[ RadSafe ] Article: No to Negative Data

[John Jacobus]

Dr. Long,
More importantly, the study was flawed.  Bad data is bad data, but knowing that does not seem to bother you.
 
Did you ever get a copy of that PNAS paper?  

+++++++++++++++++++
It is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they are confirmed by theory. 
Arthur Eddington 


-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: crispy_bird at yahoo.com

--- On Thu, 9/4/08, HOWARD.LONG at comcast.net <HOWARD.LONG at comcast.net> wrote:

From: HOWARD.LONG at comcast.net <HOWARD.LONG at comcast.net>
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] Article: No to Negative Data
To: "Dan W McCarn" <hotgreenchile at gmail.com>, crispy_bird at yahoo.com, "'radsafe'" <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Date: Thursday, September 4, 2008, 12:18 PM



Viva publication of negative results, like the Nuclear Shipyard Worker Study.
 
Only by re-analysis of data (previously one-tailed to show only absence of harm from >0.5 rem exposure) of this "negative" study, was Cameron, a member of its Advisory Board able to show 
positive benefit : total mortality reduced to 0.76, cncers similarly reduced.
 
Beware standardization (especiallyin health care)
 
Howard Long  
 
-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Dan W McCarn <hotgreenchile at gmail.com> 

> <> what isn't right. Well, only a small number of potential hypotheses are 
> correct, but essentially an infinite number of ideas are not correct.>> 
> 
> Dear John: 
> 
> Hogwash! Whose paradigms do you live with? Can there be multiple paradigms 
> for which data are applicable? Can different sets of hypotheses be 
> developed for each paradigm? 
> 
> Any scientist focused on placing a structure around empirical observations 
> is faced with this dilemma - I have taken data from thousands of dry oil & 
> gas exploration wells (very negative results for an O&G paradigm) turned it 
> sideways and gained understandin g about where I might explore for uranium (a 
> very different paradigm). I have worked on databases that incorporate 
> complex information from almost 100,000 boreholes, most of them essentially 
> "dry" holes, to provide an integrated approach to management of these data. 
> 
> << Although publishing a negative result could potentially save other 
> scientists from repeating an unproductive line of investigation, the 
> likelihood is exceeding small. >> 
> 
> Again Hogwash! 
> 
> Please don't let me interfere with your ideas or Dr. Wiley's here, but most 
> critical mineral deposit discoveries - as well as oil and gas - are based on 
> what might previously have been considered negative data, observations meant 
> to prove or disprove one or another hypothesis in a different paradigm, or 
> simply observational data for which the answers still lie shrouded (the 
> explorat ion budget ran dry) until the right mind comes along, adds a piece 
> or two of additional data and understands the order a little better. I can 
> start with the uranium deposits at Ambrosia Lakes as well as deposits in the 
> Gas Hills in Wyoming. These were not discovered until a different paradigm 
> was applied to the old data. 
> 
> I had the fortune once to explore a major basin in Southern Colorado that 
> was long thought devoid of uranium, until I found an ancient publication 
> (Siebenthal, 1910) whose careful and detailed observations allowed me to 
> conceptually integrate the data that I had, and understand the major 
> features and processes controlling uranium mineralization in the basin and 
> to identify a major target. As my boss said, "Thank God your stubborn" 
> because I had to overcome the mindsets and preconceptions of every other 
> geologist in the office. 
> 
> Perha ps in my industry, sharing of negative results is considered so 
> extremely important that a side-industry has long-since emerged to 
> successively insure future exploration efforts don't re-invent the wheel by 
> providing these "negative" data. 
> 
> Maybe the geological sciences learned early-on that exploration was an 
> open-ended venture where no one had a complete understanding of what the 
> future might bring. Since most exploration produces negative results (except 
> for the value of the empirical data), geologists must be and are eternally 
> optimistic about future chances (and different paradigms, not just 
> hypotheses) and their results are maintained for the next effort. 
> Pessimistic geologists never find anything! 
> 
> Dan ii 
> 
> Dan W. McCarn, Geologist; 3118 Pebble Lake Drive; Sugar Land, TX 77479; USA 
> Home: +1-281-903-7667; Austria-cell: +43-676-725-6622 > HotGreenChile at gmail.com UConcentrate at gmail.com 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On Behalf 
> Of John Jacobus 
> Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 8:48 PM 
> To: radsafe 
> Subject: [ RadSafe ] Article: No to Negative Data 
> 
> 
> I read this article some time ago. While the subject matter is orientated 
> toward the life sciences, I think the topic is valid through science. 
> 
> THE SCIENTIST Volume 22 | Issue 4 | Page 39 
> 
> 
> No to Negative DataWhy I believe findings that disprove a hypothesis are 
> largely not worth publishing. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The problem with these types of negative results is that they don't actually 
> advance science. 
> 
> 
> 
> A frequent criti cism in biology is that we don't publish our negative data. 
> As a result, the literature has become biased towards papers that favor 
> specific hypotheses (Nature, 422:554—5, 2003). Some scientists have become 
> so concerned about this trend that they have created journals dedicated to 
> publishing negative results (e.g., Journal of Negative Results in 
> Biomedicine). Personally, I don't think they should bother. 
> 
> I say this because I believe negative results are not worth publishing. Rest 
> assured that I do not include drug studies that show a lack of effectiveness 
> towards a specific disease or condition. This type of finding is significant 
> in a societal context, not a scientific one, and we all have a vested 
> interest in seeing this type of result published. I am talking about a set 
> of experimental results that fail to support a particular hypothesis. The 
> problem with these ty pes of negative results is that they don't actually 
> advance science. 
> 
> Science is a set of ideas that can be supported by observations. A negative 
> result does not support any specific idea, but only tells you what isn't 
> right. Well, only a small number of potential hypotheses are correct, but 
> essentially an infinite number of ideas are not correct. I don't want to 
> waste my time reading a paper about what doesn't happen; I'd rather read 
> just those things that do happen. I can remember a positive result because I 
> can associate it with a specific concept. What do I do with a negative one? 
> It is hard enough to follow the current literature. A flood of negative 
> results would make that task all but impossible. 
> 
> Although publishing a negative result could potentially save other 
> scientists from repeating an unproductive line of investigation, the 
> likelihood is exceeding small. The number of laboratories working on the 
> exact same problem is relatively small, and thus the overlap between 
> scientific pursuits at the experimental level is likely to be miniscule. It 
> is a favorite conceit of some young scientists that they are doing the next 
> great experiment, and if it doesn't work, then the world needs to know. 
> Experience suggests otherwise. 
> 
> Twenty-five years ago, I tried to publish a paper showing that thrombin did 
> not stimulate cells by binding to its receptor. Using a combination of 
> computer models and experiments, I showed that the receptor hypothesis was 
> clearly wrong. The paper detailing this negative result was emphatically 
> rejected by all journals. I was convinced that the status quo was threatened 
> by my contrary finding. However, what I failed to do was replace a 
> hypothesis that was wrong with one that was correct. 
> 
> Negative results can also be biased and misleading in their own way, and are 
> often the result of experimental errors, rather than true findings. I have 
> fielded questions from investigators who could not reproduce my results due 
> to the lack of a critical reagent or culture condition. Similarly, I have 
> not been able to reproduce the results of other scientists on occasions, but 
> I don't automatically assume they are wrong. Experimental biology can be 
> tricky, and consistently obtaining results that support a hypothesis can be 
> challenging. It's much easier to get a negative result and mistake a 
> technical error for a true finding. 
> 
> Although I believe negative findings do not merit publication, they are the 
> foundation of experimental biology. Positive findings are always built from 
> a vastly greater number of negative results that were discarded along the 
> way t o publication. And certainly, if scientists feel pressure to publish 
> positive data, it stands to reason that some of those positive data are 
> wrong. The solution to that bias is to treat published results more 
> skeptically. For example, we should consider all published reports the same 
> way we consider microarray data. They are useful in the aggregate, but you 
> should not pay much attention to an individual result. 
> 
> Even if literature bias exists regarding a particular hypothesis, positive 
> results that are wrong eventually suffer the fate of all scientific errors: 
> They are forgotten because they are dead ends. Unless new ideas can lead to 
> a continuous series of productive studies, they are abandoned. The erroneous 
> thrombin receptor hypothesis that I tried so hard to disprove was rapidly 
> abandoned several years later when the correct model was introduced (it 
> clips a specif ic protein). 
> 
> Steven Wiley is a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Fellow and director 
> of PNNL's Biomolecular Systems Initiative. 
> 
> 
> +++++++++++++++++++ 
> It is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational 
> results that are put forward until they are confirmed by theory. 
> Arthur Eddington 
> 
> 
> -- John 
> John Jacobus, MS 
> Certified Health Physicist 
> e-mail: crispy_bird at yahoo.com 
>