Author Archives: Peter

What is research? Re-blogging Prof. Brent Roberts

If anyone is curious about what life in research is all about, this is a nice description. Also, if you do science for a living, this is a nice thing to send to your confused families.

“What purpose does research serve?” …  I think the answer is knowledge. Research is supposed to provide knowledge that can be used by others and hopefully the broader society.

-Prof Brent Roberts, “What the Heck is Research Anyway?”

TED talk on being wrong

I should watch Kathryn Schulz’ TED talk every time I’m mad about something political. Here is a paraphrase of my favorite part, about 4 minutes in.

How does it feel to be wrong? Most of us are doing everything we can to avoid thinking that we ourselves are wrong. Maybe we get it in the abstract – we’re fallible – but we can’t think in the present tense of something about which we are actually wrong. When we are wrong about something, but before we realize it, we’re like Wyle E Coyote right after he runs off a cliff but before he looks down.  It does feel like something to be wrong: it feels like being right.

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Best Ignobel Prize ever: For Failed Doomsday Prophesies

I have a deep love for failed prophesies. People who make them are so cocksure and so obviously wrong, that they always amuse me. Plus, you can only ever lose once on this kind of bet. The odds are, to put it mildly, in my favor.

Here’s the thing: The end has always been Nigh and always will be Nigh according to someone.

I laughed when Harold Camping was wrong in May. I will get to laugh as loudly again when Harold Camping is wrong again on October 22 (or whenever). I fully expect that, without a lapse in his self-confidence, he will push his prediction back again and I will get to laugh at him a third time. How long can this go on? I’m game as long as he is. [Edit: I can admit when I am wrong – he gave up on predictions]

From the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize awards:

MATHEMATICS PRIZE: Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of KOREA (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of UGANDA (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (who predicted the world would end on September 6, 1994 and later predicted that the world will end on October 21, 2011), for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.

This follows nicely on the Great Randi the Skeptical’s list of failed predictions of the end of the world. Or if you would like some more details on the Millerites and the Great Disappointment have a read at Wikipedia or Britannica.

It blows my mind that people get taken in every time. How many times will these hucksters get it wrong before people stop listening? Well… I think Albert Einstein said it best:

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.”

Science tells a human story but scientists don’t care

I read something interesting from the Archdruid Report. It suggests that science provides a narrative to contextualize human lives. That’s interesting, but not the intention or concern of scientists.

…When the late Carl Sagan spun his compelling “We are star-stuff” myth for the viewers of Cosmos, for example, he was engaging in reflection rather than abstraction. His goal was not to communicate an abstract rule but to weave a narrative of meaning that provided a context within which human life can be lived.

He makes an interesting point about science. I see it as the fringe of knowledge, pressing outward. There is an aspect to which the Archdruid points that is the opposite. He suggests that science is a competing reflective narrative in our culture.  I don’t disagree, but I can vouch for this: scientists don’t see their work in this context. Sagan was building a narrative to directly compete with The Religious Narrative.  I think religions see see only this aspect of science, and it’s an aspect of science to which the scientists themselves are oblivious and uncaring.  That disconnect is part of the problem with communicating science to non-scientists. It’s one reason Carl Sagan was so smart.