I promised I’d let Sebastian have a guest slot here while I was in the US. So here it is.
I’ve not had a great deal of time to thoroughly edit the translation from the original Spanish, but if anyone here speaks Spanish they’re welcome to have a go. All views and opinions are Sebastian’s alone. I’m actually unlikely to participate in any discussion because I’ll be doing the reverse of the nightmare trip to America.
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I will try to tell the story as I remember it yesterday.
Last Friday we had a conversation with some students at the physics department, University of Chile. We tried to present and make sense of some scientific facts from the previous time.
We showed a video, How does a machine understand the world?.
What are the fundamental questions in science? Science magazine gives the first two: What are the biological bases of consciousness? and What is the universe made of?
Immediately, a third question arises: How are we going to answer in a reasonable amount of time these questions?
This question has not appeared in Science’s list, but we believe that it is time to add it. For years the image of the scientist is of someone who has been able to get up on a small hill and has looked around, so cold and impersonal, establishing assumptions, models and checks or rejecting the hypothesis. Thanks to scientists, we have achieved incredible things for humanity. And we thank them.
But we believe that something happened on the road, and today when we try to answer the big question of conscience say that something is demonstrated with a study covering 18 subjects. When we see it with a critical eye we think only of white noise modulation, pareidolia.
We studied the Nightingales in the arctic instead of doing something about global warming. We put a robot on Mars and we do not care about leading dandruff. And we are proud.
There is genocide in africa and prisons in Iraq to tell us that humanity has no future, and the statue with its clean sky of concept does not account for this. On the shoulders of giants scientists look forward, to answer questions with hearts of stone.
And we understand that science is important, but we also understand that there are many other important things. So how can we assess whether it is necessary to spend billions of dollars on building toys if the scientists are unable to justify these investments rather than saying “the method works so we continue?”. Examples are many, the ITER is one of the most visible.
And we are angry, we are sad, that this scientist is burning humankind’s resources to answer his questions, to play his game.
These are my taxes, it is my knowledge. We believe that the citizen is going to realize this. And going to say enough! It’s my money, I want to invest well. In the same way that I want my roads to have no holes, I want scientific research to be serious. So it is necessary that scientists are held to account. If it is only to satisfy their curiosity, my taxes are not for that. And we want the knowledge that our taxes fund to be free. Because knowledge is real. And the reality is dense with data: Linux, google, wiki and the iPhone are facts that we can not ever forget.
And the data, the mass of data of any kind at our disposal. To ask all the questions you want, but in a simple and natural way. But these data do not tell us anything without a story behind it. Without a story that contextualizes and make sense of, in the widest sense of the word sense.
Then, when “Wired::http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory said that science is over, we believe that has some reason. There are things that we can not continue letting our statue. We believe thatthe statue of the happy prince is missing parts: context, humanity, sense, honesty and innocence.
Here is where the third question comes again and their need becomes apparent. How ca we answer our questions in a reasonable time?
That the machines do what they do, and that the scientists write stories. We believe it is time to divide science. The scientist, in his humanity, when presented with an hypothesis in advance of the reality will change the data obtained.
We propose the development of 3 layers of science. 1) acquisition of data, where the trust in them must be absolute, and thus measurements can not be made by anyone with pre-conceived assumptions about the data. 2) The layer of analysis, where computers are responsible for filtering the information and making correlations. For example, that red houses generate more wind than those of other colors. 3) The layer of interpretation or meaning, this is the place where scientists ask their questions and interpret the answer; how is it that the red houses produce wind?
Then, in general terms how does this function? We measure things of concern to society as a whole, for example, thousands of EEGs of people doing a particular task. And this must be arranged and perfected, we need qualified people to obtain data professionally and should be funded in the same way as classical investigations are now. And the publications should be responsible for encouraging, promoting and sponsoring measurement standards.
The data are entered into a server that stores, orders and prepares for analysis. As these data are facts of nature they lie in the public domain and access should be guaranteed to any person or entity. But we do not refer to raw measuring; humans are those who worry about measuring, scientists as much as anyone, worried about evolving the capture of data. The scientist gets results without altering data or modifying them to meet their expectations.
Based on the foregoing, we propose to revise and adapt the scientific
method and we see it this way:
1. Define the question
2. Collect data (observe)
3. Form hypothesis
4. If the data exist, send the query. If there are no data, ask for the experiment to be performed and collect data
5. Interpret the answer to the query and draw conclusions that serve
as a starting point for a new hypothesis
6. Publish results
7. Retest (4 do again if there is new data on the system)
And finally, we would like to thank Kim for making us see the meaning as well.
La Tostaduria
