I was interested to hear the BBC announce on the news this morning that many companies and banks were ‘deserting’ the Square Mile #DuetoBrexit. Well some are setting up subsiduaries on the Continent but like Lloyds are not actually abandoning London which many think will remain the world’s financial centre….Lloyds only generating 11% of its profit from Europe.
Jenni Murray is being hounded for her opinions on Transgender people…apparently some students want to no-platform her for her views….much as the BBC no-platformed climate change sceptics…speaking of which…as the BBC pours cold water onto Brexit, we have take another look at some BBC concerns about the reliability of scientifc research…..note climate change is not mentioned…from 2014….
Everything We Know Is Wrong
Every day the newspapers carry stories of new scientific findings. There are 15 million scientists worldwide all trying to get their research published. But a disturbing fact appears if you look closely: as time goes by, many scientific findings seem to become less true than we thought. It’s called the “decline effect” – and some findings even dwindle away to zero.
A highly influential paper by Dr John Ioannidis at Stanford University called “Why most published research findings are false” argues that fewer than half of scientific papers can be believed, and that the hotter a scientific field (with more scientific teams involved), the less likely the research findings are to be true. He even showed that of the 49 most highly cited medical papers, only 34 had been retested and of them 41 per cent had been convincingly shown to be wrong. And yet they were still being cited.
Again and again, researchers are finding the same things, whether it’s with observational studies, or even the “gold standard” Randomised Controlled Studies, whether it’s medicine or economics. Nobody bothers to try to replicate most studies, and when they do try, the majority of findings don’t stack up. The awkward truth is that, taken as a whole, the scientific literature is full of falsehoods.
Jolyon Jenkins reports on the factors that lie behind this. How researchers who are obliged for career reasons to produce studies that have “impact”; of small teams who produce headline-grabbing studies that are too statistically underpowered to produce meaningful results; of the way that scientists are under pressure to spin their findings and pretend that things they discovered by chance are what they were looking for in the first place. It’s not exactly fraud, but it’s not completely honest either. And he reports on new initiatives to go through the literature systematically trying to reproduce published findings, and of the bitter and personalised battles that can occur as a result.
What? Relatively few scientific papers are tested and of those that are 41% were convincingly shown to be wrong and yet they kept being cited in journals and presumably the media.
Scientists spin results to grab headlines and for career reasons, as well as no doubt due to pressure from other scientists who already hold such opinions…such as string theory…
In 2008 Physicist Lee Smolin’s book ‘The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science and What Comes Next’ was published.
What he had to say about the way science worked and how ideas and theories were produced and then supported regardless of reality was a stinging rebuke to those people who jump on a bandwagon and base their career and funding on the ‘truth’ of that idea….if the idea is discredited so are they, and the funding dries up…..
Here is what he says about String Theory and its proponents….
‘….with a cry of joy, most of these scientists seized on string theory as the answer. But their enthusiasm was such that they came to think not that it might be the answer, but that it must be. They formed themselves into a cult. Dissenters and apostates were not just scorned, they were denied posts in universities. Einstein the thinker could not now get a job in any leading physics department. For any young physicist, it was easiest simply to suppress one‘s doubts and go with the stringies.‘
Is this limited to medical science and string theory or is it widespread across science…such as in the climate change community?…I think we know the answer to that…one reason they hate sceptics asking questions, the answer to which might prove embarrassing….still its good that the BBC’s finest, english graduate Roger Harrabin, has decided he knows better than even scientifically educated sceptics and has decided that they should be no-platformed.
For causational climate scientists the enemies are environmental activists.
(1) BBC: The “best scientific experts” turned out to be environmental activists. Not a single atmospheric physicist or solar scientist was present at that seminar, in fact only two of the 25 had any relevant scientific qualifications.
(2) IPCC: Most of the 10,000 people at Climate conferences are Politicians, Environmental activists and left-wing Journalists.
(3) London Climate Change Conference: The Conference could not be held on University property, due to the influence of environmental activists on university administrators. But thankfully, the conference was dominated by talks from Atmospheric Physicists, Solar Astronomers and Meteorologists.
Who are the BBC?
Any ideas?
In their mission statement ..values!
“Trust is the foundation of the BBC:we are independent ,impartial and honest”
Not sure they are living up to their ideals..the veil has been lifted
The majority of ‘Green’ voters are on 7 day weekends anyway. Whether funded by the state, or by Mummy and Daddy.
BBC Website ” Greens on bold 3-day weekend plans “. Probably won’t affect most Beeboids then.
Grant, I do not recall the Green Party being stridently opposed to relaxation of the Sunday Trading laws. Is my memory defective on that?
If they are proposing this – I note that details are scant on the BBC w/s, but then details are often scant in Green policies – they really ought to be in favour of an end to as much Sunday working, opening and trading as possible.
Up2,
Why a 3-day weekend ? Why not a 7-day weekend ? Meanwhile , in sunny Gambia, the new President has reduced the 3-day weekend introduced by his predecessor to 2 days !
I get the impression, Grant, that many Africans can spot a pig-in-a-poke (that’s probably a non-PC expression to use now AFA someone is concerned but can’t think of alternative) AND come up with a practical solution far better than our multi-culti European politicians these days.
Up2,
And most of them don’t have time to waste on political correctness although, I hate to say it, but it is creeping in.
I think its best not to talk about string theory or for that matter, dark matter.
But from experience, the failure to replicate the Arrhenius method of calculating the Greenhouse effect, used in Computer models, is the core error in man-made Climate Change. Scientists have thought of these ideas for testing the theory.
(1) A one mile long old gas pipe to be used as an atmospheric test chamber with carbon dioxide pumped down the pipe at fast speed to try and get away from the “Four wall” problem. While shining a light down the pipe, and finding any temperature change. But funding was not found for this project.
(2) Calibrating carbon dioxide warming on Mars which has a 7 millibar carbon dioxide atmosphere, and therefore, equivalent to four times doubling of the 400ppm contribution to Global warming by carbon dioxide on the Earth. This works if positive feedback of the Earths atmosphere is used to fit this for the Earth. But positive feedback was proved to be false, and therefore the Arrhenius method of calculating the Greenhouse effect, used in Computer models is proven to be false. Ferenc Miskolczi produced a highly complex version of this which has therefore also been proven false. That’s why Astronomers have not heard from him about his work on Venus which has a CO2 Atmosphere with a quarter of a million times more CO2 than the Earth.
Anyway, all this has been solved by a new theory which has been repeatedly proven correct for all known planetary atmospheres.
The paper (Unified Theory of Climate, Ned Nikolov & Karl Zeller, 2011) shows that the average surface temperature divided by the grey body temperature gives you the magnitude of the Thermal inertia which resembles the response of the temperature/potential temperature ratio to the altitudinal changes of pressure described by the Poisson formula, with predictions matching evidence for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Europa, Titan, Triton and the Moon, to prove that the physical nature of the so-called Greenhouse Effect is in fact a Pressure-induced Thermal Enhancement or Thermal Inertia which is independent of the atmospheric chemical composition. Mercury and the Moon are used to prove that the Grey body temperature and the average surface temperature are equal when there is no Atmosphere.
Richard, there’s a lot to be said for sticking a good quality mercury thermometer in it (!) and returning at regular intervals with a notebook. Granted that that is not quite so easy at sea or at altitude in the atmosphere but it is easily and cheaply done on land. You only need a few decades of data to get an idea about what is going on.
Either that or get the oldest Panel members with good memories from BBC’s Gardeners Question Time together and ask them. They will give you an idea whether there is any Global Warming or Climate Change.
The thing that will eventually undo the Global Warming and Climate Change promoters will be ordinary people, gardeners & farmers especially, from around the world talking to each other via the internet. We are now twenty-five years in. Only another ten to fifteen and, if little has changed, then there will be some serious questions to be asked and answered and an awful lot of money handed back to the people.
Seems the BBC has impartiality rule counts lower that Social Justice Evangelism
… cos they are saving the world don’tcha know ?
Seems BBC Management doesn’t a flying about IMPARTIALITY when them pushing SJW issues is more important.
..Cos the whole point of creating progs like R4 InsideScience is to make a platform to promote their green religion and supposed green stuff like solar UNCHALLENGED in the first place.
Wronged counted the leavers and remainers on question time on the shows up to the referendum.
It was something like 40 remainers to 23 leavers.
Wronged was scrupulously correct putting leavers and remainers in the correct column.
Somebody should ask the BBC, live on tv, why.
It is not somebody thinking left or fight, it is FACT that about double the amount of remainers were on qt than leavers.
There is no getting away from the fact and they cannot lie by saying “we got it about right”
It was blatant bias.
I (and wronged) didn’t include dimbleby or the audience with the remainers with his constant interruptions of any leaver and the heavily pro remain audience.
Redwood, Bone, Rees Mogg, please ask this.
Dear Mr. G,
Fortunately although the line ups for QT was consistently in favour of remainders I think QT has very limited , if any, impact – a bit like newsnight – which should be put out of its misery. Although as I wrote this i could see albeeb replacing it with readings from their inhouse Wahhabi book – the Koran.
I wonder sometimes whether anybody changes their opinion as a result of these programmes – like the R4 ‘any questions ‘ . And As long as there is a member of the BBC royal family such as a Dimbleby or ex labour MP cum BBC journo all will be well with their world view.?
Fedup: “I wonder sometimes whether anybody changes their opinion as a result of these programmes – like the R4 ‘any questions ‘.”
I sometimes come close to changing direction rather drastically on the M6, but then I remember to switch the radio off.
First, Owen. I pressed report by mistake. Sorry.
Now, regarding qt and why I would like someone to ask the question.
It is because there is proof that the BBC is biased and it is the number of remainers and leavers on the show.
I would also think that it has little effect but I would still like someone to call the BBC out on this.
What can they say when presented with a 2:1 bias for the remainers and when it is proven as the panellists are on record and can be checked.
What can they say to get out of it.
They can be shown to be biased and it is a fact.
They can’t say it’s about right when double the amount of remainers were on qt.
I would just like to see them try to answer this question of bias.
QT and other biased BBC rubbish may not have a great effect but when it’s all combined and it is happening all the time, both in your face bias and subtle asides as in soap character lines or the usual despite or since Brexit prefixes depending on if the news is good or bad (unemployment down despite Brexit type of thing, ftse 250 down since Brexit ((although they quickly dropped that when it shot up)))
Beeboid: “…the way that scientists are under pressure to spin their findings and pretend that things they discovered by chance are what they were looking for in the first place…”
I am more bothered by those “scientists” who always know exactly what they are looking for and invariably find it. Genuinely chance discoveries shouldn’t need to be spun. It’s the production-line, fake discoveries from Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt and the CRU which need “adjustments”, i.e. downright falsification, to make them fit the propaganda.
Tonight’s Antiques Roadshow from the BBC Country pile – Cavasham. I nearly choked when Fiona Bruce mentioned in the intro that part of the BBC hacks who are employed there listening and reading news from around the world is to check items for government or other sources for bias!!
Far,
Was just going to post about it. BBC Monitoring monitors 2000 different news outlets. I think Fiona said something like “to bring you the news first “. Hilarious !
2000 news outlets? Yes, in the following order – The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, i, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, The Daily Mirror, The Washington Post ………
As a fan of Harry Hill, who I think is a real comedian, I was watching his new show on ITV. No sign of bias, no reference to politics, Brexit or Trump. No chance of him getting a job with the BBC then.
(I still have the same issue as yesterday, I can only add to the thread, not comment below an earlier contribution)
Lobster
I am not concerned about Lloyds Bank, the original reference.
I am not concerned about May & Co making a hash of Brexit.
I am not concerned at all about the toothless, clueless EuroCrat ****s with their fearsome threats.
What I am concerned about, is deliberate sabotage by the lefty fifth columnists in Central Government, who have a seventy year + record of doing nothing beneficial for the UK since VJ Day.