There is no Answer to that Question:

Sound Scientific Judgement in a Rapidly

Changing World
Faculty Senate Lecture
March 21, 2018
P Craig Taylor
 Previous Lecturers

• 2017 Carl Mitcham • 2003 David Olson

• 2016 Tracy Camp • 2002 Murray Hitzman
• 2015 Reuben Collins • 2001 John Tilton
• 2014 David Marr • 2000 Thomas Furtak
• 2013 Richard Wendlant • 1999 Bob Weimer
• 2012 James McNeil • 1998 Ken Larner
• 2011 Paul Martin • 1997 Dendy Sloan
• 2010 Annette Bunge • 1996 David Matlock
• 2009 David Muñoz • 1995 Joanne Greenberg
• 2008 Arthur Sacks • 1994 Scott Cowley
• 2007 Dennis Readey • 1993 Barbara Olds
• 2006 Candace Sulzbach • 1992 George Krauss
• 2005 Craig Van Kirk • 1991 Don Williamson
• 2004 Marvin Kay • 1990 Mike Pavelich

Thanks to: Selection Committee, Faculty Senate, Reed Maxwell,

Provost’s Office, Aurea Tolnay, Jennie Kenney.
2
 Outline

• Although ethics (personal and

professional) is a part of the story,
sound scientific or engineering
judgment is much more encompassing.

• Taking advice from my favorite English

teacher “Write about what you know”, I
address this issue through a series of
vignettes gathered over the years.

3
There is No Answer to that Question

• How do I measure the weight of the

human soul?

4
There is No Answer to that Question

5
There is No Answer to that Question

6
 A Recent Example of Scientific
Misconduct
Schön scandal
From Wikipedia

The Schön scandal concerns German physicist Jan Hendrik

Schön who briefly rose to prominence after a series of apparent
breakthroughs with semiconductors that were later discovered to
be fraudulent. Before he was exposed, Schön had received
number of prizes, which were later rescinded.

The scandal provoked discussion in the scientific community

about the degree of responsibility of coauthors and reviewers of
scientific papers.

A report on the incident report found that all of the misdeeds had
been performed by Schön alone. All of the coauthors (including
Bertram Batlogg, who was the head of the team) were
exonerated of scientific misconduct 7
 Vignette #1: Alain Kaloyeros

• Alain Kaloyeros was a young assistant

professor when the following occurred.

8
Ley et al., Physical Review Letters 1982

9
Kaloyeros et al., MRS Conference
Proceedings 1990

10
Kaloyeros Retraction 1992

11
 Why this vignette?

• Kaloyeros was granted tenure anyway

• Fast Forward 27 years

12
 The Situation in 2017: Obvious Ethical
Violations

May 1, 2017
State and federal
prosecutors charged
Kaloyeros last year
with rigging
construction bids for
favored developers.

Jan 19, 2018

Former SUNY
Polytechnic Institute
President and CEO
Alain Kaloyeros must
pay for his own legal
defense in two Kaloyeros was a professor in The University at
criminal cases against Albany's physics department from 1988 until 2009
him, a New York state when the nanotechnology research center was spun-
appellate court ruled. off from the department into a separate SUNY college
13
Where is the Lack of Sound Scientific
Judgement?

• The Physics faculty who granted tenure

• The senior author who did not catch

the plagiarism

14
Vignette #2: A Tale of Three Physicists

John Bardeen (May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist
and electrical engineer. He is the only person to win the Nobel Prize in Physics
twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of
the transistor; and again in 1972 with Leon N Cooper and John Robert
Schrieffer for a fundamental theory of conventional superconductivity known as
the BCS theory.

He has said: "I feel that science cannot provide an answer to the ultimate
questions about the meaning and purpose of life." Bardeen did believe in a code
of moral values and behavior.
15
Leon N Cooper (born February 28, 1930) is an American physicist
and Nobel Prize laureate, who with John Bardeen and John
Robert Schrieffer, developed the BCS theory of superconductivity.
Cooper is the author of an unconventional liberal-arts physics
textbook.

Professor Cooper is Director of Brown University's Center for

Neural Science. This Center was founded in 1973 to study animal
nervous systems and the human brain.

16
John Robert Schrieffer (born May 31, 1931) is an American physicist who,
with John Bardeen and Leon N Cooper, was a recipient of the 1972 Nobel
Prize in Physics for developing the BCS theory. Florida State University
appointed Schrieffer as a university eminent scholar professor and chief
scientist of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, where he continued
to pursue one of the great goals in physics: room temperature
superconductivity.

Schrieffer was sentenced to two years in prison November 6, 2005 for

vehicular manslaughter killing one, and injuring seven people. 17
 Tale of 3 Physicists, Plus 1

• Brian David Josephson(born 4 January 1940) is a theoretical physicist and

professor emeritus of physics at the University of Cambridge best known for his
pioneering work on superconductivity and quantum tunnelling He was awarded
the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 for his prediction of the Josephson effect,
made in 1962 when he was a 22-year-old PhD student at Cambridge University.
He shared the prize with physicists Leo Esaki and Ivar Giaever.

• In the early 1970s Josephson took up transcendental meditation and turned his
attention to issues outside the boundaries of mainstream science. He set up the
Mind–Matter Unification Project at the Cavendish to explore the idea of
intelligence in nature, the relationship between quantum mechanics and
consciousness, and the synthesis of science and Eastern mysticism, broadly
known as quantum mysticism. Those interests have led him to express support
for topics such as parapsychology, water memory and cold fusion, and have
made him a focus of criticism from fellow scientist 18
 A Tale of 3 Physicists, Plus 2

Edward Teller (January 15, 1908 – September

9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical
physicist who is known colloquially as "the father
of the hydrogen bomb“.

Ashutosh Jogalekar, Scientific American January

15, 2014

In his later years, Teller became especially known

for his advocacy of controversial technological
solutions to both military and civilian problems,
including a plan to excavate an artificial harbor in Nobel Prize
Alaska using thermonuclear explosive. He was a winning physicist
vigorous advocate of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Isidor I. Rabi once
Defense Initiative. suggested that "It
Teller's greatest tragedy had nothing to do with
would have been
nuclear weapons. It was simply the fact that in
pursuit of his obsession with bombs he wasted his a better world
great scientific gifts and failed to become a truly without Teller."
great physicist.
19
 Vignette #3: Barney Clark and William
Castle DeVries
• The first clinical use of an artificial heart
designed for permanent implantation rather
than a bridge to transplant occurred in 1982
at the University of Utah. On December 2,
1982, William DeVries implanted the artificial
heart into retired dentist Barney Bailey Clark
who survived 112 days with the device.

• DeVries found it much harder to manage the device

on a patient rather than on a healthy animal.

• DeVries and his team had to face a series of issues

due to the pressure of the media and the public.
20
What was the Lack of Sound Scientific
Judgment?

• Trials with cows always resulted in

death due to strokes

• If strokes always resulted in otherwise

healthy cows, what should one expect
in a very sick human?
• An aside: Today artificial hearts are
sometimes used as a bridge
between impending heart failure and
the arrival of a donated human
heart. 21
 Vignette #4: Cold Fusion

• March 22, 1989

• Stan Pons and Martin Fleischman

claimed to have established controlled
nuclear fusion in an electrochemical cell

• March 23, 1989

• Cold Fusion Press Conference:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf
HaeQo6oU
22
Treasured Personal Item

23
 Shades of Grey

• Where does “lack of sound scientific

judgment” end and a “breach of scientific
ethics” begin?

Pons-Fleischmann Cell

24
 Cold Fusion Timeline

• March 6,1989 Jones (BYU), Pons, Fleischmann meeting

• March 22 Financial Times of London article
• Original paper published
• March 23 Press Conference
• March 24 First meeting with Pons
• March 28 Meeting with President Peterson, Salamon, Pons
• April-June Weekly meetings
• May Cold Fusion Institute
• Errata Published
• March 29, 1990 Salamon Nature article

25
Cold Fusion Publication

Published 22 March 1989

26
 Cold Fusion Publication, page 2

1 kcal/mol = 0.04 eV.

27
Sloppy Science, Another Example

28
 A Personal Aside

• More about rabbits

29
Cold Fusion in the Biology Dept.

30
Cold Fusion in Biology Dept. II

Warning Ignition!
31
Hoffman letter to Pons

32
Hoffman letter to Pons

33
 Pons and Fleischmann Errata

Fraud is generally defined in the law as an intentional misrepresentation of

material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its
falsity.
Fraud may also be made by an omission or purposeful failure to state material
facts.
34
Fig. 1a Erratum vs. Original

Original Erratum

35
Pons Letter to Salamon on “Joint”
Experiments

36
Pons Letter to Salamon on “Joint”
Experiments

37
Salamon Nature Article

38
Salamon Nature Article III

39
 Simple Tests for Validity of Results

• Working example of the experiment

• Can be reproduced by others

• As noise decreases, signal-to-noise increases

• Result does not violate known scientific laws

– No “black magic”
– No “miracles”
40
Lampooning Cold Fusion Article

41
 Cold Fusion Today

Come help us celebrate the 25 anniversary of the announcement of cold fusion

Cold fusion = LANR (Lattice Assisted Nuclear Reactions) When/Where:
Fri., March 21, Sat., Mar. 22, and Sun. Mar. 23, 2014
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

42
Vignette #5: Steven E. Jones

43
 Fast Forward 17 Years
Steven E. Jones
From Wikipedia

• Steven Earl Jones is an American physicist. Among

scientists, Jones became known for his long research on
muon-catalyzed fusion.
• Jones is also known for his association with 9/11 conspiracy
theories. Jones has claimed that mere airplane crashes and
fires could not have resulted in so rapid and complete a fall of
the WTC Towers, suggesting controlled demolition instead.

• In late 2006, some time after Brigham Young University

officials placed him on paid leave, Jones chose to retire as
part of a deal which included abandoning an academic
review of Jones's work.
44
Contributors to Lack of Sound Scientific
Judgment from Cold Fusion
For the Scientist
1. Public announcement before peer review
2. Disregarding previous results (including well
established theory)
3. Competition and the rush to judgment (temptation for
sloppy science)
4. Paranoia (physicists vs chemists, hot fusion vs cold
fusion, east or west coast establishment vs the wild
west, journalists vs scientists, etc.)
5. Research in an area outside of one’s expertise
6. Protection of patent rights before peer review

45
Contributors to Lack of Sound Scientific
Judgment from Cold Fusion
For the Administrator
1. Active involvement in controversial science
2. Press conference to protect patents or for public
relations before peer review
3. Acceptance of science before peer review
4. Public response to competition from other institutions
5. Judgment in an area outside of one’s expertise

46
 An Aside on Climate Change

• by Steve Graham • January 18, 2000

• A hundred years ago, Swedish scientist

Svante Arrhenius asked the important question
“Is the mean temperature of the ground in any
way influenced by the presence of the heat-
absorbing gases in the atmosphere?” He went on
to become the first person to investigate the
effect that doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide
would have on global climate. The question was
debated throughout the early part of the 20th
century and is still a main concern of Earth
scientists today.
An Arrhenius plot displays
• In 1895, Arrhenius presented a paper to the the logarithm of kinetic
Stockholm Physical Society titled, “On the constants (ordinate axis)
Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the plotted against inverse
Temperature of the Ground.” temperature (abscissa).
Arrhenius plots are often
used to analyze the effect of
• In 1903 Arrhenius was awarded the Nobel
temperature on the rates of
Prize for Chemistry.
chemical reactions. 47
1896 Arrhenius article

48
Climate Science Discoveries: 1820 - 1930

49
 Where is the Sound Scientific
Judgment?

Sound scientific judgment requires an

awareness and an understanding of
previous work.

50
Finally, Can Sound Scientific Judgment
be Taught?
• Speculation: By teaching an awareness
of science and the world around us
• Most students will work on problems that
cannot be heard, seen, or felt.

• But we rely on analogies with what we

can see, hear, or feel to help our intuition

• Spin of electron, even string theory

51
Teaching students to question and think

• A blue sky, red sunset, and other optical effects of

the atmosphere
• Hot water freezes first
• Rubber bands grow old and brittle
• Cob webs form one-dimensional strings
• High tides are caused by the moon, but are there two
high tides per day.

52
Shadows under a tree at noon in summer

53
Shadows under a tree at noon in summer

54
 An organic chemistry lab smells

The Relations between Structure

and Smell in Organic Compounds
Gertrud Woker, J. Phys. Chem.,
1906, 10 (6), pp 455–473.

55
 Summary

• And so we end where we began

• What’s the best way to measure the

weight of the human soul?

• Ignoring the advice of my favorite English

teacher, I end with a cliché, a sentence that
appears on a google search over 178,000
times dating back as far as 1830.

56
There is No Answer to that Question

What’s the best way to measure the weight

of the human soul?

57
What’s the best way to measure the
weight of the human soul?

In the words of Bayard Rustin and

over 178,000 others:

“To ask the question is to answer it.”

58
THE END

59
Backup slides

60
Avoiding Bad Science: The Final Word

61
Salamon Nature Article II

62
Clive Cookson, Financial Times of
London

“So I persuaded Martin to let me publish

the story in Thursday’s paper, on the
grounds that cool, calm coverage in the
FT would help to set the tone for the
press conference later that day. He
agreed and faxed over some technical
information, including a diagram of the
Utah apparatus, where fusion had
apparently taken place between
deuterium (heavy hydrogen) atoms
absorbed in a palladium electrode. “
63
Gamma Ray Spectrum

64
Sloppy Science, Another Example

65
Nature Editorial on Publication of Salamon
Paper

66
Contributors to Lack of Sound Scientific
Judgment from Cold Fusion
General Considerations
1. Poisoning a respectable scientific field
2. Wasted scientific effort
3. Understanding the media

67
Contributors to Lack of Sound Scientific
Judgment from Cold Fusion
For the Student

1. Disregarding previous results (including well

established theory)
2. Competition and the rush to judgment (temptation for
sloppy science)
3. Research in an area outside of one’s expertise

68
• the majority of cobwebs are actually formed from abandoned spider
webs!
• Over time, however, dust accumulates on the web, and the spider has
to abandon it and build a new one. That’s the reason why you never
see a spider on a cobweb, even though the eight-legged arachnid is
responsible for its creation!
• Spiders, as well as a few other tiny arthropods, have the ability to
produce silk strands for travel and protection. Spiders
specifically use this strand of silk as a safety line when they jump or
swing from place to place.

69
• Natural rubber is attacked by the trace amounts of ozone in ground-
level air, and this turns them brittle. If the rubber band manufacturers
included anti-ozonants in their rubber recipe, the bands would last a lot
longer. However, rubber bands are made to be cheap, and so no anti-
ozonants are added. Anti-ozonants are used where rubber lifetime is
critical. Tires always contain anti-ozonants.
• Rubber is a polymer formed from chains of molecules. It is flexible
because there are not many cross links between the chains to prevent
them from moving. Ultraviolet light from the sun and heat breaks up the
polymer chains, causing the rubber bands to crack. Stretching them too
far breaks the polymer chains.

70
Anecdotes pertaining to Sound Scientific
Judgement

• “Do you want me to give the answer to

that question that you gave us or the
right answer?”
• This is the “Have you stopped beating
your spouse?” question.
• There is no answer ...

71
Vignette #5: Steven E. Jones

72
Steven E. Jones

73
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74
 William Castle DeVries

The patient lived, but DeVries found much harder to manage the
device on a patient rather than on a healthy animal. This carried to
some complications which led part of the researchers to ask DeVries
to turn off the device. In fact they did not want to lose the NIH
approval and consequently their funds. DeVries refused to shut down
the device, this caught the attention of the media, and made DeVries
achieve the cover of Time magazine (December 10, 1984).
Eventually, they had to deal with the issue of money. To keep Mr.
Clark alive, he decided to sell the rights of his story to a newspaper
for $1 million . Mr. Clark lived for 112 days after the surgery, as
complications kept occurring and this led to multiorgan failure and
eventually death. Unfortunately Mr. Clark never recovered well
enough to leave the hospital. In this period DeVries and his team had
to face a series of issues due to the pressure of the media and the
public. He was constantly obsessed with critics and legal issues
concerning about what he was doing whether it was right or wrong.
With the success of the first patient, DeVreis wanted to go on with his
trials, but there were not enough funds and medical insurance was
never going to pay for such an experimental transplant.

75
Vignette #3: Barney Clark and William
Castle DeVries
• The first clinical use of an artificial heart designed for permanent implantation
rather than a bridge to transplant occurred in 1982 at the University of Utah.
Artificial kidney pioneer Willem Johan Kolff started the Utah artificial organs
program in 1967.[14] There, physician-engineer Clifford Kwan-Gett invented two
components of an integrated pneumatic artificial heart system: a ventricle with
hemispherical diaphragms that did not crush red blood cells (a problem with
previous artificial hearts) and an external heart driver that inherently regulated
blood flow without needing complex control systems.[15] Independently, Paul
Winchell designed and patented a similarly shaped ventricle and donated the
patent to the Utah program.[16] Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s,
veterinarian Donald Olsen led a series of calf experiments that refined the
artificial heart and its surgical care. During that time, as a student at the
University of Utah, Robert Jarvik combined several modifications: an ovoid
shape to fit inside the human chest, a more blood-compatible polyurethane
developed by biomedical engineer Donald Lyman, and a fabrication method by
Kwan-Gett that made the inside of the ventricles smooth and seamless to
reduce dangerous stroke-causing blood clots.[17] On December 2, 1982,
William DeVries implanted the artificial heart into retired dentist Barney Bailey
Clark (born January 21, 1921), who survived 112 days with the device, dying on
March 23, 1983. Bill Schroeder became the second recipient and lived for a
record 620 days.
• Today, the modern version of the Jarvik 7 is known as the SynCardia temporary
Total Artificial Heart. It has been implanted in more than 1,350 people as a
bridge to transplantation. 76
 Hendrik Schön

• The Schön scandal concerns German

physicist Jan Hendrik Schön (born August
1970) who briefly rose to prominence after a
series of apparent breakthroughs with
semiconductors that were later discovered to
be fraudulent

• The report found that all of the misdeeds had

been performed by Schön alone. All of the
coauthors (including Bertram Batlogg, who
was the head of the team) were exonerated
of scientific misconduct. This sparked
widespread debate in the scientific
community on how the blame for misconduct
should be shared among co-authors,
particularly when they share a significant part
of the credit

77
Some Examples of Scientific Misconduct

Polywater
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Polywater was a hypothesized polymerized form of water that was
the subject of much scientific controversy during the late 1960s. By
1969 the popular press had taken notice and sparked fears of a
"polywater gap" in the USA.
Increased press attention also brought with it increased scientific
attention, and as early as 1970 doubts about its authenticity were
being circulated.[1][2][3] By 1973 it was found to be illusory, being
just water with any number of common organic compounds
contaminating it.[4]
Today, polywater is best known as an example of pathological
science.[5]

78
Other Examples of Questions for which
there are no answers

• How do I show that (pick your established

theory) Newton’s law of gravity,
electromagnetics, relativity, quantum
mechanics is not valid?

• You can always show an established

(experimentally verified) theory is
incomplete, but not that it is “wrong” under
the conditions it was designed to explain
and was experimentally tested.

79
Climate change misunderstandings:

Experiments establish correlations

Need a theoretical framework to maintain causality

80
Literally overnight, cold fusion became an international public
phenomenon. On the morning of the press conference major articles
appeared on the front page of the Financial Times of London and in the
Wall Street Journal. That evening Dan Rather, anchorman for the "CBS
Evening News," opened the program by calling the announcement "a
tremendous scientific advance ... in attempts to create and harness the
almost limitless, clean power of nuclear fusion." The Pub- lic Broadcasting
System's "MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour" featured a long segment on the
announcemen

Cold Fusion and Hot History Author: Bruce V. Lewenstein Source:

Osiris,Vol. 7, Science after '40 (1992), pp. 135-163Published by: on behalf
of The University of Chicago PressThe History of Science SocietyStable
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/301770

81
82
• Bayard Rustin has the final word
• “What is the best way to measure the
weight of the human soul”
• In the words of Bayard Rustin, “To ask
the question is to answer it.”
• There is no answer to that question.

83
 Cold fusion press conference

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf
HaeQo6oU

84
 ridgity

Maxwell, JC. On reciprocal figures and

diagrams of forces, Philos
Mag, 1864, vol. 4 (pg. 250-61)

In 3 dimensions, the (number of bars) ≥

3(Number of points) – 6. This is called
Maxwell counting rule
Mech eng: bridges
Biology: biological networks
Solid state physics: rigidity percolation
85
# Constraints = # degrees of freedom
Rigid if exactly (3 X # points -3) edges
86
• In graph theory, the Laman graphs are a family of
sparse graphs describing the minimally rigid systems
of rods and joints in the plane. Formally, a Laman
graph is a graph on n vertices such that, for all k,
every k-vertex subgraph has at most 2k − 3 edges,
and such that the whole graph has exactly 2n − 3
edges.

87
88
Soap bubble rafts and boundary conditions
Round, square, hexagonal, random (no boundary)

89
 Cold Fusion Press Conference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CfHaeQo6oU

90
 Chemists vs. Physicists
Believers vs. Non-Believers

91
Lampooning University Administration

High Ranking University Administrator Leaving for Work

92
Lampooning Utah

93
Cold Fusion as Ethics Catalyst

94
Corruption of Patent Portfolio

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 95
 • How do I measure the weight of the
human soul?

No Answer to that Question

96