Putting a satellite in an orbit around the Sun inside the Earth's orbit that can detect asteroids is the best way to insure that all rocks that could strike the Earth are cataloged. Yes, it will cost millions of dollars, but it is the only way to be sure.
2
When you are within a scientific field, you have to be polite. You have to get along. Dr. Myhrvold is under no such constraint. We improve our certainty when our assumptions survive challenges. Thank you Dr. Myrhvold
5
Question for people who know: Reading this article, there was a comment that they were talking about the heat from an asteroid. What would cause heat in an asteroid? It flies through cold space, it doesn't have any oxygen around to heat it up unless it enters atmosphere. Just wondering why an asteroid would have heat coming off of it.
2
Energy from the sun
2
"... why an asteroid would have heat coming off of it."
The article has a sentence that starts:
"By looking at heat radiated by asteroids, ..."
"Heat" is an ambiguous term. "Heat" in this context means "infrared radiation". The general answer is that all matter emits radiation, even in deep space. That is because the atoms in matter are always moving, so matter always has a temperature.
Also, asteroids receive some radiation from the Sun and from the cosmic microwave background, which is the radiation permeating the universe from the Big Bang.
Note that in physics, "heat" means "thermal energy", which is the energy of moving atoms. Other possible sources of heat that do not involve radiation are radioactive decay and collisions.
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary has good definitions of scientific terms: merriam-webster dot com.
If you want to get more technical, look for "blackbody radiation" and "Kirchhoff's law" (sense 3).
Introductory textbooks on physics go into more detail about heat, temperature, radiation, etc. See, for example, "Physics I For Dummies" by Steven Holzner.
10
The headline is needlessly disparaging of Dr. Myhrvold, by calling him an amateur. You didn't mention that his PhD is in Astrophysics. And you failed to mention that he collaborated with Steven Hawking during his Astrophysics studies. He may not have a day job as an astrophysicist, but he's no amateur.
19
FWIW - seems we may not be any better off today regarding an asteroid impact than the dinosaurs were 66 million years ago - best asteroid monitoring may be in the northern hemisphere during the night; monitoring during the daytime and the southern hemisphere could be better afaik - even if an asteroid is detected somewhat ahead of time, NASA may need at least five years to launch an intercepting mission, according to congressional testimony ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance ).
Dr. Dennis Bogdan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Drbogdan
3
Scientists are very confident that they have located all of the extinction-size asteroids (5-10 miles in diameter). (An incoming comet could still take us out.) What hasn't been found are the smaller ones that are still large enough to destroy a city.
9
Interesting.
I'm confident that as the invective heats up, that the liberal MSM will point to this unusual acrimony in a field as dry as … asteroids, that it's yet another consequence of the diminished gravitas imposed on our society by having elected Donald Trump president.
2
This dispute has nothing to do with Trump. This is a follow-up to a story I wrote two years ago, when Obama was president and six months before the 2016 elections. It has nothing to do with Obama, either.
23
"Two years ago, NASA dismissed and mocked an amateur's criticisms of its asteroid database."
Those words, just under the article's headline, should alert the reader to the possible role of "groupthink" in NASA's reaction. It is characteristic of groupthink to defend its sometimes flawed assumptions with personal attacks on those who attempt to present evidence that contradicts the group's cherished assumptions, which they are prone to label as facts.
For another example, observe how adherents of the traditional Shakespeare authorship theory react to those who are publishing conflicting evidence, such as the close correspondence between the works of Shakespeare and personally marked passages in the Bible and Whole Book of Psalms that were purchased (new) by the Earl of Oxford.
http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/waugamar/
2
Science works best in an open and collegial atmosphere. Kudos to JPL and the asteroid team (most of which are NOT NASA employees, but scientists funded by NASA) for embracing peer review. We are all human and can make mistakes from time to time that are not caught by our peer safety net. True in science, and even true in peer review. Time will tell if Myhrvold has made a scientific contribution. What this article does not discuss, is Myhrvold's contribution to the business of intellectual property. Armed with a truly brilliant business plan and his financial rewards from Microsoft, he forever changed the landscape of patent protection. His company, Intellectual Ventures (IV) can be easily researched by searching for "patent troll" or by listening to the great podcast on NPR. He is truly a brilliant and disruptive person. Let's hope that attention from NYT does not disrupt NASA-funded science the way IV disrupted technological innovation of thousands of small to mid-sized businesses across the US. Frankly, as an inventor and scientist I am a bit afraid of speaking out about IV, but I am not afraid of speaking up for NASA-funded science and the great minds at JPL.
10
Yes, Myhrvold has actively damaged the entire software world by his attempt to extract money from large companies with his huge hold of worthless and vague patents. I hope his behavior doesn't carry over to scientific pursuits. At the least I am very skeptical of his claims of unfair behavior based on his own activities on patents - he has forever tarnished his reputation. He and the other billionaires from Microsoft have a lot of power if they wish to use it.
2
Given the spirit of the current political administration, I can only imagine that people who earn a living in the field of science (or just about any field) might feel the need to defend their positions.
1
Inspiring for him to take this on and contribute to the science. In my field of medicine, most of the papers are useless and intentionally misleading. They don’t report useful statistics like number needed to treat (NNT), but relative risk reduction which is misleading, especially with composite end points. Professor John P. A. Ioannidis of Stanford has written extensively on this, including the 2005 paper "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False". We tend to believe too much in science, and don’t realize that the science has to be done right to be useful.
8
Ah, yes! NNT, a jargon laden acronym and description that could be labeled Treatment Success Percentage. That is, the percentage of the total attempts at treatment that are, in fact, successful. I think a patient would like to know that percentage in order to make a value judgement whether or not to engage it.
NNT needs to be compared to another percentage, the percent of treatments that produce an "adversarial reaction" (no acronym for that).
The ratio of the two would provide a relatively competent guide for a patient to accept the treatment that provides the practitioner of medicine (MD), who is not a practicing scientist, a few bucks.
You should have seen the look on my PCP's face when I asked him what the NNT was for a pneumonia vaccine. He did not know. I had discovered it was 3330! That is a success rate of 1/3330. The percent of adversarial reaction was 2% or 1/200. Not a good deal. Not even close.
Unfortunately, I did my NNT research while in hospital recovering from pneumonia. When the doc said "it was a dead virus", I drew the bell-shaped curve in the air in front of him and pointed to the extreme. He smiled. And shut up.
I'm a retired atmospheric scientist. We work with statistics too.
5
Mr. Chang, I first saw you in Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “The Pluto Files” talking about your NYT article when the IAU demoted Pluto and the Hayden Planetarium correspondingly relegated it to a speck on a wall.
You write well; please open more of your columns for comments.
If the NYT goal here is to encourage citizen science/amateurs, then kudos for that. That said, fixating on the professional/amateur distinction is important but misguided. The same is true with credentials. The bottom line is that Nathan Myhrvold is publishing in a reputable peer-reviewed astronomy journal; therefore, he is doing real contemporary science and is a scientist. And who cares if he has an abrasive personality? So do many other scientists.
The Neowise researchers see Myhrvold as a virus inside their insular cell. He hails from the corporate world and has money, so immediately that attracts their scorn and ridicule. He hasn’t been in the trenches with them, that is, climbed the planetary-science ladder from graduate student to funded researcher.
Amy Mainzer and Edward Wright are treating him contemptuously like a UFO crackpot to be swept under the rug. But he knows what he is doing, despite some (fixable) errors in his work.
Myhrvold is well known, smart, creative, eclectic, and he also knows lawyers. Mainzer made a big mistake not immediately addressing his concerns; that was bad PR. And scientists dependent on the government (and taxpayers) cannot afford to make a mistake like that.
13
"Amy Mainzer and Edward Wright are treating him contemptuously ..."
In the two Times articles, the one direct quote from Mainzer is reasonable and diplomatic.
The paraphrases are strictly scientific, although the Times should be very careful, because those paraphrases cite Myhrvold as the source:
Times: "Dr. Myhrvold said that Dr. Mainzer argued that ..."
Times: "Dr. Myhrvold said Dr. Mainzer responded that ..."
An interested party should NEVER be allowed to paraphrase another interested party without independent verification.
How Big Are Those Killer Asteroids? A Critic Says NASA Doesn’t Know.
By Kenneth Chang
May 23, 2016
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/science/asteroids-nathan-myhrvold-nas...
4
JAB, you are absolutely correct that UCLA needs to immediately move to mitigate this PR fiasco; it appears David Morrison is already working on damage control. I would not have patently dismissed Myhrvold, someone who talks to those in Congress about cybersecurity and bioterrorism and holds a lot of clout. And I would have returned Kenneth Chang's phone calls.
While the scientific implications of Myhrvold's work for Neowise remain unclear, what is evident is that scientists dependent on public support for their research projects cannot afford bad publicity like this.
3
I wrote about this not because Nathan is an amateur/outsider, not because he's provocative and controversial, not because of his credentials. I wrote about this because after talking to him (and other asteroid experts) for hours and hours, I was convinced that there are legitimate scientific points here. Conversely, in more than two years, no one on NEOWISE has consented to an interview. They may have rock-solid explanations, but for whatever reason, they do not think it is worth their time to talk to me.
7
Instead of arguing about data on asteroids, or watching two of the biggest blowhards in history 'negoiate' about denuclearization or listen to the presidental spokesperson tell us the bible says we always should follow the law (does she think Jesus was crucified because he liked chocolate instead of vanilla ice cream), how about focusing time and a lot of money on doing everything we can to avoid having an asteroid hit the earth?!! It's a real threat with catastrophic possiblities.
1
It's an extremely minor threat, and the catastrophic possibilities are by far overblown, at least as concerns the overall health of the planet. It would be much better to spend our resources elsewhere, like tackling the environmental problems we have right now. Unfortunately, asteroid research is "sexy," and so that giant sucking sound is of more funds being diverted away from areas of direct consequence.
"Instead of arguing about data on asteroids, ... how about focusing time and a lot of money on doing everything we can to avoid having an asteroid hit the earth?!!"
You can't have it both ways. The "data on asteroids" is used to determine the *size* of asteroids.
With "158,000 asteroids" in the Neowise catalog to worry about, how do you propose picking out the dangerous ones without "data on asteroids"?
Science is as much about manners as new ideas. The more controversial your arguments, the more cautious and polite your statements and behavior needs to be, especially to gain acceptance and cooperation from your much better funded and well-armed community.
Each scientists has only two arms, Jimmy Lin. Same as everyone else. There are a few exceptions, of course.
2
"Arbitrary rules for deciding which data to keep and disregard" seems to be a more than a one-time occurrence in many fields of scientific research endeavours today. Where scientists, anxious to keep their annual grants and research posts, are expected to keep up the current dogma, the public is made to believe that all of the collected data is not only accurate, but oft-times contrary data is simply discounted by seemingly scientific independent experts. The public knows no different. We tend to deeply believe so-called authorities.
Climate change research often discounts valid data concerning ice thickness, temperature distribution patterns and disregards temperature recordings from areas of the globe that are experiencing extremes in heat and cold contrary to the current dogma.
All that said, this article exposes the closing of the ranks of the NASA scientists to protect their jobs, but in this case, the size of the asteroids won't make much of a difference. If we do get hit, the 10% or so size difference will be inconsequential.
1
"... oft-times contrary data is simply discounted by seemingly scientific independent experts."
Before generalizing, you should read Myhrvold's second paper[1], which goes into much more detail about "discarded" data than a Times article can.
In particular, data for an asteroid was excluded if there were too few observations for the asteroid.
Some data was grouped into separate time intervals (called "epochs") and analyzed independently in each group. Myhrvold says that "No rationale or justification is presented in the papers for why breaking the analysis into epochs for analysis is either valid or desirable in this circumstance."
More generally, astronomical data is never "clean" or "complete". Sources of contamination may include cosmic rays and meteors. Data may be lost or missed due to equipment malfunction, orbital constraints, noise, weather, etc.[2]
[1] An empirical examination of WISE/NEOWISE asteroid analysis and results
by Nathan Myhrvold
Icarus
Volume 314, 1 November 2018, Pages 64-97
(link is in article)
[2] See, for example, "Astronomy Methods: A Physical Approach to Astronomical Observations" by Hale Bradt.
2
My husband is a physicist. He gets people writing to him all the time with theories, about, say, the voices being transmitted to our brains from the government via our dental fillings. Yah, crazy. But he never, ever writes back to them to tell them they're crazy, call them names. He never disparages them to a third party. He is patient and if badgered will cease communication rather than engage unkindly. NASA could use to leave amateurs well enough alone unless they have something useful and interesting to share. Once a paper has been vetted by a reputable journal and published, NASA does not need to engage. Just begin working with the new ideas, and publish a concurrence if the new ideas are worthwhile.
9
"So what best to call him [Dr. Myhrvold]?"
Scientist.
"Edward L. Wright ... said one section about the error analysis was 'a waste of paper.'”
If that is the case, then the referees at "Icarus" must be incompetent and the journal should be shut down. Yet "Icarus," founded in 1962, is a well-respected peer-reviewed planetary science journal published under the auspices of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences. Carl Sagan served as its editor for over a decade.
Quite the paradox.
11
That's true, but that is also an incomplete description of Nathan Myhrvold. It misses why the Neowise team has brushed off his critiques and that he has participated in this field for only 2-3 years.
I've also described Myhrvold as an outsider (he's fine with that) and a hobbyist (that he didn't particularly care for). He hasn't objected to amateur.
10
There is no pejorative meaning to "outsider" or "amateur" if those words are understood for their basic meanings. Probably also for "hobbyist".
The big scientist brushes off the little one at his own peril.
Ironically at NASA, didn't a junior engineer go over his boss's head to have them use the earth's gravity to slingshot the Apollo moon orbiter?
3
So here we are decades after Richard Feynman's dissenting opinion merely attached as an appendix to the Challenger Disaster Report, still treading the same water at NASA?
2
quoting the article, i always do this:
". . . scientists at NASA are charged with scanning the skies for . . . dangerous space rocks. If one were on a collision course with our planet, information about how big it is . . . would be essential for . . . "
Now THAT sets up a real decision-maker, so to speak, if yr the one at the flash gordon opticon skilometer, and you see this coming at 'cha!
i think today in 2018 it might not be such a unforgiveable notion, and then a choice, to just say:
'aaaah, just let it come on . . .'
After all, there are plenty of more presssing problems, right at hand, that we have much more influence and abilities to address, if we were a mind to.
just thinkin' . . .
our real problems are 'certainties' and they are at hand, not as far away as the optikon skilometer ranges.
har.
So I guess you don’t believe in the concept of insurance?
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Solve our “concrete” problems and also try to prevent future catastrophes.
"So scientists at NASA are charged with scanning the skies for such dangerous space rocks."
Hard to believe that the current administration allows NASA to do this. It won't let EPA publish some research because it claims that anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. So why don't they claim that NASA's research is also a hoax?
The massively political appointment of Bridenstine, a non-scientist carrying Oklahoma denialist baggage, pretty well guarantees editing, if not gross censorship of NASA’s activities. Willing to bet that every program, large and small, is frozen in doubt concerning funding or cancellation. Dont’ forget that NASA went leaderless for 15 months, and the temporary heads both quit, presumably so that they didn’t have to witness what was about to happen.
8
Since we don't have the technology to stop them, what good does it do to know how big they are? Then there's the where are they going to land thing.
If NASA finds an asteroid that is on a trajectory to hit Earth a few decades from now, that's quite a bit of time to divert it. It would take a fairly small nudge to make it miss, and that could be as simple as painting a section of it lighter or darker, which would change the force of sunlight bouncing on it. You don't need to land it or destroy it.
But if you don't have a reliable estimate on its size, that would be a big problem.
20
Technology to stop them, no, but it’s marginally possible to effect a minor, but important change in trajectory if we get a rocket with a nuke far enough out, fast enough. At least there’s some thought on the matter. Anyway, long range detection is key, as is knowing how big they are.
2
Why should deflection of an incoming asteroid only be the responsibility of the USA, Perhaps a job for Mr Kim.
Perhaps without the distracting bickering they would have seen asteroid trump headed our way and warned us.
The chances that asteroid trump would hit were astronomical - and it still hit during our lifetime. It would have come out of no where had it not been so loud.
Indeed, it would have missed us completely had the Russians not nudged its trajectory into a direct impact into our nation's heart. In the end it may even be the asteroid that ends the human race as quickly as the dinasaurs disappeared.
9
Poor NASA! Not only are they currently directed by a non-scientist, who may divert them in the most counter-productive ways, (see, I’m being polite), but their erstwhile monopoly on launching machines has been usurped by unrelated commercial efforts, and of course our new Russian and Chinese friends.
Worse, their projects that have a real basis in science, rather than political posturing, tend to be long-term and of little public interest. Yes, there are thousands of drone lifers punching those clocks, and yes, even their best can be defensive when someone, usually a congressman, gives them a hard time, but in this case it’s a complete independent with significant ability, offering criticism. Heck, NASA might turn into ‘failed NASA’ overnight and find themselves building golf courses where the launch pads were.
But those errant ‘roids’ are real, and as any Jurassic critter would testify, bad news every time. Could be that the instrumentality that’s in the works might be improved in design or function, or even that data reduction could be made better. Let’s calm down everyone in this tiff by suggesting that we really need, not only our best people working on this, but not poisoning the subject for the next generation of good scientists.
5
This article points to the club culture of received wisdom, despite the need for honest debate. For years, I have asked persons in the climate science community to describe the extent of regression testing of their models. No one has yet replied.
3
"For years, I have asked persons in the climate science community to describe the extent of regression testing of their models."
You will need to be more specific than that. What peer-reviewed papers were you asking about? Have you ever asked any such questions at a scientific conference?
8
“It’s a strange story,” Dr. Morrison said. “I’ve never experienced anything like this in my field.”
This statement is laughable. Scientists have all the petty foibles the rest of us have, so don't be fooled by that. Science is our light in the darkness and we must robustly support it, no question, but it is inherently a human endeavor and as such becomes sufficiently stained, from time to time, by the human experience.
"Icarus" is a respected peer-reviewed planetary science journal. Dr. Myhrvold is not a quack. But anyone outside a tribe, and that includes the astronomical community in this case, will be treated as the "Other."
I commend Dr. Myhrvold's ingenuity and courage. And the fact that he owns patents in no way diminishes his work here. Has he done anything illegal? We need more critical thinkers like Dr. Myhrvold in this world, shaking things up, working in an interdisciplinary way. So he has some flaws? Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
29
Conclusion: Blue Moon doesn't know much about astronomers. Maybe Dr. Morrison does.
2
I wonder why it is not possible to have suitable equipment on International Space Station to measure directly dimensions of some asteroids that pass relatively close to earth. Needless to say that, if such measurements are taken, they can be used to establish which methodology consistently provides realistic estimates of asteroid sizes and the size of variances involved.
8
If an asteroid passes close to Earth, radio telescopes on Earth can make a good measurement of the size. However, astronomers don't have continuous monitoring of the entire sky. You can't measure what you haven't discovered.
6
Thanks!
Dr. Myhrvold is not your average scientist. He began college at 14, studying mathematics, geophysics and space physics at UCLA (BSc, Masters). He earned a master's in mathematical economics and a PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics at Princeton.
NASA has numerous accomplishments to its credit, and its own fine stable of scientists. It is nonetheless is a federal bureaucracy full of civil servants, few of whom have Dr. Myrhvold's credentials and experience. (Example: It took Dr. Richard Feynman, a member of the commission investigating the fatal crash of Space Shuttle Challenger, only a few minutes at a public hearing to spot the link between the hardening of a rubber gasket he dunked in a glass of ice water and the effects of freezing temperatures at launch on the rubber O-rings that were supposed, but failed, to prevent the booster rockets from breaching and exploding.)
My point is not that NASA scientists and administrators are in any way lacking, but that "fresh eyes" brought to bear on a long-standing problem may reveal new insights to those whose long exposure to the problem have made it hard--or impossible--for them to think outside the box.
If someone with Dr. Myhrvold's credentials and experience can offer new and pertinent insights to NASA's processes and projects, let us all hope that NASA has the humility and wisdom to incorporate such insights into its own operations and conclusions.
No, I am not a friend or relative of Dr. Myhrvold, just an admirer.
56
I generally agree with your statements, but I would like to clarify the reasons for the Challenger disaster. NASA engineers, the o-ring manufacturers, and launch site leads all knew about the risk of o-ring embrittlement in the low temperature atmosphere prior to launch. There was an incredible amount of external and managerial pressure to launch anyway. Administration, for political and PR reasons, forced a launch over the protests of NASA scientists and engineers.
27
Thank you anon for setting this guy straight.
2
You make excellent points about Dr. Myhrvold, and I agree.
For the record, the failure of the Challenger O-ring was fully the fault of Morton-Thiokol, a Contractor, who failed to listen to a lower level, but knowledgable engineer who knew/was-concerned about the inability of the 0-ring material to retain its elasticity at the launch-temperature that day. Feynman as he did so gloriously, dramatized that know fact.
Likewise, the Hubble Space Telescope Mirror, built at Perkin Elmer's Danbury, CT facility ignored several simple, but very powerful optical tests (done by amateur telescope Mirror makers) that clearly showed the flaws in the Mirror. Perkin Elmer replicated from the beginning a flawed Null lense used to verify the proper mirror surface. This very precise and expensive test lens was faithfully copied while PE management rejected contrary data.
So few people have real scientific education and interest in the analysis of asteroids, I think they should be working together to discover accurate facts. This is a 'specialty' field and all data collected should be shared by scientists worldwide. And there is not enough 'equipment' worldwide to be fighting about who gets to see and collect what data.
My knowledge is limited to Hollywood disaster films featuring asteroids. I am always astounded by the cost of space exploration.
Seems international cooperation and cost sharing are the way to move forward.
2
ER: "This is a 'specialty' field and all data collected should be shared by scientists worldwide."
The problem is that scientists don't get rewarded for "sharing", they get rewarded for publishing cutting-edge research.
In the case of astronomy, the research can be very expensive, very time-consuming, and, worst of all, highly vulnerable to political meddling.
Some scientists have had their missions canceled. That is both professionally and emotionally devastating. Further, when data is obtained, if it is "shared", that means someone who put no effort into the mission can "scoop" the scientists who developed the mission.
Examples:
1. The High Speed Photometer was removed from the Hubble Space Telescope.
2. Spanish astronomers used data collected by Caltech astronomers to claim first discovery of a new solar system object.*
ER: "And there is not enough 'equipment' worldwide to be fighting about who gets to see and collect what data."
Scientists can submit research proposals for the use of scarce scientific resources, such as time on space telescopes. However, their data is considered proprietary for a limited time, so that the scientists can first publish papers.
For example: "In accordance with NASA policy, all science data from the Hubble Space Telescope is archived with a one-year proprietary period by default." (archive.stsci.edu)
* One Find, Two Astronomers: An Ethical Brawl
By DENNIS OVERBYE
NY Times
SEPT. 13, 2005
3
There are several things going on here: both parties have been tactless, which is nothing new in science. But the serious aspect is the charge that data were withheld, altered and redacted when a qualified scientist (absolutely no amateur) requested them for reanalysis. If true, that is scientific misconduct. It merits an investigation and sanctions if upheld.
28
It makes no difference who asked, when we talk about altering data, if that was done.
"Redact" means "prepare for publication". Look it up.
1
It's a case of an amateur versus a careerist. However, the danger of asteroid infall is too serious to dismiss.
2
Well, Nathan's education (Princeton PhD in math/physics and postdoc w. Stephen Hawking) make him a very fine amateur!!
2
This is a very credulous take on one crackpot's attempts to be taken seriously without having to behave in a serious manner. It's disappointing that nobody chose to stand up for the scientists by talking to the NYT, but it's more disappointing that the story was run without any critical analysis.
6
They declined to comment.
2
Read the article again. Myrhvold's paper passed peer review. That makes him hardly a "crackpot." Oh, and for your benefit, peer review is "a process by which a scholarly work (such as a paper or a research proposal) is checked by a group of experts in the same field to make sure it meets the necessary standards before it is published or accepted." (Merriam Webster)
6
Crackpot? That's right, when all else fails fall back on the personal abuse. Very scientific.
This isn't Trump vs Comey. This is hard science.
We publish in peer viewed journals, our adversaries do the same.
Others read the published papers – others publish their own papers.
Either the original consensus holds – or the old consensus is overturned to be replaced by a new concensus. And thus, slowly but surely, we inch forward.
3
It would be nice to know where they are, where they are going and how big they are. What if one hit Antarctica causing the ice shelf to seperate from the continent and slide into the sea. Asteroids, tsunamis, rising sea levels and the ring of fire oh my.
Seriously, a good part of NASA's budget is drven by Hollyweird childrens science fiction. Searching for civilizations in other solar systems might not be the best way to spend our money.
If they ever find the ninth planet which is possible how will they explain how they missed it. Now if they said it's on a collision course with earth...science.
1
"Searching for civilizations in other solar systems might not be the best way to spend our money."
What NASA missions are "Searching for civilizations in other solar systems"?
2
JoeG is flat wrong about the budget. Sorry, Joe. Look it up.
1
This is the way real science works. Its messy and some big egos are involved. But over time it tends to produce the best answers we can find.
26
Mr. Myrhvold's approach is reflective of the usual vanity and and quasi-bullying tactics of tech giants. The problem is, even when they are right, the purpose is to achieve marketing glamour.
there are many opportunities to purpose and implement solutions to problems, even something as expensive as NEO detection, threat identification and response, available people of means and ability that would be truly innovative and demonstrate synergy between NGOs and institutions (design a satellite, pay to launch it, store data in the cloud, use distributed computing methods to analyze it instead of bitcoin mining, share it, display it). Instead we have a man squabbling with NASA, who is famous for putting his ridiculous carts before a wobbly horse.
5
Did I miss it? I can't find in this article where it says what Dr Myhrvoid's PhD is in.
Kind of relevant, yes? And the headline- calls him an "Amateur" . Excuse me?
That slur has to come from NASA, and is indicative of the problem. He's not from NASA; so; a PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics - from Princeton - and a postdoc under Stephen Hawking - makes him an "amateur"?? All right there on the internet.
My peer review of NASA's attitude - thumbs down.
In reality; if you can find a textbook on The Philosophy of Science; you will find that "best practice" for all long term study includes "periodic OUTSIDE review" - of everything.
It's a known fact - insiders will reach a point where they cannot see their own work, and an educated outside view is necessary.
Come on, NASA, clean this up. These are classic management blunders.
66
Myhrvold is not and has not been a professional astronomer. He is therefore unequivocally an amateur in the field. That does not make him wrong and did not stop his paper from being published since that is not (an official) component of the peer review process.
That being said, statements like “The science is terrible,” are counterproductive. He's not working at Microsoft in the 90s, being a jerk is no longer a requirement.
16
Yes, he's definitely not an amateur.
1
Nathan Myhrvold is not a professional astronomer (no one has ever paid him to do this), so essentially by definition, he is an amateur. He is much more knowledgeable and accomplished than what we usually think of as an amateur. So what best to call him?
18
Times quoting UCLA's Dr. Edward L. Wright: '... the error analysis was “a waste of paper.”'
That's not a rebuttal of "the error analysis".
Times: 'In his email, Dr. Wright said Dr. Myhrvold had taken an “adversarial approach.”'
Scientists can be viciously "adversarial" with each other, so that appears to be an attempt to discredit Myhrvold with a personal attack.
UCLA urgently needs to get someone from Media Relations and Public Outreach in contact with Wright, because he is disgracing UCLA with his comments to the media.
31
Well spotted.
1
Times: "Dr. Myhrvold has filed Freedom of Information requests ..."
On another web site*, Myhrvold says that some of the documents he got from NASA had been redacted "to a ludicrous extent considering that this research has no connection to national security or law enforcement. It was a thousand-plus blank, blackened, and otherwise useless pages almost perfectly selected to avoid touching on the scientific information I had asked for."
BTW, that should be "Freedom of Information _Act_" (FOIA).
* "Two years of stonewalling: What happened when a scientist filed a public records request for NASA code"
by Nathan Myhrvold
June 14, 2018
retractionwatch dot com
12
What a deliberately misleading post. The patent troll knows that the FOIA specifically states that proprietary software may only be released in accordance with the licensing agreement. That software wasnt written by NASA and consequently may not be released by NASA.
1
Who you gonna trust, NASA Scientists, or a patent troll?
7
The power of science is that trust is not required: scientific results should be reproducible by anyone. In this case, you don't need a BS in space science, a PhD in mathematical physics, and a postdoc with Stephen Hawking (as Myhrvold has) to evaluate whether his criticisms are valid. Anyone can look at the data and decide for themselves. His post today on Medium show how: https://medium.com/@nathanpmyhrvold/myhrvold-guide-to-neowise-4866a2f7b76d
19
I seem to recall that the first NASA head and scientist was also had an earlier career as a war criminal NAZI SS Major. That resume included the deaths of 20,000 slave laborers building his V weapons to destroy London (and eventually hope to reach NYC)- that's not counting the Brits his weapons killed. Well, Hitler trusted him.
8
The adversarial approach is a tad puzzling. I feel the more information and science about asteroids the better.
However, the very real sight of an iceberg calving off Antarctica is more troubling that the remote possibility of a large asteroid sneaking up on NASA scientists when it's too late.
1
Sir, the problem with an asteroid strike is this: they are improbable, but the damage they cause is so immense that it cancels out the improbablilty.
9
The turf battle described here should not be viewed as a scientific endeavour gone astray. Science critically depends on the process of establishing consensus. Establishing consensus is a social activity and all social activities are influenced by the flaws in human nature. As Spock would put it, temper your expectations of any endeavour where humans are involved.
2
Scientists are people, and when "doing science" behave the way people do when doing other things. Science is an inherently social activity, involving interactions between people, and in science we see much the same types of social behaviours as in other human interactions. One of the most fundamental types of human behaviours is to form up into groups, in which one is either a member of the group, or isn't; and to behave differently towards people outside your group, than you do towards people within your group. This happens in families, tribes, companies, governments, and science teams.
Scientists generally *try* to react fairly to comments and criticisms about their work, from people outside their own team. But they can easily be provoked into defensive responses, if those comments are perceived as being hostile. In which case you often get the same sort of behaviour as any group displays, when attacked. This can easily spiral into counter-attacking, then all-out war. Examples abound, including from the earliest days of modern science --- recall the ca. 1700 Newton-Liebniz priority dispute, which became a war between pro-Newton and pro-Liebniz "armies" of "natural philosophers" (as scientists were then called).
I expect that Amy Mainzer and co. would respond courteously to any respect asteroid-science colleague who respectfully raised questions about their methodology. Perhaps Dr. Myhrvold didn't quite take that approach with them, when raising his questions...
21
What are the odds that there are NO grownups in the room at any given time? High, apparently, in the era of Trump.
1
What this story illuminates has more to do with the less graceful side of human nature than it does the asteroids in question. I have a PhD but chose not to work in my field of scholarship for one primary reason; ego-driven nastiness that often resembles a turf war far more than it does an unbiased quest for truth. We are incomplete beings, and if our scientific pursuits are to rise to the level our cleverness promises, we will need to better examine the non-scientific impetus in our nature which would lead a scientist to call another's questions about methods "a waste of paper." With climate change and other very pressing problems upon us, we cannot afford to allow our worst attributes to provide ammunition for those who would disparage our best efforts.
39
Using the scientific method (SM) produces results that are *always* provisional. The resulting theory is subject to modification as new information becomes available. This is one of the primary strengths of the SM.
That some of the NASA scientists cited in this article are fighting against a thorough investigation of new information is simply breathtaking...and very unprofessional.
It's a sad reflection of what NASA is becoming...
37
Agree. The reason for this tooth and nail resistance is the way our science funding works. Admitting to having made a mistake is often accompanied by a career-ending loss of funding or the ability to obtain future research grants. This provides a downright perverse incentive to be rigid and closed, rather than flexible and open to new and different ideas. Of course, being open to new ideas, especially in light of new, unexpected data, is at the core of scientific progress, but as long as funding bodies continue to reward intellectual rigidity, it'll be an uphill battle. Experiments are called that for a reason - we don't know if the idea being tested is correct or not.
What also hurt Dr. Myhrvold's case the first time around was the quite sloppy presentation of his arguments, which gave his opponents at NASA an easy out of an actual scientific discussion. Having one or two qualified scientists proofread the manuscript beforehand might have prevented it from getting ugly.
32
"Using the scientific method (SM) produces results that are *always* provisional."
Maybe to philosophers. But the heliocentric theory of the solar system is not "provisional" for astronomers.
"The resulting theory is subject to modification as new information becomes available."
What "new information" would "modify" the heliocentric theory of the solar system?
4
The heliocentric model is the result of using the scientific method to modify the geocentric model that emerged from observational studies.
1
I really wish both Dr. Myhrvold and the scientists of the neowise project would dial down the intensity of their apparent animosity, and focus on the best solution to this problem: How do we find the asteroids out there that could do to us what another asteroid did to the dinosaurs some 70 million years ago? And, preferably, long before that asteroid would hit Earth.
While I share Dr. Myhrvold's passion for the greatest possible transparency on how the data for asteroid discovery and cataloging are arrived at, selected, and confirmed, I wish he would be equally passionate in providing support (and funding?) for research that, in his opinion, does it right, and publish the data. The best way to prove that the other side is wrong is to do it right, and show the results. His $ 350,000 donation to UCLA is a nice gesture, but really just that.
Ultimately, I believe most of us don't care who does it, as long as it get's done and we have ample warning of a possible asteroid strike so we can do something about it, like nudging it to a safe trajectory.
46
One has to be careful not to make enemies pointlessly, and NASA seems to be the first offender there. The sub headline "Two years ago, NASA dismissed and mocked an amateur’s criticisms"... is information that should have been deleted long ago, but is still being repeated.
Amateur? The past Head Of Technology Of Microsoft is not a good candidate for that disparagement; particularly not if anyone there took the time to find his bachelors' studies at UCLA included space science- and his PhD at Princeton was in theoretical and mathematical physics. Then there was his post-doc; at Cambridge, with Stephen Hawking. Why would the reporter repeat "amateur" - unless he'd heard it again recently?
I would be pretty insulted to be called an amateur, too. And that kind of petty insult does let you know that the people you are dealing with - are not real scholars- but the climbers who descend to such nonsense. It can be a waste of time playing nice. Bullies sometimes need a little punch in the nose to wake them up.
16
I certainly agree with you on the inappropriate labeling of Dr. Myhrvold as an "amateur", and also wish the article's author would have mentioned Dr. Myhrvold's credentials, which are in this very field of science, for clarification. However, what ultimately matters is the quality and strength of the scientific argument, not the alphabet soup after one's name or whether it's from the right kitchen. I hope that after a cooling off, all parties can get back to actual scientific discourse over the matter at hand.
@Greenpa et al.: Myhrvold is an amateur astronomer because he is not a professional. The term "amateur" means he does it for love. It has nothing to do with expertise or qualifications.
@Pete: His degree is not in astronomy so his credentials are not "in this very field of science". That in no way implies he can't make an important contribution.
Amateurs have often made important contributions to astronomy, more than to most parts of physics (I would say). I welcome that.
I am no kind of astronomer, just a science fan.
Truth has become the first casualty of this Era of the Populist Belief. Here we have someone with scientific credentials highlighting potential faults in critical data and the result is character assassination and belittling. NASA is a very budget-conscious organization, no matter how non-business oriented they may appear to be. Instead of warming to the opportunity to re-focus and reinforce their conclusions, the NASA scientists involved resort to "no comment" and ridicule. The human example at the very top penetrates deeply into our institutions. Sad.
51
Science fs rarely about truth. Scientific advancement comes from hypothesis, experimentation and analysis of the best data available. This leads us to an understanding of natural phenomena as we understand it. It is always subject to change with the advancement of data collection abilities.
8