Spotting Fake Science News: Wendelstein 7‑X & Media
Table of Contents
Fake News, Data, and the Need to Check Sources
During and even after the recent US election campaign, numerous reports of fake or misleading news were circulated: outright fabrications, inaccurate summaries, and incomplete reporting designed to push one point of view or another. Outright fabricated stories are often exposed eventually, but subtler misreports — especially those that misinterpret data — are harder to spot and continue to be repeated by news sites, blogs, and political figures.
How data can be cited (and misinterpreted)
Most misleading reporting involves inaccurate or misleading presentation of data or facts. For example, a recent report on the US unemployment rate was used in a political campaign to claim two very different numbers: one extreme near 4.6% and another as high as 40.3%. Technically, both numbers can be correct depending on how unemployment is defined, but the public rarely sees that context. Are listeners aware why those figures differ, or where each number comes from? Without that context, anyone can cherry-pick a statistic and claim it proves a point.
Why source citation matters
This article continues the point I made in my earlier piece on The Most Important Thing You Can Learn From PhysicsForums. One of the key practices we stress on PF is demanding clear sources. In science and engineering we always cite our evidence — in papers, proposals, and reports — so readers can verify how conclusions were reached. That level of transparency is uncommon in mainstream news and practically nonexistent in political rhetoric.
We try to enforce many things here on PF. One of them is that members who want to understand what they read or hear must cite their sources clearly. This is normal practice in science and engineering: we include citations in papers, funding proposals, and reports so readers know the origin of facts and numbers. Newspapers seldom provide such exact citations, and politicians are worse — they sometimes assert that A causes B without justification. In science you must ask: what is the evidence that A causes B? What is the nature of the source that supports this? Demanding valid supporting evidence is reasonable even for political and social issues. How we arrive at conclusions is an important habit you can learn from this forum.
If you care about the unemployment rate (or any other statistic), do not rely on a politician’s statement or a headline. Go to the original source, read how the numbers were derived, and understand the definitions and assumptions that produced different figures. You must scrutinize your sources rather than accepting second- or third-hand summaries.
Case study: Wendelstein 7‑X and misleading headlines
A recent example involves verification of the magnetic-field topology for the Wendelstein 7‑X stellarator, a complex modular fusion device. The geometry of the magnetic field inside the device is extremely complex and built to tight tolerances; verifying that the field has the intended shape is a significant commissioning milestone. The full paper is open access.
What was reported (accurately) by the researchers was that they measured the magnetic field and found very small deviations from the design shape — a validation of the field topology and the precision of construction. That is a technically important result, but it is not the same as reporting that the device is a working fusion reactor producing net energy.
How headlines distorted the finding
Several mainstream outlets gave the W7‑X story sensational headlines and summaries that implied the machine was already “working” as a fusion power source. For example, Popular Mechanics ran the headline Germany’s Wildly Complex Fusion Reactor Is Actually Working and noted that researchers “found an incredibly small error rate, less than 1 in 100,000,” linking to the Nature Communications paper.
Space.com published a headline like “Star-In-A-Jar” Fusion Reactor Works and Promises Infinite Energy and summarized the Nature paper as if it cleared the device to move directly into energy-producing fusion. These summaries emphasized the sexy promise of fusion and downplayed the narrower, technical result: confirmation of the magnetic-field topology.
The result for an unsuspecting public is confusion. Readers often see only the headline and a short summary, and that can create the false impression that W7‑X is already operating as a power-producing fusion reactor. In reality, verifying the magnetic field topology is an essential step toward future plasma confinement experiments, but it is not proof that the device has achieved sustained, energy-producing fusion.
To be fair, both Popular Mechanics and Space.com linked to the Nature paper, so readers with interest could check the source. But how many readers will (a) follow the link and (b) understand the technical paper? Most rely on news summaries to provide an accurate gist — which means accurate interpretation matters.
The problem this causes for communities like PF
On PhysicsForums we regularly see members cite media articles that misrepresent technical findings. Members then become frustrated when we point out misunderstandings, or outright wrong interpretations. Worse, people with poor or fringe ideas sometimes use these misreports to bolster incorrect claims. That is why we insist on checking primary sources and citing them when making technical assertions.
Caveat emptor: unless you are ready to dig deeper, remember that what you read is someone’s interpretation — shaped by motive, agenda, or the need for clicks. Verify the original source whenever possible and demand evidence for causal claims.
Top 5 tips for spotting and defending against fake science reporting
- Verify the source
- Check whether the information comes from reputable journals, research institutions, or established news outlets.
- Be cautious with unknown websites or sensational headlines that lack citations.
- Examine the evidence
- Look for peer-reviewed studies, data, or official statements rather than anonymous claims.
- Be skeptical of claims that lack supporting evidence or rely on single, preliminary results.
- Cross-reference
- Search for other reputable sources reporting the same findings.
- Check whether independent experts confirm or critique the claims.
- Beware confirmation bias
- Notice your tendency to accept information that reinforces your beliefs.
- Evaluate claims critically even when they align with what you want to be true.
- Understand the scientific process
- Recognize that science evolves — early results are often refined, contradicted, or expanded over time.
- Familiarize yourself with basic research methods so you can judge whether conclusions follow from the evidence.
PhD Physics
Accelerator physics, photocathodes, field-enhancement. tunneling spectroscopy, superconductivity
What's interesting is the reaction by Vox and Slate and others. Their position is that scaring people is important – more important than getting the facts right – because political action is necessary. It's a thin line between that and "if we told the people the truth, they might not do what we want", which is a heck of a position for a journalist.It's seemed that way to me for a long time.
It's a thin lineI would say it's no line at all.
New York magazine last week published an article by David Wallace-Wells entitled "The Uninhabitable Earth". This article claims, among other things, that in 73 years or less "parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable". This piece has been criticized as inaccurate by, among others, Michael Mann – hardly a climate change denier. (But I confess it's fun to hear him called that)
What's interesting is the reaction by Vox and Slate and others. Their position is that scaring people is important – more important than getting the facts right – because political action is necessary. It's a thin line between that and "if we told the people the truth, they might not do what we want", which is a heck of a position for a journalist.
Adding more fuel to the fire……
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/multimedia/2017/jun/15/how-politicians-misuse-and-mangle-science
Zz.
I wasn't sure exactly where to put this one (also fits into the "March for Science" thread a bit), but it has been bugging me for a week:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie…ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-03-14-17-17-34
For the un-initiated, a "Nor'easter" is a storm system unique to the northeastern US, where a cold front comes in from the north west and collides with warm, moist air coming up the coast. The collision of the air masses produces a severe and rapidly intensifying storm. In the summer they rival hurricanes and in the winter, they produce massive blizzards along the Washington-Boston corridor.
Because they involve a cold and a warm air mass, there is a potentially wide variation in impacts across the storm from east to west. In the east, you might get all rain and in the west it is all snow. There will be a gradient of each, with the center generally producing the most snow, along a swath 10-50 miles wide and up to several hundred miled long.
Last week's nor'easter was late for a snowstorm, which produced a forecasting problem. Early indications were that it would be a classinc winter nor'easter, almost entirely snow, and cutting straight through the population centers from Philly to Boston. But hours before the snow started (Monday morning), the models started showing the warm air from the east would win and produce mostly rain along the coasts and a snow/sleet mix further inland, only producing all snow much further inland. These models were correct. The National Weather Service held a meeting on Monday afternoon and decided against updating the forecasts, "out of extreme caution" (quote) and "…they didn't want to confuse the public." (AP paraphrase).
Wait, what? A coherent message is more important than the quest for accuracy?
So along the east coast, we went to bed last Monday night expecting to wake up to a foot+ of snow and actually finding totals less than half of the low-end of the forecast (NYC predicted: 18-24", actual: 7"). Scientists can claim somewhat of a win in that the mass of precipitation was actually accurate, it was just denser than predicted, but that difference matters a lot in how you respond to the storm. Particularly when eastern Delaware and NJ saw mostly rain instead of a foot of snow! You can't un-cancel school if it doesn't snow. As for me, I did notice something was off when I woke up, but I was sicklazy and stayed home from work on Tuesday though many of my colleagues ended up going in.
This is from a division of the same government agency responsible for collecting, interpreting and disseminating climate data. Which begs the question: is the climate data/warming predictions we get filtered with the same bias?In the first bolded and underlined section, it is illustrated that they were choosing between two messages based on how they wanted the public to respond. The message that was chosen to be delivered was selected because they desired the response that it would illicit from the public.
In this scenario, they have demonstrated that they do indeed believe that its okay to deliver alternative "facts" with the intent of shaping public response.
If a politician were to discover that this organization had this trait, he/she could coerce them to deliver numbers that are convenient to use as "scientific evidence" proving the need for whichever legislation he/she wanted to pass.
If you combined P-hacking with their willingness to deliver information purely based on the desired response from the public, a group of like-minded politicians would be able to "scientifically prove the existence of" faux problems that can only be solved, conveniently, by giving those politicians the very power over the means of production/commerce that they have demonstrated wanting throughout their entire career.
That is not speculation, either. Analogous things have been done before. Only, instead of basing their justification in the words of "scientists", the kings/chiefs/emperors claimed that "prophets" had delivered the word of god/gods to them. Then the peasants believed the claims of their leaders and dutifully participated in whichever war, sacrifice, or relinquishment/reallocation of resources it was that the king/chief/leader wanted them to participate in.
That's why threads like this are important for us. Bad science can be used as a political weapon, and that needs to be acknowledged.
Sabine Hossenfelder:
No, physicists have not created “negative mass”
This is by no means to say that the result is uninteresting! Indeed, it’s pretty cool that this fluid self-limits its expansion thanks to long-range correlations which come from quantum effects. I’ll even admit that thinking of the behavior as if the fluid had a negative effective mass may be a useful interpretation. But that still doesn’t mean physicists have actually created negative mass.
Ultimately, at a subconscious level, our mind seeks to reduce anxiety, keep it under control. so, unless we pay
conscious attention, we believe what makes us feel better, what allows us to make sense of the world.
Are you saying that a repulsive gravitational force would not violate Newton's universal law of gravitation, because the same equation would still work with negative mass?
I would disagree with that, because Newton's universal law of gravitation includes the idea that all gravitational forces are attractive.How would such a situation differ from, for example, not knowing about repulsion in magnetism and later discovering it?
Yes, the equation is still valid. But I've always taught physics and preferred a public understanding of physics as physical meaning beyond the equations.Well isn't that one of the core purposes of a scientific theory? To expand knowledge by making predictions beyond what current experiments show? It's fine to assume mass always must be positive based on a lot of experiments. But it is even better to challenge that assumption by following the math wherever it leads. In that way, some scientists turn over a rock that others just assumed had nothing under it.
Your disagreement is with many physics textbooks, not with the news article or with me. The news article and I are consistent with Newton's second law as it is commonly articulated in textbooks, and the new finding of negative mass DOES CONTRADICT the common textbook explanation. Quoting Wilson, Buffa, and Lou:
The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it and inversely proportional to its mass. The direction of the acceleration is in the direction of the applied net force.
So, is the "Fake News" wrong, or are all the textbooks wrong that say "The direction of the acceleration is in the direction of the applied net force"?
Physics is always more than just the equations. Retaining the equations but changing the understanding of how they apply to reality IS a change in understanding of the underlying physical laws. That is REAL NEWS.In these textbooks, the mass is automatically assumed to be positive. I see nothing wrong with that, the same way I see nothing wrong with these books continuing to claim that no matter how intense a light source is, no photoelectrons will be emitted if the energy is below the work function. I personally have done experiments to show that this is wrong. But yet, I would not change these textbooks because they are restricted to within the context that these are still correct.
But the 2nd law itself, without such restriction, still WORKS, and I've show why. Thus, claiming that when you relax that restriction that this equation is "ignored" is patently false.
Zz.
The news article over-reached and stated something incorrect, especially when considering that the 2nd law with negative mass stated exactly what described, not different. This is the definition of an accurate description. It is not the definition of "ignoring".
Zz.Your disagreement is with many physics textbooks, not with the news article or with me. The news article and I are consistent with Newton's second law as it is commonly articulated in textbooks, and the new finding of negative mass DOES CONTRADICT the common textbook explanation. Quoting Wilson, Buffa, and Lou:
The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it and inversely proportional to its mass. The direction of the acceleration is in the direction of the applied net force.
So, is the "Fake News" wrong, or are all the textbooks wrong that say "The direction of the acceleration is in the direction of the applied net force"?
Physics is always more than just the equations. Retaining the equations but changing the understanding of how they apply to reality IS a change in understanding of the underlying physical laws. That is REAL NEWS.
Yes, the equation is still valid. But I've always taught physics and preferred a public understanding of physics as physical meaning beyond the equations.
Are you saying that a repulsive gravitational force would not violate Newton's universal law of gravitation, because the same equation would still work with negative mass?
I would disagree with that, because Newton's universal law of gravitation includes the idea that all gravitational forces are attractive. Reporting a repulsive gravitational force as a violation of Newton's universal law of gravitation would not be "Fake News." At worst, it might be represent a different opinion on a question of semantics. "Fake News" in regard to science reporting is not a different opinion on semantics, it is a skewed view (bad science) that is fundamentally wrong from any perspective.No, that is YOUR definition of what "fake news" is. That was never my definition of it within the context of this thread, and one can clearly see that in the Insight article that I wrote.
Newton's law of gravitation puts no limitation on the sign of the mass, the same way the BCS theory puts no limitation on whether the coupling must always be attractive. The mathematics doesn't care.
The news article over-reached and stated something incorrect, especially when considering that the 2nd law with negative mass stated exactly what described, not different. This is the definition of an accurate description. It is not the definition of "ignoring".
Zz.
The 2nd law equation is still valid even for negative mass. Nothing that has been discussed so far has pointed to that. It is not being "ignored" as claimed by the news article.
Zz.Yes, the equation is still valid. But I've always taught physics and preferred a public understanding of physics as physical meaning beyond the equations.
Are you saying that a repulsive gravitational force would not violate Newton's universal law of gravitation, because the same equation would still work with negative mass?
I would disagree with that, because Newton's universal law of gravitation includes the idea that all gravitational forces are attractive. Reporting a repulsive gravitational force as a violation of Newton's universal law of gravitation would not be "Fake News." At worst, it might be represent a different opinion on a question of semantics. "Fake News" in regard to science reporting is not a different opinion on semantics, it is a skewed view (bad science) that is fundamentally wrong from any perspective.
I'm not trying to make the case that we should. But allowing for negative masses seems like a generalization that contradicts the original understanding:
The new understanding IS new physics, just as generalizing Newton's universal law of gravitation to allow for repulsive gravitational forces would be new physics and a contradiction of our current understanding of Newton's universal law of gravitation, even though the math could all be accounted for by reckoning one of the masses as negative.But this isn't a "generalization" of anything Newton's laws. It is a generalization of the concept of "mass".
The 2nd Law never specified that "m" must always be positive for it to be used in the equation. It is just that at the time of its "conception", there was no other way to think of what the mass could be. So if m is positive, then the old description of the equation that we know and love is valid.
However, now that we can come up with scenario that the mass can be negative (or, to put it more accurately for this context, it is the effective mass), then the description of the equation (i.e. the interpretation) needs to be generalized. The formalism, i.e. the equation itself, needs no modification and it is still applicable.
This is no different than rethinking of the second law as being F=dp/dt, allowing for the possibility of a constant velocity situation with changing mass. The fact that F = v dm/dt is also a valid form of the 2nd law, and that it looks different than the old F=ma, does not mean that it is no longer the 2nd law.
The 2nd law equation is still valid even for negative mass. Nothing that has been discussed so far has pointed to that. It is not being "ignored" as claimed by the news article.
Zz.
Objects with negative mass do resist acceleration. You have to apply a force to accelerate them, and acceleration will be proportional to the force. It just goes in the opposite direction.
F=ma, Newton's second law, is valid.Written that way, it is wrong in special relativity and we found a counterexample decades ago – while F=ma has a natural equivalent with 4-vectors.
Why should we restrict a general formula like F=ma, that does work with negative masses, to positive masses, and then claim the more general formula would have been violated just because the artificial restriction does not work any more?I'm not trying to make the case that we should. But allowing for negative masses seems like a generalization that contradicts the original understanding:
The new understanding IS new physics, just as generalizing Newton's universal law of gravitation to allow for repulsive gravitational forces would be new physics and a contradiction of our current understanding of Newton's universal law of gravitation, even though the math could all be accounted for by reckoning one of the masses as negative.
Objects with negative mass do resist acceleration. You have to apply a force to accelerate them, and acceleration will be proportional to the force. It just goes in the opposite direction.
F=ma, Newton's second law, is valid.
The acceleration of an object as produced by a net force is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force, in the same direction as the net force, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object.Written that way, it is wrong in special relativity and we found a counterexample decades ago – while F=ma has a natural equivalent with 4-vectors.
Why should we restrict a general formula like F=ma, that does work with negative masses, to positive masses, and then claim the more general formula would have been violated just because the artificial restriction does not work any more?
I will call this out as another example of "Fake News". Here, the report on the UPI website went further than what the press release stated, and in the process, made a critical error.
This news article is reporting an interesting experimental result that created objects with "negative effective mass" in a superfluid. From what I can tell, the writer is basing the report not on the original paper, but rather from the press release out of Washington State University.
The error comes in at the very beginning of the news article:
I took a look at the WSU press release and in the paper itself. Nowhere in there was any claim made that this phenomenon "… ignores Isaac Newton's Second Law of Motion…" In fact, it HAS to obey the second law for it to have such a direction of acceleration.
The 2nd Law is basically F = ma.
1. For a positive mass, it means that F and a are in the same direction.
2. For a negative mass, then the 2nd law is F = -|m|a. It means that F and a are colinear, but in the opposite direction. In other words, it is the 2nd law that actually tells you that for a negative mass, if you push on it away from you, it will accelerates towards you. This is exactly OBEYING the 2nd law, not ignoring it! In fact, if the negative mass actually moves away from you the way we normally think ordinary mass should, it is only then that this mass is ignoring the 2nd Law!
The claim that this experiment "ignores the 2nd Law" is Fake Science Reporting. It is introduced to possibly make the story sexier and in the process, made a very amateurish mistake.
BTW, negative effective mass isn't new. This is common in condensed matter/solid state physics, because we have positive holes in solids, and on how we define effective mass (the curvature of the dispersion).
Zz.I always understood that it was an inherent property of inertial mass to resist acceleration – therefore, only positive masses make sense.
I take Newton's second to be more than an equation – it is the definition of inertial mass. With this understanding, negative masses DO violate the Newton's 2nd.
Fake news? No.
I will call this out as another example of "Fake News". Here, the report on the UPI website went further than what the press release stated, and in the process, made a critical error.
This news article is reporting an interesting experimental result that created objects with "negative effective mass" in a superfluid. From what I can tell, the writer is basing the report not on the original paper, but rather from the press release out of Washington State University.
The error comes in at the very beginning of the news article:
A team of physicists at Washington State University have created a fluid that ignores Isaac Newton's Second Law of Motion. The fluid has "negative mass." When it's pushed it accelerates backwards.I took a look at the WSU press release and in the paper itself. Nowhere in there was any claim made that this phenomenon "… ignores Isaac Newton's Second Law of Motion…" In fact, it HAS to obey the second law for it to have such a direction of acceleration.
The 2nd Law is basically F = ma.
1. For a positive mass, it means that F and a are in the same direction.
2. For a negative mass, then the 2nd law is F = -|m|a. It means that F and a are colinear, but in the opposite direction. In other words, it is the 2nd law that actually tells you that for a negative mass, if you push on it away from you, it will accelerates towards you. This is exactly OBEYING the 2nd law, not ignoring it! In fact, if the negative mass actually moves away from you the way we normally think ordinary mass should, it is only then that this mass is ignoring the 2nd Law!
The claim that this experiment "ignores the 2nd Law" is Fake Science Reporting. It is introduced to possibly make the story sexier and in the process, made a very amateurish mistake.
BTW, negative effective mass isn't new. This is common in condensed matter/solid state physics, because we have positive holes in solids, and on how we define effective mass (the curvature of the dispersion).
Zz.
Recently I've heard a lot about temperatures 20C above normal in the arctic… that sounds a little fishy.. was it for a day or a whole month? I know that in Alaska this winter they had some insanely cold temperatures of -50C… I was looking at the weather near Khabarovsk, Russia and it didn't look like it was warmer this winter than the last few winters.More detailed information is available, for example:
https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/
There was a branch of the National Weather Service at BNL when I was there (it might still be there), and I have chatted with a couple of the scientists there. They will provide the raw data for research because that is part of the requirement for all public-funded work. This is no different than any other public-funded work. In fact, *I* am required to keep and store all experimental data as part of my DOE and NSF grants, and will have to provide them when requested.
I will also state that raw data without context are meaningless numbers. This is especially true in climate science, because certain measurements have more caveats than others. But one has to be well-versed in this field to know that.
Zz.Dunno about the National Weather Service, but their parent agency, NOAA, definitely does not share all their data. We've been able to get all the weather, climate, and satellite data we've wanted, but they have not and apparently will not grant access to us for the vast majority of their fisheries data. They seem to share with other public agencies, but NOT with private researchers.
Likewise, we've also been refused fisheries data regularly by several states. Under Republican Governor Bobby Jindal, we had a great relationship with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) and for several years, all we needed to do was ask nicely and explain the nature of the research project. Within a couple of weeks we were granted access to the state fisheries data we wanted. As a courtesy, we provided the reports or preprints of papers back to the agency when they were available. After Democrat John Bel Edwards took office, our data requests began to be denied. Even though a lot of their data is acquired with federal funds, I would not be optimistic we would prevail in court. In Louisiana, the better approach is to play nice, be patient, and try and figure out whose back you need to scratch. Colorado has gladly and quickly shared all the fisheries data we requested. One mid-western state politely declined. Preliminary indications suggest formal requests to Texas and Florida would not be honored.
I should also mention that there has never been ANY requirement to share our data from DoD-funded work. In fact, many times, we cannot even publish our results until the paper is "approved for public release" through one DoD research office or another. Likewise, if a work was partially supported by a private company it is usually locked down pretty tightly even if partial support was public. Recently, I had to decline a request from the Naval Surface Warfare Center (Crane, IN) to share data from a project because of a non-disclosure agreement with a private company. Essentially, this required NSWC to repeat most of an experiment that we had already done. This is very common in the DoD world. We were able to help them on the project, but it was an odd dance: we couldn't share the data, and they couldn't tell us exactly why they needed it.
When it comes to sharing data over which we exercise discretion (no legal prohibition or requirement to share), our practice is to have a discussion among the stakeholders and decide what data the requesting party has that we would like and work out a trade. We've never denied a request for our data (unless we had to), but we do like to get something of value in return.
I wasn't sure exactly where to put this one (also fits into the "March for Science" thread a bit), but it has been bugging me for a week:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie…ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-03-14-17-17-34
For the un-initiated, a "Nor'easter" is a storm system unique to the northeastern US, where a cold front comes in from the north west and collides with warm, moist air coming up the coast. The collision of the air masses produces a severe and rapidly intensifying storm. In the summer they rival hurricanes and in the winter, they produce massive blizzards along the Washington-Boston corridor.
Because they involve a cold and a warm air mass, there is a potentially wide variation in impacts across the storm from east to west. In the east, you might get all rain and in the west it is all snow. There will be a gradient of each, with the center generally producing the most snow, along a swath 10-50 miles wide and up to several hundred miled long.
Last week's nor'easter was late for a snowstorm, which produced a forecasting problem. Early indications were that it would be a classinc winter nor'easter, almost entirely snow, and cutting straight through the population centers from Philly to Boston. But hours before the snow started (Monday morning), the models started showing the warm air from the east would win and produce mostly rain along the coasts and a snow/sleet mix further inland, only producing all snow much further inland. These models were correct. The National Weather Service held a meeting on Monday afternoon and decided against updating the forecasts, "out of extreme caution" (quote) and "…they didn't want to confuse the public." (AP paraphrase).
Wait, what? A coherent message is more important than the quest for accuracy? I suspect your post would be much "too political" for certain parties policing the "March for Science" thread. Good choice to put it here.
But you wisely point out that the "coherent message" that leads to inaccurate predictions undermines public trust in the agencies involved (and in science more broadly).
Scientists need to call out this foolishness and dishonesty for what it is if we hope to regain much of the public trust that is rapidly eroding.
Ok…that's all fine, but I don't see how it relates to what we were discussing/what you quoted.It is relevant because you said "…. In neither case are we provided all the details and models and in both cases we are provided the predictions to work from…."
It somehow implied that these are purposely hidden and cannot be made available. This is false. You can get the raw data, and the model being used are often known. In fact, in weather forecasting, there are several different models that are used, and we can often see that very clearly in the prediction of the path of a hurricane.
These are not provided when weather prediction is made to the public because this is not something the public cares about, the same way the public never demanded to see the economic model used to do the federal budget, or the model used in actuarial analysis of your insurance rates. I do not see why this has be singled out here, especially when one CAN obtain those information if needed from NOAA or the NWS.
Zz.
There was a branch of the National Weather Service at BNL when I was there (it might still be there), and I have chatted with a couple of the scientists there. They will provide the raw data for research because that is part of the requirement for all public-funded work. This is no different than any other public-funded work. In fact, *I* am required to keep and store all experimental data as part of my DOE and NSF grants, and will have to provide them when requested.
I will also state that raw data without context are meaningless numbers. This is especially true in climate science, because certain measurements have more caveats than others. But one has to be well-versed in this field to know that.Ok…that's all fine, but I don't see how it relates to what we were discussing/what you quoted.
In any case,
I wrote my description of NOAA's purpose without looking at their mission statement, but in paraphrasing it, I wouldn't change a thing:
http://www.noaa.gov/about-our-agency
Of note/relevance:
1. The importance of dissemination of the information to the public and planners.
2. The general mandate for climate and weather is exactly the same based on the fact that the two are listed next to each other in the opening sentence of the mission.
None of that is completely true/relevant. There exists, in both cases, a necessary connection between the scientists/data and the rest of the government/public. The government collects, analyses, makes predictions from and disseminates weather and climate data not because they are randomly curious about them, but because it has been deemed in the public interest for the public to know and for the government and public to use the information to make policy/action decisions.There was a branch of the National Weather Service at BNL when I was there (it might still be there), and I have chatted with a couple of the scientists there. They will provide the raw data for research because that is part of the requirement for all public-funded work. This is no different than any other public-funded work. In fact, *I* am required to keep and store all experimental data as part of my DOE and NSF grants, and will have to provide them when requested.
I will also state that raw data without context are meaningless numbers. This is especially true in climate science, because certain measurements have more caveats than others. But one has to be well-versed in this field to know that.
Zz.
The weather forecast was intended to the general public. It is a forecast/prediction based on the data, and can often change in the last minute.
Climate data are meant for professionals and scientists….None of that is completely true/relevant. There exists, in both cases, a necessary connection between the scientists/data and the rest of the government/public. The government collects, analyses, makes predictions from and disseminates weather and climate data not because they are randomly curious about them, but because it has been deemed in the public interest for the public to know and for the government and public to use the information to make policy/action decisions. In neither case are we provided all the details and models and in both cases we are provided the predictions to work from.
Regarding the middle part, the time frames are different (years vs days), but otherwise the signal to noise ratio problems and "last minute changes" are almost exactly the same. The main difference being that GW data should improve over time whereas weather is always resetting.
This is from a division of the same government agency responsible for collecting, interpreting and disseminating climate data. Which begs the question: is the climate data/warming predictions we get filtered with the same bias?The weather forecast was intended to the general public. It is a forecast/prediction based on the data, and can often change in the last minute.
Climate data are meant for professionals and scientists, and are also collected by not only other scientists not working with the agency, but also by other countries that have their own weather collection protocol. These are also collected over time, and the raw data are what these scientists deal with.
Zz.
I wasn't sure exactly where to put this one (also fits into the "March for Science" thread a bit), but it has been bugging me for a week:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie…ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-03-14-17-17-34
For the un-initiated, a "Nor'easter" is a storm system unique to the northeastern US, where a cold front comes in from the north west and collides with warm, moist air coming up the coast. The collision of the air masses produces a severe and rapidly intensifying storm. In the summer they rival hurricanes and in the winter, they produce massive blizzards along the Washington-Boston corridor.
Because they involve a cold and a warm air mass, there is a potentially wide variation in impacts across the storm from east to west. In the east, you might get all rain and in the west it is all snow. There will be a gradient of each, with the center generally producing the most snow, along a swath 10-50 miles wide and up to several hundred miled long.
Last week's nor'easter was late for a snowstorm, which produced a forecasting problem. Early indications were that it would be a classinc winter nor'easter, almost entirely snow, and cutting straight through the population centers from Philly to Boston. But hours before the snow started (Monday morning), the models started showing the warm air from the east would win and produce mostly rain along the coasts and a snow/sleet mix further inland, only producing all snow much further inland. These models were correct. The National Weather Service held a meeting on Monday afternoon and decided against updating the forecasts, "out of extreme caution" (quote) and "…they didn't want to confuse the public." (AP paraphrase).
Wait, what? A coherent message is more important than the quest for accuracy?
So along the east coast, we went to bed last Monday night expecting to wake up to a foot+ of snow and actually finding totals less than half of the low-end of the forecast (NYC predicted: 18-24", actual: 7"). Scientists can claim somewhat of a win in that the mass of precipitation was actually accurate, it was just denser than predicted, but that difference matters a lot in how you respond to the storm. Particularly when eastern Delaware and NJ saw mostly rain instead of a foot of snow! You can't un-cancel school if it doesn't snow. As for me, I did notice something was off when I woke up, but I was sicklazy and stayed home from work on Tuesday though many of my colleagues ended up going in.
This is from a division of the same government agency responsible for collecting, interpreting and disseminating climate data. Which begs the question: is the climate data/warming predictions we get filtered with the same bias?
BTW, when it comes to medical stuff, i find that I'm able to develop an opinion by reading a few studies about effectiveness, despite the fact that I don't have a medical background. Again, a small amount of quantitative literacy comes into play here. Was it tested? Was there a control group? Peer reviewed? Double blind? How big was the sample? I don't need to know the mechanics of the drug.. just "is there some probability this will work, and does it outweigh the potential complications?"It's amazing how many studies are misrepresented by the media. Many misunderstandings could be avoided by simply reading the abstract/discussion. Many times the claims being made about the study are not supported by the authors in the conclusion/discussion. Understanding the hierarchy of evidence is also important; placing a case study involving a handful of subjects on the same level as systematic reviews and meta-analyses of "RCTs with definitive results" can lead to mistaking a mere association (which requires further study) with a causative effect/mechanism.
Well some good news here in Belgium. A well-known comic (Lieven Scheire) that studied (but didn't finish) physics in college started a monthly podcast that looks at science and technology news. He did similar things in a TV show although they often focused on unbelievable facts much like QI.
It is discussed with the help of active scientists. They address problems with popular accounts in an attempt to counteract ill-written articles.
I checked out the February edition and it seems quite good. They joke about a little which could help with coverage.
I'm not faulting statistics when they're used correctly, because yes it is just a tool.. it's when they're deliberately misused, misquoted and misinterpreted the problems come up.. Just like using a baseball bat to break kneecaps is a misuse of the tool. Look at the last election when one side was saying unemployment was ~5% while the other was saying 45%, and they were both right.. depending on which statistic you used.
I am pointing out other scientific opinions.. I don't have the expertise to analyze the data, or even know if everyone is working from the same dataset… Recently I've heard a lot about temperatures 20C above normal in the arctic… that sounds a little fishy.. was it for a day or a whole month? I know that in Alaska this winter they had some insanely cold temperatures of -50C… I was looking at the weather near Khabarovsk, Russia and it didn't look like it was warmer this winter than the last few winters.I don't want to get into a debate about the evidence for this so-called global warming, but you need to understand that "weather" is not the same as "climate".
Statistics will be used/abused and will continued to be used and abused by everyone. But we need to differentiate between the conclusion of a scientific study versus the study being used by others in their own "special" ways. The former should be studied, discussed, challenged, etc. intellectually, i.e. as part of the process of verification. The latter must be dealt with by pointing out how they are wrong or misplaced or misguided. This, unfortunately, is not something a lot of people seem able to distinguish and separate, and so they tend to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Zz.
I don't have the expertise to analyze the data,Then don't try it.
And don't mix weather and climate please.
I'm not faulting statistics when they're used correctly, because yes it is just a tool.. it's when they're deliberately misused, misquoted and misinterpreted the problems come up.. Just like using a baseball bat to break kneecaps is a misuse of the tool. Look at the last election when one side was saying unemployment was ~5% while the other was saying 45%, and they were both right.. depending on which statistic you used.
I am pointing out other scientific opinions.. I don't have the expertise to analyze the data, or even know if everyone is working from the same dataset… Recently I've heard a lot about temperatures 20C above normal in the arctic… that sounds a little fishy.. was it for a day or a whole month? I know that in Alaska this winter they had some insanely cold temperatures of -50C… I was looking at the weather near Khabarovsk, Russia and it didn't look like it was warmer this winter than the last few winters.
There is nothing as manipulable than a statistic… On Canada's east coast in the 90's I believe it was, they were doing studies on fish populations and looking at different 'fishing holes'.. well, when a place had no fish anymore, it wasn't considered a fishing hole anymore and thus excluded from the data, completely skewing the results…
Then there are the unemployment statistics, where people who've been out of work for a year or are on welfare are no longer considered "Unemployed"…
And the same goes for climate change, For one I think it's such a complex phenomenon that we just CAN'T model it accurately and not impart personal opinion into it somewhere along the way.. Russia's scientists are apparently calling for a mini ice age over the next 50 years based on sunspot activityBut here's the thing about statistics, though. We have no other means to analyze many of these problems without them. This is especially true when we try to study social dynamics, correlations, and cause-and-effect.
For example, someone can claim that children who are constantly playing with video game A will tend to be more violent. Why? Because supposedly, that teenage shooter killed a bunch of people in a shopping mall.
Now, is this a claim that is backed by any defensible and valid evidence?
So what social scientists have to do is do a study to find all teenagers who play this game at various length of time, and compare that with teenagers who live in roughly the same area with the same demographics and socio-economic standings, and then do a comparison, for example. In fact, there could be MANY different ways to study the validity of this connection. Then you try to figure out first if there is any correlation with violent behavior, and if there is, establish a cause-and-effect, because correlation does not imply causation.
This is not easy, and it is not infallible. No one is claiming it is. But we lack any other means to study this type of phenomenon. The best we can do is to let the experts hash it out and let it go through its gestation period. People will examine the validity of (i) the data that were collected (ii) the way those data were collected (iii) the way they were analyzed (iv) the assumptions that were made (v) the strength of the conclusion, etc… etc. In fact, another group may conduct a similar study, and might even come up with an opposite conclusion. This is not unheard of. So unless one is an expert in that particular field, there is no way that I can see how one can simply dismiss a particular result. You cannot simply dismiss such a result simply based on taste, or personal opinion, or the phase of the moon. Either point out the flaw in the statistics, the flaw in the analysis, the flaw in the conclusion, or do your own study to counter the first one. Otherwise, it is an objection without merit.
Sure, statistics can be manipulated. But it doesn't mean that all statistics should be dismissed off-hand. The specific flaw in it should be pointed out, rather than simply making a board dismissal. Otherwise, there is no way for us to know if any kind of social, economic, political etc. policies and ideas are actually working or effective as claimed.
Zz.