{"id":544055,"date":"2010-02-25T17:11:40","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T21:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341d17e553ef0120a8d4682a970b"},"modified":"2010-02-25T17:11:40","modified_gmt":"2010-02-25T21:11:40","slug":"adventures-in-misapplied-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/544055","title":{"rendered":"Adventures in (mis)applied science"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

<\/o:smarttagtype><\/o:smarttagtype><\/o:smarttagtype><\/o:smarttagtype>The question we\u2019ve fielded most
\nfrequently about philosopher of science Clark Glymour\u2019s new book, Galileo in Pittsburgh<\/a>, has been:
\nWhat\u2019s up with the title?\"GLYPAR\"<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

The answer lies with the
\nstory of Herbert Needleman, a professor (first at the Harvard School of Public
\nHealth, and subsequently at the University
\n of Pittsburgh) who did
\npioneering work on the effects of low-level lead exposure on children\u2019s
\nintelligence. Needleman\u2019s conclusions were challenged, and he was forced to
\nsubmit to a formal inquiry at the University
\n of Pittsburgh\u2014not because
\nhis data or his conclusions were faulty, but because of complexities and
\nmisunderstandings surrounding the regression methods he had used to analyze the
\ndata.<\/span><\/p>\n

Glymour cautions against
\ndrawing simplistic conclusions from complex real-life stories, but notes that Needleman\u2019s
\nstory highlights the problems inherent to applied statistics; and that science as practiced<\/em> is frequently more sensible
\nthan are the pieties of official scientific methodology. Finally\u2014and here\u2019s
\nwhere the title comes in\u2014Glymour writes: \u201cjustice is not done when sensible
\nscientists are <\/span><\/span>tried by untenable standards, any more than it was in the
\nseventeenth century.\u201d  \"Butte,<\/a>
<\/span><\/p>\n

Each
\nof the chapters in this compact, acerbic book tells a similar story, set in
\nplaces as diverse as Glymour\u2019s hardscrabble hometown of Butte, Montana; public
\nschools; NASA\u2019s Mars mission; and (in the case of an imagined conversation on
\nclimate change with Glymour\u2019s father-in-law, an old-fashioned conservative) a
\ndinner table.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Drawn
\nfrom real life, these stories are too complex to be parables, but they possess
\na parable\u2019s acuity in conveying an underlying truth. What they collectively
\ndemonstrate is that
\nwell-intentioned science can be untrustworthy, and that this dubious science
\nsometimes supports practices central to our daily life, from forest fire
\nforecasting to medical research to public education.   \"Galileo\"<\/a>
<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of these stories involve mistakes or abuses of methodology, but sometimes they are simply the product of the very ordinary human frailty of wanting something to be true. Grimly funny, the stories together convey the dangers in mis(applying) science<\/span>\u2014and demonstrate how that practice can create Galileos<\/a> in places as apparently unlikely as Pittsburgh. <\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:smarttagtype><\/o:smarttagtype><\/span>
<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The question we\u2019ve fielded most frequently about philosopher of science Clark Glymour\u2019s new book, Galileo in Pittsburgh, has been: What\u2019s up with the title? The answer lies with the story of Herbert Needleman, a professor (first at the Harvard School of Public Health, and subsequently at the University of Pittsburgh) who did pioneering work on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6896,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-544055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}