On Dec. 10, Randy Schekman, a UC Berkeley professor, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The day before, he published an op-ed in London’s Guardian, titled “How journals like Nature, Cell, and Science are damaging science,” in which he announced that he will henceforth refuse to send manuscripts for peer-reviewed consideration to these prestigious science journals.
Schekman’s accusation is that these journals are distorting science by being biased towards the “flashiest” research, i.e. papers that generate headlines such as “Global Warming Will Kill Billions, Scientist Finds,” rather than the best research.
This matters more than one might think, because governments and universities disproportionately make their award and funding decisions based on the research published in the prestige journals.
So, if Science and Nature differentially publish flashy research, and publishing there will deliver funding and tenure, scientists are naturally going to gravitate toward trendy topics and produce flashy research. It’s a cycle that perpetuates Armageddon-style headlines that compel politicians to disburse more money, for more research, ultimately buying a beach house for the doom-saying scientists.
This leads to the question: do the journals’ propensity for flashy research result in biased research?
Unfortunately, yes; especially when it comes to climate science.
Just take a look at Science’s “Perspectives” pieces, which are really opinion pieces posing as literature reviews. Despite the fact that global warming has been prominent for about 25 years now, Science has yet to publish one Perspectives piece summarizing the body of refereed science indicating that far too much warming may have been predicted.
That should not be the case, because every new forecast of climate change should have an equal probability of producing a more or less dire result. That’s what happens with weather forecast models as new information comes in. Once it has been established that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide should raise surface temperature a certain amount, each new piece of information should either raise or lower the forecast.
But scientists aren’t incentivized to look under the less-flashy rock. In fact, they threaten their own well-being if they do.
If scientists aren’t doing their due diligence, is Schekman right that the journals aren’t doing theirs either? It’s easy to find out. I reviewed 13 months of both Science and Nature, and sorted every article or story about climate change or its impact into three piles: worse, better, or neutral compared with previous studies.
Of the 115 entries, 23 made the “neutral” pile, 83 were in the “worse” stack, and nine were in the “better.” The probability of the journals not having a bias is as likely as a coin being flipped 92 times and showing heads or tails fewer than nine times.
The number is: 100,000,000,000,000,000.
You can look this up in a binomial probability table, which shows the average number of times you have to flip a coin 92 times to get this result.
The obvious “publication bias” by these two journals is very troubling, because the resultant public funding and tenure could have some pretty nasty consequences.
This creates horrific effects, especially when the issues are policy-related. Summaries of the scientific literature are used to guide policymakers, but if the published research is biased, then so must be the summaries; leaving policymakers no option — not being scientists themselves — but to embrace what is inevitably touted as “the best science.”
Recently, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its fifth “Scientific Assessment” of climate change, which is, in effect, a massive literature review. Since the most prestigious journals carry the most weight, the literature that is reviewed is itself biased. The result? Even the most accurate and comprehensive review must create a biased picture.
The result is very bad policy: cap-and-trade schemes, carbon taxes, and ugly windmill and solar arrays that produce little power but appeal to the politician’s need to “do something.” All ultimately driven by scientists behaving rationally, but badly.
###
“Mimicry occurs when a group of organisms,[3] the mimics, evolve to share common perceived characteristics with another group, the models.[4][bold] The evolution is driven by the selective action of a signal-receiver or dupe[/bold]…”
When the most trusted ‘class’ of individuals has stereotypes, then frauds will mimic them because it pays. Trade a cassock for a labcoat and walla- you’re off and duping like a boss!
“As an interaction, mimicry is in most cases advantageous to the mimic and harmful to the receiver”
and that is the hidden cost of faith.
It’s nature’s way of depleting the resources of the stupid and rewarding those who hasten their extinction. There is no woulda shoulda – the subjunctive tense is especially for describing ‘that which is not’. Is it not common to selectively reject reality when our metaphysical model doesn’t match it? (That happens to be the definition of insanity.)
In the end, you are responsible for what you believe- not a preacher nor a labcoated mimic,
“In the past, animal cannibalism was considered accidental or pathological: … Now scientists realize that cannibalism can sometimes make good evolutionary sense”
Any day now, we might see the WBC picketing H&R Block with signs that say: “God Hates Taxpayers”. And who can fault them for pure empiricism?
So blame away as long as you pay so it comes ’round to bite you every single day. Hell, you already fed it your kids.
`I speak severely to my boy,
I beat him when he sneezes;
For he can thoroughly enjoy
The pepper when he pleases!’
Thanks Patrick, very good article,
“The obvious “publication bias” by these two journals is very troubling, because the resultant public funding and tenure could have some pretty nasty consequences.”
I would have said “have had some nasty consequences”.
William McClenney
Good story. But if I retell it the punchline will be “We call them molecular biologists………”
Pippen Kool says:
January 7, 2014 at 6:29 pm
William McClenney
“Good story. But if I retell it the punchline will be “We call them molecular biologists………””
No worries mate 🙂
Mike Bromley the Kurd says on January 7, 2014 at 6:06 pm
“Pipped Kool…. .” To date “Pippen Kool” has appeared on WUWT as:
Pippen, Poppen, and Pipped, Kool. Pip, ol’ boy, if you have a mind, make it up.
@Bromley — take care, over there. You are being prayed for.
By the way, Randy was the Editor at PNAS that gave Lindzen a massively hard time over a paper that I think was finally rejected. I remember reading the manuscript at the time (on WUWT, I believe) and thinking it was quite a shoddy piece of work for a final, submitted draft, so I think he was right on that too.
I had the pleasure of interacting with him a lot in the eighties. He was a brilliant mentor.
@ur momisugly Steven Mosher-An element has been left out of Michaels’ argument that he usually includes. Namely, the amicus curae brief of Battisti et al. 2006 to the Supreme Court in Mass v. EPA-these were the climate scientists themselves, the experts, the representatives of the consensus:
“EPA also ignored the two-sidedness of scientific uncertainty. Outcomes may turn out better than our best current predictions, but it is just as possible that environmental and health damages will be more severe than the best prediction.”
*Just as possible*. Meaning the prevailing view of the consensus scientists is that it is *equally probable* that we have overestimated the problem as underestimated, and it is *equally probable* that new findings will go in the direction of “it’s worse than we thought” as “it’s not as bad as we thought.”
But I kind of think you haven’t got a damn clue what publication bias is. Or you wouldn’t have resorted to the typical single line never reply to rebuttals trolling you seem to do here because apparently you get your jollies and applaud yourself for earning the ire of anyone on WUWT.
This would be *more* than enough evidence to establish publication bias in any other context.
@ur momisugly OssQss — I thought of you when I saw this thread today: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/07/x-class-solar-flare-ejection-may-hit-earth-with-solar-storm/
You might be interested in reading it (1.2 event at 1832 UT today). You did a fine job of alerting us to that big flare last time (3?) months ago.
@ur momisugly philincalifornia- With regard to the quality of the paper in question, I’m quite sure you don’t know what you are talking about, and in any case I am quite sure that the quality of the paper had nothing to do with the rejection thereof. Like most of the critics thereof I get the feeling you utter fail to understand it.
“Of the 115 entries, 23 made the “neutral” pile, 83 were in the “worse” stack, and nine were in the “better.”
I think there is one clear scientific conclusion that can be drawn from this data – If an article is published in Science or Nature, the odds are heavily in favor of it being total crap.
Same in my field. If you want to get a paper published in N/S, it has to claim that a certain galaxy/supernova/blackhole/quasar is bigger/faster/more powerful than all the others or of what was even thought possible. If another team re-examines the same object later, and finds that it is not so bigger or special, N/S will never publish the alternative conclusions, by editorial choice, because it is not a “new, groundbreaking” result but “simply” a re-examination or correction of a previous result. So, the revised results will be published in other technical journals (Monthly Notices, or Astrophysical Journal). For most N/S paper claiming some exceptional results and getting media publicity, you’ll find months/years later several other more respectable papers in technical journals slowly scaling down or dismantling those initial speculative claims with more rigorous analysis (or when more data have become available). Of course those other papers never get the same publicity and citations, and the amateur public is left with the impression that black holes and jets have been getting bigger, scarier and more powerful year after year.
I think this kind of science and publishing is having a very harmful effect here in Canada. Harper’s Conservatives have been slashing science programs, particularly environmental science programs, in recent months. I think it is because environmentalists have been so blatantly ideological and activist with no regard for Canadian national interests. Harper has little trust in the science, as a result. Unfortunately, some of the environmental science being slashed, such as marine ecotoxicology, has been very helpful in identifying and isolating local problems eg in aquaculture, which generates toxic wastes – and hence helping scientists identify solutions as these problems are elucidated. It’s a huge shame.
The Economist has published a set of good articles on the current problems in science.
“How science goes wrong”
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21588069-scientific-research-has-changed-world-now-it-needs-change-itself-how-science-goes-wrong
“Trouble at the lab”
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble
“A few years ago scientists at Amgen, an American drug company, tried to replicate 53 studies that they considered landmarks in the basic science of cancer, often co-operating closely with the original researchers to ensure that their experimental technique matched the one used first time round. According to a piece they wrote last year in Nature, a leading scientific journal, they were able to reproduce the original results in just six. Months earlier Florian Prinz and his colleagues at Bayer HealthCare, a German pharmaceutical giant, reported in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, a sister journal, that they had successfully reproduced the published results in just a quarter of 67 seminal studies.”
The editors are to blame. It’s as simple as that.
The essay by Mr Michaels is also biased. It uses the reasons that Dr Schekman refuses to submit his articles to those journals to justify skepticism of any articles published by these journals which are in support of AGW. If you wish to compare Dr. Schekman’s original letter to Mr. Michaels’ essay it is here: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/09/how-journals-nature-science-cell-damage-science
Bias within any publication of any type is inevitable and unavoidable – that is why all information should be viewed with a critical eye.
Thanks all for the very thoughtful comments.
I published the findings in Sonja’s Energy & Environment in 2008, about the only place that would take it at that time. If you google Michaels Publication Bias you will find the article which details the timeframe, methods, etc…it was a pretty straightforward analysis.
What I did then is now becoming more respectable, appearing in more mainstream journals, which leads me to the 2012 work of Daniele Fanelli of University of Edinburgh. Ever heard of him? Probably not. But he has done much more than I did, looking at over 4600 papers across the spectrum of disciplines and he clearly shows that the rot that is in climate science is pretty much everywhere. The paper’s title indicates that negative results are disappearing WORLDWIDE AND IN ALL FIELDS. Google Fanelli Negative Findings.
In case you are wondering why Cato has a new Center for the Study of Science, this is why. Our first new contractors are Dick Lindzen, Ed Calabrese (regulatory science) and Terence Kealey (world’s authority on the economics of science funding).
Finally, to the argument that zero-bias is not likely. First, I do cite the Battisti et al. Amicus Brief in the E and E paper, and I have done so regularly. My profession indeed believes that the better or worse nature of succeeding results is equiprobable. Further, any unbiased model in fact should behave the same with new data. Machine-produced weather forecasts are zero-biased because they retain the old MOS regression base, which is adjusted to force zero bias. Climate models may not be zero-biased (because they are juiced with downers like “sulfates” to make them work) but they are “supposed” to be, according to the community that produces them. That would, in fact, be Battisti et al.
timetochooseagain says:
January 7, 2014 at 7:14 pm
——————
How many papers do you have in PNAS ? I have 15.
I’ve reviewed many papers for PNAS.
@ur momisugly timetochooseagain says: January 7, 2014 at 7:14 pm
There’s the danger you always face when trying to buffalo someone on Watts’ site.
Because the deck is stacked in favor of them not just knowing more than you, but chances are they even practice general application of the stuff you don’t know.
agggh!!
Mods: sorry, the browser hid the top of my copy operation, and I duped the whole page!! PLEASE DELETE the above!!
[Reply: Done. -ModE ]
Here’s all I meant to post:
Yes, it is. But it’s at the feet of the climatology system gamers. And it was warned about long ago: discredit the field, and the subsequent desanguination is likely to be rather indiscriminate. Especially since the ones supposedly ensuring quality control are the very ones playing the system the hardest.
vigilantfish says:
January 7, 2014 at 8:37 pm
– – –
You mean the deliberate poisoning of lakes “…in which a section of the Lake 226S was overfertilized with carbon and nitrogen and the other section 226N with carbon and nitrogen as well as phosphorus’ ?
Harper has scientific training:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/01/07/pellerin-robson-stephen-harper-vs-canadas-intellectuals/
Political ‘usefulness ‘ and were the money can be found , is as much a driver of what journals publish as what is good science, that has been true for a long time. AGW has merely taken it to a new level as we have seen the journal editors sign up to ‘the cause ‘ as unquestionable good even if the actual science is bad.
Patrick,
first of all I am with you on the concern for bias in publishing. But I believe the method you use is close to the methods used for the “97%” claim on the warmist side. If you want to establish bias you really would need to know how many “worse”, “neutral” and “better” were published as compared to the same number submitted. And maybe the bias is from the funding side, I know that in Norway there has for several years been difficult to get funding within several fields unless the application was somehow linked to AGW.
Basically, the numbers you show are interesting but take care in using them for a biased conclusion.
The only reason the climate change mythology exists, (which started with “global warming” hysteria) is because academia’s progressive needy cannot survive in the real world without the grants that pay their bills. Academics need a version of man-made climate change to exist whether it actually exists or not.
A Warning
There has been much talk on this and other websites about the demise of the global warming cadre as a result of their arrogance, poor science, bad models and complete lack of recognition of their failure to get absolutely anything right, but I strike a warning to all you good folk who are fighting for quality science and common sense in this matter….
There will be many false dawns before mankind can move on from this madness so I suggest that those who resolutely continue this battle against the Ego-beast ( yes, I meant Ego-beast not Eco-beast) that is the warmest movement, be prepared for a long battle still ahead.
Remember you are not only combatting the pseudoscientists but a far more intransigent, self serving and egotistical cabal of politicians. So if you think these people are going to back down, no matter how stupid and untenable their position becomes, then I fear you may be mistaken.
Here is how I see it playing out. It will take a game changing development or invention totally outside the current sphere of battle that will allow these people to save face and redirect the attention away from themselves. Previous examples, not necessarily good ones, that come to mind are the A Bomb, which allowed the Japanese to surrender and save a little face on the basis of a devastating new technology that was unexplainable to the people but had obvious effects. If this had not happened the Japanese propaganda machine would have continued until it would have been the last man standing.
Another example might be the race to the moon which changed the mood of the entire globe and took the heat out of the cold war and refocused it whilst having the added benefit of advancing mankind’s understanding of countless aspects of this beautiful blue sphere which we all inhabit. It also gave us many of the personal advantages and tools we enjoy today that would otherwise not necessarily be yet available to common men such as myself.
So what might be the game changer? I challenge those who read this to come up with suggestions and the reasoning behind your thoughts.
I will start by suggesting a look at this video from Charles Chase at the Skunkworks.
http://www.dvice.com/2013-2-22/lockheeds-skunk-works-promises-fusion-power-four-years
This kind of development/paradigm shift will allow all these warmest zealots and their funders to collectively draw everybody’s attention to the horizon whilst they quietly exit stage left.
Charles Lindberg’s quote will then quickly make sense. ” Life is like a landscape, we live in the midst of it , but can only view it from the vantage point of distance” and the war will have been won by the good guys.