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Re: [Phys-l] "The Truth Wears Off" by Jonah Lehrer in The New Yorker Dec 13, 2010.



Please, what result are you referring to, tha
don't confirm the results"?
Regards,
Jack

"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley




On Fri, 31 Dec 2010, Folkerts, Timothy J wrote:

I wonder how much of this same effect is at work in AGW. As the article says:

"The disturbing implication of the Crabbe study is that a lot of extraordinary scientific data are nothing but noise. The hyperactivity of those coked-up Edmonton mice wasn?t an interesting new fact?it was a meaningless outlier, a by-product of invisible variables we don?t understand."

and

"The problem of selective reporting is rooted in a fundamental cognitive flaw, which is that we like proving ourselves right and hate being wrong. ?It feels good to validate a hypothesis,? Ioannidis said. ?It feels even better when you?ve got a financial interest in the idea or your career depends upon it. And that?s why, even after a claim has been systematically disproven??he cites, for instance, the early work on hormone replacement therapy, or claims involving various vitamins??you still see some stubborn researchers citing the first few studies that show a strong effect. They really want to believe that it?s true."

There is a clear reason to expect AGW (increased CO2). There is clear increase in temperature in the last few decades. How much do researchers pursue results that confirm the results, while dropping results that so no results, simply from psychology, not impartial science?

Tim Folkerts


-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu on behalf of brian whatcott
Sent: Tue 12/28/2010 6:33 PM
To: phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] "The Truth Wears Off" by Jonah Lehrer in The New Yorker Dec 13, 2010.

On 12/24/2010 10:23 PM, Hugh Haskell wrote:
Brian,

I just downloaded and read this article and found it fascinating.
/snip/
In spite of the questions I have about the article, I has certainly
gotten my attention. I plan to bring it to the attention of some
friends who work in both the medical field and in drug testing to see
what they think of it.

It would have been nice if he had included some sources to look up,
but I know that the "New Yorker" doesn't do that sort of stuff.

I would be interested in any comments from other readers of the article.

Hugh

I noticed a commentary on the article from a Columbia person - (I think)
a statistician with links to Sociology and Political Science there.
A glance suggested he was coming from the view that tests
for significance greatly over estimate the power of an effect.
His commentary here...

<http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2010/12/the_truth_wears.html>

...references a piece he wrote for American Scientist magazine here...

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/power4r.pdf

Brian W
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