Another Defeat for Science: "Metallic Hydrogen"

This blob is supposed to be "metallic hydrogen" according to the claim of a group of Harvard scientists. Maybe. For sure, it is another disaster for the reputation of science and of scientists.

Another day, another disaster for Science. A group of researchers from Harvard claimed of having obtained for the first time "metallic hydrogen" in their laboratory. That gave rise to a series of improbable claims about the cornucopia of abundance that humankind could obtain from the discovery. Especially lyrical was "The Independent", in an article that was soon retracted and replaced with a more sober one their page, where they now say it was all a mistake. But the first article contained such gems as:

Now, in a stunning act of modern-day alchemy, scientists at Harvard University have finally succeeded in creating a tiny amount of what is the rarest, and possibly most valuable, material on the planet, 

metallic hydrogen could theoretically revolutionise technology, enabling the creation of super-fast computers, high-speed levitating trains and ultra-efficient vehicles and dramatically improving almost anything involving electricity. And it could also allow humanity to explore outer space as never before.

And more like this, and thank God they didn't mention flying cars but they got close.

Now, let's examine this story. First of all, "metallic hydrogen" is a legitimate target of investigation. It was theoretically predicted already about a century ago and believed to exist in the core of giant planets. From here onward, however, the whole story is just a mix of fantasy and bad science.

The claim comes from a test in which the researchers placed a sample of hydrogen inside a diamond anvil and compressed it at very high pressures. At some point, they saw something shiny appearing and they concluded that it was "metallic hydrogen." Immediately afterward, they proceeded to publish their story with all the associated outlandish claims of spaceships, alchemy, ultra-efficient vehicles, etc.

Now, when you start a career as a scientist, you are told that

1) Your experiments should be repeatable.

2) There be should be always proof - say, a blank test - that what you claim is not an artifact of your experimental setup.

3) You should never claim anything for which you have no evidence.

Consider this as a checklist and you'll see that the Harvard researchers should mark all three items as "failed." (1) Unbelievable but true: they didn't repeat their experiment, they didn't make a blank experiment, and they engaged in wild fantasies on what their result could mean or, at least, they didn't object on such fantasies being reported over the press.

Note that it is perfectly possible that the blob in the anvil could turn out to be metallic hydrogen but, at present, there is no justification for this early claim. Besides, there is strictly zero proof that metallic hydrogen could turn out to be stable at or near room temperature and hence useful for the multiple claimed miracles. To say nothing of the fact that a diamond anvil processes micrograms and it would be interesting to calculate how many of these anvils would be needed to produce the tons of fuel needed to power a spaceship (hint: trillions).

More evidence, if it was ever needed, of the general decline of science, underfunded, poorly organized, pushed and pulled in all directions at the same time by politicians, businesses, journalists, the public, and more - a disaster. And the results are what you would expect: the general defeat of science that we are witnessing nowadays.

The big problem, here, is that a lot of people are clearly starting to perceive that some scientists are trying to fool them. They don't like that and they may well arrive at the conclusion that all scientists are trying to fool them. And that's very bad because there are still plenty of good scientists who are producing good science and who are trying to alert humankind of the dangers ahead. But, in the general sinking of the scientific ship, bad and good science are lumped together and sent heading to the bottom.

Can this trend be reversed? Hard to say but, at least, we should do something to avoid that the overinflated ego of some scientists continues to lead science into this kind of disasters.




(1) Incidentally, this is exactly the same series of failures that we can attribute to Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann when they claimed to have discovered "cold fusion" in 1989. An even worse defeat for science, whose consequences are still felt.

A clash of epistemologies: why the debate on climate change is going nowhere.

(From Wikipedia) Epistemology (ἐπιστήμη, episteme-knowledge, understanding; λόγος, logos-study of) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge^[1][2] and is also referred to as "theory of knowledge". Put concisely, it is the study of knowledge and justified belief. It questions what knowledge is and how it can be acquired, and the extent to which knowledge pertinent to any given subject or entity can be acquired. (image source)

A few weeks ago, someone barreled into the comment section of a post on climate change on the blog of the Italian Society of Chemistry (SCI) with a series of attacks against climate science and climate scientists. The ensuing clash was all in Italian but, if you follow the debate on climate, you know very well how these things go. The newcomer monopolized the discussion by repeating the usual legends; climate has always been changed, there has been no temperature increase during the past 15 years, there is no proof of the human effect on climate, and so on. And you can imagine how the scientists following the blog reacted. The discussion rapidly degenerated into assorted insults and personal smears, until the moderator closed the comments. That was way too late: the climate science denier emerged as the winner; while the scientists managed to give the impression of being both narrow-minded and sectarian.

It was a classic case of climate trolling, but with one difference. This time, the troll didn't try to hide his identity (as trolls usually do); rather, he came with a name, an address, and a CV. He was Mr. Rinaldo Sorgenti, vice-president of the Italian Coal Industry Association ("Assocarboni"). Mr. Sorgenti's exploits on the SCI blog give us a chance to understand what generates the kind of behavior that we define as "trolling."

So, I am willing to bet that Mr. Sorgenti is NOT a paid disinformer - as he was accused to be in the debate. In other words, he doesn't deny climate science because he is on the payroll of Assocarboni (actually, he maintains that he gets no money for his position of vice-president, but I figure he gets at least a few perks from it). I would also say that not even the opposite holds true: Mr. Sorgenti is not the president of Assocarboni because he is a climate science denier. No, I would bet that denying climate science and being involved in the coal industry are two non-separate and non-separable elements of Mr. Sorgenti's worldview. And this worldview has little or nothing to do with what we call science. Mr. Sorgenti is not a scientist, he doesn't know how the scientific method works or, if he knows, he doesn't believe it works or it is useful for anything. He uses the methods of debate commonly used in the political debate; a method of discussion that we can define as "rhetoric."


Mr. Sorgenti's case is not isolated. Over several years of debate (if we may call it in this way), I came in contact with a number of people who can be defined as "trolls" or "deniers". Most of them (including Mr. Sorgenti) believe (genuinely, I think) that you can use the methods of the political debate to arrive to a conclusion on a complex and difficult scientific field such as climate science; and they resent being shortly dismissed by scientists. Scientists know how much work and study is needed to understand climate science and resent what they saw as superficiality and approximation in the debate. The result is the kind of clash we saw on the SCI blog. It was, if you like, a clash of epistemologies: rhetoric against the scientific method.

As in all clashes of absolutes, debaters think they are speaking the same language and they start from the same assumptions, but they are not. The problem is identified by Adam Dawson on "The Ruminator"in these terms:

..... you have to understand that in America there are two different types of science. There’s science that is profitable for corporations, which is good and righteous and rock solid. That’s the Smartphone, the water heater, the GPS, the 700 channels on the 62 inch flat screen, the boner pills, and so on and so on. And then there’s the science that costs corporations money, which is fraudulent, con-artist mumbo jumbo. Under that second definition are things like climatology, pollution measurements, oceanography, and other disciplines that might fuck up the profit margins of energy producers and manufacturers.

I think Dawson is right on target about the "two different types of science", but the point is not so much that some types science cost corporations money. Science and technology push for change and change often means that someone will lose money, but that doesn't mean that change is impossible. The Internet, for instance, is bankrupting newspapers, but the newspaper lobby doesn't appear to be very effective in stopping the Internet from expanding. Rather, the fundamental point is that scientific fields such as climate science use different methods for gathering data and managing knowledge than, say, the science of solid state devices. It is an epistemological difference: the kind of certainty that can be derived from a well designed laboratory experiment performed on a solid state device is not possible in climate science.

The different epistemological approach becomes really fundamental when it is question to implement a policy based on the result of the models. Climate scientists mostly agree that there is no simple technological remedy to avoid disastrous climate change. Then, what we are proposing is not hard engineering, but some kind of social engineering based on a general consensus that the danger of climate change is real. Now, how do we obtain such a consensus? To start, we need to share the basic assumptions on how the conclusions of climate science are obtained and validated; this is a question of epistemology. And when we deal with social matters, the traditionally accepted methods of attaining knowledge (and consensus) are not based on the scientific method. The debate becomes political, and the methods used for political debates are completely different. As I said, it is a clash of epistemologies.


In many ways, we seem to be learning to use different epistemological methods in the climate debate: have you noticed the claim that there exists a "97% consensus" among scientists on the climate problem? It has had a remarkable impact; considering how rabidly it has been criticized on the deniers' side. But can you think of a single case in the history of science when a scientific controversy has been subjected to a majority vote? Never that I know. In science, we believe that the scientific method is sufficient to arrive at a consensus. Political controversies are a different thing; data and interpretations are much more uncertain; hence the need for a vote. 

I am not saying that science should turn into a political organization. It is already something, however, that we recognize what we are dealing with: it is a political debate, not a scientific one. And we need to recognize that to stiffen up and look offended when someone belittles climate science is not useful. Even worse is to state that someone is a paid disinformer because he is not using the scientific method. We need to be way smarter than that if we want to go somewhere in fighting climate change.

Hard times for science

Skip the mumbo-jumbo of the neuronally challenged guy; go to minute 1:00 and watch the noose presented to the speaking scientist.

All right; just a few madmen, their threat is not to be exaggerated. But, think about that just one moment. Doesn't that scene eerily remind you of the movie "Hypatia"? Yes, in the age of the decline of the Roman Empire, Hypatia, scientist and philosopher, was first threatened and eventually killed by a group of madmen just for the fact of being a scientist.

Now, of course that can't happen here. Sure. It can't............

(from Deltoid)