Three giant ground telescopes fight for funding
Three giant ground-based telescopes fight for funding during a time of limited funds.
Year: 2011
Excalibur Almaz joins commercial crew program
Another commercial company vies for NASA’s business, this time using old surplus Russian space station modules.
The Viking Sunstone Revealed?
Sailing without a compass: the Viking’s sunstone revealed?
Senate approves NASA budget
The Senate today approved a NASA budget of $17.9 billion, 2.8 percent less than last year and about equivalent to NASA’s 2009 budget.
The Senate bill included $500 million for commercial space, $3 billion for NASA’s heavy-lift rocket, and $500 for the James Webb Space Telescope. This must now be reconciled with the House budget, which called for a $16.8 billion total budget, with $300 million for commercial space and no money at all for Webb.
A series of technical problems have forced engineers to temporarily halt science operations on Mars Express
A series of technical problems have forced engineers to temporarily halt science operations on Mars Express.
Wildlife Biologist Found Guilty of Attempting to Poison Feral Cats
Another scientist who doesn’t understand science: A former biologist at the Smithsonian National Zoo’s Migratory Bird Center has been found guilty of attempting to poison feral cats in Washington, DC.
It isn’t her crime here that disturbs me. It is her own research and testimony during her trial:
In addition to the videotaped evidence, prosecutors also introduced evidence that Dauphiné has a long history advocating in academic literature for the control of feral cat populations in order to protect native bird populations. In one paper, in the 2009 Proceedings of the Fourth International Partners in Flight Conference: Tundra to Tropics, Dauphiné and co-author Robert J. Cooper, a wildlife biologist at the University of Georgia in Athens, argue that feral cats kill upwards of 1 billion birds in the United States every year. They also argue that the “trap-neuter-release” model for population control, which is advocated by many animal rights organizations, does a poor job of managing feral cat populations.
Yesterday, Judge Truman A. Morrison III noted in his remarks that, during Dauphiné’s testimony during the trial, she declined to discuss whether she agreed with various academic papers on which she was listed as an author, and said she wasn’t familiar with many of their statements about the danger that feral cats pose to birds. In delivering his verdict, Morrison said that the notion that Dauphiné wouldn’t be familiar with papers she authored or co-authored “doesn’t have the ring of the truth.” He also “found that her inability, indeed her unwillingness to own up to her own professional writings … undermined her credibility.” [emphasis mine]
First, the claim that feral cats kill a billion birds a year in the U.S. seems extremely implausible. Second, for this scientist to then pretend she “wasn’t familiar” with this claim, written in her own work, tells us just how untrustworthy she and her work are.
The Piano
An evening pause:
Appropriations bill promising $1 billion cut will increase spending by more than $9 billion according to one senator
A Senate appropriations bill promising a $1 billion cut will actually increase spending by more than $9 billion, according to one senator.
It just cannot be contended that this is serious work toward reducing our deficit. It just cannot be.
An investigation has concluded that a fired Dutch researcher falsified data on dozens of papers
Why even peer-reviewed research must always be questioned: An investigation has concluded that a fired Dutch researcher falsified data on dozens of papers.
[Diederik] Stapel’s work encompassed a broad range of attention-catching topics, including the influence of power on moral thinking and the reaction of psychologists to a plagiarism scandal. The committee, which interviewed dozens of Stapel’s former students, postdoctoral researchers, co-authors, and colleagues, found that Stapel alone was responsible for the fraud. The panel reported that he would discuss in detail experimental designs, including drafting questionnaires, and would then claim to conduct the experiments at high schools and universities with which he had special arrangements. The experiments, however, never took place, the universities concluded. Stapel made up the datasets, which he then gave the student or collaborator for analysis, investigators allege. In other instances, the report says, he told colleagues that he had an old dataset lying around that he hadn’t yet had a chance to analyze. When Stapel did conduct actual experiments, the committee found evidence that he manipulated the results.
I’m not sure which is worst about this scandal, that Stapel’s dishonesty has tainted the PhD’s of 21 innocent students, or that none of his fellow researchers ever had the brains, skepticism, or mental muscle to challenge his results.
Stapel’s fabrications weren’t particularly sophisticated, the committee says, and on careful inspection many of the datasets have improbable effect sizes and other statistical irregularities. His colleagues, when they failed to replicate the results, tended to blame themselves, the report says. Among Stapel’s colleagues, the description of data as too good to be true “was a heartfelt compliment to his skill and creativity,” the report says.
Update: I’d like to add one more addendum to this story, (covered today by Nature with its own long article). Unlike the climate field, where the scientists circled the wagons and protected the scientists who committed the frauds with whitewashed investigations, the field of social psychology and the scientists in the Netherlands have been refreshingly blunt and forthright in trying to clear the air by tracking down all Stapel’s corrupt papers. For this at least they deserve kudos.
Kepler scientists propose extending the space telescope’s mission
The lobbying begins: Kepler scientists propose extending the space telescope’s mission.
This appears to be a response to the Zubrin article on Sunday that suggested the Obama administration was planning to shut Kepler down early.
China launches unmanned spacecraft to do a rendezvous and docking test with its first space station
China has successfully launched an unmanned Shenzhou spacecraft to do an automatic rendezvous and docking test with its first space station, Tiangong 1.
The Haunting
An evening pause: Once again, for Halloween, this short but truly unnerving scene from Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963), based on the story by Shirley Jackson. Captures what everyone imagines it would be like to sleep in a haunted house. And with no special effects at all.