Can Science be Trusted?

Tuesday 11 October 2022, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Any replies to the organizer - thormay@yahoo.com

Venue: ZOOM online

Focus Questions

1. What do you understand by 'science'?

2. How does science differ from both religion and (typically) politics?

3. What is a problem with the wording of this meetup topic? [How alert are you :) ?]

4. A large part of all human populations have no grasp of even basic science or most technology. Nor are many of them interested. What are the consequences of this ignorance and indifference.? What can be done about it?

5. Classical scientific method - testing an hypothesis by isolating variables - has worked pretty well some fields (which are?...) . However in some other fields, such as much medical research, and social sciences it is not easily used. Why? What are some other ways of investigating phenomena systematically?

6. What exactly is confirmation bias. What are some ways to minimize confirmation bias?

7. What is the replicability crisis?

8. Why has computing power, and computational methods become so critical for much scientific research?

9. When a very large family of problems, such as climate change, needs to be investigated reliably, what is the best way to go about it?

10. How effective is science journalism in communicating important research to different levels of the general population? What barriers does it face? How familiar are you personally with easily readable information on scientific research (e.g. sciencedaily.com) ? What about other mediums like Youtube videos?

Extra Reading

Alexandra Borissova (September 2022) “Does the earth revolve around the sun?” @ The Moscow Times @ https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/09/15/are-russians-science-savvy-a78767 . [Comment: 35% of Russians say no. 25% of Americans say no. 17% of Germans say no. 26% of Europeans overall say no. 19% of Israelis say no. 48% of Indians say no. Does this say something about the limits of mass education systems, or access to education, and/or the irreducible stupidity of a big chunk of every population? Maybe a bit of all those things. What are the consequences?]

For a summary of much current research in science, see https://www.sciencedaily.com/ [There are quite a few other internet sites like this at various levels of sophistication ]

Sheldrake, Rupert (2020) "The Science Delusion" Youtube audio @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeKpjrjKT6o [60 minutes. Sheldrake introduces the ideas in his book. Thor, comment: approach this material with a critical mind, not necessarily rejecting it, but questioning Sheldrake's own propositions].

Kelsey Piper (October 14, 2020) "Science has been in a “replication crisis” for a decade. Have we learned anything? Bad papers are still published. But some other things might be getting better". Vox @ https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21504366/science-replication-crisis-peer-review-statistics

Ed Yong (November 20, 2018) "Psychology’s Replication Crisis Is Running Out of Excuses - Another big project has found that only half of studies can be repeated. And this time, the usual explanations fall flat". The Atlantic @ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/psychologys-replication-crisis-real/576223/

Psychology Today Staff (n.d.) "Replication Crisis". Psychology Today @ https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/replication-crisis

Reginald Davey (April 13, 2022 ) "What is the Replication Crisis?" News-Medical @ https://www.news-medical.net/life-sciences/What-is-the-Replication-Crisis.aspx

Nicola KS Davis (24 September 2022) "Forensic anthropologist Sue Black: ‘The body is really just layers upon layers of memory .. Sue Black will explore existential questions about what makes us who we are, and how others can identify us. ’". The Guardian @ https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/sep/23/forensic-anthropologist-dame-sue-black-royal-institution-christmas-lectures

Edward R Dougherty January 25, 2022 Is artificial intelligence deserving of all the hype? Yes, but it is important to develop new theories concerning big data and AI" . Asia Times @ https://asiatimes.com/2022/01/is-artificial-intelligence-deserving-of-all-the-hype/ [Quote: "AI is being used to address many practical problems, such as text mining and facial recognition. The basic building block of AI is a deep neural network. These are extremely complex mathematical structures consisting of very simple computational elements that are assembled into numerous layers to produce computational machines. Data are input on one end and the variables determining the desired structure are output at the other., A single neural network can have hundreds of billions of parameters. These act like many billions of numerical knobs to turn, thereby allowing neural networks to represent extreme complexity.]

Sabine Hossenfelder (26 September 2022) "No one in physics dares say so, but the race to invent new particles is pointless". The Guardian @ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/26/physics-particles-physicists [Quote: "Imagine you go to a zoology conference. The first speaker talks about her 3D model of a 12-legged purple spider that lives in the Arctic. There’s no evidence it exists, she admits, but it’s a testable hypothesis, and she argues that a mission should be sent off to search the Arctic for spiders. ... Kudos to zoologists, I’ve never heard of such a conference. But almost every particle physics conference has sessions just like this, except they do it with more maths. It has become common among physicists to invent new particles for which there is no evidence, publish papers about them, write more papers about these particles’ properties, and demand the hypothesis be experimentally tested .."]

Sabine Hossenfelder "Science without the Gobbledygook - New video each Saturday". Youtube channel @ https://www.youtube.com/c/SabineHossenfelder

Sabine Hossenfelder (23 September 2020) "Follow the Science? Nonsense, I say ... - In which I express my dismay about journalists who conflate fact with opinion". Youtube @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGVIJSW0Y3k [4:20 minutes]

Andrew Huberman (20 July 2020) "Change Your Brain" [11,893,142 views; 2:12 hours] Youtube @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwQhKFMxmDY&t=2275s [Quote: "Dr. Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is an expert in neuroplasticity, and his work in the Huberman Lab has been featured in Science, Discover, Scientific American, Time, the New York Times, and countless peer-reviewed journals. .. Dr. Huberman is here to school us on all things neuroplasticity---and how we can use it to our advantage through intense focus, mindfulness, and restorative sleep".]

Rhys Blakely (October 1, 2022) "British journals forced to retract fake Chinese science papers - A recent report suggested one in 50 papers submitted to journals come from shadowy operations that produce falsified research."
The Australian @ https://amp.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/british-journals-forced-to-retract-fake-chinese-science-papers/news-story/7266f45086a34228fdbc4bdc4f285d86 [Quote: ""Hundreds of fake scientific papers from Chinese researchers have been published in British journals, prompting warnings of “industrialised cheating”. The publishing arm of the Institute of Physics, a society founded in London in 1874, has been forced to retract nearly 900 papers so far this year. At least 497 of them were claimed to have been written by Chinese researchers, on topics ranging from chemical engineering to artificial intelligence. Others were meant to be from scientists in India and Iran. In reality, the papers had been churned out by “paper mills”, shadowy operations that produce falsified research to order and arrange to have it published in western journals. To be named as an author of a paper costs from $US500 (about $780) to $US5000, depending on the calibre of the journal and how prominently your name is to appear, experts say. The services were being advertised yesterday (Friday) on Facebook. Springer Nature, a German-British academic publisher, is another victim. It said it had retracted 749 studies in the past nine months which it now believed came from paper mills."]

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