[HN Gopher] The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science ___________________________________________________________________ The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science Author : zmaten Score : 51 points Date : 2021-03-08 20:10 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (rogerpielkejr.substack.com) (TXT) w3m dump (rogerpielkejr.substack.com) | carrolldunham wrote: | before you spend 5 minutes searching for the real emissions line | on the graph, it looks like a slight bolding of one of the | labelled lines that ends in about 2018 | ncmncm wrote: | The blue one with the dip around 2009? | leephillips wrote: | It happens in theoretical physics, too. Papers using the debunked | "minimum energy production principle" still occasionally appear. | | https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.pc.31.... | kjrose wrote: | From my time working within an academic environment, I can attest | this is absolutely true. Especially since the gatekeepers (older | professors, etc) have a general interest to see these older | articles cited more and referenced. It's not malicious, it's just | a fact of how these things work. It's also why the general | public's knowledge of how science works needs to be adjusted. | Science is not a "100% correct" or "100% not correct" thing, and | unfortunately I've seen too many institutions and individuals use | that myth to try and push an agenda. | | It's a combination of institutional momentum, combined with the | fact that a specific narrative is politically expedient. The | unfortunate thing is bad decisions, made off of bad science, | regardless of the reasons external to the science, generally lead | to bad outcomes. | soperj wrote: | >It's not malicious, it's just a fact of how these things work | | While I agree it's not malicious, I'd say the reason it works | this way is that there is a financial incentive to have it work | this way. | philipkglass wrote: | _The graph shows emissions trajectories projected by the most | commonly used climate scenarios (called SSP5-8.5 and RCP8.5, with | labels on the right vertical axis), along with other scenario | trajectories. Actual emissions to date (dark purple curve) and | those of near-term energy outlooks (labeled as EIA, BP and | ExxonMobil) all can be found at the very low end of the scenario | range, and far below the most commonly used scenarios._ | | RCP 8.5 was _intended_ as the highest-emissions scenario, not the | most likely scenario. | | "RCP 8.5--A scenario of comparatively high greenhouse gas | emissions (2011)" | | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-011-0149-y | | _This paper summarizes the main characteristics of the RCP8.5 | scenario. The RCP8.5 combines assumptions about high population | and relatively slow income growth with modest rates of | technological change and energy intensity improvements, leading | in the long term to high energy demand and GHG emissions in | absence of climate change policies. Compared to the total set of | Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), RCP8.5 thus | corresponds to the pathway with the highest greenhouse gas | emissions._ | | Even 10 years ago, when this paper was published, it was apparent | that technology and energy intensity were improving more than the | RCP 8.5 scenario posited. I don't know if RCP 8.5 has since been | misused as a most common scenario, but the original post quoted | above doesn't quantify that either. | incompatible wrote: | Looking a CO2 measurements, I don't see much sign that the rate | of increase is slowing down: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital- | signs/carbon-dioxide/. Do the current models assume it will | accelerate even faster? | sien wrote: | From the article : | | "For instance, O'Neill and colleagues find that "many studies" | use scenarios that are "unlikely." In fact, in their literature | review such "unlikely" scenarios comprise more than 20% of all | scenario applications from 2014 to 2019. They also call for | "re-examining the assumptions underlying" the high-end | emissions scenarios that are favored in physical climate | research, impact studies and economic and policy analyses. As a | result of such high prevalence of such studies in the | literature, they are also the most commonly cited within | scientific assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on | Climate Change. O'Neill and colleagues find that the highest | emission scenarios comprise about 30% of all applications in | studies over the past five years, from a family of 35 different | scenarios that they surveyed." | zqfm wrote: | Maybe off the wall, but my first thought is certificate | revocation. Could there be (or is there already) a semi- | centralized database of research that should no longer be cited? | With maybe a dependency graph of research that maybe needs to be | revisited? | ahelwer wrote: | Science's decentralized nature is a strength, not a weakness. | Do you really think such a database would be immune to coercion | from, say, Monsanto or Chevron? | probably_wrong wrote: | I've thinking how to make this idea work, but the more I think | about it the less I think it's viable. | | First, you would be centralizing the ability to "cancel" | papers. One bad member of the board could wreak havok. | Simultaneously, people in charge of the database would be | constantly bombarded by pleas (not all of them honest) to | revoke this and that researcher's paper. So it would be bad for | both sides. | | You could get away with something like Retraction Watch, but | you'll always be behind - you could keep track of which papers | were retracted (which is already a lot of work), but not every | paper that needs to be revised is retracted. | | I guess figuring out a perfect system for deciding which ideas | are right is hard. | heyitsguay wrote: | Maybe instead of a centralized repository, individuals could be | given the ability to create their own partial sets of | recommendations that could be aggregated by a user. Instead of | trying to globally solve trust and designation of expertise, | you explicitly define the group of people whom you designate | experts and whose assessments you trust. | quercusa wrote: | There's something quite like this in US law. If you are citing | a case in a legal brief, you need to make sure it hasn't been | overturned along the way, so you 'Shepardize' it. From | Wikipedia [0]: | | _Shepard 's Citations is a citator used in United States legal | research that provides a list of all the authorities citing a | particular case, statute, or other legal authority. The verb | Shepardizing refers to the process of consulting Shepard's to | see if a case has been overturned, reaffirmed, questioned, or | cited by later cases._ | | [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard%27s_Citations | eecc wrote: | WOT signed endorsements. Back when I had time I drafted a P2P | application to share papers and execute peer review via GPG | based digital signatures. Signed metadata - at least that was | the plan - allowed communities to endorse, retract, flag spam | in a distributed opt-in manner. | | It's rotting on GitHub, never managed to drum up enough | interest... | sam_lowry_ wrote: | Sounds like a great idea. WOT did not work for general | public, but scientists are very different. | mjevans wrote: | Things that work for the general public need to be far less | technical and way more automatic; from an end user | experience perspective. | | WoT could work exceedingly well for a decentralized | replacement of Facebook... though at that point there's | also the issue of competing against a walled garden with | moats and most of the population already inside. | ChuckMcM wrote: | This is a good read, although somewhat depressing. | | When you have a topic that has been weaponized politically, as | climate change has, people who use that weapon actively work | against information they _perceive_ would make the weapon less | effective. The author sums it up as follows: | | ---- from the article: | | According to Rayner, in such a context we should expect to see | reactions to uncomfortable knowledge that include: | | _denial_ -- (that scenarios are off track), | | _dismissal_ -- (the scenarios are off track, but it doesn't | matter), | | _diversion_ -- (the scenarios are off track, but saying so | advances the agenda of those opposed to action) and, | | _displacement_ -- (the scenarios are off track but there are | perhaps compensating errors elsewhere within scenario | assumptions). | | ---- end include. | | Not enough people understand that science is _expected_ to be | wrong, and to converge over time to the correct answer. That is | is _okay_ to say "We used to think this, but these | studies/experiments have shown that understanding to be | incorrect. Now we believe this." That is how science works. And | sadly when it is politicized, it becomes much harder to have | conversations about it. | marshmallow_12 wrote: | It's been a long time since i've read anything so well written | that was so devoid of any pertinent points. I'm only reading that | page, but the only thing i've come away with is that breast | cancer research is flawed, somehow, by what seems to be the most | egregious lack of anything that approaches professional standards | on the part of researchers. | | Oh, and a graph with different lines drawn on it with a large | space between some of them. | williesleg wrote: | Global warming? | ravenstine wrote: | This reminds me of a talk I watched about research into human | pheromones. | | The speaker talked about how literature and studies on pheromones | all lead back to 1 or 2 old studies that were basically | considered bunk, but researchers kept citing it, and other | researchers would also cite the other studies that linked back to | the original low-quality studies. His point was that the whole | field of research into human pheromones needs to blow away all | the literature up to this point and start over because the whole | thing is so tainted, and few are willing to actually make sense | of what's true or false with what currently exists because so | much of it is self-referential. | | It wouldn't surprise me in the least that there are other areas | of science that border on needing to start from scratch. | | EDIT: I believe it may have been this talk, but I don't have time | to scan the whole thing just yet. It looks like he begins talking | about the problematic research after ~17 minutes. It's still | worth watching none the less: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLENtzBbXdY | H_Pylori wrote: | I call it "The founder effect" of bad studies. Essentially the | first few studies set the tone for the rest of the field, and | it's very hard to correct the course due to the momentum. I'm | glad people are starting to notice. | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-08 23:00 UTC)