Here I am, minding my own business, looking at my local newspaper, and just reading what is happening locally. Then, out pops this profound quote of the week that is just gobsmacking.
The first line of the story starts out like this:
CHICO — A graduate student researching local rattlesnakes has something to prove, but he isn’t yet sure of what.
Sounds like some climate science RFC’s I’ve read. But wait, there’s more. Get a load of the punchline:
Like I said, gobsmacking. I have no desire to quash any study of rattlesnakes, but the sheer arrogance of the statement about publishing a scientific paper “even if it’s garbage” was just mind blowing. I hope Mr. Woodruff uses better judgement in the future. For now, I’ll just assign it to the youthful indiscretion file that I’m sure every one of us has.
Full story here.
I am reminded though, of the Seinfeld episode.
Yup, shocking attitude.
Oops on the grammar or spelling or both: “For now, I’ll just assign it to the youthful indiscretion file that I’m sure very one of us has.”
[Fixed, thanx. ~dbs]
Is that what one calls a poisoned paper?
That could bite him unexpectedly.
Incredible! Same goes for the video clip, thanks for that 🙂
If he keeps up that attitude he’ll likely encounter more snakes than ladders as he goes through his career setbacks.
Seems he has learned from the best. Sadly.
Typo – change “very” to “every” [Done, thanks. ~dbs]
Love rattlesnakes! Always had to watch out for ’em in eastern Oregon near the Columbia River…
If he’s really smart (or, depending on your point of view, really Machiavellian), he’ll come up with a way to cast his findings to say Government has to Do Something Right Now! Then he’ll get media attention and wind up a rich and successful politician.
Or, he can be honest, and then no one will ever notice him again.
Yup, the guy is now a bum!
This sounds a lot like the elementary school “experiments” that my friends I used to do in our parents’ backyards and sheds (minus the possibility of lethal snakebites). Let’s mix these chemicals together and see if something interesting happens. It was often followed by bad smells, smoke, flames, chlorine gas, explosions or some combination thereof.
“So no matter what we did, even if it’s garbage, it’s educational.”
Seems like Mr. Woodruff needed to get this type of “science” out of his system about 15 years ago.
On a more serious note: if, as Mr. Woodruff conjectures, that the venom of snakes within a single species varied with locality, wouldn’t that render our current snake anti-venom serums ineffective? I’m not an expert on the subject, but I have not heard about any major problems with anti-venoms, except for a lack of available supply and allergic reactions.
Brilliant!
Only thing missing now is a parody about the show ‘Seinfeld’, replacing Seinfeld and Alexander with Schmidt and Hansen, having Hansen call Schmidt a bum for using Mann’s data (garbage).
I keep hoping to find a image of the two of them sitting in Tom’s Restaurant, pointing fingers at each other.
That would be choice.
Well, he’s right.
Unfortunately, he has publicly expressed the universal private understanding of the Least Publishable Unit. And in science as in all other areas of modern life, telling the truth in public is the only sin.
Don’t worry. He’ll soon be a hero when he publishes this: “Rattlesnake venom in Northern Pacific more potent due to Man-made Global Warming.” I’m taking bets…Anyone want to bet against this?
He’s a kid. I’m pretty sure that if he thought about it, he didn’t mean exactly what the words said. In excitement I have mis-spoken before. What he may have meant was that this is a unique opportunity to study an isolated population. No matter what turns up, it should be interesting. If the venom is the same as all the other rattlesnakes then that’s interesting. If it’s different, then that’s interesting also.
Scientifically, that’s not the problem. The problem is that it’s not science. Most biology is not science. He’s just collecting and classifying.
I think you’re all being a tad too harsh. His choice of words was poor, but his study is testing an hypothesis. So even if he doesn’t prove his hypothesis true (i.e. “garbage”), it should be published to demonstrate that it’s been tried.
Just because an experiment fails doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be published. Science should be advancing with the help of failures — maybe someone will notice a glitch and improve the process for another go-round.
Just my “non-scientist” two cents.
Huh?
He is analyzing the venom of an isolated population of snakes. If there is a difference then it might be interesting…if it is not well then it is garbage…yet should he withhold his results?
I am failing to see how or why this statement is gobsmacking.
Negative or uninteresting results (garbage) is just as important for science as positive or interesting results.
Furthermore he is a graduate student. He needs to study something in order to demonstrate skill so he can graduate and get a job.
He could measure the impact of global warming on the rattlesnake venom and be sure to be publishd. A scary scenario would be finding the local rattlesnakes to be unique and in need of being put on the endangered species list.
Actually the more i think about this the more i think Anthony at least in this case is not understanding how science works.
Didn’t Mann produce some garbage results with a statistical test which showed that his hockey stick lacked significance and then withheld it from his study and it was only later when Mcintyre found that undocumented and unpublished result on an ftp site?
Wouldn’t we have a better understanding if Mann had simply published that garbage?
Perfect! This guy will go on the have a brilliant career in the Global Warming industry.
I see a bright future in the IPCC for him.
Alan says:
July 19, 2011 at 6:20 pm
joshua Corning says:
July 19, 2011 at 6:20 pm
=========================
Exactly.
Glenn, if you don’t advance science, it’s not a waste to publish it. Saves other people wasting their time. Crap results can go in crap journals. I’ve done it.
On the other hand, you might find something really interesting. Think yourself lucky that you’re doing something no one else has done before. You’re in a very small minority. Take the opportunity and build on it.
R&D often depends on what someone once called a “perfect failure.” You absolutely fail to develop what you intended, but you find something better than you’d hoped for.
It might be that what is “wrong” with science-by-peer-reviewed-paper, is that known garbage doesn’t get published. We can’t learn from negative results if we don’t know about them.
Anyway, the days of American “science for the sake of science” seem to be numbered … we’re running up debt at a astonishing rate. We need the next generation nuclear plant, more than we need to know about subtle variations in the protein makeup of snake venom. Maybe more importantly, we need to break up the financial-scientific-medical-industrial super monopolies that suck the life blood out of our economy.
dT
Rather than assuming that the student is arrogant and boastful let us instead be charitable and hope that he is being a good scientist (in expecting to publish any results even if they prove any conjecture wrong) and a good critic (in correctly evaluating that the state of scientific publishing is sadly deficient).
Long long ago, in a faraway land, I went to University to get my degree. A degree in Computer Science, when that was a new and wonderful thing.
I met a Geology postgrad, doing his PhD thesis.
Over a few beers, he told me what he was doing to earn his PhD. He was writing this HUGE program (in Fortran — fail right there as far as I am concerned), to simulate … a rock.
Yes, a rock.
Basically, he was taking a bunch of fluid mechanics equations and changing the coefficients so that the rock “flowed” over thousands/millions of years.
I could have knocked off that program in probably less than a week …
As far as I know, he got his PhD.
Just shows Anthony has a nose for scientific news even when he’s supposed to be on vacation!
@Anthony. We have several students in the lab right now working on “garbage”. They don’t understand it, don’t know how it relates to other things and aren’t convinced its worth doing. Student research is sometimes a Hobson’s choice. So, give the kid a break.