Notes_on_Golem

Some Notes on Golem

I: Chapters 1-3

Chapter 1: Edible knowledge: the chemical transfer of memory
7&17 threshold effects and statistical fuzziness
8. criticism --->response --->criticism-->response cycle
10/11 too many variables
11 perceptions are significantly different in argument: additional variables are reasons the critics aren't right and excuses made by the faithful, say the critics
11. replication is far from straightforward. It depends on common agreeement being established, especially about method and variables.
11-12 simultaneous, independent discovery [1964 work;1965 publication]
13 "Image" is important: J, Irrepr. Results; Nobel crit of 1964; Ungar's thoroughness.
18. convention and expectation play significant evaluative roles, e.g. skill and training in rat/mouse [accept] vs. same in worms [reject]
18. reputation and respectability: criteria for acceptability
Cf. Ceci and Peters' work "On the failure of papers previously published, to be published again."
24/25 Some 'failure" papers did have greater weight [and p. 17, ~ Popper falsification?]
25. "fringe science" ??
25. no published disproof resting on decisive evidence exists!
--- changing nature and terms of research, e.g. transfer of memory [worm, then mammal; involves training] shifts to identifying the chemical responsible [bioassay]
--- changing interests lead to disinterest: competing/new research programmes absorb scientists.
-- scotophobin
-- Is this example convincing? or is the area too "fringe"?

Chapter 2: Two Experiments that 'proved' the theory of relativity.
-- Michelson Morley 1887 Eddington 1919
-- Morley: Williams College 1860 class
-- "relativity" [Poincaré; Newton; Einstein]
28. "facts of science" exist?
28/ Kuhn's invisibility of revolutions; rewriting of historyl[30]; anomalies overlooked.
37. Was M/M a test of relativity? or of earth's speed thru ether?
40. 1925, Dayton C. Miller "disproves" relativity! Gets award! :one negative result sometimes doesn't falsify a theory.
-- Note: History the textbooks don't mention: the "invisibility" of counter-examples [anomalies swept under the rug]
42. "The meaning of an experimental result . . . depends [[also]] on what people are ready to believe." Note: again exemplifies role of expectations.
42. Theory >> experiment [often] Anomaly can be either a nuisance, or trouble M/M experiment: a sustaining MYTH
44. Theory and measurement go hand in hand: science does not prceed by clearly stated theoretical predictions [being] verified or falsified.
45. circularity of Eddington's reasoning
46. SOLAR eclipses are rare -- insert. LUNAR are not rare.
51. post hoc propter hoc.
52.`** Experiments are not, . . " a quasi-logical deduction of a prediction, followed by a straightforward observational test."
52-53. red-shifted lines: Gestalt switch; change in Weltanschauung; you see what you expect.
53. Truth emerges from : confusion, belief, negotiation, authority
54. No inexorable logic No crucial experiments. -- so much for "Progress."

Chapter 3: The sun in a test tube: the story of cold fusion

23 March 1989 -->?
-- chemists vs. physicists [Pons/Fleischmann vs. Jones; interest in heat vs. interest in nuclear reactivity]
-- BIG SCIENCE vs. little science
-- 'pathological' science [Langmuir, repr. Physics Today, Oct. 1989] [add: polywater]
-- terms: palladium; deuterium; calorimetry
-- 2 predictions: excess heat; excess neutrons [weakest part of P/F]Controversy
-- "climate" of opinion significant in controversy
-- No experimental closure [so what's new?]
-- Our image of science needs changing.
-- bandwagon of replication, but Early confirmation counted little, yet Huggins, at Stanford, consistently supported.
-- Experiments can't overcome theoretical resistance.
65. Did Jones actually establish cold fusion in palladium at very low level?
70/71 supposedly "knockdown" negative results only led to rejoinders and more ambiguity. Cf. N-rays. [old paradigms never die, just fade away.]
71. yet, in UK, Harwell experiment x'd cold fusion
72. Experiments alone are inadequate to establish scientific knowledge. [Ideas are important.]
73. Koonin's theoretical objections are heavyweight, yet others invented alternatives. [how theorists love to play games]
74. demarcation; turf disputes.

II. More Notes on Golem, Chapters 4-7 and Conclusion

Chapter 4: The Germs of dissent: Louis Pasteur and the origins of life.
-- science as politics, rhetoric, authority, power NOT as idealised sterile scientific method
80. One view prevails by longevity or majority rule [+luck]
80. "facts" are always ambiguous 84. retrospective accounts [post hoc] can be "triumphalist" [and often are]
85. Pasteur so committed [vs. norm of emotional neutrality]
85. neutral applications of scientific method == virtually do not exist.
86/7 2 biased commissions of FAS: Pouchet withdraws from each
88. Too bad Pouchet withdrew - he might have proven his case, because he used hay infusion, such that not all spores are destroyed by boiling heat, unlike Pasteur's yeast infusion.
89. Ironic: Pasteur's victory that spontaneous generation did not happen was hailed in 1864 as a disproof of Darwin's theory of evolution!
90. Pasteur's experiments could/should have gone wrong!

Chapter 5: A new window on the universe: the non-detection of gravitational radiation

-- Joseph Weber, 1969
98. Experimenter's regress, and the necessity for breaking it and achieving closure.
99 Rhetorical skills can be more important than scientific skills
101 That science and the social are inseparable helps resolve the experimenter's regress [98]
100 Pr. {xpt A identical with xpt B} = approx 0 [so much for replication]
-- Citizens, lay public need knowledge of science as it exists under conditions of uncertainty [before closure] [between the context of discovery and final justification]
100 Again we seem to be dealing with threshhold phenomena
101 Grounds for doubt extend to some [11] factors such as:

personality,

intelligence,

past history of failures,

reputation, manner of presenting information,

nationalilty,

university prestige/size,

previous track record,

membership in networks,

style of presentation,

industrial or academic employ

101. Cannot separate competence [of experimenter] from existence [of phenomenon] = another way to say science/social inseparable. Cf. Anna Brito, too.
104. Criticism, analysis, and Garwin's opposition: decisive by 1975, BUT, uniformly negative experimental results were not, UNTIL their "weight" was crystallized by Garwin [106]

Chapter 6 The sex life of the whiptail lizard [David Crews vs. Orlando Cuellar and C. J. Cole]

~114 skill and competence of scientist is only part of controversies, such that when that fact is made clear, it shows that science is like any other activity requiring skill, and [115] that the scientists is NOT a passive mediator/observer of Nature.
114. Note number of ad hominem attacks on Crews' skill and competence made as critical
112. A fact is a fact is nothing without meaning. A rose by any other name wouldn't smell as sweet.
116. A fact is inseparable from a scientist's skill.
116. Rewriting history is another means of reducing stress and approaching closure.
119. "As always, the facts of nature are settled within the field of human argument."

Chapter 7 Set the controls for the heart of the sun: the strange story of the missing solar neutrinos.

"Science Unmade" Ray Davis, 1967 August first data, Brookhaven Nat Lab William Fowler, Cal Tech John Bahcall, theoretical physicist
138.* "Science works the way it does, not because of any absolute constraint from Nature, but because we make our science the way that we do." [the freedom of imagination; invent>discover] [and also, the social influences on directing scientific inquiry]
-- Again, a threshhold effect, sensitive reactions, small numbers
-- complex calculations and computer simulations create much room for error or unreliability of assumptions.
-- funding: a campaign with its own rhetoric
131 "Theory and experiment are not independent activities."
132. theorists and experimenters interact and adjust continually, cf. Bahcall, refining his calculations to lower numbers of SNUs predicted
135. ideal experimenter: open, cautious, modest
135/6 argon trapping
-- never resolved to last word
-- C/P hint that no such resolution would have been likely, even if Jacobs had not left science [no tenure]
136. by 1978, over 400 papers!, and lots of ideas, including oscillation [137] and non-zero rest mass
138. Note the plasticity of scientific culture.

Conclusion: Putting the golem to work

142. "Our case studies show . . there is no logic of scientific discovery."
142. "It is impossible to separate science from society."
142. ineradicable human error is always with us, such that simple dualisms like good/bad, right/wrong will never be adequate[ly descriptive].
142. scientists should promise less!
143. "physics envy" and scientism: terms to know
144. About the public understanding of science: not more about content but more about "method" --not OF technical detail, but ABOUT research practice -- is needed.
--If experts/scientists cannot agree, it is ridiculous to expect the public to be able to resolve dispute/disagreement better.
--[science does not produce certainty. Scientists are neither gods nor charlatans -- merely experts [[this is a real criticism of the authority of science/tists]]]
--Fear of anti-science vigilantes.
145. Authors' key purpose: to change public's understanding of political role of science.
148. "the troubles over" forensic science [UK, USA] a microcosm of "the whole debate."
149. Experiments in real science hardly ever produce a clear-cut conclusion."
151 About science education: pause to reflect on [re]negotiation of results: what students actually do/did, mirrors science. [the example is kids with thermometers determining the boiling point of water]
[For DB, I would go one step further, accept the differing results, and have the students try to arrive at a [re]solution.]]