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Wired Editor says scientific method is obsolete. Oh really?

dailygalaxy.com — The Internet has caused a lot of trouble. Now, according to Wired Magazine's editor, today's wealth of data has made the scientific method unnecessary. Others counter, saying the Internet is not the entire world, contrary to what Anderson may believe.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jul 4, 2008

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  • ColonelTribune, on 07/03/2008, -2/+65I like Wired, but Chris Anderson may have gone off the deep end here.
  • rationalist, on 07/04/2008, -4/+50Scientific method shows Wired is obsolete.
  • AmyVernon, on 07/03/2008, -3/+41This is a great piece. My favorite line:
    "Like finding your wife rubbing butter onto a naked clown shaving your dog, there's just so much wrong with that it's hard to know where to begin."
  • coboman, on 07/03/2008, -0/+22Good article, it explained nicely the difference between science and other ways of thinking.
    There is a very big misconception about what science is, and is not. And that lack of understanding is where everyone, from creationists to pseudoscientists (and even wired writers) can fool the people.
    Science is about provable understanding of observable events.
    This article is not only funny, it is important.
  • bobbi21, on 07/03/2008, -3/+19Glad someone wrote something about that stupid article. Can't believe it got digged so much.
  • clutchperformer, on 07/04/2008, -0/+16Newsflash. Now that we have calculators... math is obsolete. Now that we have GPS, geography is obsolete.
  • mlwarrior, on 07/04/2008, -0/+15Exactly. So he's saying that everything that can ever be know is already on the internet.....ass.
  • sgiffy, on 07/04/2008, -1/+16End of science, not a chance. The one things it has done though is helped make it easier, and therefore more common, to do Meta-analysis type work.
  • norman619, on 07/04/2008, -1/+14News Flash!!!! Wired Editor is a cluless fool.
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  • Orion1004, on 07/03/2008, -0/+11A GREAT piece! My favorite line: this attempt at beyond-the-curve controversy falls at the very first law of rubbish identification: "Does it start by saying that a widely held belief is wrong?" Oh yes it does, with Mr Anderson talking about the scientific maxim "Correlation is not causation" the same way you'd talk about how doctors used to put leeches on people.
  • axiomflash, on 07/04/2008, -0/+9Splenda invented, sugar now obsolete!
  • tfirma2000, on 07/04/2008, -0/+8As a WSJ article recently pointed out, many Wired articles follow the template of taking a partly true, modestly interesting, tech-friendly idea and puffing it up to "Internet as Second Coming" proportions... like the now partly-debunked "Long Tail" theory.
  • danharlow, on 07/04/2008, -0/+8WIRED has editors?
  • EarlOfLade, on 07/04/2008, -0/+8Now, if I could only find a way of making certain people understand what a scientific theory is, I would really be happy.
  • kingmanic, on 07/04/2008, -0/+8It's very supposedly because for some reason their abilities cannot be observed by a scientific team. I'm not saying all these phenomenon are false (People can go into deep meditation and slow their metabolism or heart rate) but a lot are obviously fake (levitation, third eye, aura). People who claim to have these abilities are unable or unwilling to replicate their abilities in laboratory conditions. The reason why they have never been documented is because in most cases it's a con or wishful thinking.

    The situation you experienced is called "cold reading". I can do it too as a party trick as well as hypnotism. The key to cold reading is theatrics. play up your successes down play your failures and shotgun your observations, some of them will stick. Hypnotism plays on different effects and persuades people to do thing they want to do but need an excuse to do it.
  • DrSnugglebunny, on 07/04/2008, -0/+8I am a scientist and my hypothesis is that the Wired editor is full of *****.
    Upon collecting data from the editorial, I have failed to falsify my hypothesis.
  • johndi, on 07/04/2008, -0/+7As long as it has that ring of truthiness who cares about the method.
  • inobla, on 07/04/2008, -0/+6There has been attempts. It's called paranormal research. Not taken very seriously by mainstream science.
  • scabbers, on 07/04/2008, -1/+7OH foolish internets... the dude has a new book coming out soon. He's tossed a grenade to get publicity and you all fell for it.

  • mathwiz1991, on 07/04/2008, -0/+6Having read the article in Wired, I believe that collecting large amounts of data is beneficial to science but isn't by a long shot replacing science because it makes it easier to see correlation but science truly is finding out the causation of the correlation and for the majority of people in the world, knowing the correlation is enough but for scientists, they want to know the why and not just the what.
  • CadMasterAdam, on 07/03/2008, -3/+9i don't think the Daily Galaxy is one to criticize. I've read articles from them that are way off the deep end.
  • leontes, on 07/04/2008, -2/+8This type of headlining, page view grabbing tripe, is getting common for Wired, I mean, after all, this was the same organization that three weeks ago said that the Instinct gave the the iPhone a "run for its money". Next, they'll have a headline decrying "President Bush- Really not so bad, after all!", in a concerted attempt to drive up page views. Sure, it's a tough new media world out there, but let's try to be so blantantly provocative, shall we?
  • punkcat, on 07/04/2008, -1/+7All things important things in life i've learned from Lolcats.

  • mandraque, on 07/04/2008, -0/+6this writer has no clue. I didn't understand what was the wired editor's point or his point. It just sounded like useless garbage.
  • haydesigner, on 07/04/2008, -1/+7Digged?
    Really... Digged? Did that even sound right in your head while you were typing it?
  • Murdats, on 07/04/2008, -0/+5he could tell what you were thinking because you are not very smart and thus dont think much at all.
  • kingmanic, on 07/04/2008, -0/+5BaronSamedi242: Have you ever read a scientific journal? As part of every paper a "methods" section is published. I don't see you asking questions, I see you making assertions. What questions do you have? A forum such as digg is not science, we'll call you an idiot not as scientists but as abrasive net citizens. If you spoke up during a seminar on atmospheric science a student or professor will attempt to explain the model to you. Doing so on the internet has a 90% chance of random people calling you out as a moron.

    The conclusion CO2 causes global warming derives from studies on the behavior of gases, the chemistry of ice formation, spectral analysis, atmospheric correlation studies, computer models derived from this research, etc... the most recent consensus is that we are shifting the equilibrium of CO2 production and sinking, leading to higher CO2 concentrations and amplifying the green house effect. Other factors have been ruled out to an extent but work is on going. It may very well be that a regular variance in solar energy output is contributing to some complex interaction and man made CO2 isn't the exclusive culprit but it does in no way invalidate the method and the statement only invalidates your opinion. You may be right in the final conclusion but the conclusion does not follow your argument. Thus you are un-convincing. Come back with a ream of data on solar energy output with corresponding methodology and reproducible results and we'd take you more seriously.

    But a simple
    "duh science is wrong, duh I'm a ***** retard, duh why you all hate on me." -BaronSamedi242
    Will get you the derision you deserve.

    My personal take given the information I have is that we are shifting the world wide weather patterns and it will have a economic impact but there may be other things going on and I think more study into the topic is good. I think the whole "carbon" foot print ***** is ridiculous but reducing energy use and encouraging efficiency is necessary for a huge variety of reasons. Global warming won't end the world but it will have significant economic impacts either way.
  • kingmanic, on 07/04/2008, -0/+5"Like finding your wife rubbing butter onto a naked clown shaving your dog, there's just so much wrong with that it's hard to know where to begin."

    That just about sums you up. The conclusion of those models and theories may be wrong but it doesn't invalidate the scientific method as the method is constructed to weed out wrong ideas as more info comes to light. Few scientists will say that a particular conclusion is 100% correct but most it will say it's very probable given the evidence. As science doesn't deal with certainties, instead it deals with the most probable explanations. The correlation of CO2 levels to temperature has more proof then computer models as the models were derived from data collected in numerous ways and other causes have been ruled out as their correlation isn't strong or does not exist. It's still a question to be researched but your uneducated and unintelligent view is certainly one of the problems with laymen perception of science.
  • Drahkar, on 07/04/2008, -1/+6I believe the right phrase is 'Definitely has'. The internet only has what we put there. If we don't know it then obviously the internet isn't going to have any information on it.

    What a certifiable moron. And to think he's in charge of what gets printed at Wired. No wonder I lost interest in reading them.
  • svensko, on 07/04/2008, -0/+5Because there are more interesting things to research and that's more superstition than science. He probably realized you were a bum because you wore the same clothes for a week, not because he can read your mind.
  • EarlOfLade, on 07/04/2008, -0/+5Bravo! Well said!
    Nothing irks me more than a high school drop-out invalidating decades of research and data collection done by thousands of scientists and only based on religion/ideology and nothing else.
  • Murdats, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4the universe is wrong not you? is that what you are trying to say.
  • dadavexx, on 07/04/2008, -3/+7Poor ol' Chris sound like a creationist some how. That's the most evil thing that I can think of this morning. It kinda points to 80% of Americans believing in magic. Now that's really evil.
  • mikesoba, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4First, we had the "End of History" with the breakup of the Soviet Union. Then the resurrection of History (apparently History existed only in tandem with fear and violence). And now the end of Science.
    There is no "end" to anything.
  • norman619, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4Stupidity shift would be more accurate.
  • norman619, on 07/04/2008, -2/+6The Internet is moments away from becoming self-aware. THE END IS NEAR!!! REPENT! REPENT!!!
  • megadan76, on 07/04/2008, -1/+5What the hell is he on about?
    I honestly have no idea what he is trying to say. What does google have to do with the scientific method?
  • ILikePants, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4..so what is "real science data" if not statistics?
  • zippy757, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4Those that can, do, those that can't, are editors.
  • nadalle, on 07/04/2008, -1/+5Wired is obsolete. The magazine hasn't had a clue for 10 years.
  • kingmanic, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3DuffyDirect - The problem is your lumping in things that have on going research and real statistically significant results (Acupuncture, how the mind works, ) with debunked and provably false things (third eye, aura). Science does delve into the ones with some validity and generally the ones that are invalid get debunked early.

    The examples you provided (Guru cold calling, meditation) are subjective experiences. Science strives to removes the subjective from it's measure. So if I was interacting with the Guru I would analyze the situations surround the interaction. The number of accuracy of the responses and any information I may be telling him explicitly and implicitly. He may not be a Con but simply developed cold reading skills on his own for benevolent purposes but a study of his abilities would likely say he's a good "therapist" with very good "cold reading" skills and nothing more. For meditation, the mental process is complex and studies are on going but I'd imagine your sub conscious had some random latent ideas which the suppression of your conscious mind brought to the fore. But it's subjective.

    the romanticism that runs rampant in world of arts majors, which crave a more than a scientifically explainable world is appealing because some individuals require the world to have some mystery. I don't' really have much to say about it, but I hold a different philosophy and thus far mine seems more useful then yours. Science does try to study these things but has traditionally found most of it to be ***** (homeopathy, auras, third eye, mind reading, psycho kinetics, etc..) with a few notable exceptions (Acupuncture, meditation, hypnosis, etc...).

  • punkcat, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3learning to edit what i write is not one of them.
  • fas2, on 07/04/2008, -2/+5My favorite line:
    "Fish are really good at swimming because they live in the water - that doesn't mean a heart surgeon should shove his face into on open chest cavity and try to locomote forward by wiggling his body and gills."
  • norman619, on 07/04/2008, -1/+4May have? o_0
  • JorgeGT, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3I peer-approve.
  • pegothejerk, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3Hypothesis: That the Scientific Method is Obsolete

    Method: Inserted Cranial Region into largest accessible cavity on body to search for something newsworthy to say, found this hypothesis. Thankfully no testing is required.
  • frelk, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3Either that or they've been biblical literalists all along. Trying to argue that dinosaur bones were planted by a mischievous god, evolution is malarky, etc. i.e. Scientific method is bad!!!
  • neodude237, on 07/04/2008, -1/+4ORLY
  • dailybeans, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3The internet does not equal Earth
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