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Comment by sunwooz | Hacker News Reader

"Holds a nonstandard degree. For instance, if the physics-related speaker has a degree in engineering, not physics; if the medical researcher does not have an M.D. or Ph.D.; if the affiliated university does not have a solid reputation. This is not snobbery; if a scientist truly wishes to make an advance in their chosen field, they’ll make an effort to engage with other scholars"

What? Not having a degree in something disallows you to "make an effort to engage with other scholars"? Just saying you're not snobbery does not make it "not snobbery".

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>Not having a degree in something disallows you to "make an effort to engage with other scholars"?

For non-trivial things? Yes, generally. Why not?

I mean, why do guys with phds in earth science or geology have to get lumped in with nuts like Neal Adams and his expanding Earth bullshit? Why would Tedx weigh them as the same?

I'm so sick of this "My bullshit is just as good as your facts" Fox News mentality. There should be discrimination and vetting and standards. The world simply has too many opportunistic and money hungry crackpots. These guys can go start their own little events.

The problem with branding yourself as a rebel outlet is that only a very, very small percentage of rebels know what they're doing. Climate change was once a rebel position, but the science backs it up, so we can rely on a basic form of meritocracy in academia to help unpopular ideas along. We don't need comic book artists going to conventions and yelling about "the establishment holding down expanding earth theory" and then trying to get a talking gig next to a real scientist who gives a shit about the science.

This also applies to guys speaking outside their fields too. Okay your phd is in engineering but you want to give a speech on how global warming is fake? Yeah, no thanks.

Do you think that it would be possible for someone who doesn't agree with global warming alarmism to complete a PhD in Climate Science? Honest question.

Sure. Not if they referred to it as "alarmism", because that would indicate that they don't give a shit about the science of it, which seems problematic in a science PhD. But if they did proper science, they wouldn't have a problem.

The use of "alarmism" is a political judgment dismissing the extreme of what some scientists claim is the only possible policy choice. Ethics and cost benefit analysis is never a scientific question. The cost benefit analysis needs input from science, but it is separate from the purely scientific questions.

I fail to see why it wouldn't be possible. I assume a PhD in climatology would require 1. an understanding of the field and its state and 2. being able to perform research in the field.

I'd certainly expect somebody serious about climate change (including disagreeing with its existence or with it being anthropogenic) to be able to understand what it's about in the first place, how climate model work, how to create new model matching available data or mine for new data, etc...

And thus I see no reason why they wouldn't be able to get a climatology PhD.

Grad student: "Professor, my own analysis isn't matching all these graphs that keep getting published"

Professor: "Don't rock the boat, we're getting a lot of funding."

Keep your profs happy and toe the line if you want that Ph.D.

Most professors I know are not professors because of the money. These are usually the people who were the best students and as such could have found nice jobs in other sectors.

And do you really think they would have difficulty getting funding for climate research contradicting the current consensus?

> And do you really think they would have difficulty getting funding for climate research contradicting the current consensus?

Indeed, as BEST showed.

edit: erm... why the downvotes? I was giving an example of a climate research study from the "climate change skeptic" side and funded in no small part by the Charles G. Koch Foundation, not exactly a proponent of anthropogenic global warming.

Did you ever study for a Ph.D? From your example it appears you did not.

There are also plenty of research lines to get a degree in climatology that does not involve studying this type of stuff and which are not exactly a political issue, after you get your Ph.D you can study whatever you want, I'm pretty sure there's lots of think tanks who would pay for research countering the global warming hypothesis.

Bullshit. A compelling counterexample to "all these graphs that keep getting published" is far and away the best way to establish your scientific reputation, get a job, get money from the NSF, etc.

It's entirely plausible to disagree with the politics of climate change (alarmism) without questioning the science.

Science is falsification, not some kind of dogma. Questioning assumptions leads to progress, although many scholars have forgotten this inconvenient fact.

http://guscost.com/2012/12/06/falsifiability/

Falsification as the royal road to truth was debunked some time ago, and isn't taken very seriously in contemporary philosophy of science. Partly, because Popperian falsification only gets you so far when you look at the actual history of science.

That is, when you look seriously at what scientists do as opposed to what they say they do when they attempt to justify their work, you will find they are not falsifiers but model-builders. If you like to learn more about how Popper has fared in the philosophy of science, you might find Thomas Kuhn [0] and Paul Feyerabend [1],[2] interesting counterpoints, I would throw in the work of Larry Laudan too as it is a good overview of "realist" attempts to move beyond falsification while trying to avoid Feyerabend's embrace of "relativism." [3],[4]

Obviously alot of more recent and good literature on the subject!

[0]: Kuhn, T.S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962 [1]: 1975. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge [2]: 1978. Science in a Free Society [3]: 1977. Progress and its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth [4]: 1996. Beyond Positivism and Relativism

After looking into this a bit, I can say that I don't subscribe to positivism or relativism, even if they are trendy in philosophy class these days. Both seem to reject realism and promote groupthink.

"Can we not account for both science's existence and its success in terms of evolution from the community's state of knowledge at any given time? Does it really help to imagine that there is some one full, objective, true account of nature and that the proper measure of scientific achievement is the extent to which it brings us closer to that ultimate goal?" (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p. 171)

I'll have to check out Larry Laudan, thanks.

I have not been publishing in many years so my reading appetite has diminished, but I think the trendy -ism in philosophy of science is not so much relativism but pluralism.

Regarding your quotation, Feyerabend explicitly rejects that science is successful and in fact has been actually harmful in understanding in the case of biology. And he argued cogently that "science" should be seperated from the state with as much rigor as "religion" is. He was one of the greatest anarchist minds I ever had the pleasure of meeting.

Nancy Cartwright makes a similar argument but keeping a realist stance about how science doesn't really make progress describing the fundamental truths about the world. That is, people usually hold up the wonders of the modern world as evidence that science progresses towards universal knowledge, e.g., jets fly! But she would say I think that jet engines do not depend at all on scientific understanding of turbulence, which tend to be completely wrong in the material world, and require all kinds of simplifications and specializations in order to make this concrete jet engine work. [0]

[0]: good review of her book Dappled World [pdf] http://bit.ly/TLcMAD

There are no degrees in "Climate Science". But plenty of skeptics on global warming alarmism are PhD's in the relevant academic fields (one good example is Richard Lindzen at MIT), and they are still teaching students and helping some of them to get PhD's.

That said, I agree that academia is heavily skewed on the topic of global warming alarmism; I just think the skewing is more subtle than keeping skeptics from getting degrees. I think it takes the form of pressuring journals not to publish results that don't support the "consensus". And, of course, making sure that all the "official" information that politicians use to justify policies comes from the IPCC, and then controlling the IPCC process to only produce results that support the "consensus".

Here is a Climate Science PhD program. Candidates have to publish material in those journals:

http://www.swissuniversity.ch/unibe/climate-sciences/phd-pro...

"The PhD thesis usually consists of three to four peer-reviewed scientific articles"

Hm, yes, so there is at least one degree program in "Climate Sciences" (they use the plural, not the singular, but that's a minor point). So I should amend that particular claim to: most of the people working in the field called "climate science" do not have degrees in "climate science(s)". Most of them seem to have degrees in physics, meteorology, "earth science" or some variant thereof, or geology.

I don't think this materially affects the rest of what I said.

The problem with that statement is how specific it is. There are many routes to credibility in a field that might be perfectly normal and consistent with mainstream science. Limiting it only to people with PhDs in the specific field from select universities is snobbery.

What if I had some interesting advance to present in the field of computer science, and I had plenty of data to back it up, and it got listed on Hacker News and my peers on this site reviewed it and agreed with my conclusions? But then I only have an EE degree, so that's a "red flag" because I "didn't make an attempt to engage with other scholars"?

Credibility is a difficult subject to pin down, but science is not an exclusionary endeavor. All you really need to be credible is the review of other credible people, and universities are not the only places to find such people. Similarly, lots of people use a PhD to give themselves false credibility.

No, it isn't snobbery. First, they're guidelines that trigger heightened scrutiny, not an automatic exclusion. If you had an important CS result, and could point to a credible CS community accepting your result, you'd have no problems because you could survive the scrutiny. If you couldn't point to a credible CS community accepting your results, then it's perfectly appropriate for TEDx to turn you down. They're a popularizer of current scientific consensus, not a publishing avenue or outlet for new discoveries.

In this sense, TED should be more like Wikipedia: requiring evidence of notability instead of making those decisions itself.

>> Not having a degree in something disallows you to "make an effort to engage with other scholars"?

> For non-trivial things? Yes, generally. Why not?

Because science rejects authority, preferring evidence. If those who are listening can't evaluate the evidence, then they're reduced to asking about degrees, but this is dangerous -- there are as many charlatans with degrees as there are without. Recent case in point:

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/10/diederik-s...

A quote: "Stapel resigned in 2011 after an investigation revealed that he made up the results in many of his eye-catching social psychology studies. So far, 25 of his papers have been retracted; a commission is still investigating others."

All of his papers were published in peer-reviewed journals.

And if someone cannot get their paper published in a system that allows such results, then what can we reasonably assume about said rejected paper?

As a metaphor, compare the earning of a Harvard degree through cheating with not even getting through the admissions process.

> And if someone cannot get their paper published in a system that allows such results, then what can we reasonably assume about said rejected paper?

Nothing at all, really. Remember that Wegener (plate tectonics) couldn't get published for decades after his initial theoretical proposal, on the ground that so many geologists disagreed with him. In fact, his ideas were verified only after his death.

But the publication of an idea, and the scientific standing of an idea, aren't comparable states. Scientific publication is as much a business as it is a source of the best papers science has to offer.

And to go further, scientific persuasion doesn't really depend only on publication and dissemination.

Scientists in the historical record who are successful of achieiving significant theory change use about every means at their disposal not limited to just "consensus building" but also including underhanded tactics such as excluding opponents from professional appointments, conferences, access to data and equipment, etc.

I agree with you that it's poorly worded, however keep in mind that they're giving red flags. The way I understand it they mean "clues that the speaker might be engaging in pseudo-science" and not a definitive arbitrary rejection.

Experience can teach you certain things, even if not 100% politically correct. What they're doing is simply passing on their experience to other TEDx organizers.

So in other words, one is supposed to detect bad science using bad science?

If I were to take the stage saying "I can't disprove Theory X using empirical data, but here are some red flags that cast that theory into doubt", many would consider that textbook pseudoscience.

I'm not saying that red flags and intuition have no value, but they should be taken with a boulder of salt, and definitely not suggested to a layperson who may not have the experience and context to know when red flags should and should not be applied.

As the letter clearly states, tripping red flags should result in a higher level of scrutiny from the organizer. They do not, in themselves, trigger rejection.

To continue on this train of discussion, if higher levels of scrutiny scare you- don't let the door hit you on the way out!

And your proposed alternate approach would be?

Keep in mind that these are volunteers from a broad set of backgrounds. Their only demonstrated expertise is running small to medium events. The central TED organization is modest in size and staffed by people who are fiendishly busy. Go!

If the problem isn't tractable enough to apply hard science, then rough heuristics and human judgment are about the best you get.

The context, in this case, is a recent scandal in Valencia (Spain). If you didn't follow the links: lots of New Age, Homeotherapy, Reiki and such.

I suspect TED trusted the wrong persons. I don't know if TED has revoked their licences. Maybe there're are contracts in place and it might be difficult to walk out of them.

Under that light, this letter seems to be a public way of saying "we didn't approve what happened, next time call us if in doubt and don't say you weren't warned".

No, that's not what it means at all.

What it says is, "If a scientist truly wishes to make an advance..., they'll make an effort to engage with other scholars." In other words, anyone holding a nonstandard degree who is serious will engage other scholars who do have standard degrees.

Having a nonstandard degree is a red flag. Having engaged scholars who have a standard degree reduces that red flag, while the opposite supports it.

> For instance, if the physics-related speaker has a degree in engineering, not physics;

Yeah, that set off my WTF alarm too. I don't think it's news to TED admins that the line between physics and engineering is messy (I worked on quantum devices but (surprise!) engineering degrees paid substantially more in the 80s so my PhD is engineering.)

I'm gonna guess there's a backstory and they got burned hard.

No so much a back-story as several back-stories all with the common theme of quacks, sometimes with degrees in irrelevant fields, making plainly false claims.

Likewise - my PhD is engineering, but my advisor was cross-appointed and I published primarily in Physics journals.

Any due diligence done by a TEDx committee should find this, though.

You misread that as backwards of what the author said. It's not that having a nonstandard degree disallows you from making an effort to engage with other scholars. It requires you to make an effort to engage with other scholars.

Turing wasn't a biologist, but when he had ideas about biology he published them in Biology journals and so it would be perfectly appropriate to have had him give a Ted talk on Biology, for instance.

It's not a strict criterion, but it's a great heuristic for whether or not someone knows what they're talking about. Sometimes an outsider makes a valuable contribution to a field, but 99% of the time, it's a crank blaming his lack of a degree on his exclusion from the standard outlets.

This is less true in fields like programming where a lot of self-educated people still work happily. But in fields like physics that demand years of intense study just to grasp the field properly, then yeah, whether or not you have the relevant degree is a pretty good signifier of whether or not you're peddling bullshit.

Along the same vein: "The proposed speaker works for a university and/or has a phD or other bona fide high level scientific qualification". Many of the points they list are valid, but this conspicuous appeal to authority makes me much less inclined to watch the talks.

If they are having a problem with perpetual-motion trolls and people speaking well outside their field of expertise then it is a valid reaction. If you are speaking on an academic subject then the default should be that there be some reason to believe you are credible on that subject.

To clarify. The bullet points are listed under "Marks of Good Science". Holding a degree does not mean your publications or claims are good science. It's fine if Ted wants to only have degree holders as speakers, but they should be clear that it's a bias they've chosen, not "good science".

They're organizers of a conference, not academics. If you require them to replicate the experiment to prove it's good science, you're crippling them. It's perfectly appropriate for them to apply conservative heuristics to make their editorial load manageable, and a good heuristic is "has the appropriate academic credentials."

They're popularizers, not the cutting edge.

> but this conspicuous appeal to authority makes me much less inclined to watch the talks.

You prefer non-authoritative information?

Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

So you do prefer non-authoritative information?

Appealing to an authority is not a fallacy unless it's misapplied. Saying "I'd rather learn about X from an expert in X" is completely legitimate; it's common sense, really.

From your link:

>Although certain classes of argument from authority can constitute strong inductive arguments, the appeal to authority is often applied fallaciously: either the authority is not a subject-matter expert, or there is no consensus among experts in the subject matter, or both

An appeal to an authority who is an expert in the field is not a logical fallacy. It makes complete sense to want to hear about global warming from a climate scientist.

Yes it does, but that doesn't make their arguments valid. My whole point is not to keep experts out, but to judge the content on its scientific merit alone.

The TED folks are definitely not making an argument from authority; if they were they would say: all things said by people with scientific bona fides are true and you can't question them.

Instead, they're correctly observing that there's a correlation between scientific bona fides and scientifically accurate speakers. And that organizers will be better off if they use that as one rule of thumb in evaluating speakers, which is also true.

You only see an argument from authority because you've reduced their argument to a straw man. The purpose of TEDx isn't to be a final arbiter of all things true; it's just to surface things that are true and interesting.

Well argued, by far the clearest rebuttal I've read so far and I concede. I just hope that the rules of thumb they listed for "good science" are prioritized as listed, because I really believe content should be the key consideration.

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