Spotting bogus science

[Samus]

http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b02001.htm

Found this on Slashdot today. This seems right up our alley.

[arcticpenguin]

Robert Park also writes a weekly column, What's New (http://www.aps.org/WN/) which appears on the APS (American Physical Society) site, and has written a book Voodoo Science (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195147103/qid=1047055055/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-6279474-7395321).

[tim]

Nice one dwb. Good rule of thumb guide to fake stuff - deliberate or otherwise.

[Kiri]

Originally posted by dwb
http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b02001.htm

Found this on Slashdot today. This seems right up our alley.

Bully!
(raises in salute a frosty mug of fusing deuterium in which there is suspended a tiny Raelian fetus)

-Kiri the unicorn

[Andonyx]

You ungrateful Bas**rds!

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15235

Not one reply! Not one!!!!

[dsm]

Originally posted by dwb
http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b02001.htm

Found this on Slashdot today. This seems right up our alley.

Whoops. You beat me by a few hours in posting it here.

Given the nature of the article, perhaps Randi could get the author (Park) to donate it to JREF for permanent placement on the JREF home page? Anyone know how to suggest that to Randi?

[Kiri]

Originally posted by Andonyx
You ungrateful Bas**rds!

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15235

Not one reply! Not one!!!!

Gee, I'm sorry, I hadn't spotted that one...
How can I make it up to you?

Originally posted by Andonyx
You ungrateful Bas**rds!

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15235

Not one reply! Not one!!!!

Now I'm REALLY confused.... (http://66.192.47.137/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15277)

[metacristi]

dwb

The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation. A new law of nature, invoked to explain some extraordinary result, must not conflict with what is already known. If we must change existing laws of nature or propose new laws to account for an observation, it is almost certainly wrong.


Whilst I agree that 'ad hoc' explanations are not very reliable I think we must learn something from the history of science:there are many examples of 'ad hoc' hypotheses that later proved to be accepted scientific facts upon all 'canons' of the scientific method as Planck's quanta hypothesis or Pauli's neutrino hypothesis,to mention only two of them.The 'almost certainly wrong' 'pronounciation' is certainly a too strong conclusion.We will live and we will see.

Now it's all depending on what is meant by 'new laws of nature'.There are two possibilities here:

1.Totally new laws that must be added to the existing ones without contradicting with them.

Well this is a very possible situation especially in the 'border' sciences where we can place a weaker confidence in our scientific theories.For example in cosmology a strange new force having 'anti gravitational' effects [acting at very high scales] seems to be a very good 'ad hoc' hypothesis in order to explain the observed acceleration and the [almost] flateness of the universe.Well,in my opinion,I do not think is wise to label such a proposal asa being 'bogus science'.Happily,as far as I know,the majority of cosmologists take this hypothesis very seriously.


2.The old paradigm cannot handle the observed phenomena,a new one that,apart from handling the previous known phenomena,is capable to account for the new facts is needed.


Well,again,here scientists are in a very difficult situation.The 'falsification' of a theory in practice is notoriously hard to do.From what I've seen there is a dangerous tendence to consider that all unexplained experimental results are affected by unknown errors of procedure or that the observed phenomena were affected by unknown perturbations that were not accounted for in the mathematical model.Basically the proposal is to try to 'fit' all strange experimental facts within the currently accepted paradigm of science.Even if there are experiements that cannot be explained by the current paradigm physicists prefer to ignore them and keep the paradigm as much as there is still no sound experiment that to falsify it.This is no new news at the end of 19-th century and the beginning of the 20-th the majority of physicists tried desperatly to 'fit' quantum phenomena with classical physics.Even Planck,after proposing the quanta hypothesis,still tried that as he would witness later.The reality that there is a conservatorism at the new intrinsically linked with human psychology.Basically I do not find something wrong with that,it's good to be skeptical,only that things must never be pushed to the extreme.My proposal is to be open to all such scientific hypotheses that have power of explanation,even 'ad hoc' ones.Sure being open does not imply to consider them as being scientific knowledge 'provisional truth' but clearly some of them could become that.

As an example,I've read some time ago [in 'New York Times' online] an excellent article regarding the fate of General Relativity.It was free at that time unfortunately now one must pay to read it...It begin with 'Roll on Einstein...'
The idea behind the article is exctly that there are some experiments whose results do not 'fit' with the predictions of GR.For example the energy measured of the cosmic rays arriving on Earth is greater than the energy predicted by GR.Previsibly there are two camps in the scientific camp:a small group of 'mavericks' and 'the bulk'.Of course 'the bulk' explained the strange results as being due to perturbations of an unknown cause,cosmic rays energy still being well modeled by GR as we know today,we only lacking the ability to take in account all relevant parameters.
Still the maverick group proposed a new Relativity [proposed by Lee Smolin et all] that take into account the new data whilst accounting also for all other already known facts.They even advanced a term that beyond 2050 GR as we know today will become 'extinct' and replaced with a better one either the already proposed variant or another one.Of course my subjective preference is that of maverick's group but I am totally open to make the constattion that 'the bulk' of physicists is right.


If I remember well [but I am not sure of that,I've read the article in december 2002 the newly proposed formula for energy [and from here all formulas of GR] is:

E=[m*c^2]/{1+[m*c^2/Eg]}

where Eg=10^(19) [eV]

Interesting stuff,enough to make me skeptical about 'if we must change existing laws of nature or propose new laws to account for an observation, it is almost certainly wrong'...

[metacristi]

E=[m*c^2]/{1+[m*c^2/Eg]}

where Eg=10^(19) [eV]


Of course given that E > m*c^2 the formula should be:


E=[m*c^2]/{1-[m*c^2/Eg]}

where Eg=10^(19) [eV][/QUOTE]

[metacristi]

As I've said I'm not sure about the mathematical formula and some other details:the value of Eg,the unit of measurement for it [eV or J ?] or if there is a square root in the formula;unfortunately I've lost the paper where I've wrote it.

I found however the title of the article,here it is for all those interested,toghether with a link [unfortunately one must pay to read it]:

E=mc^2,equality,it seems,is relative (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10916F93F5B0C728FDDAB0994DA4044 82)

And the first paragraph is 'Roll over,Einstein' indeed.

[metacristi]

Strange the above link doesn't work.Maybe this will work:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10916F93F5B0C728FDDAB0994DA4044 82

[rwald]

I don't see the conflict. We now know that relativity isn't a complete picture of the universe; that's why we're developing superstring theory and loop quantum gravity. GR works well enough that we know its predictions are accurate in a given set of conditions, but outside those conditions (like in black holes, for example), the theory breaks.

[BillyJoe]

[NASA] is investing close to a million dollars in an obscure Russian scientist's antigravity machine, although it has failed every test and would violate the most fundamental laws of nature Podkletnovski?

UCE was supporting this guy some time back predicting that his antigravity machine would expose science as dogma.

Any advances UCE?


[edit: cut off the "ski" and I think we have him]

[metacristi]

rwald

We now know that relativity isn't a complete picture of the universe; that's why we're developing superstring theory and loop quantum gravity. GR works well enough that we know its predictions are accurate in a given set of conditions, but outside those conditions (like in black holes, for example), the theory breaks.


There is a total distinction between knowing that a theory is not complete and knowing that it is falsified [in both senses of 'complete':the best possible theory on a specific domain and as 'theory of everything'].
For example we know very well that GR and standard QM are incompatible mathematically still this does not mean that GR is falsified.In fact there is no known experiment that falsify GR at quantum level,from what I've read the latest experiments show that for distances of 0.1 [mm] the inverse square law still holds well.Therefore we can still use GR even at quantum level though knowing that it is not a 'theory of everything'.

But in my above example GR,as Einstein constructed it,is falsified if the experiments measuring the energy of cosmic rays are well conducted.This is a much stronger claim for we should change the currently accepted paradigm,be it only marginally as in my previous example.
In fact it is well known that,in practice a paradigm is abandoned only after the discovery of more anomalies that cannot be explained inside the curently accepted paradigm.A single one,even several ones are generally ignored.
No one can exclude the possibility that an inventor could actually find such a phenomenon which to force us to change paradigm,this is not necesarily 'bogus' science.




Black holes themselves are predicted by GR,I will not enter here in a polemic arguing against the certitude of existence of black holes [some observed well that in the case of all indirect evidence we have 'black holes hypothesis' is only one possible explanation],maybe black holes do exist.
However I'd argue that even if GR predicts somehow its own annihilation inside black holes [due to the predicted infinite curvature of spacetime at its center] this does not 'confirm' by itself this prediction.Only experiments can do that.Maybe the curvature is finite and the mathematical formulas still hold.Given that science is fallible we have the right to have doubts.Even in the case of provisional truth given by our succesfull [so far] scientific theories.
It's interesting to note that if this prediction is infirmed then the theory falls,it should be considered as falsified,still the mathematical model could work inside the black hole too!.If it is confirmed then the theory can be labeled at most as being incomplete.

[metacristi]

Some might argue,rightly,that the vast majority of 'anomalies' do not contradict directly the predictions made by the theories of an accepted paradigm.But the simple fact that there are phenomena,certified by well conducted experiments,that resist at all attempts to be 'fitted' inside the accepted theories,made by the brightest minds in the scientific field,is a hint that a shift in paradigm is needed.

At limit quantum phenomena can be seen as 'anomalies' for GR.QM is known to be incompatible with GR indeed however no one reject it,the reason is that QM has many experimental 'confirmations'.
However in the case of other experiments that do not fit in the GR frame [not contradicting it directly] this is,usually,not valid:in the majority of cases the hypotheses proposed to explain them are,for the moment,'ad hoc' ones.Probably from here appears the rush to reject them as being 'junk science'.As I argued above,this is not a sufficient reason to rule them out as much as the results of the experiments are valid.

A good example here is the atomic theory as proposed by Dalton in the early 19-th century.At the beginning it was only an 'ad hoc' hypothesis that explained well some chemical reactions.It was needed a cumulation of different indirect experimental methods,very different ones,in order to be accepted as being scientific,ranging from the capacity to explain the brownian movement and the kinetical theory of gases till Rutherford's experiments,over an enough long period of time.Nothing forbids the repetition of this scenario,clearly claiming 'errors of procedure' or the existence of 'perturbations of unkonwn nature' is not a sufficient reason to apriori label 'ad hoc' hypotheses as being 'junk science'.

[BillyJoe]

metachristi,

The following excerpt from the article by Robert Park.....

If we must change existing laws of nature or propose new laws to account for an observation, it is almost certainly wrong. .....is almost certainly correct.

New laws come along at best perhaps two or three times a century, not two or three times a year.
It is not a reason to reject a claim out of hand and Park is not saying that. All he is doing is giving us indicators of bogus science. The more of his seven indicators that apply in any one case the more likely it is bogus science. However, the seventh indicator (proposing new laws) is a particularly strong indicator.