Observing many researchers using the same data and hypothesis reveals a hidden universe of uncertainty

This study explores how researchers’ analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to emphasize the idiosyncrasy of conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis. We coordinated 161 researchers in 73 research teams and observed their research decisions as they used the same data to independently test the same prominent social science hypothesis: that greater immigration reduces support for social policies among the public. In this typical case of social science research, research teams reported both widely diverging numerical findings and substantive conclusions despite identical start conditions. Researchers’ expertise, prior beliefs, and expectations barely predict the wide variation in research outcomes. More than 95% of the total variance in numerical results remains unexplained even after qualitative coding of all identifiable decisions in each team’s workflow. This reveals a universe of uncertainty that remains hidden when considering a single study in isolation. The idiosyncratic nature of how researchers’ results and conclusions varied is a previously underappreciated explanation for why many scientific hypotheses remain contested. These results call for greater epistemic humility and clarity in reporting scientific findings

Pheasant cap master

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015. This presentation first gives an overview of scholarship speculating on Heguanzi as a person and as a book. Then it turns to its textual complexities and its generally considered Daoist content. Finally it moves towards what I would identify as the specific nexus of ideas that characterize the Pheasant Cap Master’s thought: the vicissitudes of political ambition and frustration, the veneration of the One and its relation to multiplicity, and the nature of Heaven’s order and transcendence.status: publishe

Global time scale and regional stratigraphic reference scales of Central and West Europe, East Europe, Tethys, South China, and North America as used in the Devonian-Carboniferous-Permian Correlation Chart 2003 (DCP 2003)

The boundaries of the Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian stages of the Global Stratigraphic Reference Scale (abbreviated to Global Stratigraphic Scale-GSS) are described in relation to the biostratigraphic and/or lithostratigraphic units of the Regional Stratigraphic Reference Scales (abbreviated to Regional Stratigraphic Scales-RSS) of Central and West Europe, East Europe, Tethys, South China (eastern Tethys), and North America. In their type regions the boundaries of GSS units rarely coincide with those of homonymous RSS units. Moreover, the definitions of some RSS units have changed several times over the last decades, and subsequent misunderstanding of the stratigraphical significance of these changes has often introduced errors into proposed global correlation charts. The stratigraphic framework proposed in our global Devonian-Carboniferous-Permian Correlation Chart 2003 [DCP 2003 (Devonian-Carboniferous-Permian Correlation Chart 2003, Menning, M., Schneider, J. W., Alekseev, A. S., Amon, E. O., Becker, G., von Bitter, P. H., Boardman, D. R., Bogoslovskaya, M., Braun, A., Brocke, R., Chernykh, V., Chuvashov, B. I., Clayton, G., Dusar, M., Davydov, V. I., Dybova-Jachowicz, S., Forke, H. C., Gibling, M., Gilmour, E. H., Goretzki, J., Grunt, T. A., Hance, L., Heckel, P. H., Izokh, N. G., Jansen, U., Jin Y.-G., Jones, P., Käding, K.-Ch., Kerp, H., Kiersnowski, H., Klets, A., Klug, Ch., Korn, D., Kossovaya, O., Kotlyar, G. V., Kozur, H. W., Laveine, J.-P., Martens, Th., Nemyrovska, T. I., Nigmadganov, A. I., Paech, H.-J., Peryt, T. M., Rohn, R., Roscher, M., Rubidge, B., Schiappa, T. A., Schindler, E., Skompski, S., Ueno, K., Utting, J., Vdovenko, M. V., Villa, E., Voigt, S., Wahlman, G. P., Wardlaw, B. R., Warrington, G., Weddige, K., Werneburg, R., Weyer, D., Wilde, V., Winkler Prins, C. F., Work, D. M., 2004). Abschlußkolloquium DFG-Schwerpunktprogramm 1054: Evolution des Systems Erde während des jüngeren Paläozoikums im Spiegel der Sedimentgeochemie. Abstracts Univ. Erlangen, Germany, 2004, p. 43.] (herein abbreviated to DCP 2003, and cited as DCP, 2003 in references) is an attempt to reduce these errors. The DCP 2003 is the stratigraphic base for Project 1054 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) "The evolution of the Late Palaeozoic in the light of sedimentary geochemistry". This composite time scale has been carefully balanced, as far as data allows, to remove unnecessary, artificial compression and expansion of time intervals, biozonations and depositional events. The ages selected in DCP 2003 are markedly different to those in the Geologic Time Scale 1989 [GTS 1989 (Harland, W.B., Armstrong, R.L., Cox, A.V., Craig, L.E., Smith, A.G., Smith, D.G., 1990). A geologic time scale 1989. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.; Harland, W.B., Armstrong, R.L., Cox, A.V., Craig, L.E., Smith, A.G., Smith, D.G., 1990. A geologic time scale 1989. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, pp. 1-263.] and in Gradstein and Ogg [Gradstein, F.M., Ogg, J., 1996. A Phanerozoic time scale. Episodes 19 (1/2), 3-4, insert.), whereas they are closer to those of the Geologic Time Scale 2004 [GTS 2004; Gradstein, F.M., Ogg, J.G., Smith, A.G., 2004. A Geologic Time Scale 2004. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, pp. 1-589.]. Mostly, the ages are rounded to the nearest 0.5 Ma in order to avoid estimates of questionable accuracy, whereas ages of 0.1 Ma in the GTS 2004 and their error bars of ± 0.4 Ma to ± 2.8 Ma for the Devonian to Permian stage boundaries suggest an improved accuracy. In contrast, in the DCP 2003 questionable ages and positions of stratigraphic boundaries are marked by arrows