Scientific drilling and climate change

[Storker]

More to the point... One of the things hear a lot is that "scientists are perpetuating the myth of climate change in order to line their pockets with grant money." Some derivations of this include things like granting agencies "knowing that climate change isn't real" but continuing to fund the projects to maintain jobs.

This is patently false. First, on the granting front, a University scientist can only take two months salary from the grant (they two months during the summer that they do not get paid by their University). If they are a federally employed scientist, they can't take any salary. So if you are a University scientist and get one grant for 100k, you can get two months of summer salary. If you get 5 grants totaling 20 million, you can get two months of summer salary. Scientists are not getting rich from grants.

Second, funding rates from the main funding agencies, (e.g. NSF and NIH) are at historic lows. No one at any agency is giving out money, just to keep people employed. In fact, the program officers at NSF have told me one of the most difficult jobs they have, is telling labs who are on the verge of shutdown, that they will not be funded. Given such low budgets, the agencies are looking to fund the best science they can get for their money. As an individual scientist, a sure fire way to get money in climate science right now would be to submit a grant proposal with solid preliminary data showing that climate change is not happening.

Third, the agencies and program officers have no financial incentive to fund bad science. The people working there don't get paid more or less depending on what they fund. In addition, Congress has full access to funding decisions and the budgets of grants that are awarded. When grants are awarded to individual scientists, their home institution then manages the grant, overseeing every penny of spending.

So perhaps I should have qualified my post by specifying the public sector. I don't have experience in private sector science. In the public sector, however, there is no science being perpetuated to line pockets or maintain jobs.

To the point.

Competition for public funding is so fierce that anyone trying to peddle bad science - plus quite a few of those doing sound, good science - are weeded out from the grant pool pretty fast.

 

[Wookie]

If I had time, which I will in a couple of days, I will direct your attention to the UM RSMAS hogfish assessment from 1996 or so. The science was thoroughly discredited, however the conclusions were correct, because the answer was plain as day to the most casual observer. The professor was and continues to be a rainmaker for RSMAS, therefore a junk study now and again is acceptable.

 

[RyanT]

@Wookie, how does a discredited study relate to the discussion at hand? I never said that there isn't some bad science being conducted. As I mentioned in a previous post, what I took issue with was the castigation of an entire study based on what was being done in a couple of photos. I also took issue with the mischaracterization of how science is done, (e.g. that hypotheses don't really have a place in science, rather it is just a bunch of grad students drinking beer...)

 

[Wookie]

Because bad scientists still make more science if they are a university rainmaker. You said that if a professor or acientist produces bad science, they wouldn't get funded. I just called bullish!t. Your turn to show me how bad science results in decreased funding.

 

[Storker]

Because bad scientists still make more science if they are a university rainmaker. You said that if a professor or acientist produces bad science, they wouldn't get funded. I just called bullish!t.

Yes, and your argument was a single anecdote. Even the plural of anecdote isn't data.

I've sat in committees evaluating grant proposals. And those committees generally consist of a decent bunch of pretty highly qualified scientists. While it's impossible to guarantee that the occasional cheater won't slip through the system, I can guarantee you that it's impossible on the systematic level. IME even just a fraction of the good proposals make it all the way to be approved.

 

[Skeptic14]

As long as humans are involved you can be confident there will be incompetence, bias and outright intentional misrepresentation.

Science is an objective process, the best method we've come up with at obtaining knowledge.

Scientist are people; not special people, not chosen people, not perfect people.

The only problem with science is that people have to conduct it; that's what should always be scrutinized.

 

[RyanT]

@Wookie, like @Storker, I have sat on plenty of review panels at the National Science Foundation. Indeed, I didn't always agree with the panel's recommendation on every proposal, but the panel generally ends up with a small list of very high quality proposals. One of (the many) things that goes into each proposal's evaluation is the track record of the investigators. Given the competitive nature of grants now (10% or less funding for mainline grants at NSF), a poor publication track record will get you booted. And you don't get a consistent, high-quality publication record by continually producing poor quality science. I've served as an editor for scientific journals as well. Even the basic journals are rejecting 2/3 of the manuscripts they receive these days. Does that mean a crappy paper never gets published? No. Does it mean a crappy proposal never gets funded? Of course not. As @Skeptic14 said, scientists are people. But, overtime, the review and funding process tends to support high quality proposals. Also, here's a link to a study showing a correlation between quality of science and funding in medical research.

Association Between Funding and Quality of Published Medical Education Research

Finally, to stay on topic, my original intent was simply to point out that you can't castigate an entire study from a couple of photos.