Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Seven warning signs of bogus science

warning-general-2.gif From the Geekend, Jay Garmon writes this caustic little piece. I was laughing until I really started to think about it.... And he is right. If you use this as an outline, then you can see that quite a few of the "new" discoveries are pretty much humbug. But it still is funny.


In an age where we still have to convince people that the Apollo landings actually happened and that perpetual motion devices don’t actually exist, it’s handy to have these Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science around to help the logically disinclined ferret out the charlatans among us:

  1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media.
  2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.
  3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.
  4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal.
  5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries.
  6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.
  7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

If your read New Scientist, particularly discoveries in astronomy, and particle physics, Point 7 is often at least suggested, if not directly invoked, and there is nothng wrong with that: current 'laws' of science are always open to challenge & new interpretation.

Point 6 is also weak - think Tesla, for eg...

Point 2 is a red herring also...actual science practice differs from science philosophy in that the practice is fraught with political and very human motives...

In summation,if we're going to attempt to provide a framework for discerning 'crackpots', let's at least keep it vaguely scientific itself (and leave out the emotive based non-scientifc elements of persuasion).

Anonymous said...

I must admit that I had the most trouble with 7. Mostly when it comes to discoveries in quantum sciences. However in point 2 when you think of Tesla, he worked alone because he wanted it that way. I am suspicious of someone who works alone because they say that they are being ignored when in truth they are working so far outside their respective fields that they are viewed as or are crackpots. But as a whole describe themselves as vangards of their fields. Sorry, for many fields, peer review is still an accepted filter of bogus science.

Anonymous said...

My Point 2 comment was not associated with Tesla (and his motives for working alone are irrelevant). However, point 2 can be applied to peer review, which is something I'm quite familiar with. To give you an example of the frailties of that process (and the impact of ego and politics), I was once told by a reviewer of a journal paper of mine, "I've never read that anywhere before!".

Well, of course, as I was publishing original research, that was the point, but was lost on the reviewer, who preferred to see the same old drivel dished up...

Point 2 can also be applied to contemporary research and development of electric cars (have a look at the 'Who killed the Electric Car' dvd). Appropriate batteries were designed and tested, and available for use in these cars, until an oil company bought the fledgling battery company and then withdrew the products from sale. Now, people are fed the same old (incorrect) line of "we have to wait until we have viable batteries before electric cars can be mass produced". This, of course, is a gross fallacy, but one that sits well with the vested interests of the oil industry. So science is very much at the mercy of powerful versted interests who wish to maintain a status quo.

The ego-related need to maintain the status quo in science in general tends to stifle new discoveries. The actual practice of science often does not parallel the philosophy of science and the scientific method. Unfortunately, peer review is carried out by imperfect humans (sometimes with psychological issues and low self-esteem!)

Anonymous said...

Again, I have no fault with your take on uncovering bogus science. You, being an insider, know full well the cracks in the system. But on the whole, I still stand on who better to know any system but the experts in that system. On most instances, I would want to be reviewed by my peers than someone who has only the barest outline idea of my line of work. Can this system be abused? Oh most certainly so! The tried and true are bound to be resistant to the new. FYI I have read "who killed the electric car" I was researching alternative power sources and was interested in steam and that lead me to electric. Their conclusions were correct to a point. But the major problem with electric wasnt so much the batteries in its infancy but the lack of an infrastructure to support the tech. Very much the same problem hydrogen is experiencing now. Difficulties in finding an efficient storage medium was the "straw" if you would.

But I do understand your basic point. The best system is peer review and the problem with peer review, is the peers!

Anonymous said...

Yes, that is a valid point, human weaknesses aside (if that is possible!), at the end of the day the problem is, of course, that the expertise of peers IS needed to provide a review etc. So, the question is (and as has been discussed much in recent times), how can the peer review process be improved? (an article in New Scientist proposed using a net forum to allow ideas to be posted for all interested parties to debate - whilst this could be a little unwieldly, at least the ideas get exposure, and silly egotistic comments would be transparent for all to see, which does not happen in the usual blind peer review process.)

Anonymous said...

Excellent idea! I at first thought that the forum would be more open to flaming, but I suspect that first off, they would be much better at moderating and without the mask of a avatar many would be less inclined to dismiss out of hand.