Category Archives: Sound Science ™

Science in the Time of COVID-19

There was an interesting BBC Radio 4 item, hosted by Sonia Sodha, on Science in the Time of COVID-19. If you can’t access it, there is a related Guardian article. I’ve listened to it a few times, and I’m still … Continue reading

Posted in Philosophy for Bloggers, Science, Scientists, Sound Science (tm), The philosophy of science, The scientific method, We Are Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 63 Comments

The social construction of science

Richard Dawkins posted a tweet that cause a bit of a furore in some sectors of Twitter. He did try to clarify, but it still didn’t go down well. The problem with his tweet is that science clearly is socially … Continue reading

Posted in Philosophy for Bloggers, physicists, Research, Scientists, Sound Science (tm), The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , | 53 Comments

Alan’s Bottle

Me and Ken just had a talk over the Science Kerfuffle of the moment, featuring a physics and maths teacher known to pwn fashionable nonsense fans. He recently suggested that POMO weakened our herd immunity to combat objective untruths. He … Continue reading

Posted in The scientific method, The philosophy of science, Sound Science (tm), Philosophy for Bloggers, We Are Science | Tagged , , , , | 91 Comments

The Auditing Problem

Auditing leads to an open problem. Let’s try to specify it as lightly as possible. Technical notes follow the main text, they’re tagged using curly brackets, like {this note}. §1. Alvaro’s Story Alvaro wrote a piece called What’s Wrong with … Continue reading

Posted in Philosophy for Bloggers, Research, Science, Scientisits, Sound Science (tm), The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , , , | 28 Comments

A modelling manifesto?

There’s a recent Nature comment lead by Andrea Saltelli called Five ways to ensure that models serve society: a manifesto. Gavin Schmnidt has already posted a Twitter thread about it. I largerly agree with Gavin’s points and thought I would … Continue reading

Posted in ClimateBall, Philosophy for Bloggers, Research, Scientists, Sound Science (tm), The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , | 73 Comments

Zharkova et al. – retracted

Just a quick post to highlight that the Zharkova et al. paper, that I’ve discussed in a couple of previous posts, has now been retracted. The retraction notice is here. There’s a Retraction Watch post, which also includes a link … Continue reading

Posted in Gavin Schmidt, Global warming, Philosophy for Bloggers, Sound Science (tm), The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 116 Comments

Zharkova et al.: an update

Last year I wrote a couple of posts about a paper by Valentina Zharkova and colleagues, which suggested that global warming was partly due to the Earth moving closer to the Sun as the Sun moves around the Solar System … Continue reading

Posted in Global warming, Philosophy for Bloggers, Research, Sound Science (tm), The philosophy of science | Tagged , , , , , | 78 Comments

Climategate

Climategate is a topic I’ve rarely discussed on this blog. Mostly because it’s clear that it’s not possible to have a constructive discussion with those who have different views about its significance. However, since I watched the BBC show about … Continue reading

Posted in ClimateBall, Contrarian Matrix, Gavin Schmidt, Sound Science (tm), Steven McIntyre, The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , , , | 140 Comments

Moderation at The Conversation

The Conversation has a new set of moderation policies which is motivated by a desire to improve [their] climate change coverage. It involves a zero tolerance approach to moderating climate change deniers, and sceptics. Not only will their comments be … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Personal, Sound Science (tm) | Tagged , , , , , | 61 Comments

Statistical versus mathematical modelling

There’s a short comment by Andrea Saltelli in Nature Communications on Statistical versus Mathematical Modelling. The general premise is that, like statistics, there is also a crisis in mathematical modelling. However, there isn’t the same sense of crisis about mathematical … Continue reading

Posted in Research, Science, Sound Science (tm), The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , | 153 Comments