_____
From: Remi Cornwall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 31 October 2008 16:36
To: '[email protected]'
Subject: Line Broadening
This guy knows what hes talking about:
http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/Users/Ewart/Atomic%20Physics%20lecture%20notes%2
0Final.pdf
I had a quick scan of that paper and it has a high bogusity index and
requires a high gullibility quotient:
1) Dont survey the field (say what is known already)
2) Then go on to insult those who know what they are doing
3) No error bars on the data
4) No putative models put up for the data
5) All citations come from the same camp (see 1) it preaches to the
same church - it doesnt seek to challenge itself and widen the audience
6) At the end youve learnt nothing and wasted your time.
Come off it. Ive had enough, Im outta here.
Please read (available for free download)
DOCTORAL COLLOQUIUM KEYNOTE ADDRESS
CONDUCT, MISCONDUCT, AND CARGO CULT SCIENCE
James R. Wilson
Department of Industrial Engineering
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, North Carolina 27695, U.S.A.
(June 23, 1997 -- 6:00 P.M.)
In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw
airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to
happen now. So they've arranged to make things like runways, to put fires
along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in,
with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo
sticking out like antennas--he's the controller--and they wait for the
airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It
looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes
land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the
apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing
something essential, because the planes don't land.
Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they're missing. ... It's a
kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that
corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards.
For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything
that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about
it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you
thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they
worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
... In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help
others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information
that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.
--Richard P. Feynman, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" (1985)
ABSTRACT
I will elaborate some principles of ethical conduct in science that
correspond to Richard Feynman's well-known precepts of "utter honesty" and
"leaning over backwards" in all aspects of scientific work. These principles
have recently been called into question by certain individuals who allege
that such rules are based on a misunderstanding of "how science actually
works" and are therefore potentially "damaging to the scientific
enterprise." In addition to examining critically the general basis for these
allegations, I will discuss the particular relevance of Feynman's ideals to
the field of computer simulation; and I will emphasize the need for
meticulous validation of simulation models together with exact
reproducibility and unimpeachable analysis of experiments performed with
those models. Finally I will discuss the ethical dilemmas inherent in the
peer review system, and I will offer some concrete suggestions for improving
the process of refereeing primary journal articles.
1. INTRODUCTION
Much has been written recently about what constitutes scientific misconduct,
and public esteem for science has been damaged by high-profile episodes such
as the "cold fusion case" at the University of Utah (Huizenga 1993) and the
"David Baltimore case" at MIT (Elliott and Stern 1997). Against this
backdrop I will examine several claims about principles of ethical conduct
in science that were made by James Woodward and David Goodstein of the
California Institute of Technology in an article entitled "Conduct,
Misconduct and the Structure of Science," which appeared in the September
1996 issue of the American Scientist. The gist of the principles in question
is summarized in the quotation by Richard Feynman given above. I will argue
that these principles are especially relevant to the field of computer
simulation, and I will elaborate my view that Feynman's ideals of "utter
honesty" and "leaning over backwards" constitute a mandate for meticulous
validation of simulation models together with exact reproducibility and
unimpeachable analysis of experiments performed with those models. Several
key references are highlighted in this discussion--in particular, see the
pamphlets entitled On Being a Scientist (1995) and Honor in Science (1986).
Interested individuals are invited to examine the relevant literature and to
judge for themselves the validity of the arguments given here.
2. "THE SCIENCE OF THINGS THAT AREN'T SO"
In addition to performing Nobel Prize-winning research, the American
physicist Irving Langmuir explored extensively a subject he called
"pathological science," defining this as "the science of things that aren't
so." Although he never published his investigations on this subject, he
presented a colloquium on pathological science at General Electric's Knolls
Atomic Power Laboratory on December 18, 1953. Subsequently Robert N. Hall,
one of Langmuir's former colleagues at General Electric, transcribed and
edited a recording of Langmuir's presentation so that it could be published
in the October 1989 issue of Physics Today. Langmuir and Hall (1989) should
be required reading for everyone who pursues a career in scientific
research.
This article is a fascinating account of famous cases of self-deception by
scientists working in a broad diversity of disciplines. Perhaps the most
remarkable of these cases concerns the discovery of N rays by the French
physicist René Blondlot in 1903. This exotic form of radiation was claimed
to penetrate inches of aluminum while being stopped by thin foils of iron.
When N rays impinged on an object, Blondlot claimed a slight increase in the
brightness of the object; but he admitted that great experimental skill was
needed to detect the effect of these rays.
During the period from 1903 to 1906, over 300 papers were published on N
rays by 100 scientists and medical doctors around the world (Nye 1980). When
the American physicist Robert W. Wood learned about the discovery of N rays,
he went to France to observe Blondlot's experimental procedure. At that time
Blondlot was using a spectroscope fitted with an aluminum prism to measure
the refractive indices of N rays. Although Blondlot's experiments were
performed in a darkened room, a small red (darkroom) lantern enabled
Blondlot to see a graduated scale for measuring to three significant figures
the position of a vertical thread coated with luminous paint. The thread was
supposed to brighten as it crossed the invisible lines of the N-ray
spectrum. According to Langmuir and Hall (1989), Wood asked Blondlot the
following question:
... from just the optics of the thing, with slits 2 mm wide, how can you get
a beam so fine that you can detect its position to within a tenth of a
millimeter?
Blondlot is reported to have given this reply:
That's one of the fascinating things about N rays. They don't follow the
ordinary laws of science ... You have to consider these things by
themselves. They are very interesting but you have to discover the laws that
govern them.
His suspicions aroused at this point, Wood used the cover of the darkened
room to remove the prism and put it in his pocket. Wood then asked Blondlot
to repeat some of his measurements. With the critical component of the
experimental apparatus missing, Blondlot obtained exactly the same results.
In a letter that was published in Nature, Wood (1904) exposed Blondlot's
experiments on N rays as a case of self-deception. Although Wood's letter
killed research on N rays outside France, it is interesting to note that the
French Academy of Sciences chose Blondlot to receive the 1904 Le Conte
Prize--even though the other leading candidate was Pierre Curie, who
together with Marie Curie and Henri Becquerel had shared the 1903 Nobel
Prize in physics for pioneering work on radioactivity.
Langmuir and Hall (1989) also discuss a number of other anomalous phenomena,
and they analyze the main symptoms of pathological science (or cargo cult
science, to use Feynman's more colorful expression). These symptoms are
summarized in Table 1. The case of N rays exhibits all of these symptoms. It
is important to bear these symptoms in mind when considering the validity of
certain claims made by Woodward and Goodstein (1996) about ethical conduct
in science. Numerous cases of pathological science involving
pseudoscientific cranks are discussed in the book Fads and Fallacies in the
Name of Science by Martin Gardner (1957). Some famous cases of
self-deception by legitimate scientists are detailed on pages 107-125 of the
book Betrayers of the Truth by William Broad and Nicholas Wade (1982).
