Peer review? Scientific method? NOT working well!

[gaiatechnician]

Just a note that I made a video "Nano Airlift pump demo., how high will it pump?" in April 2011 and several people have responded. My attempt used air pressure of 1/10 of an atmosphere to push water 13 ft high. (I had only enough tubing to get to 13 ft high). Some have tried it and someone got to 16 ft under non ideal conditions. This is real peer review! A real question where the answer is unknown and ordinary people stepping up and providing the answer. Why did no physicists step up?

[ogo08]

@Mauromoustakos The word peer in "peer reviewed" refers to the people that read the paper written and submitted on an experiment. When they read the paper they check and see if the experiment was done in an acceptable manor and judge the validity of the results reported in the paper. A peer does not necessarily do the same experiment as you, they just usually work in the same area so then they have to proper background to understand and review the work presented in the report.

[Jostedalsosten]

Besides, why are you surprised that you don't get peer reviewed when your stuff is only found on YouTube and a wiki? If you want to get peer reviewed, visit a univeristy.

[Jostedalsosten]

Of cource you don't have any peer reviewed reports from this, it's not a scientific theory it's an invention...

[ogo08]

I don't understand why everyone else has the responsibility to check your work. If you want someone to, pay them to do it.

[gaiatechnician]

@ogo08 What happens if someone (not me) who is really poor has a really good idea.  He or she cannot pay so the idea dies? There are more people and better educated people alive right now than have lived in all of civilization. There must be at least 50 Einsteins and a couple of hundred Newtons running around. Not all of them have money. We would do a lot better if people like you had intellectual curiosity and paid close attention regardless of where the ideas are coming from.

[ogo08]

@gaiatechnician You are right, it sucks if you are poor and have a good idea and it dies as a result. Note that the scientific process is extremely rigorus. We just have to live with that. Scientists do what they do because of deep intellectual curiosity. A poor man proved the poincare conjecture and was taken seriously because he played by the intellectual rules. Your idea might be good, but why should anyone pay attention to you if your work is done with careless practices?

[gaiatechnician]

@ogo08 If they are rigorous, they should be able to ignore me and test the idea.

It is not "my" idea. I did not patent it. People are strange and very shallow if they put up barriers in their minds just because I cannot afford perfect equipment. If the idea contains unknowns, the curious mind is expected to seek out the unknown truth, isn't it? Anyway, thats my view.

I have been low on ideas lately so even if I knew the rules, I could not get into the club.

[ogo08]

@gaiatechnician What reason do they have to test the idea? They spend their time testing other ideas, you need to convince them your idea is worth looking at if you want them to do so. The people do not put up barriers in their mind because of imperfect equipment, it is because you do not use the imperfect equipment properly. Write a paper about what you did and what the results were. People get published using crappy equipment all the time because they know how to do honest science.

[Mauromoustakos]

@ogo08

Another person will check my work not because he has any responsibility, but because he has the interest to do it. And he will have the interest, because he is also a scientist with an interest and knowledge on the same field. This is the meaning of a peer.

On the other hand, paying someone to check my work is the worst possible scenario, because his opinion, or her opinion, will not be independent from me.

-.

[keggerous]

to get peer reviewed u have to submit ur ideas to a peer review journal . . . also another u u seem to missunderstand is that peer review deals with new science and what u seem to be doing is finding new applications for science. which is totally awesome but i think u should be trying to patent ur ideas instead of having them peer reviewed.

[gaiatechnician]

@keggerous You read a book or wikipedia and it defines peer review, and that defines YOUR thinking. Real peer review involves the experiment being repeated. How many African experiments are peer reviewed in journals? You have a really bright scientist working in say, Zimbabwe. Making 200 dollars per year. How is he or she ever going to get your peer review? Expensive Journals are a huge barrier to innovative science. (applied or theory it is all science)

[keggerous]

@gaiatechnician the experiments arent what gets published. its the discoveries that is important. if u do an experiment that has no knew scientific data involved then they arent going to publish u. if u dont submit ur findings to a journal then they arent going to publish u and if ur experiments are wrong or done inncorrectly then they arent going to publish u. if an african scientists in zimbobwe makes a discovery, id bet that ppl would just all over it if it was valid.

[gaiatechnician]

@keggerous I used a laser level and t-square to do solar concentration experiments. And it brought up a shape for unattended cooking (the clam shaped solar reflector ) that nobody ever showed on the net before. Its a discovery and probably important. But nobody bothered to repeat it. The peer review process you talk of is a self sealing sterile process. Only people in the big offices, only the self defined "smart" people have valid ideas in that process. An exclusive club.

[keggerous]

@gaiatechnician so what is it that u want reviewed about ur solar cooker/clam shaped solar reflector? do u want the idea vindicated as a new mechine? or do u want other ppl to be able to use it? i guess im having a hard time understanding what the new science is that u tapped into here. it seems to me that u should still just get a patent for ur device and try to sell it instead of getting scientific vindication.

[gaiatechnician]

@keggerous What is the new science thing that you are on about? Every day in schools and colleges round the world, thousands of people test stuff like acceleration due to gravity. And , it remains the same. But, you are arguing that something that might help people in Haiti and Dafur a lot should not be tested because it is not "new" science. Is it a new much cheaper design procedure, perhaps? Only approximate. Guess what, Newton designed methods of approximating. They were new once.

[ogo08]

@gaiatechnician I am sorry, but your ignorance is showing again. I will correct this misunderstanding you have yet again. Peer Review for a journal is NOT others repeating your experiment. When an article is refereed (peer reviewed) for publication others read your paper and decide if your experiment was done honestly and that you can make any claims you make given the evidence of the real data you report in your paper. I compliment your recognition of lack of scientific funding in Zimbabwe.

[ogo08]

@gaiatechnician FYI, Inovative science is quite expensive to do. Reality sucks sometimes, I know.

[ogo08]

I am pretty sure you don't understand what peer review is. If you were to write a paper on what you did and tried to publish it in a peer reviewed journal then it would be peer reviewed. Sounds to me that you are just mad that no one is using your ideas. Maybe because you are not putting out into the world very effectively.

[gaiatechnician]

@ogo08 Peer review is someone, ( a peer), repeating and verifying your experiments. Did Newton have a journal to publish in? Maybe. Did  Archimedes? No. Yet Archimedes did good science and got it reviewed!

Mat in Cornwall peer reviewed the pulser pump. And Abby at Queens University in Ontario peer reviewed it. (And a few other people since). I do not know when so many ordinary people became such chickens. Its not a bomb! If you have at least half a brain you can do peer review.

[ogo08]

@gaiatechnician Most areas of science are so specialized now, not just anyone can peer review anything. Try reading something like "Rydberg states of the Li2 molecule studied by polarization labeling spectroscopy", and tell me what it is about. I know what peer review is, I do the science thing for a living. Peer review is not "someone, ( a peer), repeating and verifying your experiments". It is when a peer looks at how you did YOUR experiment to verify you did it correctly and are being honest.

[Lioobayoyo]

@ogo08

+1

gaiatechnician, you've got to "marketize" the invention, create some enterprise, create a business plan, find associates, look for fundings (bank, private investors or even fundation if for humanitary purpose) and do the job.

you're talking about engineering, not about "pure science". If you're really interested in optics or solar energy, move and try actively to talk to scientists in the field about the thing, like going to such a departement at the MIT or smthg like that.

[Pokarot]

@gaiatechnician Peer review probably isn't the term you want for that, it'd be product testing. Making a new invention doesn't need to be peer reviewed.

[gaiatechnician]

@Pokarot Peer review, product testing, different names for the same basic thing.

But in my case it is peer review. I do not sell anything.

There is just the idea and a proof of concept. If nobody else reviews it and reports back the project has no credibility.

( an astronomer could review the tracking solar accumulator project). (One did say equatorial mount is valid!)

 Lots of people rush out to check the wikipedia or dictionary definition. Peer review is bigger than that.

[AcePilot2009]

The facts, not opinion will win the argument.

Of course it might take a lawsuit to get at the truth.

[gaiatechnician]

@AcePilot2009 Climate science has had its peer review and global warming is pretty much proved. But lots of areas of science gets no funding. If there is no funding, there is no peer review. The government of Canada (who are on the side of the oil industry) has drastically reduced funding of climate science because they know that the science (if done) will find against the interests of the oil industry. (They, like you, are covering their ears to the results).

[ikvsabre]

This video is retarded. Nothing here demonstrates that peer review isn't important.

This is an APPLICATION, not new science.

[gaiatechnician]

@ikvsabre Peer review is vital. But this went 20 years before anyone repeated it.

Application as in applied science?

"Hey Man! You are applying it" "That just aint cool!" "NO review for you!"

Science, applied science, and engineering are artificial divisions.

(They made these divisions for silly people with type a minds.) The science isn't all done on plug flow, see the piece on appropedia from Queens university.

An application that uses them might help get it done quicker.

[gaiatechnician]

Just a note that students at Queens University Toronto are doing a project on the pump with final results published May 1st on appropedia and I won a place at the artsandsciencefair in Toronto with the dual paraboloid "revolutionary" solar.

But I had to choose, the solar design t-square and clam shaped solar was also accepted. (An individual can only have one entry at the fair)

Brian

[XxVizzinixX]

I thought solar cookers were already well understood and tested many times.

What about the The solar furnace at Odeillo in the French Pyrenees-Orientales? Among others.

There's lots of people and institutions that are working with solar devices.

Peer review is meant to test new concepts NOT to test the modifications of designs that have already been established as valid. That seems more like engineering to me.

Let me know what you think.

I do like your pump though.

[gaiatechnician]

It has not all been done before. Science and engineering have no real borders. One merges into the other.

Many institutions work with solar but most do overlapping work. "Lets make an even better parabolic dish!"

Have you ever seen the clam shaped solar cooker reflector idea before? I used less than 50 dollars worth of equipment. In forums I asked people to research user friendly solar reflectors for UNATTENDED use in September 2008. Nothing happened.

[Infinitevoyager]

I have watched most of your videos and applaud you. I think it is wonderful that the underlying purpose for all of this is the betterment of humanity. I enjoy the simplicity and the true functionality of your ideas. Who knows, there may come a day when some of these complainers will be scrambling to put your ideas into use. Money can allow people to lose sight of the important things in life......like other human life. But that is about to change.

[galt57]

You say: "Ambjörn Naeve made a mathematical discovery and a physics discovery way back then."

No, it was not a math discovery, and it was not a physics discovery. It was just an interesting and novel engineering approach. Is it practical? I doubt it. Did it get patented? I doubt it. Is it being sold as a successful product? I doubt it.

[gaiatechnician]

I find this artificial division between science and engineering to be the height of snobbery. Science is about improving stuff too. By the way, this "interesting and novel engineering approach" is part of some patent applications right now. For telescopes! The patent applicants will be pretty upset when they find out about Naeve's work.

[galt57]

You are talking about products to be donated to the poor living in third world nations? Well that might explain the lack of interest. It isn't scientific enough to interest scientists and it can't be sold as a profitable product. Where do you need an irregular trickle of water a few feet above a gush of water. Who needs that? What is the practical application? The "scientific method" doesn't automatically dispatch scientists to test and review every new cook stove, bird feeder, and yard toy.

[gaiatechnician]

No, I am talking about your mindset where you prejudge everything without doing the most basic calculations. I have known 2 scientists who were interested in researching the pulser pump. Their idea was to try to sneak it in (as an add on) if they got funding in a closely related field. One was Dr Norman McMillian who coached a couple of kids to win a national science award. But the average joe or funder has no clue.

[gaiatechnician]

So now I get you. Science should only be done to benefit rich people. With your selfish comments, you are proving that the method is not working properly and you are even giving reasons why.

"Where would you need an irregular trickle of wate a few feet above a gush of water" . Apart from the sneering insult, that is another display of ignorance. You need water pumped a few feet higher in agriculture.

Lots of rivers flow past parched fields because there is no money for hydroelectric power.

[gaiatechnician]

No, what he said is that he had to abandon the petal design.

He made it too complex.

2 petals, cooking food in poor countrys, will beat his 6 petal design. And his team could do the math on their coffee break.

And by the way, my clock based tracker can make a solar panel collect light for 12 hours, no problem.

And if i can do it, others can too. They are just too obsessed with "technology" to realize it yet.

Gross is a very very clever guy. But he is using sledgehammers to break eggs.

[dorbie]

"To prove that science isn't working properly all I have to do is find a few cases where peer review has not been done.".

If the guy doesn't try to publish then there's not going to be peer review. Further an internet search is not a rigorous search.

If you want your ideas out there publish a paper in a peer reviewed journal, throwing up a web site says nothing about the scientific method and there are no time constraints on teh scientific method either.

[gaiatechnician]

You know, dorbie, that's crap. You are just quoting from the bible of pretend. It should not be up to the individual all the time to jump through stupid hoops. The system should be capable of moving in response to stimulus.

AND. the 2 troughs together that Ambjörn Naeve thought up is a MATHEMATICAL concept.

ANY college Math teacher or good student should be able to prove or disprove it! I am offended that that brilliant concept went missing for 30 years. It should not have happened.

[dorbie]

Your complaint is sad. You throw some half assed idea on a web page and unless someone takes it and completes the reasearch then science is broken. That is B.S.

The fact is you're too lazy to do the hard work and "jump through hoops" so everyone else should then just credit you later. Laughable.

Science is not broken, there's no shortage of ideas scientists have to work on to make advances.

There may be problems in science but your web musings not being researched is not one of them.

[gaiatechnician]

What of Ambjörn Naeve's idea? Does it have merit?

And if it does, what stops other people from bringing it forward? It cannot all be about credit for ideas, can it? After all in the orthodox version of peer review, what credit do the reviewers get? None or next to none.

What if Naeve had died 30 years ago? Does his idea just die with him even though he has made it public? My complaint is perfectly valid.

There ARE problems in science and I have pinpointed a big one. Lets fix it.

[dorbie]

Whether an individual idea has merit is irrelevant. You're confusing science with engineering and product development. Vacuum formed parabolic mirrors are cheap to make and there are even more amazing things happening with mirrors and genetic algorithms to optimize their shape for particular goals (real, interesting, science).

There's no science to be done on the caustic from 2 curved mirrors, what empirical research is needed? NONE!

If you have a better pump make and sell it.

[gaiatechnician]

Dorbie, science is not about making and selling stuff. And if an idea has merit it is highly relevant. Parabolic mirrors are NOT ideal for solar cookers. You need a different shape to collect the sunlight for a longer time.

I made a video about it. 4 dishes compared and conclusions. I found 2 dishes that might be better.

And what about education? If the idea gives students insight, shouldn't they know about it? You are offended that I bring this up. But being offended closes the mind.

[dorbie]

I know science is not about making and selling stuff, YOU'RE the one who confuses engineering with science. Where's the interesting empirical science?

I'm not offended, you're just a guy ranting online, I even sent you some useful video. Stop posting nonsense and watch the real work in that video. If you're complaining about a lack of peer review & research and are ignorant of Bill Gross then the peer with the problem is you.

He also shows what real R&D is, take note.

[gaiatechnician]

Actually there IS science to be done on the caustics of 2 curved mirrors. Remember that the sun moves at approximately 15 degrees per hour across the solar collector. Knowing that, you can optimize the curve of the first reflector and the size of the cooking pot to get all the light on the target for the longest or most appropriate length of time. There is lots of science to be done and it cannot all be done on computer in idealab.

[dorbie]

Yes I just showed you how thats done with my video link. But it's debatable wheher you'd call it science or engineering, it's certainly not empirical science. However most of that work is best done on a computer and if you knew what you were doing you'd be able to do it. I showed you someone doing EXACTLY the kind of R&D you're bitching isn't being done but it differs from your preconception or ideal goals so you're unhappy.

Get of your duff and do it if you want EXACTLY the R&D you wish.

[gaiatechnician]

Dorbie, Gross didn't in code the "right fitness criteria" and fitness criteria are in a state of flux anyway,

And that is why his multi million dollar project from that ted talk is nowhere near either completion or near his initial dream. it was filmed in 2003! Where is the product? Other guys already sell downloadable templates for my compound parabolic solar cooker (and it is just 1 year old!).

I give Gross credit for trying to do the right thing and giving a brilliant talk.

Brian

[dorbie]

Nonsense, the fitness criteria drive the GA towards the desired solution for a given design target. So you have to be able to express your design goals in terms of an algorithmic fitness evaluation of design solutions as they are bred by the GA. You could optimize for a large array of criteria but some are not easily coded for.

If you quit specious criticism of people who are clearly out of your league you might learn something.

Nobody's generating electricity with your mirrors.

[gaiatechnician]

Who needs to generate electricity?

Listen to Gross in his ted talk. It is payback time that counts! 30 meals with the compound parabolic solar cooker and it is paid for (in fuel cost savings). 50 years? at least! with the idea described in his talk. And did you see that it is abandoned in that form? Kaput, finito, done!

Economics beat it.

[dorbie]

More silly unsupported statements. Payback time depends on what you're replacing and the costs. Competing solar technologies are the real issue in (no not your mirrors).

Anyone can concentrate light with a reflector, sorry, if you think you're on par with Gross you're just oblivious. Nothing wrong with them but it's a trivial problem which Gross actually did some novel and interesting work on. Your claim of science being broken and why is demonstrably silly.

[gaiatechnician]

Demonstrate it. I am saying that science needs to be improved.

I have a question for you about Gross.

Is any of his stuff peer reviewed?

And if it isn't? And how does peer review interact with the secrecy involved in the patent system as it currently stands?

[dorbie]

You're the one confusing engineering with science, not me. There are no empirical scientific claims being made that require testing.

From your video you don't even understand what peer review is or what should invoke it, your own video gets it utterly wrong.

[gaiatechnician]

You did not answer the questions. Peer review has been put into a straitjacket where editors and funders and politicians decide what to review. Where is your or my input? Ambjörn Naeve made a mathematical discovery and a physics discovery way back then. I think it has very important implications for the teaching of math and of physics. Because it is a basic discovery.

But it is unknown to the general public.

You worship Gross, where is the peer review of his machines and his logic?

[gaiatechnician]

@dorbie The pulser pump is being researched right now at Queens university in ontario Canada.

And guess what, it is surpassing their expectations.

"whether an individual idea has merit is irrelevant" did you really write that!

[dorbie]

@gaiatechnician

It was a statement in response to your silly claims. i.e. irrelevant to the point of discussion to which you were applying it.

[gaiatechnician]

Peer review just got better! The students at Queens University are publishing their results on appropedia on May 1st 2010

(not in 3 years time in some journal that nobody reads).

And preliminary results are already on appropedia!

What do you think of that, Dorbie?

[dorbie]

@gaiatechnician

You don't know what you're talking about. Your video shows that you don't even know what peer review is. Journals peer review papers before publication.

Results published directly to the web by researchers would by definition not be peer reviewed. So now YOU'RE arguing AGAINST peer review, quite a zinger. Your entire arcument is based on a silly contrarian luddite stance.

[gaiatechnician]

@dorbie Well, they are the peers, or the reviewers, if you like, they are reviewing my work. They are also posting their methodology of review directly to the web. For the modern world, that is the most effective, most honest way to get the information out to the people.

It is peer review without the journals. Maybe you have been brainwashed into thinking that the Journal is the bible of science. Or maybe you work for one?

"peer review" , journal not necessary.

Brian

[dorbie]

@gaiatechnician

I have no fondness of journals, it's just a tool. But you're all over the map. Your video showed you didn't know what peer review was. Then you started arguing that web publication of data as it arrives, not papers or conclusions was somehow better than real peer review, after arguing there wasn't enough peer review now you're waxing lyrical about the advantages of web publication.

Your real issue is now with the dissemination and publication and use of scientific results.

[dorbie]

P.S. see the video I messaged you on the design work of Bill Gross, just as an example of some of the design work being done out there.

[gaiatechnician]

I have seen the video quite a while ago. Now look at it again. Do you not think he has overbuilt it? Roland Winston did this better decades ago. And Scheffler did it better too. Gross is proof of the problem. He forgot simplicity years ago and now he has a toy and he is doing a marketing job. He is very smart and everyone should watch the video. BUT he spends millions of dollars and achieves what exactly? Wake up, people and read the comments on the Bill Gross ted talk!

[dorbie]

I thought his passive collector was brilliant, the petal one was complex yes but as he said he has to compete with solar cells in terms of collection hours and the costs in mass production are low.

You can ignore the elements he has addressed head on.

Nobody's stopping you going into competition with him and engineering something better. As it is you're just standing on the sidelines ranting and it's even clearer what motivates some of your nonsense now that you've attacked Bill Gross.

[rollsthepaul]

Science is the worst of the Earth religions. It is the most rigid in doctrine and the most dogmatic. Truly revolutionary scientists are ostracised by their discipline and refused funding. Science is a joke just like any religion. Energy is free and unlimited and pollution free. The scientists that get away from the controls and can't be stopped with stick/carrot, have unfortunate fatal accidents. We will be freed from this fucken matrix.

[gaiatechnician]

I would prefer if you tone it down. Energy is not free and unlimited, all energy use causes polution of some kind either directly or indirectly. I do not want any replys that go into free energy fantacy land. I do real research that has produced real benifits.

We need a quicker way of validating research and getting results to the masses than the current process. Suggestions are welcome.

[Benadrit]

No money, that's the problem. Whenever I point out something that would be of benefit, I'm asked, "but how would one make money with that?"

"You wouldn't."

"Then why would I want anything to do with it?"

"For the betterment of mankind."

"Why would I care about that?"

Let me know if you have an answer to that one. When the fact that someone is a member of mankind and bettering everyone is bettering them is lost I have no idea where to go.

[Benadrit]

It's people like you and cornwall that appear to be dragging the rest of humanity forward kicking and screaming.

[gaiatechnician]

As I pointed out elsewhere, where would Isaac Newton get funding today if he had to do his laws of motion stuff again? Probably from the military, (but only if he wrote a really good proposal) it would be top secret, and patented and the general public would have no access to the results! There is lots of original stuff that ordinary people can do but they are so busy being secretive (due to patent law) no collobaration, that nothing gets done!

[gaiatechnician]

Thank you, no money is one part of the problem. Fear of the new is another.. I made 2 models of pulser pumps and gave them to eco Villages. In both cases, the bosses refused to put the models on public display. And that is the pro environmentalists! If they are that bad, imagine what the rest are like! Seeing is not believing for many people.

[Benadrit]

I have to agree there. When the people who are on your side, and we know they are because they don't have the torches and pitchforks like the other side, won't even discuss it, life's very hard. With the close mindedness prevalent in the world it's amazing anything gets done.

[DaMcaAtak]

Ive looked at your pulser pump as a survival technique as well as wondering if it could be used as a hydro-generator.