From the “everything is robust” department.
We’ve long noted at WUWT that the word “robust” has seen a significant rise in usage in climate science papers, becoming a favorite word to use when statistical Spackle has been applied to climate data. Now there’s evidence from a new study suggesting that observation is spot-on.
From Nature:
‘Novel, amazing, innovative’: positive words on the rise in science papers
Analysis suggests an increasing tendency to exaggerate and polarize results.
Philip Ball
Scientists have become more upbeat in describing their research, an analysis of papers in the PubMed database suggests.
Researchers at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands say that the frequency of positive-sounding words such as ‘novel’, ‘amazing’, ‘innovative’ and ‘unprecedented’ has increased almost nine-fold in the titles and abstracts of papers published between 1974 and 2014. There has also been a smaller — yet still statistically significant — rise in the frequency of negative words, such as ‘disappointing’ and ‘pessimistic’.
Source: Ref. 1
Psychiatrist Christiaan Vinkers and his colleagues searched papers on PubMed for 25 ‘positive’ words and 25 ‘negative’ words (which the authors selected by manually analysing papers and consulting thesaurus listings). The number of papers containing any of the positive words in their title or abstract rose from an average of 2% in 1974–80 to 17.5% in 2014. Use of the 25 negative words rose from 1.3% to 2.4% over the same period, according to the study, published in the British Medical Journal on 14 December1.
Rising hype
The most obvious interpretation of the results is that they reflect an increase in hype and exaggeration, rather than a real improvement in the incidence or quality of discoveries, says Vinkers. The findings “fit our own observations that in order to get published, you need to emphasize what is special and unique about your study,” he says. Researchers may be tempted to make their findings stand out from thousands of others — a tendency that might also explain the more modest rise in usage of negative words.
The word ‘novel’ now appears in more than 7% of PubMed paper titles and abstracts, and the researchers jokingly extrapolate that, on the basis of its past rise, it is set to appear in every paper by the year 2123.
…
But Vinkers and his colleagues think that the trend highlights a problem. “If everything is ‘robust’ and ‘novel’”, says Vinkers, then there is no distinction between the qualities of findings. “In that case, words used to describe scientific results are no longer driven by the content but by marketability.”
A BBC story here says the use of the word “robust” has gone up 15000% They write:
Despite working with facts, figures and empirical evidence, the world of science appears to have a growing addiction to hyperbole. Researchers at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands looked at four decades worth of medical and scientific publications, and found a significant upwards trend of positive words. We’ve all heard of those ”ground-breaking” studies or ”innovative” research projects. Dr Christiaan Vinkers – a psychiatrist at the Rudolf Magnus brain centre – was the main author of another ”very robust” report.
This tool used to analyse words, when selected for academic use, shows that indeed, “robust” is a favorite word of science:
Source: http://www.wordandphrase.info/academic/frequencyList.asp
And, this Ngram suggests that at least through 2008, the word “robust” has become vastly more popular in books. It’s almost like a hockey stick of robustness:
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Bah. How many millions of times have these quacks been told not to exaggerate?
double plus good.
I’m sure it’s graph of the Mann’s hockey stick ending with the NOAA’s pause buster
We did a study at our university on the percentage of graduates receiving recognitions of cum laude, summa cum laude, etc. and the percentages varied little around a flat line until 1972 when the percentage took off like a hockey stick. Thus began the age of Everyone’s a Winner.
Folks are trying for the Lake Woebegone effect: ” Where all the children are above average.”
If “all the children are above average” doesn’t that just create a new, higher, average? :p
Like a five-year-old, it’s just all about getting attention.
As vukcevic pointed out, definitely another hockey stick, but this time “proving” the correlation between the increase in man made atmospheric CO2 and the use of the word “robust”.
I vote for Monster and Extreme.
What about “prominent idiot”?
We can’t just call everything “TURBO!” any more?
Or, for that matter- Cowabunga?
I vote for Anthony Watt’s new word of the day- “Statistispackle”!! Love it!
We need some robust criticism of the use of “robust” in scientific papers. Just shows you that the quality in general of scientific papers in on a robust downwards slope. In general I view universities as just another form of enterprise using marketing and promotion to further the economic objectives of the enterprise. Success is not measured by quality of research but ability to generate funding by whatever means.
When you measure research value in term of notoriety (under fancy names), this is what you get: the Kardashians.
Ooh, I like that. Climate science has become the Kardashian field of scientific study: lacking substance but always in the headlines.
“Ooh, I like that. Climate science has become the Kardashian field of scientific study: lacking substance but always in the headlines.”
BOB! That kind of vulgarity is not welcome here! *grin* Happy New Year Mr. Tisdale 🙂
Nothing wrong with “robust”. E.g., I cannot seem to find any ROBUST scientific evidence that supports the theory that co2 causes warming.
I am very robust in my agreement with you.
The hyperbole is Outstanding!
From little acorns does Robustus grow.
Are you talking about Acorn, the fear-mongering Association for Community Organization and Reform Now?
Mark,
Please tell me you don’t have in mind at least one (quite) prominent Community Organiser? Now?
Auto
Or, as Abraham Lincoln said, “Great aches from little toe corns grow.”
I prefer arabica.
Grevillea Robstus?
A very Quercii stament.
The first clue that someone is clueless is that they use jargon and hyperbole. That’s where you get Al Gore’s “The Oceans my boil dry by 2200” in contrast to some information that is an accurate portrayal of reality.
Soon to follow: Dope, phat, fly, and bitchin.
Hyperbole should be avoided without exception in technical scientific writing because science is about being preciseness and literal, there is no exception for the language you should use to convey it.
Scientific research can never be robust, though the researchers themselves can certainly be robust unless they are depressed because few are taking their climastrology serious.
My wife says that I’m robust. Which is why she put me on a diet.
RW, hyperbole should be avoided? But the IPCC guidance enshrines it.
From the IPCC Climate God Bible.
3) Be aware of a tendency for a group to converge on an expressed view and become overconfident in it. Views and estimates can also become anchored on previous versions or values to a greater extent than is justified.
4) Be aware that the way in which a statement is framed will have an effect on how it is interpreted (e.g., a 10% chance of dying is interpreted more negatively than a 90% chance of surviving).
8) Use the following dimensions to evaluate the validity of a finding: the type, amount, quality, and consistency of evidence (summary terms: “limited,” “medium,” or “robust”), and the degree of agreement (summary terms: “low,” “medium,” or “high”). Generally, evidence is most robust when there are multiple, consistent independent lines of high-quality evidence. Provide a traceable account describing your evaluation of evidence and agreement in the text of your chapter.
9) A level of confidence is expressed using five qualifiers: “very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” and “very high.” It synthesizes the author teams’ judgments about the validity of findings as determined through evaluation of evidence and agreement. Figure 1 depicts summary statements for evidence and agreement and their relationship to confidence. There is flexibility in this relationship; for a given evidence and agreement statement, different confidence levels could be assigned, but increasing levels of evidence and degrees of agreement are correlated with increasing confidence. Confidence cannot necessarily be assigned for all combinations of evidence and agreement in Figure 1 (see Paragraph 8). Presentation of findings with “low” and “very low” confidence should be reserved for areas of major concern, and the reasons for their presentation should be carefully explained.
10) Likelihood, as defined in Table 1, provides calibrated language for describing quantified uncertainty. It can be used to express a probabilistic estimate of the occurrence of a single event or of an outcome (e.g., a climate parameter, observed trend, or projected change lying in a given range). Likelihood may be based on statistical or modeling analyses, elicitation of expert views, or other quantitative analyses. The categories defined in this table can be considered to have “fuzzy” boundaries. A statement that an outcome is “likely” means that the probability of this outcome can range from ≥66% (fuzzy boundaries implied) to 100% probability. This implies that all alternative outcomes are “unlikely” (0-33% probability). When there is sufficient information, it is preferable to specify the full probability distribution or a probability range (e.g., 90- 95%) without using the terms in Table 1.
Table 1. Likelihood Scale
Term*———————Likelihood of the Outcome
Virtually certain—99-100% probability
Very likely———90-100% probability
Likely————–66-100% probability
About as————33 to 66% probability
likely as not
Unlikely————0-33% probability
Very unlikely——-0-10% probability
Exceptionally unlikely–0-1% probability
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/supporting-material/uncertainty-guidance-note.pdf
Given the terms of the likelihood definitions and applying them to the 90+ climate models which FAIL to meet current conditions and given that all of them have been overturned by the UN who now says 1.5 global temperature is catastrophic (most of them had models of 3 – 6 degree warming as their premise) can we safely declare that all of them now fit in the 0-33% probability and are therefore unlikely. That being the case shouldn’t the UN and its lackey IPCC create NEW climate models with today as the new start date and with the current conditions as the template for consideration of the future.??
Watergate’s “Deep Throat” had it just about right:
“Follow the money.”
They don’t need to use the word “robust.” All they need to do is say they have a “95% certainty,” as in AR5. It still makes it a crock.
The temperature graph and robust graph are similar. Clearly temperature controls robustness of science.
/sarc
I think you are on to something…….CO2 causes hyperbole.
Wait…but it causes POSITIVE, upbeat hyperbole! If we use Cook et al 2013 methodology-we can say that 97% of recently published, peer reviewed papers that express a position on global warming/climate change express a POSITIVE outlook on it!!!!! Perfect!
(papers that don’t express a positive outlook didn’t really have to because the “consensus” view has always been positive)
No, CO2 cause hypercapnia. Money cause hyperbole.
‘“everything is robust” department.’
Is that next door to the “everyone is special” department?
In Lake Wobegon all the scientists are robust.
No scientist left behind, with the exception of the politically incorrect of course.
If you like your scientist, you can keep your scientist.
What I am allowed to do with him if I don’t like him?
Interesting how both positive and negative words jumped sharply just after 1974, however the increase in the use of negative words plateaued quickly while the use of positive words kept climbing.
If I were an editor, the use of “novel” in a paper would trigger an instant doubling of the number of reviewers assigned to that paper. Novel means it hasn’t been done before, which means it needs extra scrutiny.
I have a alternate theory:
Before about 1980 or so, all scientists needed to hand type reports and papers. It’s much slower to add unnecessary adjectives to your paper if you need to use a typewriter. Perhaps the ability to edit in real time along with the ability to distribute unlimited electronic copies via Usenet and, later, gopher allowed scientists the luxury of adding words that were previously too time consuming to type, spell check, and re-type.
unknown,
Interesting.
Maybe the use of cut-and-paste has helped.
Certainly if I run a meeting, I write the minutes first; if exceptionally necessary [everyone against me] I will modify the draft (slightly) – ‘some consideration was given . . .’. [Mods – /sarc, quite bit!]
It looks the same with scientific papers.
Draft the outcome you want.
Do the data search [no real observations needed, of course!].
Mine the nice-ish data.
Torture the good-ish data.
And – as the delightful wine-producers would say – Voila, mon ami!
Auto
There is a typo with “robust” very frequently. The correct spelling is “robbest”
“Rubbish”
Two decades ago, the question was:
Is global warming alarmism simply false or is it fraudulent?
Now, after the Mann hockey stick fiasco, “Mike’s Nature trick”, “Hide the Decline”, the fabricated aerosol data used to fudge the warming alarmists’ climate models, the Climategate emails, and the many false “adjustments” of the surface temperature data record, there is no question:
Global warming alarmism is clearly fraudulent – in financial terms, it is one of the greatest frauds of all time.
So one concludes that not only are there are too frequent uses in scientific papers of positive words like “robust”, there are too few uses of negative words like “fraudulent”.
Perhaps we could say ‘robustly fraudulent’…….
Visual Signalling is the in green word, it means look at me I am alway Right.
Its like a grown-up version of the Kardashians.
The reader is the person who should decide on the adjectives, not the author. The professional audience will decide if the research is in any way novel, not the researcher trying to sell it. The paper should use a minimum of adjectives and adverbs and when used they should be factual objective qualifiers of data and actions e.g. black to describe a colour or larger to differentiate between say 2 objects. The adjectives should not be subjective e.g. the words good and bad should not he used. Maybe science is going the same way as journalism – where the reader is told the author’s interpretation of the facts before he is told the facts.
“Unprecedented” is not upbeat nor positive in climate science unless the scientists are rooting for disaster.
Climate “science”? Really?
+ bunches
Depends on how you look at it Leslie. Unprecedented means it’s never happened before…not that it’s a bad thing. Like John Cook and Lewy admitting that they were wrong, that would be unprecedented, and good.
When you have a system that encourage novel results you will get such papers. In the end the system is more geared towards the publishing of outliers.
We can safely conclude that this observation about robust is robust.
The word “robust” does not belong in a list that includes “amazing” because it has a specific meaning in statistics. It means that the results are not subject Gaussian or i.i.d. assumptions.
This is an astronomically important observation.
In the presentation to the new Canadian Prime Minister, they used “unequivocal” and “indisputable”.
Using the Academic word tool, apparently words like “poor” and “deceptive” are not academic words.