Playing the odds…
A P value is the probability of an observed (or more extreme) result arising only from chance.
It’s science’s dirtiest secret: The “scientific method” of testing hypotheses by statistical analysis stands on a flimsy foundation. Statistical tests are supposed to guide scientists in judging whether an experimental result reflects some real effect or is merely a random fluke, but the standard methods mix mutually inconsistent philosophies and offer no meaningful basis for making such decisions. Even when performed correctly, statistical tests are widely misunderstood and frequently misinterpreted. As a result, countless conclusions in the scientific literature are erroneous, and tests of medical dangers or treatments are often contradictory and confusing.
Replicating a result helps establish its validity more securely, but the common tactic of combining numerous studies into one analysis, while sound in principle, is seldom conducted properly in practice.
Experts in the math of probability and statistics are well aware of these problems and have for decades expressed concern about them in major journals. Over the years, hundreds of published papers have warned that science’s love affair with statistics has spawned countless illegitimate findings. In fact, if you believe what you read in the scientific literature, you shouldn’t believe what you read in the scientific literature.
“There is increasing concern,” declared epidemiologist John Ioannidis in a highly cited 2005 paper in PLoS Medicine, “that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims.”
Ioannidis claimed to prove that more than half of published findings are false, but his analysis came under fire for statistical shortcomings of its own. “It may be true, but he didn’t prove it,” says biostatistician Steven Goodman of the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. On the other hand, says Goodman, the basic message stands. “There are more false claims made in the medical literature than anybody appreciates,” he says. “There’s no question about that.”
Nobody contends that all of science is wrong, or that it hasn’t compiled an impressive array of truths about the natural world. Still, any single scientific study alone is quite likely to be incorrect, thanks largely to the fact that the standard statistical system for drawing conclusions is, in essence, illogical. “A lot of scientists don’t understand statistics,” says Goodman. “And they don’t understand statistics because the statistics don’t make sense”…
What’s one to make of the stream of “eat this,” “avoid that” studies surfacing nearly daily? It’s an odds-on bet that readers will find out in the complete Science News story, “Odds Are, It’s Wrong.”
As we tell Monty that we’ll take what’s behind Door #2, we might recall that it was on this date in 1905 that Albert Einstein kicked off “Annus Mirabilis” with the publication of the first of his four epoch-making papers in Annalen der Physik– this one, proposing energy “quanta”– thus kicking off the year in which he reinvented physics and our understanding of reality.
The second of those papers, on Brownian motion, was the very first work of “statistical physics.”
Einstein, dressed for the patent office, 1905
Happy Náw-Rúz! This date in 1844 was the first day of the first year of the Bahai calendar.
Bedroom Secrets…
One of the best-loved works in Vincent van Gogh’s oeuvre is The Bedroom. It was painted in October 1888, when the artist was living in the Yellow House in Arles. To give his brother Theo an impression of the painting he was working on, Van Gogh sent him a letter with a detailed sketch. A day later he also sent a sketch to his friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin.
He put a great deal of thought into the composition and the colours, and we know from his letters that he was very pleased with the result. ‘But the colour has to do the job here,’ he wrote, ‘and through its being simplified by giving a grander style to things, to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general.’
Vincent van Gogh considered The bedroom an important painting. In early 1889, Van Gogh returned home from the hospital in Arles. He had been admitted there after his psychological crisis and the injury to his ear. As he wrote to Theo, ‘When I saw my canvases again after my illness, what seemed to me the best was The Bedroom.
From Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, “Bedroom Secrets,” a blog chronicling the restoration of “The Bedroom.”
As we gingerly touch our ears, we might wish a brisk Happy Birthday to Frederick Winslow Taylor, an engineer and inventor (42 patents) who’s best remembered as the father of “Scientific Management,” the discipline rooted in efficiency studies and standardization. Quoth Peter Drucker:
Frederick W. Taylor was the first man in recorded history who deemed work deserving of systematic observation and study. On Taylor’s ’scientific management’ rests, above all, the tremendous surge of affluence in the last seventy-five years which has lifted the working masses in the developed countries well above any level recorded before, even for the well-to-do. Taylor, though the Isaac Newton (or perhaps the Archimedes) of the science of work, laid only first foundations, however. Not much has been added to them since – even though he has been dead all of sixty years.
Taylor’s work encouraged many followers (e.g. Frank “Cheaper by the Dozen” Gilbreth) and effectively spawned the field of management consulting. But Taylor practiced what he preached, and found time to become a champion tennis player as well: he won the first doubles tournament (1881) in U.S. National Championships, the precursor of the U.S. Open (with partner Clarence Clark).
Ocean’s Ten…
One can’t be too careful. It’s something of a relief, then, to find Money Mumbo Jumbo’s “Ten Safes Capable of Protecting the World’s Riches“– from Fort Knox and the Doomsday Seed Vault to Karl Lagerfeld’s tres chic accessories cache.
Still, lest one rest easy, consider the Antwerp Diamond Center’s vault (pictured above): It was considered the safest precious stone repository in the world, protected as it was by 10 layers of security– including Doppler radar, magnetic field locking system, seismic sensors, infrared detectors and a main door lock with over a 100 million possible combinations. One can read here how it was that, nonetheless, a team of thieves made off with over $100 million worth of sparklers from the vault.
As we contemplate life in the Age of Schlage, we might recall that it was on this date in 1931 that the State of Nevada legalized most forms of gambling. Anxious to cash in the the tourist boom that was expected to follow the (then-imminent) completion of Hoover (nee Boulder) Dam, the state legislature in effect simply legitimized what was an already-flourishing (albeit illegal) gaming industry. (There was nothing that the State legislature could do about Prohibition, then in effect; but then, liquor was already flowing freely, if illicitly, in Nevada, as elsewhere in the U.S.)
Ever watchful for ways to attract more visitors, Nevada also eased the threshold for divorce– and became a “divorce haven.” (Prior to the no-fault divorce revolution of the 1970s, divorces were quite difficult to obtain in other states.)
Nevada State Journal
March 20, 1931
Celebrate!…
There’s something of a gulf, here on the heels of St. Patrick’s Day, until the next mainstream holiday… and even then, it revolves around candy and eggs. Thankfully, the folks at Chase’s Calendar of Events– since 1957, the go-to source for special days of any specific gravity– have a list to which one can resort… For instance, Chase’s observes, today is:
Flag Day (in Aruba)
National Biodiesel Day
Absolutely Incredible Kid Day
Awkward Moments Day
Companies That Care Day
There’s bound to be something in there that calls for a celebratory drink.
Or one can take the longer view, and honor what’s special about the Month. (For instance, March is, among many other distinctions, National Frozen Food Month– now that’s the stuff that parties are made of!)
As we ask our cleaners for rush service on our lederhosen, we might temper our partying impulses with the reminder that Peter Graves– “Jim Phelps” in both TV runs of Mission Impossible and “Jim Newton” in Fury, among over 70 other TV and movie roles– died four days ago; he was born on this date 84 years ago.
The Graves family name was originally “Aursnes,” but was changed to “Arness” on immigration. Peter took the stage name “Graves”; but his older brother stuck with the family handle– which television viewers saw for 20 years in credits of Gunsmoke: “Marshall Matt Dillon – James Arness.”
They Came from Outer Space!…
source: NASA, via IEEE Spectrum
For years, scientists have known that satellites and astronauts are vulnerable to “space weather,” more specifically to geo-magnetic storms that generate “killer electrons” powerful enough to penetrate shielding, damage spacecraft, and injure spacemen. But no one has been able to explain just how these nefarious particles are produced… so there’s been no trustworthy ability to predict– and avoid– them.
Now, as IEEE Spectrum and the European Space Agency report, scientists affiliated Los Alamos National Labs and a separate team at the ESA have begun to explain the phenomenon. The details are referenced in the cited reports; here suffice it to say that the electrons (originating in the Van Allen Belt) are accelerated– to velocities approaching the speed of light– by a combination of Very Low Frequency and (higher amplitude) Ultra Low Frequency electromagnetic waves, themselves excited by the impact of solar storms on the earth’s protective electromagnetic bubble.
And not a moment too soon: As Philippe Escoubet, an ESA scientist remarks, “These new findings help us to improve the models predicting the radiation environment in which satellites and astronauts operate. With solar activity now ramping up, we expect more of these shocks to impact our magnetosphere over the months and years to come.”
As we re-fit our tin foil helmets, we might recall that it was on this date in 1845 that Stephen Perry patented the rubber band. The milk of the rubber tree had been long used by folks who lived where the trees were native to make shoes, clothes, and “bottles”– which were brought back to England by returning sailors. In 1820, Thomas Hancock sliced up one of the bottles to create elastic garters and “belts.” Perry, who owned a rubber manufacturing company was sufficiently taken with Hancock’s idea to file a patent on the rubber band– the first of which were made from vulcanized rubber. (They are now commonly made of a combination of rubber and latex.)
(It was also on this date in 1950 that Glenn Seaborg and a team of colleagues at UC Berkeley announced a new element, number 98– Californium– a radioactive element the isotopes of which have important medical and industrial uses, as they are powerful point sources of neutrons.)
