When Science Goes Wrong

Download or read book When Science Goes Wrong written by Simon LeVay and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revealing study of scientific failure provides twelve shocking stories drawn from a range of scientific fields, ranging from a surprise hurricane that makes violent landfall despite forecasters claims that it does not exist, to a team of scientists that ignores signs of an imminent eruption to hike into a supposedly dormant volcanic crater. Original.

Download or read book When Science Goes Wrong written by Consolmagno, Guy, SJ and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The science/faith discussion is often hindered by a fundamental misunderstanding of the role and function of science. This misunderstand was made most evident, with tragic consequences, during the recent pandemic. The ways that science has gone wrong, and the underlying causes of how it goes wrong, will be illustrated here with a series of historical essays describing ideas about the universe, planet Earth, and the evolution of life that were all based on ideas that were reasonable…but ultimately wrong. Some are amusing in retrospect; others are tragic. Theology, philosophy, or even mathematics may lay claim to eternal truths, but in science our very cosmologies change. Just as the major religions have adapted in the face of changing cultural cosmologies, so too has science adapted in the face of challenging new observations and new ideas. Religions and science are strengthened by experiencing a shift in our assumptions; that’s where we find out what’s essential, and what is cultural baggage. Ultimately, the point of our science is not to come up with the “right answer.” Both as scientists and as human beings, we know that sometimes we learn the most by encountering ideas that challenge us. When we say, “I know that can’t be right; so, where did it go wrong?” we gain a greater insight into what we do believe, and what it really means.

Download or read book Pandora's Lab written by Paul A. Offit and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2017 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the most fascinating and significant scientific missteps, the author presents seven cautionary lessons to separate good science from bad.

Download or read book Failing in the Field written by Dean Karlan and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-18 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revealing look at the common causes of failures in randomized control experiments during field reseach—and how to avoid them All across the social sciences, from development economics to political science, researchers are going into the field to collect data and learn about the world. Successful randomized controlled trials have brought about enormous gains, but less is learned when projects fail. In Failing in the Field, Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel examine the taboo subject of failure in field research so that researchers might avoid the same pitfalls in future work. Drawing on the experiences of top social scientists working in developing countries, this book describes five common categories of failures, reviews six case studies in detail, and concludes with reflections on best (and worst) practices for designing and running field projects, with an emphasis on randomized controlled trials. Failing in the Field is an invaluable “how-not-to” guide to conducting fieldwork and running randomized controlled trials in development settings.

Download or read book Reproducibility and Replicability in Science written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2019-10-20 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the pathways by which the scientific community confirms the validity of a new scientific discovery is by repeating the research that produced it. When a scientific effort fails to independently confirm the computations or results of a previous study, some fear that it may be a symptom of a lack of rigor in science, while others argue that such an observed inconsistency can be an important precursor to new discovery. Concerns about reproducibility and replicability have been expressed in both scientific and popular media. As these concerns came to light, Congress requested that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conduct a study to assess the extent of issues related to reproducibility and replicability and to offer recommendations for improving rigor and transparency in scientific research. Reproducibility and Replicability in Science defines reproducibility and replicability and examines the factors that may lead to non-reproducibility and non-replicability in research. Unlike the typical expectation of reproducibility between two computations, expectations about replicability are more nuanced, and in some cases a lack of replicability can aid the process of scientific discovery. This report provides recommendations to researchers, academic institutions, journals, and funders on steps they can take to improve reproducibility and replicability in science.

Download or read book Failure written by Stuart Firestein and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2016 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his sequel to Ignorance (Oxford University Press, 2012), Stuart Firestein shows us that the scientific enterprise is riddled with mistakes and errors - and that this is a good thing! Failure: Why Science Is So Successful delves into the origins of scientific research as a process that relies upon trial and error, one which inevitably results in a hefty dose of failure.

Download or read book The Book of Why written by Judea Pearl and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Turing Award-winning computer scientist and statistician shows how understanding causality has revolutionized science and will revolutionize artificial intelligence "Correlation is not causation." This mantra, chanted by scientists for more than a century, has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. Today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, instigated by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and established causality -- the study of cause and effect -- on a firm scientific basis. His work explains how we can know easy things, like whether it was rain or a sprinkler that made a sidewalk wet; and how to answer hard questions, like whether a drug cured an illness. Pearl's work enables us to know not just whether one thing causes another: it lets us explore the world that is and the worlds that could have been. It shows us the essence of human thought and key to artificial intelligence. Anyone who wants to understand either needs The Book of Why.