Science Done Darwin's Way

While Darwin probably didn't invent it, his use of pure inference without any objective evidence in the pursuit of an Atheistic Creation Story made science by opinion and story telling very popular. This is a natural extension of the defeat of the Baconian-Newtonian-Einsteinian-Feynmanian concept of science. Science is no longer objective, it is an Appeal to Authority Decree, especially in high dollar, government ideological projects.

J Scott Armstrong: Fewer Than 1 Percent Of Papers in Scientific Journals Follow Scientific Method

This is why science done in corporate settings where the pressure to publish - trash if necessary - does not exist. In the real world, there are real truths to be found in order to manufacture consistent products. These are used, not published. And consequently, this is why my position is that universities should teach and leave research to the private sector. When the private sector finds it profitable to license its findings, then research will be competently transferred to the world.

According to Armstrong, very little of the forecasting in climate change debate adheres to these criteria. “For example, for disclosure, we were working on polar bear [population] forecasts, and we were asked to review the government’s polar bear forecast. We asked, ‘could you send us the data’ and they said ‘No’… So we had to do it without knowing what the data were.”

According to Armstrong, forecasts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) violate all eight criteria.

“Why is this all happening? Nobody asks them!” said Armstrong, who says that people who submit papers to journals are not required to follow the scientific method. “You send something to a journal and they don’t tell you what you have to do. They don’t say ‘here’s what science is, here’s how to do it.'”

Digging deeper into their motivations, Armstrong pointed to the wealth of incentives for publishing papers with politically convenient rather than scientific conclusions.

“They’re rewarded for doing non-scientific research. One of my favourite examples is testing statistical significance – that’s invalid. It’s been over 100 years we’ve been fighting the fight against that. Even its inventor thought it wasn’t going to amount to anything. You can be rewarded then, for following an invalid [method].”

“They cheat. If you don’t get statistically significant results, then you throw out variables, add variables, [and] eventually you get what you want.”

“My big thing is advocacy. People are asked to come up with certain answers, and in our whole field that’s been a general movement ever since I’ve been here, and it just gets worse every year. And the reason is funded research.”

“I’ve [gone through] my whole career, with lots of publications, and I’ve never gotten a research grant. And I’m proud of that now.”

Armstrong concluded his talk by arguing that scientific evidence should be required for all climate regulations.

Well, guess what:

House approves bill to force public release of EPA science

And why must the EPA be FORCED to make their science public? What are they hiding? We'll know soon, unless they "resist", of course, in which case the entire operation should be closed for fumigation. Maybe even permanently.

Interesting times!