scientific error

[Guest guest]

Excellent article by Webster (click on the Mark Blaxill links as well).

…During a presentation at the National Autism Association's conference last

month, Dr.

Tom Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, concluded his

formal

remarks by sharing with his audience the goals of science, as he and many of his

fellow

researchers at the National Institutes of Health see them.

*****

(Insel) " One of the chief causes of poverty in science is imaginary wealth. The

purpose of

science is not to open the door to an infinitude of wisdom but set some limit to

the

infinitude of error. " - Brecht, Life of Gallileo

Now, I started my remarks by telling you that we know a very small part of what

we need

to know. I would imagine it's under 10%. Many of you think you know the

answers and we

want to hear those. But I want you to understand that we set a very, very high

bar in

science - that most of what we do in science, as somebody once said, is " 1%

inspiration

and 99% perspiration. " So, it takes three months to make a finding and ten

years to try to

falsify it before you really believe it. Some of you don't have ten years to

wait. I

understand that. But, our goal, here, is to make sure we do set a very high bar

and that

when we tell you something, it's something that we know can be replicated not

just for

your child, but for many, many other children, because there's a lot at stake.

So, the idea

of setting a limit on the infinitude of error is extremely important to us and

is a sort of

guiding principle to make sure that we are trying to test as many different

ideas as

possible, but putting a very high bar on what we would accept as a test of any

given idea

before we feel that it's proven.

***********

Limiting the potential for error in science is, indeed, a lofty goal, but

remember Dr.

Brumback, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Child Neurology? In his note

accompanying

the erratum for the Ip et al article, Dr. Brumback states, " One of the

philosophical myths

associated with science is that invalid information published in scientific

journals will be

exposed by scientists who find that a particular study cannot be replicated.

Unfortunately,

this is rarely the case. " He continues,

… " interest in replicating the published results is lacking because there is no

glory in being

the second person to describe a particular phenomenon, and research funding

agencies

(such as the US National Institutes of Health) do not provide grants to

investigators

wanting to confirm the results of other investigations. Thus, it is actually a

fluke when

problematic publications are identified. "

So, errors in science are often missed because funding is rarely allocated to

research

designed to replicate a previously-obtained result. It's a " fluke " that DeSoto

and Hitlan

found these. This reality seems a far cry from the pristine world of science

Dr. Insel

describes.

If limiting error is, truly, of utmost importance in science, we should expect

to find a

number of retractions and corrections following DeSoto and Hitlan's article.

It's been three

weeks and what have we heard? A flurry of short-lived posts by a few bloggers

and that's

about it. From officials in various government agencies cloaked in the mantle

of science

we've heard nothing but ear-splitting silence….

http://www.ageofautism.com/2007/12/the-ip-blip-and.html#more