In a time when misunderstandings of science anti-science views are rising around the world, it is important that scientists do a better job of communicating to the broader public what science actually is, what it can do, and what it cannot do.
An interesting and important question is what it is that people should know and understand. There is a multitude of views on this (which is not necessarily a completely bad thing).
I only learned last week that in 1994, Phil Anderson had tackled this issue in a short article he wrote for The Daily Telegraph, a London-based newspaper. An interesting paper about Anderson's article just appeared. It nicely places the article in a broader context and gives a more recent perspective on the issues he raised.
Four Facts Everyone Ought to Know about Science:
The Two-Culture Concerns of Philip W. Anderson
Andrew Zhang and Andrew Zangwill
The four ``facts'' that Anderson chose were (as paraphrased by Zhang and Zangwill):
1. Science is not democratic.
2. Computers will not replace scientists.
3. Statistical methods are misused and often misunderstood.
4. Good science has aesthetic qualities.
This is a fascinating choice.
One thing I learned was about Anderson's argument that Bayesian methods should have been used to rule out the significance of "discoveries" such as the 10 keV neutrino and the fifth force. In 1992 he wrote a Physics Today column on the subject.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Emergence and protein folding
Proteins are a distinct state of matter. Globular proteins are tightly packed with a density comparable to a crystal but without the spatia...
-
Is it something to do with breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation? In molecular spectroscopy you occasionally hear this term thro... -
If you look on the arXiv and in Nature journals there is a continuing stream of people claiming to observe superconductivity in some new mat...
-
I welcome discussion on this point. I don't think it is as sensitive or as important a topic as the author order on papers. With rega...
5. The rise of academic managerial-ism over academic performers.
ReplyDeleteOff topic, but on a very serious topic that you have paid much necessary attention to:
ReplyDeletehttps://news.stanford.edu/2018/12/06/shoucheng-zhang-obituary/
Thanks for letting me and others know about this. It is tragic.
DeleteDepression seems to take toll of the fallen, risen and successful persona. Is it due to the disruptive distraction of ubiquitous social media?
ReplyDeleteDepression is a complex phenomenon. Its increase is probably caused by a multitude of factors. Some are discussed here. Social media may be one among many factors.
Deletehttps://condensedconcepts.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-mental-health-crisis-among.html
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/12/dont-ask-what-science-can-do-for-you.html
ReplyDelete"The only way to solve it is massive public pressure. The only way to solve the problem is that you speak up. Say it often and say it loudly, that you’re fed up watching research funds go to waste on citation games"
Sabine H want to make Science democratic.
Looks like Marie Antoinette for science has arrived from Germany.
Delete