[ RadSafe ] Article: No to Negative Data

[Livesey, Lee M]

And all of this from an "empircal" science based upon inferences of what is not actually observed......

 -----Original Message-----
From:   John Jacobus [mailto:crispy_bird at yahoo.com]
Sent:   Thursday, September 04, 2008 07:11 PM Pacific Standard Time
To:     Dan W McCarn; 'radsafe'; HOWARD.LONG at comcast.net
Subject:        RE: [ RadSafe ] Article:  No to Negative Data

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
>




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