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.
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Old Farmer:
I fear that you are right.
TRM says: @ur momisugly January 7, 2014 at 5:25 pm
….PS. I think Dr Libby will have her work from the 1970s shown to be correct and lord help us all in that case.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In doing a quick search for Dr. Libby I cam across this website The Green Revolution: Are we witnessing the start of a global green revolution?
The comments are an interesting read. As Jimbo said “voters are bored’ and are getting sick of the politicians hands in their pockets.
[ Reply: Your link was empty. Care to try again? -ModE ]
Brian Cox made a recent BBC program about British science. It was good until he interviewed the editor of Nature. It was almost literally stomach-churning when they discussed climate change.
I hope this was a result of Cox’s ignorance about climate change. On the other hand, he does work for the BBC…
Still, in his Wonders of the Solar System series, he did commit a climate heresy by describing how solar variability can have a dramatic effect on the Earth’s climate, and he gave an example of how solar variability dramatically effected the flow of a large South American river.
But after seeing him being taken for a ride by the editor of Nature, my respect for Brian Cox has definitely fallen a few notches.
Chris
A different way of assessing the journal articles would be to ask: How many of them are entirely climate model based prognostications of the future?
As we know that past papers of this kind all failed to predict the future, we would expect the current publications to do exactly the same; namely, fail – assuming that the scientists did what they did in the past – set up a model watch it, write a paper with descriptions of the squiggles the models make.
Ergo, the journals publish desinformation devoid of any meaning.
@ur momisugly garymount says:
January 7, 2014 at 11:38 pm
I can’t argue with much of what that article says as conservatives are demonized in my country by intellectual elites, and this shows one way in which it is done. However, Harper or his policy minions have done something that really hurts my own work, closing down libraries in scientific institutions – notably marine science institutions – and simply dumping into landfills irreplaceable scientific literature.
See
http://boingboing.net/2014/01/04/canadian-libraricide-tories-t.html
I know from experience that the marine science grey literature has not all been digitized, contrary to the claims of bureaucrats. And fisheries science is like climate science – it depends on the accumulation of long-term data to be able to investigate changing conditions so as to determine how current conditions in fish stocks etc came to be.
It is incredible that any scientific organization is expected to function without a library and archives of past research. St. Andrews Biological Station scientists are now expected to go to the Bedford Institute of Oceanography if they need to consult non-digitized past research, or even use monographs vs journals. And I don’t know about your experience, but in my own, e-books are a real pain when one is doing research – the e-interface is much clumsier than picking up a physical book and turning to the index to locate information needed in the text.
While it’s hard to pinpoint the locus of bias (“everywhere” is my guess), it’s not hard to see the driving factor. The mainstream media will give larger play to hype. Play in the media is what drives sales, makes names, and heavily influences funding priorities (we spend our money to combat what scares us most).
Everybody wants fame and fortune. We generate more of what we reward. We reward hype.
@philincalifornia- I don’t care if you’re the bloody queen of england, I know you didn’t understand the paper, or you wouldn’t make glib, stupid comments congratulating yourself for your career in pal reviewing.
Janice Moore says:
January 7, 2014 at 6:57 pm
———————–
Janice, I figured that many folks may have signed up for the alerts from here on such space weather events.
https://pss.swpc.noaa.gov/LoginWebForm.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fproductsubscriptionservice%2f
Make sure you filter the alerts to only the most relevant/significant or you will fill your inbox quickly. I suspect that someone has done so since the post appeared fairly soon after the alerts were distributed. I believe this is the 7th or 8th such X level event since the end of October. I dont recall having so many is such a short time frame. Perhaps Leif or Vulc could elaborate. This is probably not the thread to ask though………
Oh well. Make it a great day folks!
Jimbo says:
January 7, 2014 at 5:01 pm
“”I’m growing increasingly bored too, but I cannot stop now until the end of the game.””
Hang in there Jimbo.
Your collection of data and reports is impressive.
You have all the links
WUWT needs you.
It’s people like you who will likely save Western prosperity.
That’s a big deal Jimbo
You’re a big deal Jimbo.
Thanks for all you do. It is appreciated.
Sincerely,
RP
To quote a Microsoft website when looking up a bug in how they handled Default Gateways:
“This behavior is by design.”
It is an intentional “fire for effect” behavior, not an accidental bias…
Rob Roy said on January 8, 2014, at 8:41 am:
{If I may, RP, I’d like to amend and heartily second your GREAT AFFIRMATION below}
{Re:} Jimbo says: January 7, 2014 at 5:01 pm, “”I’m growing increasingly bored too, but I cannot stop now until the end of the game.””
Hang in there Jimbo {and Gail}.
Your collections of data and reports is impressive.
You have all the links.
WUWT needs you.
{The free world needs you.}
It’s people like you who will likely save Western prosperity.
That’s a big deal, Jimbo {and Gail}.
You are big deals, Jimbo {and Gail}.
Thanks for all you do. It is {much} appreciated.
Keep going — don’t give up. We’re in the final quarter!
Sincerely {and with deep gratitude},
RP {and JM}
YOU GO, GAIL AND JIMBO!
“are impressive… .”
I had a personal experience with Discover magazine during one of their “Technology of the year” contests. My entry from my work at NASA was a technique to show the shock wave pattern around supersonic aircraft in flight. I was very successful, but the limited funding I had limited the early equipment and support so that the technique gave limited quality pictures. More work later improved this, but the initial results were not as attractive looking as later ones. My work made me a finalist in the contest for the aerospace category. However, in the end I was not the winner in that group. I asked the person that was head of the Discover magazine contest what was the deciding basis for selecting the winner. He stated that sizzle and cosmetic appeal predominated over technical value. That better looking pictures and supporting information was critical. Since all entries were of some value, that is not totally unreasonable, and it may take a while to actually sort out the long term value of some contributions. However, it still bothered me that a scientific magazine would use sizzle rather that deeper value as basis for selection.
Since sales of copies of magazines depend on attracting buyers, and since most buyers are attracted to the sizzle, this may be unavoidable. For this reason, I see the need for a different mode of basis for publishing in top level publications than present, but do not off hand know how to overcome this.
Maybe “cold fusion” or the Papp engine will come to the rescue. (They’ve been waiting in the wings for decades, though.)
But I think that the current drip-drip-drip erosion of the warmist position has a good chance of turning the tide. For instance:
• Continuation of The Plateau. (Five more years of it would be near-fatal to warmism.)
•
• Severe cold snaps in the West.
•
• Increasing awareness of climatology’s walkback on the climate sensitivity figure.
•
• Climategate 3.0.
•
• Greater awareness of the failure of Obama’s renewable energy projects. (“60 Minutes” did an expose of some of them a few days ago.)
•
• Failure of the Tesla to live up to its hype.
•
• Greater awareness of the ineffectiveness and high cost of renewable energy electricity in Europe and here, and of its overly hyped projections and assumptions. (A power failure due to grid instability would bring this to public attention.)
•
• Continued technical progress in fracking, keeping costs low, expanding recoverable reserves, and lowering the rate of accidental leakage.
•
• Continued growth in CO2 emissions in Asia, and continued lack of any real plan there to reduce them. (E.g., China has just recently cut back its support for many of its smaller green energy companies.)
•
• Resumption of the Great Recession / Financial Crisis / Euro Crisis.
•
• Republican gains in the 2014 elections.
•
• UKIP gains in UK elections.
•
• Populist party gains in European elections.
rogerknights says:
But I think that the current drip-drip-drip erosion of the warmist position has a good chance of turning the tide. For instance:
From where I sit, looking at the average person (as opposed to the average WUWT reader), none of this matters as long as the universities and media continue touting “climate change”. The average joe on the street continues to believe that we have been warming steadily, and dismisses you as ‘ignorant’ or as a d—-r if you point out facts to the contrary. Most people simply believe what they’re told in the media and don’t bother to do any research – and see those who DO research things as defective.
Until the media changes their tune, nothing will change. The ‘evidence’ you cite has little to do with climate issues and much more to do with economic issues. While it may render the climate arguments moot (for the time, at least), it doesn’t change them.
I fear only glaciation will turn the tide.
Tony, don’t despair, I saw an Op-Ed piece in the Washington Times that called the warmists the real deniers, of reality! That was a first and a great idea.
Knowing what happens with climate science makes me wonder whether that is the only field where this happens. Some other weird things have happened including cold fusion that strangely have found their way into literature.
OOPs sorry, (still battling a cold and bad cough)
The Green Revolution: Are we witnessing the start of a global green revolution?
Link: http://revolution-green.com/witnessing-start-global-green-revolution/
vigilantfish says: @ur momisugly January 8, 2014 at 5:24 am
…., Harper or his policy minions have done something that really hurts my own work, closing down libraries in scientific institutions – notably marine science institutions – and simply dumping into landfills irreplaceable scientific literature…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is truly horrifying. I won’t even toss out a paperback novel.
vigilantfish says: January 8, 2014 at 5:24 am
See
http://boingboing.net/2014/01/04/canadian-libraricide-tories-t.html
– – –
That article contains some ridiculous statements. It also contains statements by David Schindler who just makes up stuff, such as declaring Frankenfish caused by the oil sands.
To claim that the prime minister of Canada is afraid of science is something the left wants people to believe, yet I just pointed out that he himself is scientifically trained. I highly doubt the story of just throwing out valuable documents, but come on, because they are afraid of science as the reason?
I have heard nothing about the events of the libraries, I will have to wait until Peter Foster or some other credible journalist writes about it in the National Post. Note, I don’t read National Post articles written by Jonathan Kay, Andrew Coine as I can already predict what they will write, and Kay called be a crank just because I didn’t believe in Catastrophic Anthropological Global Warming, and that there were 18 investigations into climate gate and all found nothing wrong.
– – –
As for e-books, yeah I have the same problem somewhat mitigated with newer devices such as my Surface Pro multi-touch tablet that allows multiple instances and side by side by side windows of the same book, as well as my e-ink eBook reader that holds hundreds of PDF documents.
I too save all my documents, I have print outs still of my Fortran code from the early 80’s, a booklet created by my class mates from 1967 when my family was leaving Lethbridge Alberta for warmer climes, the first and second issue of an Apple Corporation magazine… and on and on.
End Rant.
Well, there’s an upside to that, if it happens. The longer the warmists, the MSM, and the left-wing parties persist in their current warmist position and policies, in the face of accumulating evidence that contradicts their claims, the worse it will be for them when the tide turns. They will have no excuse — and the damage they will have done by then will be greater. They could wind up being discredited politically and socially for many decades.
roger;
Ask a media-believer if they’ve ever seen or read an MSM report about an event they have first-hand knowledge about. One or two such experiences is generally enough to cure anyone of MSM-reliance.
Good article Patrick. And Jimbo, very excellent link to that New Yorker article on problems with replicability.
@ur momisugly garymount:
I agree with you re Andrew Coyne and Jonathan Kay. But please see the article by Margaret Munro in the Phoenix Star . Some of that information comes from me. Margaret, by the way, also dismissed the boing.boing article as a credible source and queried the whole Challenger Expedition reports claim. I am trying to follow that one up with someone from inside the DFO. Unfortunately, the DFO has dumped shelves of grey literature, and I know from personal experience in trying to access some of this material in the past 8 months that not all of it has been digitized. I cannot understand why, for the sake of saving 1/2 million dollars, the DFO would destroy libraries, when it would be sufficient to simply retire the librarians and let the collections rest where they were. A huge library at the St. Andrews Biological Station has been emptied. This is first hand information from a current scientist there who was the director of the Station for 10 years! As a conservative I am dismayed by the image of conservatives that is being created by these actions, and hugely disappointed in Stephen Harper.