In the King’s Review, Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Sydney Brenner has a devastating perspective on the peer review system:

“I think peer review is hindering science. In fact, I think it has become a completely corrupt system. It’s corrupt in many ways, in that scientists and academics have handed over to the editors of these journals the ability to make judgment on science and scientists. There are universities in America, and I’ve heard from many committees, that we won’t consider people’s publications in low impact factor journals.”

From theoretical physicist Janna Levin during an episode of On Being:

“I will often look at what people think is very important and not identify with what they think is very important… I have a hard time becoming obsessed with internal social norms – how you’re supposed to dress or wear your tie.  For me it’s so absurd, because it’s so small, and it’s this funny thing that this one species is acting out on this tiny planet in this huge vast cosmos. So I think it’s hard for me to participate in certain values that other people have… If I try to look at that closely, the split is – Things that are totally constructed by human beings, I have a hard time taking seriously.  And things that seem to be natural phenomena that happen universally, I take more seriously…. It doesn’t mean that I’m dismissing things as unimportant either.  I take very seriously what’s going on in the world right now, and I’m really pained by what’s going on in the world.  But my perspective is to look at it as animals acting out ruthless instincts and unable to control themselves, and other people think they’re being heady and intellectual.”

This is nonsense parading itself as scientific wisdom.  Questions:

1.  Isn’t science – exactly like fashion – just “this funny thing that this one species is acting out on this tiny planet in this huge vast cosmos”?  If fashion is small, then isn’t science small too?

2.  Isn’t it obviously true that people derive more joy from fashion than from theoretical physics?  Is it wrong that a person would care more about how they present themselves to the world than about whether the universe is finite or infinite?

3. Isn’t Janna Levin herself just an animal “acting out ruthless instincts”?  If that’s what she thinks that humans are, then how is she exempt from this description?  If she isn’t exempt, then how can she claim that science puts her in a privileged position to make judgments about truth and meaning?

4.  Isn’t science itself something “totally constructed by human beings”?

It’s no surprise that Janna Levin believes that Janna Levin’s interests are more important than other people’s interests. What’s wrong with this is that she’s using Science to belittle other people’s values.  Science doesn’t value.  From a scientific POV, Janna Levin’s worries about the finite/infinite universe are ridiculously small.

An extremely problematic statement from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Step #1: Wrap yourself in the credibility of science. Step #2: Mis-apply a debunked data point to imply that there is a clear scientific consensus about climate policy.  Step #3: Use thinly-veiled propaganda to urge people to do as their told.

First, they trot out the trope that “97% of climate scientists” believe in man-made climate change.  This simple statement has been debunked before.  But — even if this were true on its face — the statement is clearly meant to imply that scientists are in agreement, and — if only we listened to the scientists! — we’d have the right public policy in place.   That’s not true.

Then: “The sooner we act, the lower the risk and cost.” This sounds obvious.  But it’s not obvious at all.  Why are the risks lower if we act now?  There are lots of cases in which waiting for more information leads to a dramatic reduction in risk (e.g., not submitting to chemotherapy before the results of the biopsy are in).

Finally: “And there is much we can do.”  This is very thinly-veiled propaganda.  Of course there is much we can do.  But that doesn’t tell us what we should do.  In fact, science is incapable of telling us what to do.   Even at its best, science can only tell us what is… not what should be.  And often it even gets the “is” wrong.

The folks at AAAS know this.  That’s why the sentence is empty of content.  It’s meant to imply that we should do as they tell us.  They end with this caveat which can serve as a guide to How to Tell People What to Do Without Telling Them What to Do:

“As scientists, it is not our role to tell people what they should do or must believe about the rising threat of climate change. But we consider it to be our responsibility as professionals to ensure, to the best of our ability, that people understand what we know: human-caused climate change is happening, we face risks of abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes, and responding now will lower the risk and cost of taking action.”

HT Judith Curry.

In Science, Princeton meteorologist Isaac Held makes a provocative case against the wait-and-see advocates of climate complexity, focusing on the potential for “emergent simplicity”: 

“More fundamentally, an emphasis on complexity in the climate system must be balanced by recognition of emergent simplicity. The seasonal cycle provides a useful counterpoint. An individual year’s temperature record is a consequence of chaotic weather superposed on a relatively simple and smooth underlying cycle.”

And Judith Curry has a thoughtful-but-skeptical response:

“First, I don’t think the seasonal cycle works very well as an argument for external forcing… Second, it is not at all clear to me that natural internal variability and forced variability are easily separable in a linear way.  Third, a truly complex system cannot be understood as a linear superposition of individual elements (discussed in my Uncertainty Monster paper). Fourth, the climate response to the relatively small greenhouse forcing may well be linear, but this linear response may be swamped by the natural internal variability… To me, this is the heart of the scientific debate on climate change, and why the hiatus (and how long it will last) is so important.”

NPR says: “It’s a little bit scary for the lay person…They’re just as emotional as the rest of us”

The Economist reports on the launch of Dr. John Ioannidis’ Meta-Research Innovation Centre at Stanford (METRICS).  Their goal?  “Identifying and minimising persistent threats to medical-research quality.”

The money quote: “I don’t want to promise that we can change the world, although this is probably what everybody has to promise to get funded nowadays.”

“Why don’t we all become more conscious of the meaning of words and of the basis of our opinion about other human beings? Why don’t we become more generous as we interpret the experiences of other people and interact with them? Why don’t we engage in the finest aspects of the life we are given and really try to understand each other and to use language in a way that expands and enlightens our shared existence?”

And everything we thought we knew about the case and what it said about human nature turns out to be wrong.

This case became the archetypal example of the bystander effect.  Of course, human beings are exposed to all sorts of potentially troubling (and potentially dangerous) incidents involving strangers, and there are lots of variables that might make people more or less likely to intervene.

But the truth of the Genovese case isn’t quite as dramatic as we’ve always thought it to be.  NPR interviews Kevin Cook, author of a new book that tries to find out what really happened.

Science interviews Paul Brookes, the anonymous blogger at science-fraud.com who was forced to shut down after he got outed by an anonymous email to his employer, the University of Rochester.

The kerfuffle didn’t seem to damage his career, but the university came down hard:

“They were not pleased. It was made clear that my actions were outside of my role as a university faculty member. Nothing I did was protected by any legal protections from the university, so when I began to receive legal threats, I had to hire an attorney, paid from my own pocket. This is one of the downsides to this kind of activity: It requires you to draw a line between your job—your academic career—and this kind of activity, which you are doing as a private citizen.

If you take an extreme view, you could say that if you are an academic then policing and highlighting problems in the literature and discussing the data of other scientists is part of the job. Where is the line between discussing other people’s work and blogging about other people’s work?”

HT Retraction Watch.