On Scientific Pursuits and Why I Hope Einstein is Wrong

February 29, 2012 • Blog, Science • by
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Remember a couple of months ago, there was a flurry of articles saying that some scientists at CERN had found a neutrino that traveled faster than the speed of light. This refuted Einstein’s work and caused a huge shake-up in the scientific community.

Turns out they were wrong. Due to some faulty wiring they got an incorrect reading.

Following that second finding I saw another flurry of articles essentially mocking the scientists for doubting Einstein. I find these articles to completely miss the mark. I hope one day we refute Einstein or find out what he was missing or where he went wrong. That means we’re progressing.

Why should the knowledge we have now be the end. Aren’t there things that we could still learn? Aren’t there things we believe now that aren’t quite right? Let us not hold so tightly to the knowledge we have today that we never acquire the knowledge available for tomorrow.

Trials & Errors

January 23, 2012 • Blog, Research, Science • by
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When we go to the doctor and they prescribe us some medication, we take it with confidence. Why? Because it has gone through a rigorous evaluation process to get from the lab to the pharmacy. That might not be so true though.

Wired has a great article entitled Trials and Errors: Why Science is Failing Us that walks through the failed story of Pfizer’s next blockbuster drug, torcetrapib. It was going to be a breakthrough medication in treating problems with cholesterol, like it’s cousin Lipitor, and when it was announced by Pfizer CEO during its Phase III trial, he was predicting it to be the company’s next big cash cow.

Two weeks later Pfizer announced they were suspending the Phase III trial and the company’s value dropped $21 billion.

The article is really a fascinating discussion of our experimental design methodology and our ability to truly understand complex systems. The author of the article, Jonah Lehrer, essentially states that we are overconfident in our abilities to determine causality within complex living systems. How can we really expect to understand the human body and how it works?, he asks.

While I agree with Lehrer’s conclusion, that we are overconfident in our understanding of causality, I disagree with some of his advice. It seemed at points in the article that his prescription was to cease trying to understand, to which I couldn’t disagree more. Just because an experimental drug that many scientists were confident would work failed Phase III trials does not mean that it wa a failure. We learned something in that study.

By discovering we didn’t know as much as thought, we learned a little bit more than we did.

Scientific understanding in this country is abysmal. I myself acknowledge that I know significantly less about biology, chemistry, and physics than I think a well-educated 20-something should. Prior to graduate school I had not taken a course in calculus or linear algebra. Our education system is failing at teaching our young people the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) curriculum and yet it is on those 4 subjects that the future will be built.

Our country has long valued entrepreneurialism, free thinking, and creativity. I myself believe those to be highly important characteristics that we must retain. In fact, I believe that if we can augment our training in STEM while continuing to push our children to discover artistic endeavors like music, literature, and drama, we will actually create better scientists. STEM needs creative people who understand both the laws of the world and have the hutzpah to challenge them. Those are the people who will solve our world’s most pressing problems and create our most lasting institutions.

You should definitely take a few minutes and read Lehrer’s article, Trials and Errors, but I hope you walk away with the belief that we don’t need less scientific inquiry, but more. We don’t need to retreat because we have been overconfident but must push understanding to match our beliefs. And if you have children, make sure they take as many math and science courses as possible in between music lessons and a the reading of a good book.

Nerd Roundup with Neil deGrasse Tyson Autotuned

November 11, 2011 • Blog, Science, video • by
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So I think Neil deGrasse Tyson is pretty much the man. So how could I not love him autotuned. Check out Symphony of Science below.

Also, don’t miss Wired’s 9 Equations Geek Nerd Should (At Least Pretend to) Know.

 

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Proof

August 24, 2011 • Blog, Measurement & Evaluation, nonprofit • by
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Should non-profits be forced to prove that their interventions actually work? All too often the strategies and programs employed by non-profits seemed haphazard and have no real basis in scientific research. That does not mean however, that proof should be required.

Proof is a tricky thing. For one, attaining scientific proof of something is very difficult, requiring lots of time, money, and people. Second, as discussed in this post from Tactical Philanthropy, proof seemingly declines over time. “For all the perceived precision of a large study “proving” that something is true, the fact remains that over time our understanding of facts and truths change.”

The post quotes a New Yorker article title The Truth Wears Off that is quite interesting.

“The test of replicability, as it’s known, is the foundation of modern research. Replicability is how the community enforces itself. It’s a safeguard for the creep of subjectivity. Most of the time, scientists know what results they want, and that can influence the results they get. The premise of replicability is that the scientific community can correct for these flaws.

But now all sorts of well-established, multiply confirmed findings have started to look increasingly uncertain. It’s as if our facts were losing their truth: claims that have been enshrined in textbooks are suddenly unprovable. This phenomenon doesn’t yet have an official name, but it’s occurring across a wide range of fields, from psychology to ecology.”

This is not to say however, that non-profits shouldn’t strive to understand the effect their interventions are having. All too often non-profits flee from facts and cling to anecdotes. They never step back and examine the impact they are having on the communities, people groups, or issues they are seeking to affect.

Scientific proof should not be the goal, but ignorance is unacceptable. A balance must be struck that seeks to understand affect without necessarily scientifically proving it.