scientists-are-learning-shape-our-memory?dom=PSC&loc=slider&lnk=1&con=spotless-minds

How Scientists Are Learning To Shape Our Memory
The next treatment for trauma could be spotless minds.
By Virginia Hughes

Posted 11.25.2013 at 10:13 am

State Police Drug Lab Shut Due to Misguided Abuses

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20220830state_drug_lab_shut_down_amid_probe/

Cops ‘furious’ as state drug lab shut down amid probe
Boston Herald
By Matt Stout
Thursday, August 30, 2012

FDA Spied On Scientists at FDA

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2173891/FDA-spied-emails-OWN-scientists-wide-spread-surveillance-operation-dissidents.html

Revealed: FDA spied on emails of its OWN scientists in wide-spread surveillance operation against 'dissidents'
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 11:47 EST, 15 July 2012 | UPDATED: 13:47 EST, 15 July 2012

Believing in Science

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=42477

Liberals: They Blinded Us With Science
by Ann Coulter
Human Events
March 23, 2011

You Cannot Laugh When Alone. Huh?

"Laughter above all else is a social thing," [Baltimore neuroscientist Robert] Provine said. "The requirement for laughter is another person."(SETH BORENSTEIN, "Science bids to graph the laugh," AP, New York Post, April 1, 2010) This is absolute nonsense. One person can laugh at his own jokes or even his own thoughts. If he laughs without another person present it is still laughter. This is one more example of scientists getting lost in their research and ignoring reality. Many super-educated persons have no common sense.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/no_april_fool_the_secrets_of_humor_ybyVXSQ1IVLeiTZRMwIjVM

Science bids to graph the laugh

No April Fool: The secrets of humor

By SETH BORENSTEIN

AP

New York Post

Last Updated: 12:18 PM, April 1, 2010

Posted: 3:38 AM, April 1, 2010

Scientists Discover Cause of Aging

“'It is absolutely essential to tread carefully in trying to alter processes that cause cells to age, because the last thing we want is to help age-damaged cells from breaking out to become malignant,' said Mr von Zglinicki."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/436a39a0-1a6e-11df-a2e3-00144feab49a.html

Scientists discover the secret of ageing
By Clive Cookson in London
Financial Times
Published: February 15 2010 23:00 | Last updated: February 15 2010 23:00

Lawyers Can be Believed?


LLLB says, "I am an attorney [. . .] you should question the authority, the source and the possibility of truth in everything you read or hear from the media." Only the media? Why does this rule not apply to what lawyers, politicians and judges say? Can you believe what scientists say? Why should anyone ever believe what a lawyer says?

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2009_04_25_Accused_Craigslist_killer_tells_kin:_%E2%80%98Forget_about_me_/

or

http://tinyurl.com/cpb32u

Accused Craigslist killer tells kin: ‘Forget about me’
By Dave Wedge and O’Ryan Johnson
Saturday, April 25, 2009