J.C. Moore Online

Current events from a science perspective.

There is evidence that the authors of a recent paper may have gamed the peer review system to publish a biased climate science paper.

The Review Process: When a paper is submitted to a journal for publication, the editor removes the name of the author and sends the manuscript to several experts in the area, usually three, for review. The editor keeps the names of the reviewers confidential. If an error is found, the reviewer’s comments are returned to the author with suggestions for corrections. It is a good system for ensuring the quality of research publications, but even then papers are sometimes published that contains errors. The reviewers may miss an error, a biased editor may publish the paper in spite of flaws, or authors may exploit loopholes in a journal’s rules to get a paper published. Some journals allow the author to suggest names of reviewers and the editor often picks reviewers from the list. Most scientists submit names of reliable reviewers as it is an embarrassment to have errors found in their paper after publication. However, even if the papers are properly reviewed, the practice can bring accusations of “pal” review. Since reviewer’s names are kept confidential by the editor, it is difficult to know for sure whether that may have happened. However, there is evidence that the authors of a recent paper may have gamed the system by suggesting a set of reviewers that shared their bias. See what you think.

The paper: Last July 25th, Roy Spencer and Danny Braswell authored a paper in the rather specialized technical journal, Remote Sensing, titled “On the Misdiagnosis Of Surface Temperature Feedbacks From Variations In Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance“.  The paper claimed “The sensitivity of the climate system to an imposed radiative imbalance remains the largest source of uncertainty in projections of future anthropogenic climate change. Here we present further evidence that this uncertainty from an observational perspective is largely due to the masking of the radiative feedback signal by internal radiative forcing, probably due to natural cloud variations.”  It seems that only an expert in climatology would know what that means or what its implications were, but in three days a sensationalized version of the paper appeared on internet sites, in major business magazines, and in news articles in major newspapers. Millions of people likely read about the paper.

The Publicity: The renewed public interest in science should have made climate scientists pleased; however, they were not. Beneath the technical language is a claim that the climate sensitivity to CO2 has been misinterpreted by climate scientists because of natural cloud variations. Were it true, it would mean that natural forces, not man, were responsible for much of the observed global warming. That idea had been examined before and found to be inconsistent with the evidence, but the idea is one that some climate skeptics have been promoting. And, they are part of a well-funded pipeline that carries misinformation about climate science to major news outlets before all the facts can be known.

Forbes: One main branch of the misinformation pipeline runs through the Heartland Institute, where James Taylor is listed as a senior fellow. James Taylor once wrote articles for the tobacco industry suggesting that secondhand smoke was not harmful, and he has now turned his talents to denying the ties between rising CO2 levels and global warming. Inexplicably, James Taylor has been hired by Forbes magazine to write on energy and environmental topics. James Taylor picked up on Spencer’s paper and wrote an article for Forbes titled, New NASA Data Blows Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism. Not only was the title inaccurate and misleading, but the article was clearly an opinion article, miscategorized as news.  The editors of Forbes might not have known that Spencer’s “NASA Data” was the same data that climate scientists use to reach a very different conclusion, but perhaps they should have noticed that no reasonable news story would describe climate scientists as “alarmists” 15 times. The business community considers legislation that would reduce our carbon emissions to be anti-business, and business newspapers such as Investors Business Daily, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes often are biased toward the skeptic’s position. The bias shows up in story selection, opinions miscategorized as news, a disproportionate number of skeptics articles on opinion pages, and  in sensationalized headlines. From Forbes, the article was picked up as a news story by other business magazines, Yahoo! News, MSNBC, and skeptic’s blog sites, which had a field day with the article. It is sad that millions will have read the distorted article, but few will ever read the climate scientist’s rebuttal. The article will soon sink into obscurity,  but it will have accomplished it’s purpose, which was to spread doubt about climate change.

Reproducibility: Publication in a peer-reviewed journal is not the only requirement for a paper to become accepted as part of the science literature. The research must stand up to the scrutiny of other experts in the field and it must be reproducible by other scientists with comparable knowledge and skill. Spencer’s paper reached the news media before climate scientists had a chance to respond, but they soon found a number of obvious errors in the paper. Trenberth and Fasullo summed it up:”The model has no realistic ocean, no El Niño, and no hydrological cycle, and it was tuned to give the result it gave. The bottom line is that there is NO merit whatsoever in this paper.”  Given time, A.E. Dessler analyzed Spencer’s paper in detail and published a rebuttal. The abstract in Geophysical Review Letters reports the key points of his paper:

• Clouds are not causing climate change;
• Observations are not in disagreement with models on this point;
• Previous work on this is flawed;  ( referring specifically to Spencer’s paper in Remote Sensing).

Clearly, Spencer’s paper had serious methodological flaws and was not reproducible. How did the paper get through Remote Sensing’s peer review process? The answer would likely not have been found, except for the publicity.

The Catastrophe: The editor of Remote Sensing, who had been trying to build the reputation of the Journal, considered the publicity a catastrophe. The instructions in Remote Sensing asks authors to suggest five reviewers, and it is possible that Spencer could choose five skeptics.  The editor would not have to pick from those, but apparently in this case he did.  In the next issue of Remote Sensing, the editor, Dr. Wolfgang Wagner, resigned and issued a public apology for this article saying, “With this step I would also like to personally protest against how the authors and like-minded climate skeptics have much exaggerated the paper’s conclusions in public statements.” “The problem is that comparable studies published by other authors have already been refuted in open discussions and to some extent also in the literature, a fact which was ignored by Spencer and Braswell in their paper and, unfortunately, not picked up by the reviewers. “ And he concluded, “But, as the case presents itself now, the editorial team unintentionally selected three reviewers who probably share some climate sceptic notions of the authors.”

© 2012 J.C. Moore

Aristotle thought that Nature could best be understood by observation and reason – and that all  knowledge should be open to examination and subject to reason.

Science Education has shown a renewed interest in Aristotle’s works. (1) Today, theories in science are often based on abstract and mathematical models of the world.  Students sometimes use the theories and equations without understanding how they were developed, their limitations, or even what problems they address. The development of an idea from Aristotle to the present would make physics more interesting and understandable. (2)  Aristotle’s works are reconstructions from fragmentary notes. He had the most rudimentary of scientific equipment, his measurements were not quantitative; and he considered only things that were observable with the eye. Ignoring these limitations has caused some to distort the significance of his work, sometimes to the point of considering Aristotle an impediment to the advancement of science. However, we should not project the framework of contemporary science on Aristotle’s work – but we should read his works and examine his Natural Philosophy in the context of his times. (3)

Scientific Method: In ancient times, events in Nature had been explained as the actions of the gods. The early Greek philosophers  questioned the role of the gods as the cause of events and by the fifth century B.C. the Greek philosophers, such as Socrates, had separated philosophy from theology. But, if the gods were not the cause of events, what was? Philosophers advanced explanations based on philosophical principles and mathematical forms. Aristotle found that unsatisfactory. He decided the principles of nature could be found within nature and could be discovered using careful observation and inductive reasoning. Observations must be capable of being observed by the senses and should include the four causes: the composition, the shape (or form), the motion (or change), and the end result (or purpose). Identifying the four causes insured a thorough understanding of the event. Chance or spontaneity were not considered causes. He thought all things in Nature should be open to examination and subject to reason – and he set about applying his methods to all knowledge.

Aristotle founded a school in Athens at the Lyceum which provided the world’s first comprehensive study of human knowledge from the perspective of natural philosophy. His lectures followed a pattern that formed the basis of the scientific method. They included a statement of the idea or problem, the precise definition of terms, a statement of what he and other scholars thought about the matter, the observations, arguments based on how well the ideas agreed with observation, and finally what could be concluded. His lectures notes are important as they not only show clearly his reasoning but they preserve many of the ideas of his contemporaries. (4, 5)

Physics: In his work,  Physics, (6) Aristotle examined the nature of matter, space, time, and motion. He had few tools for experimentation and could not measure time or speeds. He would not allow invisible forces so his reasoning did not include gravity. Things fell to Earth and the moon circled the Earth because that was their nature. He proved that infinite linear motion and voids could not exist on Earth. Without those, he could not escape the complexities of the real world or fully understand inertia. In spite of his limitations, Aristotle made some remarkable contributions to physics and laid the groundwork for Galileo, Newton, and Einstein. He reasoned that infinite velocities could not exist, that time and movement are continuous and inseparable, and that time was even flowing, infinite, and the same everywhere at once. These are all true and a part of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Some consider that Aristotle’s greatest contribution to physics was his description of time.

Reading Aristotle reminds one of reading Einstein. He takes the simplest of observations and in it discovers fundamental truths. Force is a push or a pull. A horse can pull a cart and the cart pulls back on the horse and when the horse stops, the cart stops.  Rest, then is the natural state of matter and the mover is acted on by that which it moves. These ideas became part of Newton’s Laws. He observed that there was both static and kinetic friction that opposed motion by studying shiphaulers. A hundred men could pull a ship but one man could not. Furthermore, he observed that the power needed to keep the ship moving depended on the force required and the speed. That is like the definition of power used today and, incidentally, something that Newton got wrong.  Aristotle examined objects falling in fluids and realized friction existed there also. He found that the speed of objects increased as the weight of the object and decreased with the thickness of the fluid. This is now a part of  Stoke’s Law  for an object falling at its terminal velocity. He also considered what would happen if the fluid became thinner and thinner but rejected the conclusion as that would lead to a vacuum and an infinite speed, both which he considered impossibilities. Galileo allowed those impossibilities and is credited with discovering kinematics.

Cosmology: We sometimes forget that Aristotle proved the Earth was a sphere. He observed that the shadow of the Earth on the moon during an eclipse was an arc. That was not conclusive as a disk might give the same shadow. The phases of the Moon and its appearance during eclipses show it to be a sphere and the Earth might be also. As one walks toward the horizon, the horizon falls away; and, as one walks North or South, different stars appear. These are as if one is looking out from a sphere. All things made of Earth fall to Earth in such a way as to be as near the Earth as possible. A sphere is the shape that allows this as it is the shape with the smallest surface for a given volume. All things considered, the Earth must be a sphere. Interestingly, an extension of that last argument is used today to explain the erosion of mountains, surface tension, the shape of droplets, and why the moons, planets, and stars are spheres.

Aristotle concluded that since all things fall toward the center of the Earth or move round the Earth, that the Earth must be the center of the Universe. The Moon and planets move around the Earth in circular orbits but must move in circles within circles to explain the variance observed in their orbits. The stars are fixed spheres that rotate around the Earth and the Universe must be finite else the stars at the outer edge would have to move at infinite speed. Aristotle was aware that if the heavenly bodies were made of matter, that they would fly off like a rock from a sling. He therefore added to the elements a fifth element, aether, to compose the heavenly bodies. Aether could not be observed on Earth but objects composed of it could move forever in circles without friction or flying away. (7) Perhaps Aristotle should have stopped with the moon, but the planets and stars were there and needed explaining. In spite of his model’s imperfections, Aristotle gave us a universe whose laws are invariant and capable of being discovered by observation and understood by reason. Aristotle’s model of the Universe lasted almost 20 centuries without significant modification and was so compelling that Renaissance philosophers and theologians built it into church doctrine.

Scientific Revolution: However, Aristotle’s model did not fit well with new observations made by 15^th century scientists. Copernicus realized that the planetary motions would be simpler and better explained if the Sun were the center of the universe. Tycho Brahe’s careful observations of planetary motions supported the Copernican model. Galileo used the first telescope to observe that Jupiter had moons that revolved around Jupiter and not the Earth. This was convincing evidence and Galileo championed a revision of Aristotle’s model. There was much resistance to the acceptance of the heliocentric model and Galileo was threatened with a charge of heresy for promoting the idea. Some people now consider Aristotle’s  ideas as an impediment to the advancement of science. However, the impediment was not Aristotle’s ideas – but that Aristotle’s model of the universe had become woven into the doctrine of the Church.

Galileo’s kinematics was also in conflict with Aristotle’s work. Galileo’s experiment with falling bodies is considered as one of the ten greatest experiments of all time. He showed that a small weight fell from the Tower of Pisa at the same rate as one ten times as heavy. This was considered by some to be a triumph of Galileo’s kinematics over the simple empiricism of Aristotle. That was not, however, the whole story. Aristotle had not only examined objects falling in air but also in liquids. He found that the rate of fall in liquids increased as the weight of the object and decreased with the thickness of the fluid. This idea is consistent with Stoke’s Law  for an object falling at its terminal velocity in fluids. Aristotle even had considered the case of a fluid with no thickness (a vacuum), but rejected the possibility since the speed would become infinite. However, Galileo’s experiment was performed in air and, while correct in a vacuum, Galileo’s mechanics were not exactly correct in air. Had Galileo dropped his objects from a much greater height, he would have found that the heavy object would reach the ground half again as fast as the small object. This is observable in hailstones where a large stone will strike the ground at almost twice the speed of a small stone. Galileo’s mechanics are only valid in a vacuum and even then would allow the velocity to eventually become infinite, which conflicts with Einstein’s relativity.  No one has thought to criticize Galileo for that.

Scientific Progress: Many thought, and still think, that Galileo’s work was the final overthrow of Aristotelian physics and the start of a revolution allowing science to advance. That is not the case. It is just the normal progress of science that models and theories are revised as better observations and understanding occur. The Revolution was not so much an overthrow of Aristotelian Physics as it was in moving from the observable to the imaginable – and in again separating science from theology and philosophy. It is ironic that Galileo was accused of heresy for questioning the theories of a man who thought everything should be open to question and reason.

(1)  ERIC. http://www.eric.ed.gov A search of the database shows 78 papers in the last three decades are about the use of Aristotle’s ideas in teaching.

(2)  Stinner, A. (1994). The Story of Force: from Aristotle to Einstein. Phys. Educ., 29, 77-85.

(3)  Lombardi, O. (1999). Aristotelian Physics in the Contest of Teaching Science: A Historical-Philosophical  Approach. Science and Education, 8, 217-239.

(4)  Durant, Will. The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Great Philosophers of the Western  World. 5^th ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949

(5)  Ross, W. D. Aristotle. 5^th ed. London: Methuen & Co. LTD. 1949

(6) Aristotle, Physics. Translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye.
Provided by The Internet Classics Archive. Available at

    http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/physics.html

(7) Aristotle, On the Heavens. Translated by J. L. Stocks.
Provided by The Internet Classics Archive. Available at
    http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/heavens.html

Note: This article was originally written as the physical science
contribution to Aristotle's Enduring Contribution to Biology,
Physics,and Poetics by Surendra Singh, J.C. Moore, and Andrew Tadie.
It was published as Aristotle on Teaching Science  at the Seventh
International Conference on Teacher Education, New Delhi, India (2008)

The full article is available here.

(c) 2010 J.C. Moore

Scientific literacy cannot be measured by a litmus test such as belief in the Big Bang or evolution.

Every two years the National Science Foundation produces a report, Science and Engineering Indicators, which surveys the public’s attitudes toward science. (1) The report found for instance, that the public’s opinion of scientists ranks at the top of 23 other occupations and there is broad support for public funding of science research.  In spite of that, Dr. Lawrence Krauss, is unhappy because a section of the 2010 report about the public’s  science literacy was omitted.

In a Scientific American article, he responds:

“And every two years we relearn the sad fact that U.S. adults are less willing to accept evolution and the big bang as factual than adults in other industrial countries. Except for this time. Was there suddenly a quantum leap in U.S. science literacy? Sadly, no. Rather the National Science Board, which oversees the foundation, chose to leave the section that discussed these issues out of the 2010 edition, claiming the questions were ‘flawed indicators of scientific knowledge because responses conflated knowledge and beliefs.’ In short, if their religious beliefs require respondents to discard scientific facts, the board doesn’t think it appropriate to expose that truth.”

However, the National Science Board was right that the section  confused knowledge and beliefs. For example, there is evidence for the Big Bang theory and many people know about it, but they have not incorporated it into their beliefs.  Only physicists and mathematicians would likely know what a singularity is, let alone believe the universe arose from one. Then, there is the problem of how the singularity came to be. Likewise, many people know of the adaptation of species to their environment such as resistance of viruses and bacteria to antibiotics and of insects to DDT. They may also be aware of our ancestors such as Luci and Ardi and know of the evolution of the horse. However, if you insist that the spontaneous generation of life is part of evolution, it may be rejected.

Dr Krauss is missing something important.  Aristotle established science as a method for understanding nature by using observation and reason. It is not a body of facts to be memorized and believed. As scientists gather more evidence, what we now regard as fact may be replaced with better ideas. We should not make “accepting evolution and the big bang as factual” a litmus test for science literacy. Just as scientists think religion should not be dogmatic, scientists should also refrain from dogmatism. Insisting people accept scientific theories which conflict with their religious beliefs  just makes them more likely to mistrust science on issues where it really matters.

As a practical matter, it is not likely that someone’s mind can be changed by claiming their beliefs are wrong or that they are based on mythology. Science teachers must deal with students who already have a belief system established. Their strategy should be to present science as a method that uses observation and reason to understand the physical world. Teachers must focus on the background knowledge and the evidence, and hope that at some point the student would see any conflicts and try to resolve them.

1)http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind10/c7/c7h.htm

2) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=faith-and-foolishness

“Aristotle gave us a universe whose laws are invariant and capable of being discovered by observation and reason.” 

In ancient times, nature had been explained as the actions of the gods. The early Greek philosophers questioned the role of the gods as the cause of events and by the fifth century B.C. the Greek philosophers, such as Socrates, had separated philosophy from theology.

But, if the gods were not the cause of events, what was?  Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) thought the principles governing nature could be found within nature and could be discovered using careful observation and reasoning.  His reasoning followed a pattern familiar to students today as the scientific method: a statement of the problem, the definition of terms, a review of what he and other scholars thought, a comparison of the ideas to  observations , and finally what could be concluded.

Aristotle thought all things should be open to examination and subject to reason and he applied his methods to many areas of human knowledge. Aristotle made major contributions to biology, physics, philosophy, ethics, logic, poetics, education, and citizenship that are still valuable today. (Durant and Ross, 1949) Most importantly, Aristotle gave us a universe whose laws are invariant and capable of being discovered by observation and reason. May posts on this site honor Aristotle and his method.

1. Durant, Will. The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Great Philosophers of the Western World. 5th ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949

2. Ross, W. D. Aristotle. 5th ed. London: Methuen & Co. LTD. 1949