Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen — 12 October 2020
Judith Curry recently highlighted the 9 October 2020 Wall Street Journal piece by Matt Ridley titled: “What the Pandemic Has Taught Us About Science”. [ It is annoyingly paywalled, so Dr. Curry offers extensive excerpts at her own blog, Climate Etc. ]
[ Full version of Matt Ridley’s piece is available at his own website here. — h/t to Malcolm Robinson]
The Ridley piece, intentionally or not, is a foil to a science column published in Forbes on 30 July 2020 by Ethan Siegel, Senior Contributor, which declared in its headline “You Must Not ‘Do Your Own Research’ When It Comes To Science “. The piece is marked by Forbes as an “Editor’s Pick”.
I encourage readers to take the time to read both of these fine essays, in full. Please don’t just stop when you find something with which you disagree (and you will find things, I promise). If you have access to the Wall Street Journal read Ridley’s full piece there. If not, you can read the extensive excerpts supplied by Judith Curry here. The Siegel column is available at Forbes.
What follows is a rather long Opinion Piece on the topic:
Should we “do our own research when it comes to Science”?
Both of these essays are valuable – and contain truths we need to be aware of and accept. But they also represent the problem we see all across human endeavors in today’s rather complicated world, and particularly in scientific fields: It ain’t that simple.
The arguments in opposition can be simplified to these two quotes:
SIEGEL — “You Must Not ‘Do Your Own Research’ When It Comes To Science”:
“The reason is simple: most of us, even those of us who are scientists ourselves, lack the relevant scientific expertise needed to adequately evaluate that research on our own. In our own fields, we are aware of the full suite of data, of how those puzzle pieces fit together, and what the frontiers of our knowledge is. When laypersons espouse opinions on those matters, it’s immediately clear to us where the gaps in their understanding are and where they’ve misled themselves in their reasoning. When they take up the arguments of a contrarian scientist, we recognize what they’re overlooking, misinterpreting, or omitting. Unless we start valuing the actual expertise that legitimate experts have spent lifetimes developing, “doing our own research” could lead to immeasurable, unnecessary suffering.” [the link is given by Siegel in the original – kh]
RIDLEY — “What the Pandemic Has Taught Us About Science”:
“The Covid-19 pandemic has stretched the bond between the public and the scientific profession as never before. Scientists have been revealed to be neither omniscient demigods whose opinions automatically outweigh all political disagreement, nor unscrupulous fraudsters pursuing a political agenda under a cloak of impartiality. Somewhere between the two lies the truth: Science is a flawed and all too human affair, but it can generate timeless truths, and reliable practical guidance, in a way that other approaches cannot.”
“Organized science is indeed able to distill sufficient expertise out of debate in such a way as to solve practical problems. It does so imperfectly, and with wrong turns, but it still does so. …. How should the public begin to make sense of the flurry of sometimes contradictory scientific views generated by the Covid-19 crisis? The only way to be absolutely sure that one scientific pronouncement is reliable and another is not is to examine the evidence yourself. Relying on the reputation of the scientist, or the reporter reporting it, is the way that many of us go, and is better than nothing, but it is not infallible. If in doubt, do your homework.” [my bolding — kh]
I agree with both of these fine, well-meaning individuals.
Who are they?
Matt Ridley is a scientist (DPhil or PhD in zoology from Oxford), the author of several science books, a celebrated British journalist and a Conservative hereditary peer since 2013, with a seat in the UK’s House of Lords. He has been called “a heretic on most counts”.
Ethan Siegel is a theoretical astrophysicist and professional science writer. He studied physics at Northwestern and got his PhD in astrophysics from the University of Florida. To get a fuller picture of the man, see his personal science blog: Starts With A Bang!.
I agree . . . but . . .
Ethan Siegel makes most of the points I would make about the average Joe or Jill “doing their own research”. I speak from experience…I do a lot of my own research. And I deal with family and friends and readers here at WUWT who “do their own research”. I wrote the following comment in response to the WUWT re-post of Judith Curry’s essay on Matt Ridley’s piece:
“Do Your Own Research!
Even this common-sense idea is strongly contested.
You Must Not ‘Do Your Own Research’ When It Comes To Science by Ethan Siegel — Senior Contributor — Forbes Editors’ Pick — Jul 30, 2020 [link in text above]
I always do my own research when it is important or some current proclamation or pronouncement pins my BS Meter to full on.
But in the real world, many people are incapable of doing their own research — either from lack of adequate general and/or specific education or from (and it is dangerous to even say this bit…) low IQ (meaning here: inability to understand/comprehend complex data).
These people, instead of “doing their own research”, do something that they think is that [doing their own research] but is in reality just surfing the web or channel searching the TV looking for opinions that agree with their own biases or new information that “seems true” to them — something that mixes well in their muddled understanding of reality.
Gads — that sounds so elitist, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it is all too true.
I have relatives that are terrific people — do anything to help anyone in need — but who, for various reasons, would find it totally impossible to research and come to any kind of reasonable evidence-based or fact-based opinion on any of today’s complex problems. They simply don’t have the educational background, don’t have enough foundational understanding of basic science, political theory and practice, biology, physics, philosophy, etc — and, truthfully, they have never learned how to think clearly or critically. This includes people who are “professionals” — but only in their narrow fields.
Asking many of our neighbors and relatives — people on the street — or even professional journalists and columnists — to “Do Your Own Research” is like YoYo Ma asking them to “Play the cello like me!”.
I agree with Dr. Curry and Matt Ridley — with the above caveat.”
At first glance, I agree with Siegel that many people are unable to “do their own research”. The call for people to do their own research is hampered by the points above and by other simple facets of the human condition. What does this mean?
PRIDE: Many, if not most, if not all, people suffer from Pride. In this sense, that means they think they already know and are unwilling to read, research or accept information that doesn’t agree with their pre-existing “knowledge” – in quotes because this knowledge becomes, almost always, a bias that prevents further learning and understanding. This is true even for scientists and professionals who are even more prone to believing that their existing knowledge is superior to any contrary knowledge being offered by others, even by other professionals in the same field of study.
LAZINESS: Let’s admit it – far too many of us (occasionally including myself) are simply too lazy to bother fact-checking, reading original sources or comparing the value of evidences offered by various voices – too lazy even when it is important. This laziness often leads to ready acceptance of “consensus science” – we rest assured that what “the experts say…” is correct — even when we are fully aware that the consensus is politically, and not scientifically, based.
BUSYNESS: Many people simply don’t have the time to “do their own research” even when motivated to do so. Busy professionals, busy students, busy mothers and fathers. How many of us even fail to read the whole essay or column on topics we are interested in, instead skipping ahead to write a comment, only to be told the answer is in the essay? Unsure about Global Warming? Sure! Do Your Own Research! If you already have all the basic science and math under your belt and have a year to spare….
As Ridley points out, we are human. Scientists are human. Doctors are human. Astrophysicists are human. And we are all fallible. We make mistakes, we misunderstand things, we are prideful, we are hubristic, we fall in love with our own theories and opinions, we have “better things to do”. And, being human, we all have differing abilities – some are mathematical, some artistic, some philosophical, some spiritual, some intellectual, some mechanically practical.
So, in this sense, Ethan Siegel is right. However, Siegel’s column is spoiled by his selection of examples (you really must read his essay) which exposes his biases and misunderstandings and leads him to a conclusion not supported by his argument.
It does not follow that
- Because “doing your own research” is hard or even “impossible” for many people
- And “doing your own research” can be done incorrectly, even by scientists
- That thus “you need … to turn to the consensus of scientific experts” and that we must “all agree that we should base our policies on the scientific consensus”.
This is what I call “almost true”. The most dangerous kind of mendacity. Certainly, we can all agree with Newton’s Laws of Motion in a practical sense. But not because there exists a “scientific consensus” on the issue, rather because they have been found to be true (enough) in actual practice through innumerable tests and trials.
Siegel, in effect, concludes: “Always stick with the apparent consensus.”
I say “apparent”, because in many fields there is almost always a vast difference in the publicly perceived – media presented – apparent consensus and the real professional-field-wide-scientists consensus. See my series on Modern Scientific Controversies.
Even worse is Siegel’s proposition that “When they [people] take up the arguments of a contrarian scientist, we recognize what they’re overlooking, misinterpreting, or omitting.” In this, Siegel uses the “Royal We” so often seen in declarations in support of consensus science – a usage with the definition here of “Us Right-Thinking Scientific Elites”. Somehow Siegel overlooks that his very own field, theoretical astrophysics, is itself filled with conflicting theories, “contrarian scientists” and that many would assign Siegel himself to that category.
Matt Ridley is correct: He calls for us to “examine the evidence yourself. ….If in doubt, do your homework.”
Why? Because, in the end, “The only way to be absolutely sure that one scientific pronouncement is reliable and another is not is to examine the evidence yourself. Relying on the reputation of the scientist, or the reporter reporting it, is the way that many of us go, and is better than nothing, but it is not infallible. If in doubt, do your homework.”
Matt Ridley is pragmatic. For instance, on the virus, his view is straight-forward:
“The health of science depends on tolerating, even encouraging, at least some disagreement. In practice, science is prevented from turning into religion not by asking scientists to challenge their own theories but by getting them to challenge each other, sometimes with gusto. Where science becomes political, as in climate change and Covid-19, this diversity of opinion is sometimes extinguished in the pursuit of a consensus to present to a politician or a press conference, and to deny the oxygen of publicity to cranks. This year has driven home as never before the message that there is no such thing as “the science”; there are different scientific views on how to suppress the virus.”
I maintain that there are “different scientific views” on almost all modern scientific questions. Why? Because for these questions we are just starting along the necessary scientific path to discovering the basic truths of these topics. When we are uncertain what to believe, what to think or how to understand one of these topics, we can, as Matt Ridley suggests try “Relying on the reputation of the scientist, or the reporter reporting it, is the way that many of us go, and is better than nothing”.
Or, if it is important enough to us individually or societally and we are capable of doing so, we should examine the evidence ourselves – we should do our own homework.
We should, however, acknowledge that not everyone is capable of doing so, for the reasons I identified at the beginning of this essay. Some people can overcome their deficiencies, they can study up, read widely, retrain their minds to think clearly and critically and learn to ignore their own biases. Others may not be able to do so. In this case, they need to call upon others, who are capable, to help them examine the evidence – honest information brokers.
This task becomes the responsibility of Science Journalists. People like myself and many other professional authors, paid and unpaid. It is not our job to dictate what “the Science” says. It is our job to publicly examine the evidence on different topics in a way that the general public can understand it – carefully giving the various major viewpoints and laying out the evidence for all to see, in a way that they can comprehend it and come to their own understandings.
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Author’s Comment:
It is interesting to me that Ethan Siegel could be right about the details of the human condition that impede efforts to do one’s own research and yet come to the exactly wrong conclusion of discouraging people from examining the evidence for themselves. Because he fails to take Matt Ridley’s advice, and does not examine the evidence for himself, he ultimately falls back on “Listen to us, we’re the experts!” and denigrates all other professionals who don’t agree with the “us” as “contrarian scientists” unworthy of serious consideration. And that last part, my friends, is an intellectual crime most foul.
# # # # #
do your own research
it is arrogant to tell people that they can not do analysis
obviously some topics will be out of reach of your understanding but if you don’t open your mind and only listen to the controlled topics then no one will see climate change and other topics for what they are – political propoganda
The big problem is that many people do not have a basic science foundation that allows them to have a knowledge filter that detects junk science that does not make sense. I call it a BS filter from the other direction. We should teach people how to discern opinion from facts and established science. At least teach them to detect terms in”science” discussions that indicate an opinion is being advanced disguised as science.
CH: The CAGW cultists have already done this.
The article is actually pretty good in providing a method for assessing the integrity of a study – see below.
Ultimately, there are a few fundamental limits in CAGW theory, and here is one. “Science” cannot test the future; if you are modeling what may happen in the future, you cannot base your findings on observations since the future has not yet happened, and you cannot replicate your finding.
We can model what model what might happen in the future based on some knowledge we have now, but speculation about the future is NOT “observable,” or “replicable.” And, once the future has arrived and happened, we cannot scientifically test why one thing happened and not another. We cannot re-run the Civil War a few times to test the robustness of the theory that it was fought over slavery. Science is limited to cause-and-effect hypothesis about what matter and energy do in the physical universe. When staying in its lane, science is a useful tool. When we fool ourselves that we have “observed” the transition fro water-based life to land-based life, we are fooling ourselves. We can observe a fossil, but we have not observed such an event. Assigning causes in the past and in the future is outside the realm of “science.” They are in the realm of “history, and “modeling”/”projection”/”forecasting.”
John Cook. Understanding and countering climate science denial. Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 150, part 2, 2017, pp. 207–219.
John Cook. Understanding and countering climate science denial. Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 150, part 2, 2017, pp. 207–219.
This provides a model: “FLICC:” fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry picking, and conspiracy theories. This article cites a couple sources for this model. Hoofnagle 2007, Diethelm and McKee 2009.
Hoofnagle, M. (2007, April 30). Hello Scienceblogs. Denialism Blog. Retrieved from http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/about/
Diethelm, P., & McKee, M. (2009). Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond? The European Journal of Public Health, 19(1), 2-4.
LastDumbocrat
If you hear a prediction of the future, just ignore it. The probability of it being right is low. The coming climate crisis is 50 years of wild guess predictions, 62 years if you start with Roger Revelle in 1958.
I don’t need a scientist to tell me about the climate change where I’ve lived since 1980, and I don’t need a weatherman. To know which way the wind blows.
Many people’s science foundation leaves them easily fooled by people claiming expertise. Gavin Schmidt, head of GISS is a mathematician. He has no great understanding of climatology beyond what he picked up writing mathematical climate models. Neil Ferguson, author of the great COVID-19 lockdown model, is a mathematician too. Both of them claim to be ‘scientists‘. But they don’t do science – they do models. Science involves ultra-respect for data. It is closely connected with experiment and observation. None of these models, which have taken over government policy, pay any respect to experiment and observation. Modeling is the substitution of fake science for good science. It is foolish and irresponsible for government to rely on untested, non-validated models.
Many people think models are science because the modelers make that claim.
“Mark Pawelek October 13, 2020 at 9:59 am
Neil Ferguson, author of the great COVID-19 lockdown model…”
Ah but this guy has form. He also used his “computer modelling” to predict SARS1, MERS, bird/swine ‘flu, BSE and foot and mouth infections/deaths all of them monumentally wrong but he never resigned until his COVID-19 predictions. So, computer modelling, in “climate science”, is not fit for purpose IMO.
That’s extremely true. People say that u.s. is the dirtiest country on Earth but China has 3800 Coal Fired power plants.
“People say that u.s. is the dirtiest country on Earth” Only people who have A. never been outside the US, or 2. have never been to the US, say such stupid things. Ranks right up there with all the wailing&screeching about America cutting down all it’s trees, a simple drive along I 80 from Ohio through PA and NJ to NYC will prove that is an hysterical fantasy. People really need to do their own research and NEVER believe anything said by any expert, ever, period. Full stop.
Hi John,
I think the main point that Ethan was making was that most people do not have the time or training to do their own research (or access to the peer reviewed literature that is hidden behind a paywall). Take for example the two recent physics discoveries namely gravitational waves and the Higgs boson and ask yourself how long it would take for the average person to be able to do enough research to confidently decide whether or not that research was correct? Or how would somebody decide whether or not a bridge was safe to drive across?
None of which is not to say that people can’t do it but rather to do as good a
job as a professional requires you to effectively become a professional.
Izaak, your examples do not really impact me, nor many other people. On the other hand the impact of the Covid responses impact almost everybody and I would say it is important that people do their own research. We can look unambiguously at the data and draw our own conclusions. No not the number of “cases”, i.e. a positive PCR test, which will increase due to false positives as testing increases, nor the number of “Covid deaths” previously in the UK someone who died who had previously tested positive, now someone who tested positive in the previous 28 days regardless of other co-morbidities, which will also increase with increased testing as people die. No we can look at unambiguous data like all deaths and excess deaths, which tell us a completely different picture of the so called second wave. In Europe we have EUROMOMO, where excess deaths are recorded and are now below average in most European countries and cumulative excess deaths are falling. What second wave?
The answer to that is to know your own limitations and to direct your personal research towards fields that have some practical meaning in the real world — which pandemics and climate do and (with respect to those physicists with planet-sized brains) the Higgs boson and gravitational waves do not.
I had to do a lot of reading to justify my initial hunch that the global warming argument was full of holes but the more I learned the clearer it became that “scientists” were no more to be trusted to be honest and impartial than any other “closed shop” — which is why I am now equally cynical about the advice which “experts” are now giving to politicians trying to find their way through the Covid maze.
Where I immediately part company with Siegel is that he appears to be saying (I haven’t read the article yet so I apologise if I’m misreading him) that anyone who has spent three years at Cambridge or Harvard and now has M.Sc. or B.Sc. after his name has (at best) become an expert in all things “scientific” and is not thereafter subject to challenge or (at worst) has become a member of that “closed shop” I referred to above and will defend to the death other members against the views of those not blessed with those magic qualifications.
The ability to think and to analyse is not the exclusive property of any group.
I think there is a big difference between ‘don’t do your own research’ and ‘don’t question my research’. That’s what this boils down to.
I’m a licensed Architect and have designed projects up to about $125M.
Does that mean no one is allowed to criticize my designs?
Only Architects are allowed to?
Only certain approved Architects?
Believe me, nothing irritates me more than people who spout off about design without knowing all that goes into it, but that is different than saying they should not have an opinion.
I think there is a big difference between ‘don’t do your own research’ and ‘don’t question my research’.
And from the last part of the article, it almost seems that Siegel is arguing the latter.
Wrong. The point he was making is that you climate deniers should shut up and take your medicine, and don’t break your lockdown unless you are looting shoe stores for social justice.
Perhaps the solution to the problem is to withhold forming an opinion or stating support for something for which one does not have expertise, or cannot quickly master.
The other side of the coin is the situation where it is obvious that the “king has no clothes.” That is, sometimes a position is so flawed that one does not have to be an expert or subject-matter specialist to spot the problem. That comes about because of a tendency for crowd behavior, where researchers ‘jump on the bandwagon.’ This is particularly noticeable for popular paradigms — dare I say it — such as Anthropogenic Global Warming! Even if, in the absence of formal expertise, one can understand the problem well enough to ask embarrassing questions of supporters, then it should be obvious that the supporters don’t really have the expertise either. That is, just because someone calls themselves a “climate scientist,” that doesn’t mean they are really a scientist.
Er, by sending a heavily laden slave cart across it first, traditionally.
Engineering predates science by half a million years.
John Bruce, you should research punctuation and capital letters, absence of which reduces the comprehensibility of what you write.
Maybe he’s been studying at the Mosher School of Drive-bys.
You are wrong Hargraves
random rambling blabbering does not require punctuation or capital letters
I agree. I think Siegel is talking nonsense.
Is Siegel seriously saying all the great scientists of the past were wrong to do science because they didn’t have scientific qualifications?
Think of Willis. He’s not officially a scientist, but I would say his scientific work is better than that of 97% of climate scientists.
Obviously most laymen can’t do experimental work on nuclear physics or quantum mechanics. But in many areas of science there are vast accumulations of publicly available scientific data. Two good examples are climate change and covid. In many cases simply examining the data can show that the scientific consensus is wrong. You don’t have to be a scientist to compare the climate model predictions with what actually happened.
I think science done by non-scientists is an excellent thing. It doesn’t matter who does the science. All that matters is the quality of the science.
Chris
Three thumbs up!
Winston Churchill, one of the greatest critical thinkers of the twentieth century, spoke often about questioning expert authority. He wrote that non-experts “asked all kinds of questions. They did not always take No for an answer. They did not accept facts and figures put before them by their experts as necessarily unshakable. They were not under awe of professional authority, if it did not seem reasonable to the lay mind.” The lesson would seem to be that we should never be quick to act on expert advice without rigorous debate and examination.
I have a PhD. It’s rather old and worn, and I haven’t kept it in the best condition, but I have it. Experience tells me that it’s very hard to tell what is right – but not that hard to tell what is wrong. When the arena is filled with Chickens Little and Boys Who Cry Wolf, you’re probably better off following your gut rather than the guy who makes the most catastrophic predictions.
But listen when the guy is named Willis, or Feynmann. Science is science. Listening to it is art.
Who determines who is qualified to research a subject? And who determines who is qualified to determine who is qualified to do research? This can be fun! Pointless, but fun!
Nobody is qualify to determine who is qualified to research a subject. NOBODY.
Nobody is qualified to determine who is qualified to determine who is qualified to do research. NOBODY.
We get it done. How good it is, is discussed and evaluated after publication. Old stuff. Nothing new.
Listen to Bill Gates. He knows a lot about viruses.
Good point !
In the future you will need a license to do science.
Licensure is already required in limited applications, usually where the scientific opinion carries a direct human health, safety, or major financial impact. Engineers, who are quite well grounded in one or more sciences as a requirement for their disciplines, also must be licensed to stamp critical work. However, there are vast arenas in both science and engineering where licensure is neither warranted nor helpful. Universally requiring a license would open the floodgates to abuse and corruption.
The only real “climate science” is climatology, a branch of meteorology or atmospheric science, and historically their work, important as it was/is, did not carry such a societal burden as is forced upon it today. No license required. Probably 97% of persons who claim to be “climate scientists” today are no such thing. They may have expertise in one segment or another of the multi-disciplined effort to measure, characterize, and predict climate, but most act as arrogant hucksters when they step outside of their niches to promote the prevailing narrative. Most quickly reveal their personal biases and political leanings. When pseudo-scientists (e.g., social “sciences”) jump into the fray to promote the cause, they rarely do so critically, but accept the narrative as true without serious question. Higher education, especially so-called “sustainability” practitioners can be among the most unscientific, ignorant and backwards people of the bunch. I watch this human comedy (tragedy) every day as I monitor the GreenSchoolListserve and read post after post of knuckleheaded, foolish social activism, from people hired by universities to run their sustainability programs.
This is where many people, mature laypersons included, can use their experiential faculties from life experience to detect falsehood or exaggeration, even though they couldn’t personally solve a differential equation or even a basic algebra problem. A discerning individual who has learned the traps and pitfalls of the Information Age can do enough research to reach sound conclusions on many topics. That is becoming easier as the lunatic fringe, including many “climate scientists,” continue to plunge deeper into their socialist, regressive folly.
Pflashgordon
Thank you for that comment. I am one of the laymen who have ‘no right’ to even read and consider scientific opinions because I have no higher education.
What I do have, however, is 63 years of experience underpinned by the education and experience of a Police Officer. A humble post but one almost wholly reliant on evidence. I say almost wholly because what we learn, with no formal instruction, is that gut feel is often as reliable an instinct as scientific evidence.
We don’t know why, or how; some get it, some don’t, but the best of us have used it to devastating effect when evidence, and the science of Policing come up empty handed. It’s something never to be ignored, and often the basis for Feynman’s “Guess”.
In my humble opinion, the ability to study and practice science is a privilege which should be awarded only to the finest minds, and hardest workers of society. The Scientific Method is a rare and valuable tool which should be entrusted to only the most capable and ethical of candidates.
In return, their job is to advocate on behalf of the rest of society. Doing the research as a quest for truth on behalf of those less capable than them. But they also have the responsibility of explaining their endeavours clearly and concisely to the public who rely on them for direction.
That, to me, goes well beyond publishing papers in Journals for consumption by peers, it includes, but rarely manifests itself as, an explanation for the layman, in layman’s language.
Wasn’t it Einstein who said ‘if you can’t explain your theory to a 5 year old then you don’t understand it yourself’?
Matt Ridley is a past master at presenting complicated subjects in a manner we laymen understand.
My Gut instinct is to prefer him to a man who would far rather keep the public in the dark about the detail of his science. Einstein might have a view on that as well.
“Wasn’t it Einstein who said ‘if you can’t explain your theory to a 5 year old then you don’t understand it yourself’?”
Sure, anyone can explain a theory. But did Einstein also say how one could prove that the 5 year old understood the theory?
There’s lots of data on the net and there’s the Internet Archives Way Back Machine. Some data is way too extensive for ordinary examination, i.e., an Excel Spreadsheet. So there’s only a sliver of the overall topics an average Joe & Jill no matter how dedicated can reasonably research. However, when folks turn over those accessible stones, and find worms and rot, is it wrong to make an assumption that those areas that the research is too daunting but administered by the same group of people also full of rot and pestilence?
Steve Case we agree: ” when folks turn over those accessible stones, and find worms and rot, is it wrong to make an assumption that those areas that the research is too daunting but administered by the same group of people also full of rot and pestilence?” It is this level of scientific research the nearly everyone is capable.
If there are alternative explanations/hypotheses out there are they stronger or equivalent to that being presented? Its on the strength levels that personal bias can deceive, but researching is possible.
Too often even this level of research analysis is lacking in the proponents who believe blindly.
Science is seldom the one and only truth, but a path to a more in depth knowledge. This is where Ridley is more correct.
A scientist who cannot explain a critical point of his/her subject in plain language, and defend it with data they, themselves, have verified is indistiguishable from a charlatan. A non-scientist (or non-specialist) who gets their opinion about a scientific subject via a science journalist is a fool. Your mileage will vary.
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
Richard Feynman
What exactly is the consensus of astrophysists regarding the existence and nature of dark energy and dark matter? Do singularities with infinite mass/density exist? I find the research on these things to be long on hypotheses and short on evidence. You could easily just substitute “God’s will” for such things without being contradicted by evidence.
Feynman also advised that the best way to learn a topic to mastery is to try explaining the topic to someone with no background in it. Until you are able to explain something in everyday language, you probably don’t grok the topic yet yourself.
Einstein said, “You never truly understand something until you can explain it to your grandmother.”
“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein
Reportedly, a five-year-old asked Einstein if he’d pooped that day. His mother apologized and was embarrassed, but Einstein said, “At last a question I can answer.”
BTW: it is God’s will.
Colossians 1:17
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
It is interesting how the Bible, while not trying to be a science text, can be accurate on a range of such things.
That reminds me of a letter I wrote some years ago on my findings on socialism. I observed, with multiple examples, the fact that socialism and starvation, or reported crop failures, were quite closely related historically, and offered several possible “reasons,” the last of which was, “There really is a God, He does not like socialism, and is telling us so with His strange weather patterns (see Jeremiah 29:17, Ezekiel 5:16.)
I don’t see any accuracy in the statement at all. It’s simply a gratuitous assertion, that can be just as gratuitously ignored.
How much research has been proven wrong over thousands of years? Nuff said.
Exactly, when the science is junk, anyone can have a go.
Many of the people purporting to do the homework as in the various *BC broadcasters are perhaps less qualified to be arbiters of the truth than a large proportion of their follower. Journalists are notoriously low in critical thinking skills and seem to be obsessed with emotional content, the human condition and social justice. They have repeatedly demonstrated an inability to cut through the shinola in their treatment of a vast array of topics including homeopathy, acupuncture, dietary fat and salt, the H1N1 Casedemic, Y2K, AGW, second hand cigarette smoke, environmental effects of plastic and on and on. In short, they have shown themselves to be wholly unreliable arbiters of truth. For those who can’t critically evaluate the quality of the science, the best one can do is read commentary in favour and against (in my experience most journalists studiously avoid the second) and then make up your mind about who is more credible using the vast array of tools that humans have always used to measure credibility. Be prepared to change your point of view with new evidence and rank down journalistic pronouncements on what the science says.
Siegel: “And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!”
Even if all anyone does is surf the web for information they can at least learn that there are two or more opinions on just about any scientific endeavor coming from actual scientists. It might open a few eyes.
Rhoda R ==> Just “surfing the web” will inform you that there are a lot of nutty people out there with a lot of nutty ideas as well, similar to asking scientific opinions of the patients in a mental hospital. You’ll find lots of divergent ideas.
One must have a firm grasp of the basics of the sciences, the ability to discern logical errors, spot double-speak, and a raft of other skills, some rather hard to define, to sort through the midden of human ideas found out there. Dumpster diving can be interesting and rewarding, but one shouldn’t confuse that with going shopping.
My recommendation is to Read More, Read Widely, and Read Critically.
Rhoda ==> Meant to include, that in a general sense, I do agree. But the old adage applies “Be careful out there!”
With all these college graduates with some sort of science requirement, one would expect knowledge about the basic scientific method, consistency, and relevance, even in the most difficult and complex subjects . At least that used to be taught. It is very easy to see the conflicts between titles, abstracts and texts, press releases especially suspect when they contradict the paper if not the title. With current longevity there are numerous retired engineers, scientists, among others with enough background to do at least basic analysis, as happens here in WUWT, and show it to those who question in order for them to make up their own mind. I live where politicians are often remiss in such transparent analysis, but people who you would think might not have the necessary background, somehow come to understand the nonsense. Someone I knew who followed local politics brought up the understanding that political parties evolve to lose touch, takes a while to correct it, but it happens.
I read only the Ridley article, suspect that Siegel lacks his wisdom as in “Always stick with the apparent consensus. ” Humans must have long dealt with ‘snake oil’ to survive.
HD ==> Even back in the day, when university meant something, liberal arts grads didn’t get basic science and math. I have personal acquaintances among friends and relatives that have advanced degrees from Ivy League universities that do not understand basic physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, maths, stats and are prone to believing the most transparently false conspiracy theories and crazy health fads.
+1
And what about those scientists and institutions who deplorably refuse access to their data and methods? Their work ought be identified, blacklisted and utterly shunned by all legitimate authorities, institutions, scientists, governments and lay people.
Why should they give you their data? You would only try to find something wrong with it!
The WSJ article may be pay-walled but it isn’t pay-walled on Matt Ridley’s website.
Malcolm ==> Thanks for the tip. Added at the top of the essay.
The problem is also that Science and Politics are intermingled.
No-one in their right mind would ask George (met in the pub on Friday night) to design a four lane bridge, nor would I suggest that everyone get an engineering degree and examine the design before they drive over it. But then again I am not going to trust Matthew from the “Woke Scientists Association” who knows all about atmospheric physics to decide who is going to be rich and who is going to be poor.
The whole history of politics over the last few centuries has been a story of the elites trying to keep power and its benefits and the rest of us trying to gain control over our lives and share out some of the benefits more widely.
Global warming catastrophism is no different.
I disagree strongly with Kip’s YoYo Ma analogy. YoYo Ma is an artistic creator. Every time Ma plays the cello he could do the exact same musical piece ever so slightly different, creating a different experience for the consumer of the music. Together all of those through multiple studio or concert hall recordings, he could select the ones he and his producers liked the best for a pressed commercial recording or an upcoming concert. That is artistry.
A practicing physicist or chemist or biologist is also creating. Creating data by running experiment and trying to understand what the data from each experiment says when enough has been gathered. A scientistic should, as Matt Ridley pointed out, be looking for the exceptions that show his/her theory to be wrong, not just affirmation. The lay person has no ability to do this kind of woork, either experimental or theoretical math.
But what the non-expert but educated scientist/engineer can do is, again as Matt pointed out, show there are documented examples from others of black swans that the scientist or team of scientists are trying mightily to ignore because the black swans are in Australia or some such other attempt to keep a pet hypothesis alive when it really needs an intellectual knife through through its heart. Or to understand that adjusting more accurate (lower StndDev) buoy data with less accurate (higher SD) ship’s water intake temp data is an egregious abuse of credibility that skews a result toward a desired outcome. You don’t have to be a rocket engineer to recognize a flawed o-ring design for cold weather reliability, which is why the Columbia Accident commission was headed by Richard Feynman.
Joel ==> I only meant to imply that for Yo Yo Ma to simply ask someone untrained in the cello to play as well as he does is a silly request. Playing as well as he does requires skill, training and, as you point out, that most valuable ingredient of “artistry”.
Joel needs to lighten up sometimes.
I once knew the son of a very wealthy man. He told me that his father was a voracious reader who wouldn’t budge from the house until he had spent an hour with the New York Times over breakfast. I think he told his son that the secret of success was to read everything.
Why did I become a climate skeptic? My reading of history convinced me that Dr. Mann’s hockey stick was bogus. (By avoiding cross examination in the Ball case, he has admitted that he does belong in state pen.)
When you evaluate what experts are telling you, it’s useful to pull in knowledge from other fields. Most experts can’t do that which is why they often say such stupid stuff.
So, yes, absolutely, do your own research. It won’t look like what the experts are doing but you stand a better chance of not missing the glaringly obvious. It takes a special kind of education to miss the glaringly obvious.
My favorite example:
As an example of the glaring obvious: the IPCC takes the average of over one hundred climate models to come to a more “accurate” result (apparently not one of these models gets it sufficiently right).
As any first year STEM student can tell you, two necessary conditions to make this a valid approach are that:
a) the models are independent (they are not because they share some of the same computer code and algorithms), and
b) that the error in these models has a Gaussian distribution (unproven as far as I know).
In other words, what the CMIP models say is unvalidated and highly likely to be wrong. And that is before comparing the output to real world data. The basic rules of statistics are being violated here.
You do not have to be a connoisseur to notice that the wine you are tasting is sour.
Art
It is worse than you realize. The unstated assumption is that the models are basically correct, and only vary a small amount from the ‘true’ value(s). If there is a fundamental flaw, and they are all seriously wrong because of the shared code, then averaging all of them will NOT provide the right answer. Under the best of circumstances, there can only be one ‘best’ answer. Averaging all the rest of the poor answers with it means that the average is not better, but worse. Of course, the trick is identifying the ‘best’ answer. A good place to start is to see if past forecasts turn out to have been a good match to the climate of today, and then look to see if there are some identifiable traits of the better models.
commie ==> Your friend’s father was quite right: My recommendation is to Read More, Read Widely, and Read Critically..
When I say “Do your own research” — I generally mean Ridley’s “Examine the evidence for yourself.”
“Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.”
― Konrad Lorenz
I have a nephew who recently got his PhD in microbiology and is currently doing postdoc work. He has said when laying out his coursework, his advisor told him not to bother with advanced statistical classes because there are experts who can “give him what he needs”. I thought to myself, how appropriate to climate science. Collect data, give it to someone, and tell them what you expect the data to show. Voila! It comes back with all kinds of mathematical gyrations showing exactly what you thought the result would be. Glad to say he decided to take the courses anyway.
I have argued with many on twitter about significant digits and propagation of measurement uncertainty. Invariably they end up falling back on the quote that the Central Limit Theory says a sample mean will converge on the true mean and that the error reduces by 1/sqrt N. Of course this cancels all errors and uncertainty in the original recorded measurements. They combine station data (populations) without a worry in the world about increasing variance when doing this. They find averages out to three decimal places and then subtract them from integer data to “calculate” anomalies that have three decimal places.
These people are basically math types that play with numbers and have no comprehension about the physical world. They have never worked with their hands. They have never built walls and had the ceiling look wavy because you didn’t check the 2×4 lengths in the walls. They have never had a crankshaft not turn because you ordered bearings using the low spots instead of the high spots. Measurements, measurements what’s the big deal? If you average enough of them you’ll get a perfectly accurate answer, right?
Ask some of these scientists if they have ever had even an introductory course in metrology.
Jim,
Of course they ignore the part of CLT that assumes the distribution is normal. As you imply, treating accuracy limits as precision errors is another great sin. But then, in theory, accuracy is always perfect and errors are normally distributed. Too bad the real world refuses to bend to theory.
Jim
+1
Wow. If I have low spots and high spots I get that crank reground, I would never order shells first.
The Central Limit Theorem applies to random samples from the same sample space. The problem with how it is used in some branches of science is that some errors are not random : they are systemic. Also, the CLT is often (mis-)used to average errors from different sample spaces.
For example, a climate computer model is deterministic. There is no randomness except to the extent that it may use a random number generator in order to create different outputs from different computer runs. In this case, averaging the results of these runs would enable a closer estimate of the true mean value of all runs for that model. This says absolutely nothing at all about whether that model properly represents the actual climate.
Each climate model will have its own error sample space. When the results of different CIMP models are averaged together, they are not even averaging errors from the same sample space. The idea that the mean of these computer models contains less error than the individual models is not justified and the notion that the average is a better representation of the real climate is sophistry.
Elementary metrology was the first lab in Physics 100. Having built lots of model planes and things I had learned a lot about mis-measuring. The lab showed how, with a random sampling of measurements, it was possible to get very, very close to and exact figure. It took the whole class, 30 students, the whole period to measure an 18.382in. long piece of steel with a ruler marked in 1/2in. increments. The final measure was 18.387in. about 300 measurements.
It’s a wonderful trick but the profs never tell students the necessary condition for it to work. I used to do a similar lab in which students would extract a beautiful sine wave that had been buried in 20 db of noise. The necessary condition is, of course, that the noise averages out to zero.
The problem lies in the nature of noise. Red noise, also called Brownian noise, is characterized by its predominantly low frequency content and can resemble a slow drift or a random walk.
Red noise does not average zero. It can be a real bear to deal with.
The main problem is not with laypeople – it’s with the orthodoxy attempting to silence others that have just a deep an understanding as they do, but conflict with their beliefs. If this problem was extinguished the whole “do your own research” nonsense would not even exist.
Dave N ==> I sort of agree with you. we need to return to civil and productive scientific discourse in which opposing scientific views are hashed out and evidence shared and evaluated until, bit by bit, the truth comes out.
Even then, in order to understand what those fine scientists have sorted out, the active mind will still have to examine the evidence for themselves.
The cases of ordinary people doing cutting edge research are too numerous to list.
One example is the Surface Station Survey that pre-dated and initiated Watts Up With That. Volunteers, many without credentials, photographed weather stations across the country. Those pictures demonstrated the poor siting of long-term temperature sensors and produced many important scientific findings.
Agriculture and animal husbandry made enormous scientific leaps that gave rise to civilization without a single academic involved. Even today individual farmers record and analyze data and adjust practices without the imprimatur of certified “scientists”.
Most of the great inventions we rely upon today were made without the involvement of government authorized “experts”.
Indeed, the application of approved science to policy is a modern practice that has failed in almost every case. The Covid-19 crisis, global warming, endangered species protection, and almost every discipline that relies on peer-reviewed journals are examples of the failure of “normal science”.
Just because a so-called scientist has a stamp of approval from some bureaucracy, political party, or university is no reason to accept their findings. It’s just the opposite — they are probably wrong. Question authority is the best advice.
I don’t wish to get too exercised by this topic, but every day on WUWT we see examples of the dunderheads of “science” making ridiculous pronouncements. Agenda-driven science is the bane of our age and the mothers’ milk of tyranny and propaganda.
I wonder if Ethan Siegel, Senior Contributor, and certified science writer is the fact-checker at Googers or Farcebook. Is he the empty jogging sweats who CENSORS medical doctors and other true experts who dare disagree with Woke-Approved Science?
We have been house-arrested and our economy crippled by power-grabbing morons, thieves, and dementia sufferers who claim to “follow the science” but are actually following a pack of lies of their own creation.
Trusting “science” from pathological liars and petty dictators is the worst thing society can do. The High Priests are frauds and quacks of the first order. Trust your own common sense.
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
Churchill
We need a much better understanding of experts. You trust some experts with your life whether you realize it or not. Those are people who have demonstrated that they can perform certain tasks reliably.
The other type of expert merely knows a lot about a topic. They have no demonstrated expertise other than regurgitating facts and sounding erudite. A dart-throwing chimp makes more accurate predictions. link
Because of perverse incentives, most published research findings are wrong. That puts scientists in the same boat as economists … unreliable.
Society has to learn to ignore experts, especially serial failed prognosticators. Instead, we beg them to tell us how to run our lives. It’s a bit disgusting.
Most of these are wrong because they ignore measurement uncertainty and assume the error of the sample mean applies to the general data population. I have been watching how many papers even discuss propagation of uncertainty. Almost none do or at least their abstracts don’t. No wonder their claims of absolute proof and accuracy are proven wrong so often.
Unfortunately for most people research = Google (or insert your preferred search engine).
I may have missed it but I haven’t seen a post here on The Social Dilemma, the ‘documentary’ on Netflix. It’s interesting but to me the most interesting take away is that algorithms essentially function on the principle of confirmation bias. The point is to keep you online, not provide a breadth of information. We’re all more likely to agree with what our biases lean towards and those algorithms will trend you in that direction. So you’re somewhat unlikely to find contradictory and accurate information.
As john rattray says above the real problem is that Science and Politics are no longer remotely separate. I expect they never truly have but now “Science” is wielded as both a shield and a sword, notably in the media and by politicians. It is neither. As such, the information we are now presented with is not presented to us as “make up your mind” but rather “we made up your mind for you and we are beyond question”. That’s not science and it never has been, never will be.
Keep in mind those with university degrees form a significantly small proportion of the population. Those with degrees in actual sciences (not ‘social sciences’) are significantly smaller again. Those with the integrity to remain unbiased, willfully or not, is infinitesimally smaller again. Science, in the moment, cannot inform us. It’s a process that requires time.
Search engines are fine – so long as you realize that there is a bias involved. Even without the engine provider placing a heavy thumb on the scale, what you will get as the “top ranked” results are only what the majority using the engine has eventually gone to. Every one of those is going to be biased in different ways – and facts are NOT politics that are subject to a vote!
You have to do your own research to separate the sheep from the goats. Some “scientists” have agendas that do not necessarily include the objective truth, as much as that is possible. Some seek to deceive, and if that works out well for them others, being imperfect humans, will copy their methods. Just because you are highly educated, it does not follow that you are highly ethical.
Scientists are human, after all, and are subject to the same human foibles as all of us. In fact many “ordinary” people have noted the strange phenomenon that some people, the more “educated” they are in one area, seem to become stoopider in other areas…
Without “do your own research” some of the most important scientific discoveries would never have been made.
The British Science Association would disagree with Siegel … and for that matter, should ‘scientists’ be allowed anywhere near statistics ?
” [ … ] we see science as the way in which we explore the natural and social world. We see its influences in fields ranging from mathematics to engineering, and medicine to economics. But even with this broad and inclusive definition and scope, science is often seen as too complex for anyone but experts.
This is a problem. Science is too important, valuable and fascinating to be left to professional scientists alone. For the good of society, the public, and scientific progress itself, science needs a broader community.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2015/dec/01/science-not-just-for-scientists
Thanks for the link Streetcred. Very occasionally, the Guardian puts out a really good article. This was one of them.
I understand that scientists have to find funding to do what they do. But at the end of the day, the government funding comes from the pockets of taxpayers. It’s a bit like the ABC here in Australia, they’re funded to the tune of a billion dollars annually. They are politically left wing to the extreme. Most mainstream Australians refuse to tune in to them and resent that they are publicly funded.
Similarly, grants are being handed out willy nilly for some ludicrous studies that will do nothing to further anyone other than the person applying for the grant.
So to follow on from that, I see the rollout of renewable energy, supporting batteries and EV’s as a threat to the planet. With this choice of energy we are not only going backwards in regard to energy density, we are wasting valuable resources, creating vast environmental problems, ignoring humanitarian issues and destroying economies.
We ordinary folk are simply told to ‘trust the scientists’. Now I have no education in mathematics or science, but I know that this ‘cure’ for a problem that does not exist is beyond just being plain wrong.
Now, I only know from discovering this site that there are large numbers of scientists who agree with me. Except of course, you know why it’s all BS. I can only put down my doubts to ‘gut feeling’ or even just plain common sense. Of course collectively, you have helped me gain a greater understanding. I would hope that when I say that I’ve done a great deal of ‘research’ on a subject you would realise that I am referring to related articles. I have read thousands, from different sources and different perspectives. Of course, I’m not pretending it equates to government ‘research grants’ or that it covers to depth of research required of a scientist. But it’s the best I can do and it’s the only form of research available to me.
The MSM are not going promote alternative views on science. I just don’t get why some scientists are offended that laymen use the term ‘research’ when we’re describing our method learning. How else are we supposed to get information if we don’t read up on it?
The general public are paying the scientists who aren’t privately funded through our taxes. The public are being told only what the ‘consensus’ peer buddy scientists want them to know. This is grossly misleading and the public deserve to know that there are many scientists out there who do not agree with what is driving government policies globally.
Thanks for the opportunity to make my point to a broader audience Streetcred, it was originally my intention to keep out of this one.
How many early inventions and discoveries were made by “laymen”? They certainly couldn’t depend on experts because there were none. Everything we know today started with someone making a discovery. Before we had learned experts there was no discovery? Thomas Edison did his own research. Enough said.
Seigel thinks he’s a scientist, but Seigel is not scientific.
Hand waving at vague and vast swaths of scientific knowledge (generalities) has he does with, “In our own fields, we are aware of the full suite of data, of how those puzzle pieces fit together, and what the frontiers of our knowledge is [sic]” is not scientific. Its an old trick of scientific shysters, charlatans, and high priests too. It’s all too complicated for mere morals like you to understand. Leave it to us to ensure the rain falls as it should. Go back to your hovels, we shall call upon when we need your sweaty backs to build a taller pyramid.
F = ma, e = cm2. These are scientific proclamations. Concise statements open to evaluation by all. Neither of which explain gravity, so please feel free to come up with something better. In the meantime, these work well enough for most of our purposes
At best Seigel is a philosopher with an obvious political bias. Specifically, authoritarianism (i.e. modern Liberalism, which has only a slight resemblance to the dictionary definition of the word liberal). No conservative would write such a piece because no conservative would deign to take away, with one puny, illogical essay, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit happiness (i.e. knowledge), or the right to make up ones own mind on political maters, which is what he’s really taking about (not science).
And is anyone shocked that Portlandians reject the science on fluoride? Assuredly not I.
Thomas
Seigel is writing on a topic that is outside his personal expertise. Should we trust the opinion of someone who violates his own guidelines?
The motto of the Royal Society says it very succinctly, Nullius in Verba or “on the word of no one”. Science is structured debate. When the debates is over, the science is over.
No it isn’t.
The debate is never over. As Feynman made so clear in his lectures. “WE can only ever be wrong”. Yes there are laws that are provable by observation repeatedly BUT, there may be better laws that more completely describe the natural phenomena. It is true that a law repeatedly proven by observation may be considered proven science until a more precise law is formulated, but theories that are disproven by observation are wrong in fact.
B