scientific method

Schumpeter on Ideology

by Ryan Young on July 5, 2011

in Sanctimony

The great economist Joseph Schumpeter believed that people are fallible creatures. Because of our fallibility, even the scientific method isn’t entirely objective. Ideology is reflected in, say, a scientist’s (or an economist’s) choice to research one topic instead of another, or the patterns they find (or miss) while interpreting the data:

It embodies the picture of things as we see them, and wherever there is any possible motive for wishing to see them in a given rather than another light, the way in which we see things can hardly be distinguished from the way we wish to see them.

–Joseph Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, p. 42

Following the scientific method: an example

by Fran Smith on December 2, 2009

in Environment, Global Warming, International, Natural Resources, Sanctimony

Experiments in science that don’t reinforce scientists’ hypotheses can be vitally important in understanding complex systems. Serious scientists don’t fudge the results or hide the data.

Here’s a recent example of a global warming study to show the effects of CO2-caused ocean acidification on the shells of crustaceans.  Researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found that, contrary to their expectations, many of the crustaceans built tougher shells in waters that were more acidified from higher levels of CO2.

According to the press release,

“We were surprised that some organisms didn’t behave in the way we expected under elevated CO2,” said Anne L. Cohen, a research specialist at WHOI and one of the study’s co-authors. “What was really interesting was that some of the creatures, the coral, the hard clam and the lobster, for example, didn’t seem to care about CO2 until it was higher than about 1,000 parts per million [ppm].” Current atmospheric CO2 levels are about 380 ppm, she said. Above this level, calcification was reduced in the coral and the hard clam, but elevated in the lobster.

The “take-home message, “says Cohen, is that “we can’t assume that elevated CO2 causes a proportionate decline in calcification of all calcifying organisms.” WHOI and the National Science Foundation funded the work.

Sounds like a useful project to add to the knowledge about CO2′s effects. Also, sounds like they’re following the scientific method.

H/T Julian Morris on Facebook