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Whoops! This does beg a question... Does science deserve a higher standard of opacity for publicly funded research than our government overall? My sense is "

Whoops! This does beg a question... Does science deserve a higher standard of opacity for publicly funded research than our government overall? My sense is "let the process work to separate the signal from the noise" but I'd like to hear what others say.

aristus 13y ago
I'm not sure what you're getting at (higher standard of opacity?) but in general, the consensus has been shifting toward open data and more open publishing (eg, ArXiv). But regardless of the level of openness, it's quite possible for Science to be wrong, badly wrong, for years. Check out the story of Dr Moniz, for example: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1949/moniz-article.html http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/19...
- mathattack 13y ago
  What I mean is, should we allow scientists a couple years to interpret the data from their experiments and models before forcing them to share it? Should we (as taxpayers funding the research) require them to disclose results before the peer review process? I hear you on science being wrong. One of the best things about science is there is a self-correcting mechanism, though it takes a while. As one physics professor said, "A change in paradigm doesn't wait for the old masters to retire, it waits until they die."
qwerta 13y ago
There are laws for data disclosure in public sector. In UK scientists were actually forced to disclose their source data by such law.
mturmon 13y ago
All of the AR5 findings are based on published peer reviewed research. Working backward from the AR5 report deadlines, there is a deadline for appearance of the research in order to be potentially included in the final consensus report. In this sense, it is all open. I think the issue in this case is that you can't take a graph from such a paper, or from a draft report, and interpret it in the absence of its context. This is a complex topic and there is a reason why they get the experts in a room to argue it out. In particular, lay people tend to be myopic. With every piece of information, they tend not to ask, "is this true?"' or "does this fit with other related physics and phenomena I know in depth?" They just cut right to the end, and ask, "does this favor or disfavor my prior conceptions about climate change?" To make a crude analogy, lay people tend to treat this like sports and not like science. So, that's why you let the process work and look at the final result. Unless you're a domain expert, you won't know how to interpret the arguments that lead up to the result. I know several contributors to the AR5 research, and slightly know a couple of people in the IPCC working group.

aristus 13y ago

I'm not sure what you're getting at (higher standard of opacity?) but in general, the consensus has been shifting toward open data and more open publishing (eg, ArXiv). But regardless of the level of openness, it's quite possible for Science to be wrong, badly wrong, for years. Check out the story of Dr Moniz, for example: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1949/moniz-article.html http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/19...

mathattack 13y ago
What I mean is, should we allow scientists a couple years to interpret the data from their experiments and models before forcing them to share it? Should we (as taxpayers funding the research) require them to disclose results before the peer review process? I hear you on science being wrong. One of the best things about science is there is a self-correcting mechanism, though it takes a while. As one physics professor said, "A change in paradigm doesn't wait for the old masters to retire, it waits until they die."

qwerta 13y ago

There are laws for data disclosure in public sector. In UK scientists were actually forced to disclose their source data by such law.

mturmon 13y ago

All of the AR5 findings are based on published peer reviewed research. Working backward from the AR5 report deadlines, there is a deadline for appearance of the research in order to be potentially included in the final consensus report. In this sense, it is all open. I think the issue in this case is that you can't take a graph from such a paper, or from a draft report, and interpret it in the absence of its context. This is a complex topic and there is a reason why they get the experts in a room to argue it out. In particular, lay people tend to be myopic. With every piece of information, they tend not to ask, "is this true?"' or "does this fit with other related physics and phenomena I know in depth?" They just cut right to the end, and ask, "does this favor or disfavor my prior conceptions about climate change?" To make a crude analogy, lay people tend to treat this like sports and not like science. So, that's why you let the process work and look at the final result. Unless you're a domain expert, you won't know how to interpret the arguments that lead up to the result. I know several contributors to the AR5 research, and slightly know a couple of people in the IPCC working group.