Science

Bit of both. Neuroskeptic offers:

In the spirit of the 9 Circles of Scientific Hell, and inspired by the evidence showing that scientific peer reviewers agree only slightly more often than they would by chance, here’s a handy tool for randomly generating your review.

How’s this one:

4. Cite Me, Me, Me!: The problem with this paper is that it doesn’t reference the right previous work… yours. Unless the authors change it to cite everything you’ve written in the past 10 years, they can get lost. If they do, the paper will be immediately accepted – to reject it would harm your citation count.

Some readers may wish to try it on their work in progress or on this week’s grocery flyer.

Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose

More peer review stories: Read More ›

Benedict Carey reports,

One of psychology’s most respected journals has agreed to publish a paper presenting what its author describes as strong evidence for extrasensory perception, the ability to sense future events.The decision may delight believers in so-called paranormal events, but it is already mortifying scientists. Advance copies of the paper, to be published this year in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, have circulated widely among psychological researchers in recent weeks and have generated a mixture of amusement and scorn.

– “Journal’s Paper on ESP Expected to Prompt Outrage”, New York Times (January 5, 2011)

We hear, of course, the familiar “craziness, pure craziness. I can’t believe a major journal is …”

ESP may be the victim of a sort of materialism in science that has long since functioned more as a stopper on science than a filter. Briefly, there have been many honest studies that confirm the existence of some sort of entanglement, as Mario Beauregard and I discuss in some detail in The Spiritual Brain.

ESP is a psi phenomenon, the apparent ability of some humans and perhaps animals, to consistently score above chance in controlled studies of mental influences on events. It is seen in such phenomena as extrasensory perception and psychokinesis, and is a low-level effect, to be sure, but efforts to disconfirm it have failed.

It isn’t popular.

These disturbing phenomena seem to deny all our usual scientific ideas. Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming. It is very difficult to rearrange one’s ideas so as to fit these new facts in.—Artificial intelligence pioneer A. M. Turing, quoted in A. M. Turing, excerpt from “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Mind 59, no. 236 (1950), reprinted in Hofstadter and Dennett, Mind’s I, p. 66.

And it seems nothing much has changed since Turing’s (1912-1954) day.

Carey mentions an argument against study of the psi effect which was once offered against Newton’s laws of gravity: No mechanism is proposed. That’s not a very good argument when there is persistent evidence for a small effect. We still don’t have a definitive mechanism for gravity, but Newton’s laws proved outstandingly useful in subsequent decades and were accepted on that basis, mechanism or no.

Lets hope that study wins out over furore and posturing.

See also: Read More ›

Animal cell, Wikimedia Commons In (surprisingly) the New Scientist, Brian J. Ford observes, “The secrets of intelligence lie within a single cell” (April 25, 2010). For me, the brain is not a supercomputer in which the neurons are transistors; rather it is as if each individual neuron is itself a computer, and the brain a vast community of microscopic computers. But even this model is probably too simplistic since the neuron processes data flexibly and on disparate levels, and is therefore far superior to any digital system. If I am right, the human brain may be a trillion times more capable than we imagine, and “artificial intelligence” a grandiose misnomer. I think it is time to acknowledge fully that living cells Read More ›

In 1959, the physicist-novelist-UK science policy advisor CP Snow gave his famous Rede Lecture at Cambridge, where he canonized ‘the two cultures’ , a long-standing and — to his mind at least — increasing distinction between the mindsets of those trained in the ‘arts’ (i.e. humanities, social sciences) and the ‘sciences’ (i.e. natural sciences, engineering). Even back then, and certainly more so now, there was another ‘culture’ that was increasingly set adrift from the rest of academic knowledge — theology.  For example, it would be interesting to learn whether most academics believe that theology constitutes a body of knowledge — and, for that matter, whether most theologians themselves believe that their knowledge applies to more than just fellow believers.  After Read More ›

Lots of things are up in the air these days, … Recent research published in PNAS suggests that the diversity of microbial life in the air is on par with the soil, at least in urban areas, yet the air remains vastly understudied in comparison. “Just seven or ten years ago we didn’t realize bacteria existed in clouds,” said Anne-Marie Delort, professor of microbiology and organic chemistry at Université Blaise Pascal in France. Now researchers know microbes act as a surface for the condensation of water vapor in the atmosphere, thus forming clouds. Recent research publish in Science shows microbes also play the same role during snowflake formation and other types of precipitation. The next step, Delort said, is to Read More ›

In Open Data Genomics, paleoanthropologist John Hawks offers I’ve often found that the best reviews of my work come from blogs and readers, not from peer review itself. With a project like this, the most critical readings will come from the most interested community, which may be a broader public than the scientific community. Yes, that is precisely what the blogosphere has done. Traditional media told us what our betters thought was news. Which soon meant, if they didn’t think it was news, we shouldn’t. Now anyone can start reporting and commenting. Suddenly, the news is not what it used to be. For one thing, it’s often real news. With government plans to control the Internet, this interlude may soon Read More ›

Please enjoy an article from The Independent titled “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.” Written in the year 2000, global warmists are claiming that snowfall is history in Britain:

Britain’s winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.

Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain’s culture, as warmer winters – which scientists are attributing to global climate change – produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries…

[T]he warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”…

Professor Jarich Oosten, an anthropologist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, says that even if we no longer see snow, it will remain culturally important.

“We don’t really have wolves in Europe any more, but they are still an important part of our culture and everyone knows what they look like,” he said.

From an article at the BBC in 2009:

Heavy snow has fallen across large parts of the UK, disrupting travel and closing thousands of schools.

South-east England has the worst snow it has seen for 18 years, causing all London buses to be pulled from service and the closure of Heathrow’s runways.

The Met Office has issued an extreme weather warning for England, Wales and parts of eastern Scotland.

By late Monday, the South East could be under a foot (30cm) of snow and the North East under 20 inches (50cm).

Read More ›

NASA Science News for Dec. 17, 2010Northern winter is beginning in a special way. On Dec. 21st, the winter solstice, a lunar eclipse will be visible across all of North America. The luster will be a bit “off” on Dec. 21st, the first day of northern winter, when the full Moon passes almost dead-center through Earth’s shadow. For 72 minutes of eerie totality, an amber light will play across the snows of North America, throwing landscapes into an unusual state of ruddy shadow. The eclipse begins on Tuesday morning, Dec. 21st, at 1:33 am EST (Monday, Dec. 20th, at 10:33 pm PST). At that time, Earth’s shadow will appear as a dark-red bite at the edge of the lunar disk. Read More ›

“This study reports evidence consistent with the ‘deliberate fraud’ hypothesis. The results suggest that papers retracted because of data fabrication or falsification represent a calculated effort to deceive.”:

Med Ethics doi:10.1136/jme.2010.038125Research ethics

Retractions in the scientific literature: do authors deliberately commit research fraud?

R Grant Steen
Correspondence to
R Grant Steen, Medical Communications Consultants LLC, 103 Van Doren Place, Chapel Hill, NC 27517, USA; g_steen_medicc@yahoo.com
Received 31 May 2010
Revised 29 July 2010
Accepted 13 August 2010
Published Online First 15 November 2010
Abstract
Background Papers retracted for fraud (data fabrication or data falsification) may represent a deliberate effort to deceive, a motivation fundamentally different from papers retracted for error. It is hypothesised that fraudulent authors target journals with a high impact f actor (IF), have other fraudulent publications, diffuse responsibility across many co-authors, delay retracting fraudulent papers and publish from countries with a weak research infrastructure.

Methods All 788 English language research papers retracted from the PubMed database between 2000 and 2010 were evaluated. Data pertinent to each retracted paper were abstracted from the paper and the reasons for retraction were derived from the retraction notice and dichoto mised as fraud or error. Data for each retracted article were entered in an Excel spreadsheet for analysis.

Results Journal IF was higher for fraudulent papers (p<0.001). Roughly 53% of fraudulent papers were written by a first author who had written other retracted papers (‘repeat offender’), whereas only 18% of erroneous papers were written by a repeat offender (?=88.40 ; p<0.0001). Fraudulent papers had more authors (p<0.001) and were retracted more slowly than erroneous papers (p<0.005). Surprisingly, there was significantly more fraud than error among retracted papers from the USA (?2=8.71; p<0.05) compared with the rest of the world.

Conclusions This study reports evidence consistent with the ‘deliberate fraud’ hypothesis. The results suggest that papers retracted because of data fabrication or falsification represent a calculated effort to deceive. It is inferred that such behaviour is neither naï ve, feckless nor inadvertent.

For comments go here “The highest number of retracted papers were written by US first authors (260), accounting for a third of the total. One in three of these was attributed to fraud.”, or here (An excellent example of either crappy science reporting or crappy science …), for the view that it’s all a bum rap.

One site also offers a number of articles on the shortcomings of peer review. Also an article on self-plagiarism and one on self-plagiarism and bogus authorship. Read More ›

My Salvo 15 Deprogram column: LUCY SPEAKS Evolutionary Psychology Is Now Taking Your Questions When Britain’s Guardian newspaper first introduced its “evolutionary” agony aunt (advice columnist in America) in 2009—to honor 150 years of the culture birthed with Charles Darwin’s 1859 book, On the Origin of Species—I thought, “Aha! a send-up, to be sure.” I was wrong, but in fairness, when the evolutionary psychologist speaks, even an expert can’t always tell. No spoof. The Guardian burbled proudly about Carole Jahme, author of Beauty and the Beasts: Woman, Ape and Evolution and winner of the Wellcome Trust Award for Communication of Science to the Public. For the 2009 Darwin bicentennial celebrations, Jahme, who holds an M.A. in evolutionary psychology, put together Read More ›

Astronomer Martin Gaskell, the latest victim of the gluttonous, one-minded, two-headed dragon known as “Evolution Promotion” and “Religious Persecution,” depending on which head one is referring to on the modern beast, has apparently been Expelled due to his critical remarks on evolution and for being “potentially evangelical.” Indeed, Mr. Gaskell was provoking both heads of this modern monster. How? By talking. You see, the beast hates words in plain language with real meaning that describe the eternal enemy called truth. The short, abrupt words with all the sense of sunlight sting its sensitive ears, which need the dark and gray smooth sounds of ambiguities and soft soap of appeasements.  This monstrosity has been spotted at several universities.  The latest sighting was in Kentucky:

No one denies that astronomer Martin Gaskell was the leading candidate for the founding director of a new observatory at the University of Kentucky in 2007 — until his writings on evolution came to light.

Gaskell had given lectures to campus religious groups around the country in which he said that while he has no problem reconciling the Bible with the theory of evolution, he believes the theory has major flaws. And he recommended students read theory critics in the intelligent-design movement.

That stance alarmed UK science professors and, the university acknowledges, played a role in the job going to another candidate.

Now a federal judge says Gaskell has a right to a jury trial over his allegation that he lost the job because he is a Christian and “potentially evangelical.”

Read More ›

From The Scientist (8th October2010): Science tarot A whimsical deck of cards shuffles the worlds of logic and mythology On a Thursday night in San Francisco, three elaborately costumed women sit in a lively hall giving tarot readings. One wears ornamental snakes in her hair, and another sports a headdress with oversized purple eyeballs. This isn’t your everyday divinatory gathering — they’re at the California Academy of Sciences, surrounded by glass cases of stuffed antelopes and lions. And instead of knights and kings, their cards display images of mitochondria, neurotransmitters, and Darwin. This unusual scene is the launch party of Science Tarot, a collaboration between science communicators, artists, and other creative thinkers who have produced a science-inspired deck of tarot Read More ›

Casey Luskin reports the passing of our colleague and member of the National Academy of Sciences, Phil Skell. Philip S. Skell, sometimes called “the father of carbene chemistry,” is widely known for the “Skell Rule,” which was first applied to carbenes, the “fleeting species” of carbon. The rule, which predicts the most probable pathway through which certain chemical compounds will be formed, found use throughout the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. …. Later in his career, Phil became a skeptic of neo-Darwinian evolution. His main position was that Darwinism does not serve as the cornerstone of biological thought that many claim it does. Giving Thanks for Dr. Philip Skell

UD moderator Clive Hayden referred UD readers to an article at SuperScholar.org titled “The Future of Secular Humanism.” The article itself focused on a rift between the secular humanism old guard, represented by Paul Kurtz, and the new guard, represented by Ron Lindsay, who apparently ousted Kurtz from the various humanist organizations he had founded. The rift was over the place of religion in society and whether secular humanism should take a harsh line against it. Hayden sees this rift as representing a deep-seated internecine conflict, with the implication that such conflict will undercut the effectiveness of secular humanism as a cultural force (though he doesn’t draw that implication explicitly). My own view is that secular humanism is being co-opted by Read More ›

A friend of mine referred me to this article at superscholar.org about the recent 30th anniversary conference that The Center For Inquiry held in Los Angeles this past October. There seems to be a lot of disagreement among the influential in the movement advocating secular humanism.

Despite calls for unity at the conference, a significant amount of disagreement about where secular humanism needs to go was evident. During the last session, a sharp exchange occurred between the founder of The Center for Inquiry and The Counsel for Secular Humanism, Paul Kurtz, and Ron Lindsay, the current CEO and President of these organizations.

Kurtz, using the microphone set up for the audience, cited at length a recent LA Times article exposing a “rift within the Center for Inquiry.” “That rift” Kurtz said, quoting the article, “cracked open recently when Paul Kurtz, a founder of the secular humanist movement in America, was ousted as chairman of the Center for Inquiry, an organization of the Counsel for Secular Humanism.  One factor leading to this ouster, was the perception that Kurtz was on the — and this is quoting Thomas Flynn — was on the mellowing side of the movement.” Unlike some secular humanists who envision the destruction of religion, Kurtz advocates for accommodation with religion.

Kurtz stated that he had been censored for the first time in his life, and that this was through the CFI, an organization he founded, in that they refused to publish his letter of resignation as well as his neo-humanist statement of secular principles and values. He said that his ouster resulted in the “worst two years of my life.” Toni Van Pelt, who had opened the Office of Public Policy for the CFI, defended Kurtz and lamented his censorship and forced resignation by Lindsay. This was followed with simultaneous booing and applause from the audience. Several panelists, including Jennifer Michael Hecht and Sean Faircloth, left the stage during this exchange.

Read More ›