It all works. Everything is true and everybody is right, except the people who say everything can’t be true and everyone can’t be right..
In a news roundup at Not Even Wrong, Peter Woit mentions “Controversy in Science: When Scientists Disagree, What’s the Journalist to Do?”, featuring Paula Apsell, WGBH/NOVA & KITP Science Journalist in Residence (here) , saying,
A couple weeks ago the KITP hosted a talk by Nova’s Paula Apsell,their Journalist in Residence, entitled Controversy in Science. She covered the topics of Evolution, Climate Change, and the Multiverse. Go to about 43 minutes into the program for the segment on the multiverse, which dealt with Brian Greene’s hour-long program on the subject. David Gross objected strenuously to the program and how it was made, criticizing it for not distinguishing solid science from speculation, being manipulative and not seriously presenting the arguments of opponents. Gross explained that he had been interviewed for four hours for the program, but what went on the air was virtually all Brian’s point of view, with only a short bit from him which he felt didn’t represent his arguments. Joe Polchinski however thought it was just fine…
What is a journalist to do?
Well, more relevant here is what is a journalist not to do: It’s okay to be admittedly partisan. What’s not okay is claiming to be non-partisan while acting as an agent for one side. That’s why the legacy media are tanking faster than a horseshoe in the swimming pool.
See also: How to confront Darwinism when spun through mainstream media
Hence the relevance of the IOSE. (Though this does not take on the climate change issues; my best advice here is to realise that computer simulations and temperature proxies are one step removed from actual observation, also that even something like a valid and credibly correct average value of atmospheric temp is quite hard to do. My best policy advice is to not undertake costly actions only on simulation results or the like.)
KF,
Speaking of your IOSE . . . I was looking it over again and I was wondering . . . your definition of S:
Jerad,
You have again chosen to raise something tangential and off-topic for this thread, a continuation of side-tracking tactics warned against in the previous thread.
In addition, the tangential comment is loaded.
For, you write as though the meaning of the dummy variable S and how its value is set is not explicitly explained where it is raised in the IOSE. (You do not give the relevant link.)
Given what has already been happening, this looks like a rhetorical tactic of distraction, rather than a responsible on-topic comment for this thread.
Please do better than this.
On the topic of this thread, there is a serious problem of manipulative popular presentations of scientific topics including especially on origins. Notice, what News draws attention to in the OP by clipping:
In short, having sacrificed half a workday plus overhead time to support the interview, he was strawmannised and reduced to a caricatured snippet. (Multiverse speculations are not even properly science, as there is an absence of observational data. They are little more than philosophy done in a lab coat. In such a context, it is VITAL, that serious alternatives sit to the table of comparative difficulties so that the onlooker can see the balance on the merits for himself. Otherwise the Newtonian rule of sensible scientific reasoning that empirical data should control conclusions not speculations, is stood on its head.)
That sort of thing is why an independent, balancing initiative that covers a relevant range of such topics is relevant.
KF
KF,
I’ve read your material and I just can’t make sense of things like:
Which is why I’m asking for some examples. As I said, I’m not the brightest person so I think it’s fair to ask for some clarification since you put weight on this material. Sometimes, it almost sounds like you’re assuming your conclusion:
Which kind of defeats the purpose of having a metric, doesn’t it?
And sometimes what you say just doesn’t make sense to me:
Which is why I’d like to see a worked out example where you show how all the values are determined and the final conclusion is arrived at. An applied case as it were. that would really help me to understand what you’re getting at.
It happens to the just and the injust. What can you do eh?