TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
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| [news] South Orkneys Marine Protected Area A UK proposal for the designation of a Marine Protected Area (MPA) covering a large area of the Southern Ocean in the British Antarctic Territory, south of the South Orkney Islands was successful at the recent annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR*). The new South Orkney Islands southern shelf MPA encompasses an area just under 94,000 sq... antarctica.ac.uk |
A great month for science Claims of email collusion on climate change help us understand and scrutinise science as a human activity. That's a good thingSome might think that this has been a terrible month for science. The emails from the University of East Anglia that seem to advocate manipulating data on climate change are being taken so seriously that some think that they could undermine the Copenhagen conference. Meanwhile, scientists have squabbled over whether the data on hospital safety from Dr Foster have any meaning at all.At least some members of the public are surely thinking: "These bloody scientists don't know their arse from their elbow and it's time to ignore them." But I believe that this has been a great month for science and could move us towards a much more adult understanding of it.Let me say right away that I believe in the magnificence of science, and I entirely agree with Nobel prize winner Harold Varmus that: "Doing science is the best way I know to live within an incomprehensible universe."But we must remember that science is a human activity with all that implies. Scientists themselves have too often fallen prey to the fantasy that it is wholly objective and that the experiment and the data will slay all false ideas. Similarly the public is too easily seduced by the idea of the "expert" (how I hate that word) who will cut through the inevitable complexity of data to direct us all. No, we must learn to love the humanity and complexity of science.One example of the humanness of medicine is the level of fraud. The high-profile cases – like that of Hwang Woo-suk from South Korea – hit the front pages, but scientists themselves are generally unaware of the high levels of scientific fraud. A systematic review of all the studies of fraud published in PLoS [Public Library of Science] One found that 2% of scientists admit to having fabricated, falsified, or modified data at least once; and a third confessed to "questionable research practices" like dredging data to find attractive results, failing to declare conflicts of interest, ignoring outlying data, not publishing negative results or many other processes that corrupt the scientific record. Unsurprisingly, when asked not about themselves but about colleagues 15% knew others guilty of serious fraud and three quarters knew others guilty of questionable research practices.These distressing results don't mean that we should ignore science but rather that we should be conscious of the fragility of scientists. Most importantly they mean that science needs to do a much better job of policing itself.Another human failing of science is the misplaced faith in peer review, the usually closed process at the heart of science that determines which projects get funded, which papers are published in major journals, who gets promoted and who wins Nobel prizes. Despite being at the heart of science, an empirical discipline, peer review was until recently unstudied. Now a series of studies have shown that it's a lottery, poor at detecting error, prone to bias and easily abused. The upside has proved hard to demonstrate. Most scientists are unaware of these studies, but increasingly modern scientists are arguing that peer review shouldn't hold back results: rather work should be presented to the world, and the world should decide – as it ultimately does anyway – what should be taken seriously and what ignored.So for me this has been a good month for science in that it's shown that science is a human enterprise and that when debating science we should maintain the high degree of scepticism that is central to the scientific process. But we'd make a bad mistake if we then decided to ignore the mountain of evidence of different kinds that smoking causes lung cancer, the MMR vaccine is safe, hospitals are unsafe and the world is warming rapidly – almost certainly because of human activity.Climate changeClimate changeClimate change scepticismHacked climate science emailsRichard Smithguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
China and U.S. Hit Strident Impasse at Climate Talks China and the United States were at a stalemate at the climate change conference over how compliance with any treaty could be monitored and verified. feeds.nytimes.com |
Space shuttle moved to launch pad on freezing morn CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- Space shuttle Endeavour is on the launch pad after a freezing three-and-a-half-mile trip. NASA moved the shuttle out of its hangar before dawn Wednesday. The temperature was bitterly cold, getting as low as 29. As a precaution, NASA turned on the shuttle heaters earlier than usual. In addition, workers limited their time outside to 30-minute shifts during Endeavour's six-hour trip to the pad.... hosted.ap.org |
Deadly jellyfish head south in threat to tourism Swimmers in far north Queensland have long lived with the threat of irukandji and box jellyfish stings, but the dangerous marine creatures could soon be headed further south. abc.net.au |