I've looked at the report and it is bad social science. The protocols are too leading to provide reliable information. Basically, from a methodological perspective, the deck was stacked in this "research" to ensure the results it obtained.
That said, the report does reflect a dominant opinion of the UK if for no other reason that it reflects how sophisticated some stakeholders in the UK have become at pushing public opinion in a particular direction. Embedded in the questioning and report was even former minister Willets' concern about US influence. There is an incredible need to sound social scientific research on the consequences of eliminating leap seconds, but a protocol based on information sessions followed by soliciting opinions is completely unsound. In social scientific research, it is extremely easy to shape the opinions of those studied so that those opinions reflect one's own views rather than learning anything new. In fact, most of the report merely echoes things that have already be said on this listserv. This report does demonstrate how hard it is to do quality social scientific research on this topic, and how likely those who enter into such research with an opinion will shape that research to support their opinion. Cheers, Kevin Kevin K. Birth, Professor Department of Anthropology Queens College, City University of New York 65-30 Kissena Boulevard Flushing, NY 11367 telephone: 718/997-5518 "We may live longer but we may be subject to peculiar contagion and spiritual torpor or illiteracies of the imagination" --Wilson Harris "Tempus est mundi instabilis motus, rerumque labentium cursus." --Hrabanus Maurus On 2/4/15 9:49 AM, "Steve Allen" <[email protected]> wrote: >The final report of the UK leap seconds dialog is at >http://leapseconds.co.uk/reports-findings-dialogue/ > >Search for the word "congestion" where it looks as if it once had a >footnote mentioning a system which has avoided leap second problems by >adopting a purely atomic time scale. > >-- >Steve Allen <[email protected]> WGS-84 (GPS) >UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat >+36.99855 >1156 High Street Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng >-122.06015 >Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m >_______________________________________________ >LEAPSECS mailing list >[email protected] >https://pairlist6.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs _______________________________________________ LEAPSECS mailing list [email protected] https://pairlist6.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
