Variations in the Earth’s Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages
J. D. Hays, John Imbrie, N. J. Shackleton. 1976. Variations in the Earth’s Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages. Science, New Series, Vol. 194, No. 4270, (Dec. 10, 1976), pp. 1121-1132.
Note: this classic, seminal paper changed the science of paleoclimatology. It is one of the most important papers ever written in any scientific discipline.
Full text [here]
Selected excerpts:
Introduction
For more than a century the cause of fluctuations in the Pleistocene ice sheets has remained an intriguing and unsolved scientific mystery. Interest in this problem has generated a number of possible explanations (1, 2). One group of theories invokes factors external to the climate system, including variations in the output of the sun, or the amount of solar energy reaching the earth caused by changing concentrations of interstellar dust (3); the seasonal and latitudinal distribution of incoming radiation caused by changes in the earth’s orbital geometry (4); the volcanic dust content of the atmosphere (5); and the earth’s magnetic field (6). Other theories are based on internal elements of the system believed to have response times sufficiently long to yield fluctuations in the range 104 to 106 years. Such features include the growth and decay of ice sheets (7), the surging of the Antarctic ice sheet (8); the ice cover of the Arctic Ocean (9); the distribution of carbon dioxide between atmosphere and ocean (10); and the deep circulation of the ocean (11). Additionally, it has been argued that as an almost intransitive system, climate could alternate between different states on an appropriate time scale without the intervention of any external stimulus or internal time constant (12).
Among these ideas, only the orbital hypothesis has been formulated so as to predict the frequencies of major Pleistocene glacial fluctuations. Thus it is the only explanation that can be tested geologically by determining what these frequencies are. Our main purpose here is to make such a test. Previous work has provided strong suggestive evidence that orbital changes induced climatic change (13-20). However, two primary obstacles have led to continuing controversy. The first is the uncertainty in identifying which aspects of the radiation budget are critical to climatic change. Depending on the latitude and season considered most significant, grossly different climatic records can be predicted from the same astronomical data. Milankovitch (4) followed Koppen and Wegener’s (21) view that the distribution of summer insolation (solar radiation received at the top of the atmosphere) at 65N should be critical to the growth and decay of ice sheets. Hence the curve of summer insolation at this latitude has been taken by many as a prediction of the world climate curve. Kukla (19) has pointed out weaknesses in Koppen and Wegener’s proposal and has suggested that the critical time may be September and October in both hemispheres. However, several other curves have been supported by plausible arguments. As a result, dates estimated for the last interglacial on the basis of these curves have ranged from 80,000 to 180,000 years ago (22).
The Government Grant System: Inhibitor of Truth and Innovation?
Donald W. Miller, Jr. 2007. The Government Grant System: Inhibitor of Truth and Innovation? Journal of Information Ethics, 2007, pp 59-69.
Donald W. Miller, Jr., is a professor of surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He received his M.D. degree from Harvard and did his cardiothoracic surgery residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. He has written two books on heart surgery and one, Heart in Hand, on the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, films of Woody Allen, and his life as a heart surgeon. He also writes articles for LewRockwell.com, which includes pieces on the importance of integrative medicine for maintaining optimum health.
Full text [here]
Selected Excerpts:
Introduction
Flush with success in creating an atom bomb, the U.S. federal government decided it should start funding nonmilitary scientific research. A government report entitled “Science, the Endless Frontier” provides the justification for doing this. It makes the case that “science is the responsibility of government because new scientific knowledge vitally affects our health, our jobs, and our national security” (Bush, 1945). Accordingly, the government established a Research Grants Office in January 1946 to award grants for research in the biomedical and physical sciences. It received 800 grant applications that year. The Research Grants Office is now known as the Center for Scientific Review (CSR), and it processes applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other agencies in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In 2005, CSR received 80,000 grant applications. …
Twenty-six federal granting agencies now manage 1,000 grant programs. Even clinical trials of drugs, vaccines, and devices, where industry may profit from the outcome, have come under the purview of government. Zarin and colleagues (2005) reviewed ClinicalTrials.gov records and found that the federal government currently funds 9,796 (51%) of the 19,355 interventional trials being conducted. Industry sponsors 4,734 (24%); and universities, foundations, and other organizations, 4,825 (25%). Under the current system scientists are expected to spend time drafting, writing, and refining unsolicited R01 grant applications, despite a less than one in ten chance of success.
Ethics of Writing Grant Proposals
Ethics in science and society “describe appropriate behavior according to contemporary standards” (Friedman, 1996). Two standards that scientists follow for writing grant proposals are 1) Keep it safe and survive, and 2) Don’t lie if you don’t have to. Pollack (2005) addresses the first ethic, noting that the paramount motivational factor for scientists today is the competition to survive. A scientist’s most pressing need, which supersedes the scientific pursuit of truth, is to get her grant funded—to pay her salary and that of her staff, to pay department bills, and to obtain academic promotion. The safest way to generate grants is to avoid any dissent from orthodoxy. Grant-review study sections whose members’ expertise and status are tied to the prevailing view do not welcome any challenge to it. A scientist who writes a grant proposal that dissents from the ruling paradigm will be left without a grant. Speaking for his fellow scientists Pollack writes, “We have evolved into a culture of obedient sycophants, bowing politely to the high priests of orthodoxy.” …
With regard to the second ethic, Albert Szent-Györgyi said, “I always tried to live up to Leo Szilard’s commandment, ‘Don’t lie if you don’t have to.’ I had to. I filled up pages with words and plans I know I would not follow. When I go home from my laboratory in the late afternoon, I often do not know what I am going to do the next day. I expect to think that up during the night. How could I tell them what I would do a year hence?” (qtd. in Moss, 1988, p. 217). This long-time cancer researcher, discoverer of vitamin C, and Nobel laureate was unable, despite multiple attempts, to obtain a government grant. Friedman (1996) describes a variant of this ethic where an investigator applies for a grant to do a study that he has already completed. With this grant awarded and money in hand he publishes the study and uses the funds on a different project. The misrepresentation enables the investigator to remain one project ahead of his funding. Apparently enough seasoned investigators do this that the academic community views the practice as sound “grantsmanship.”
