Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Full Version: The virus that turns physicists into crackpots
You're currently viewing a stripped down version of our content. View the full version with proper formatting.
https://www.science20.com/tommaso_dorigo...ots-246490

EXCERPT: . . . During the past month I have witnessed, on Facebook, Twitter, Whatsup, mailing lists, etcetera a rather widespread attitude in a large number of colleagues, who have started to entertain themselves with publically available data on contagions, deaths, hospitalized patients, and related geographical information. [...] I saw curves describing data from one country overlaid with other curves describing data from other countries, shifted according to ad-hoc criteria; I saw wild extrapolations to plateaus that would later never materialize. I saw fits using Gaussian approximations to uncertainties which ignored that the data had completely different sampling distributions, unintelligible internal correlations that would freeze even the most rabid data fitter in a normal context, and systematic uncertainties so big you could drive a pick-up truck within the bars. I could go on, of course...

[...] It was Dick Feynman who once said - I am paraphrasing since I'm too lazy to look it up - "I believe that a scientist dealing with a non-scientific problem is as dumb as the next guy." ... In other words, where has the scientific method gone? Is it really the case that a physicist confined at home magically and instantly feels free from the professional burden of the painstaking checking of details and assumptions, the obsession with preliminary studies of systematic and biasing effects that may invalidate the data, the rigorous assessment of the methodology?

I must say I believe that this virus outbreak has taken a toll on all of us already. From the psychological point of view we have been hit hard: in order to fight the pandemic we have been forced to cut our social ties, to stop all our normal academic activities, and to confine ourselves at home, where thought does not flow as fluently as it does within the dear walls of our snug offices. It looks as if by removing us from our Physics departments we have instantly been stripped of our medals and flashes. And yet, we feel that as scientists we should know better about what awaits us: our superiority complex demands that we consider ourselves as the only ones who understand numbers, the only ones who really realize the frightening behaviour of power law growths, the only ones who get it.

[...] the bottomline is clear to me: the psychological implications of home confinement in a situation of fear and uncertainty are simply not good for scientific research. We tend to become complacent with ourselves, as we feel more protected from outside criticism. Or maybe the armchair at home is much too comfortable with respect to the chair of our office desk. Besides, social media are not a peer-reviewed scientific outlet, and in a rapidly evolving situation nobody will accuse us of sloppy data analysis if we indulge in that activity.

In a word: we have -temporarily, I hope- turned ourselves into crackpots.

And the other take home point, the most important one I think, is that the scientific method is something to treasure and hold dear and protect. It is not something we can give for granted, or something that once you learn to apply will stick with you for the years to come. [...] So, please save the scientific method. It may be one of the few things we can cling to, in a very uncertain future... (MORE - details)