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Re: [Phys-l] Cramster et al.

There have been some very good papers analyzing how papers are designed to
convince the reader. My comment is hardly original. There is no defamation
in it. As to the specific policies of various journals, they can vary quite
a bit. I was once informed by a journal editor that they would not accept a
paper which mentioned specific curricula and implied that it was because
they had advertisers. Curiously a math journal insists that authors use the
conventiona that ab/cd have the meaning (ab)/(cd) even though that
historical convention is no longer in general use.

While professional peer reviewed journals are considered to have a higher
standard of reliability, they are still human institutions. They do not
guarantee accuracy or reliability. Specific conventions are at work, and
bias does happen. Also papers are so short that details are always hidden.
That is hardly controversial. Even theses can hide important details. I
hardly think this is controversial.

My specific comment was in relation to the idea that experiments are only
used to verify or disprove specific hypotheses. This idea comes from the
simplistic 5 step "scientific method" which has been thoroughly discredited
by historians of science. But the majority of pre-college science teachers
seem to believe in it. There are some journals that demand papers that
follow this pattern, despite the fact that the actual research did not.
Physics journals are not guilty of this specific problem, but they all have
conventions. They are all designed to convince experts in the specific
field. And it is possible to publish false papers, and it has been done.
Again, this is hardly controversial.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


If you intend the remarks in your last paragraph to apply to Physics
Letters B, I suggest that you forward the remarks to the editor; it would
be amusing to see if there is any physicist who agrees with you (in that
context), or if you get sued for defamation.
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 Sat, 15 May 2010, John Clement wrote:

So experiments are not "limited" to verifying or falsifying hypotheses.
They can be used to show whether they tend to compete or cooperate in
specific cases.

The original point involves the idea that the word "socialism" assumes
cooperation, and "free enterprise" assumes competition as "the"
important
motivator. Obviously both are important, and sometimes one works much
better than the other. So taking an ideological stance against
"socialism"
is ignoring some fundamental facts about human nature (ditto for the
other
side). So we must choose which works best when trying to solve social
problems, or sometimes which produces the least harm. And yes, no
specific
experiment can tell you exactly how people might react in other
situations
where cooperation vs competition is being measured. This of course is
the
difference between psychology and physics research. But there is
abundant
evidence that cooperation can be a stronger motivator in many
situations,
and experiments can show which is stronger (tendency) in specific
situations. Indeed as a species humans are extremely cooperative, with
the
exception of psychopaths (or sociopaths). The evidence is that this is
built into our brains and that it played an important part in our
evolution.
But one can certainly argue over this and produce specific evidence
either
way. But one can do enough experiments and observations to be able to
draw
some reasonable general conclusions. The preponderance of evidence that
I
have seen is in favor of cooperation as a motive.

There is evidence that student cooperation produces better outcomes than
competition. That is why I never curve grades, except for possibly the
final exam. That way students do not have to compete against each other
and
are more likely to engage in cooperative learning.

Physicists do assume that their experiments are repeatable, and that
fundamental constants do not change, but we usually understand that this
is
an assumption. The dropped ball example is a classical measurement, so
why
would one look at tunneling? (Yes, I know g is not fundamental and does
vary on the Earth). Actually this assumption is probably one of the
fundamental assumptions in the scientific method, but it is seldom
brought
out in science classes as being a working assumption, instead of having
them
memorize the 5 step method.

I am very familiar with how research proceeds. How papers are written
is
another matter. Sometimes journals expect papers to be written in the
simplistic 5 step scientific method, and authors comply. Many times
there
was no hypothesis, but the author supplies one just for the paper.
Papers
are basically designed to convince the reader of the validity and
correctness of the conclusions. The true motivation and the messiness
of
the process is well concealed from the reader.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


Experiments cannot show "whether people tend to cooperate or compete."
Carefully designed experiments, such as some reported in'08 in Nature,
might be able to quantify the amounts of competition and coperation in
certain groups. No amount of experimentation can tell you what those
amounts are in all possible groups.

You can drop a ball a trillion times and measure its acceleration, each
time, to be the current value of g. That does not guarantee that the
next
time you drop it you will get the same result (calculate the
probability
of barrier penetration).

To see how physicists actually proceed, when exploring new phenomena,
I
suggest you follow the workings of the Atlas collaboration at the LHC;
the collaboration's first paper has been accepted for publication in
Physics Letters B.



On Thu, 13 May 2010, John Clement wrote:

Experiments can also be used to measure things. For example they can
be
used to measure whether people tend to cooperate or compete. And such
experiments do not necessarily have predictions or hypotheses. Of
course in
psychology such experiments are not black or white, they usually do
not
show
existence or yes/no. Indeed a large number of experiments never
really
have
a prediction, but are of the nature, "I wonder what will happen if" or
"Is A
more significant than B".

Experiments often perhaps even usually do not follow the 5 step method
taught in school, as they often do not have a hypothesis. Actually
the
vast
majority of experiments are basically parameter measurements, where a
hypothesis is never considered.

So the phrase is NOT nonsense. The ideas that experiments are only
used
to
confirm or deny predictions is nonsense.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


The phrase "experiments in psychology show" is nonsensical.
Experiments
can provide counter-examples to predictions, thus showing that the
predictions are false; they can also provide examples of successful
predictions, thus showing that the successful predictions are not
false.
That is the limit of what experiments can do.


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Forum for Physics Educators
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_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l