kirchhoff's law and neo wise

[insert_name]

apparently there appears to be some errors in the neowise survey, such as not accounting for the albedo of the asteroid, seems like a bit of an issue.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.06490

discuss

[Steel]

It will be interesting to see what the peer reviewers say about this one, but it's not every day you see an article written by the former CTO of Microsoft 

[PB666]

5 hours ago, Steel said:

It will be interesting to see what the peer reviewers say about this one, but it's not every day you see an article written by the former CTO of Microsoft 

This is not an uncommon critique. Setting of confidence ranges frequently involves the inclusion of all sources of variance, many need to be cross multiplied. Studies often replace variances with discrete values either because they dont think the variances are so great or it makes their calculations look trivial or undersampled. 

 

 

 

[YNM]

Sorry for necro, but an update :

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/05/27/nathan_myhrvold_claims_nasa_scientists_asteroid_calculations_are_all_wrong.html

[PB666]

5 hours ago, YNM said:

Sorry for necro, but an update :

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/05/27/nathan_myhrvold_claims_nasa_scientists_asteroid_calculations_are_all_wrong.html

I'm not going to get involved in this argument but I will say this I have got intonarguments with well structured scientist outside of my field, time would eventually showcthat my conclusions at maximum where off by a maximum of 8% and the well credentialed scietist by 62%. The major difference is that I admit my error and the well structured scientist only admits about 50%. The reality however is that I purposefully took the devils advocacy because I saw their arguments as pompass and unstatistical. I actually wanted their argument to be true, but could not prove it because it was mainly based on the fact that 'im an expert in the field so this is how i interpret all the data, except this little elephant in the middle of the room, that i conviniently want to ignore'. 

so with alot of years I tend to see the black swans and tend to look for them and propose them to keep the ivory towers challenged and reforming. The basic problem with structured science from natianal research labs and well established universities that I have found,mthe more renowned the institute the more sometimes you have to pull them to get them out oof a rut. I had the same problem locally trying to convince my peeps that we had to dobetter statistics, that ours were not showing all the variances and corrections. Sometimes when you do that, removing the statistical chaff, you sometimes get a picture of what is left can be rather interesting. 

When you are talking about roids you are talking abou things that have different kinds of life histories, a bunch of things that arecwell characterized, alot of views are only a few pixels, there may be structural variances and fortuitous rolls. So these are best handled by setting the confidence interval correctly. The there are things that roll in from deep space, covered with ice that get captured and blow off their volatiles, the models may be troubled and give inaccurate results based on all known models, so these could be black swans. 

[YNM]

They got a few basic bias though. In particular, whenever two methods exist equally (theoretical model and empirical model) then the later should be referenced because theoretical models always have shortcomings out of it's guessing and simplifying nature. I mean, I'd believe more in radar pinging or actual visiting than theoretical physics no matter how advanced it is.

Different case exist in SN Ia : empirical models practically doesn't exist on what mass does explode, apart from spectra. So theoretical model have to be used, but continually refined.

Edited June 2, 2016 by YNM
spelling

[PB666]

7 minutes ago, YNM said:

They got a few basic bias though. In particular, whenever two methods exist equally (theoretical model and empirical model) then the later should be referenced because theoretical models always have shortcomings out of it's guessing and simplifying nature. I mean, I'd believe more in radar pinging or actual visiting than theoretical hysics no matter how advanced it is.

Different case exist in SN Ia : empirical models practically doesn't exist on what mass does explode, apart from spectra. So theoretical model have to be used, but continually refined.

I think they are probably correct, but that captures the overwhelming majority.

BTW, how many asteroids were we have estimated the volume have we place satellites in orbit of,mthats what you really want to know, that is an aspect of variance that goes un measured,mis density variance a part of the calculations? I know what you are going to say,mits likely minor, but the best statistics when sources of variance are independent are best crossmultiplied. 

[YNM]

A lot of asteroid have paid close encounter I guess ? I mean, we can still look at rocks through radar at distances waay farther than the Moon. Not to mention numerous transits. And probes (as well as probe encounter).

[PB666]

7 hours ago, YNM said:

A lot of asteroid have paid close encounter I guess ? I mean, we can still look at rocks through radar at distances waay farther than the Moon. Not to mention numerous transits. And probes (as well as probe encounter).

But the question is how many asteroids have passed close enough to Eart that we feel comfortable that we have observed all types in our system.. And, repeating,  how many have we deterimed astrophysically mu. None. 

This is the problem in saying one is an expert, an expert of andromeda exobiology means diddly with no observations. The authors would squak at my critique, but that only because the metrics are hard. Mu is the most important single physical property that an asteroid has, this tells you how much relative energy it  carries, and once average radius is determined, its tells what the average density is. Problem is we simply are making assumptions based on the interior pieces of meteors that have heated and fused somewhat on entry. Most estimates are going to be spot on, but there are likely to be a few that are lighter. 

[YNM]

Yeah. But at least those are experiments and observations. The paper discussed in this thread base it solely on simplified model. It's like asking a 5th grader to build a house - while he may succeed, there's more to the structures than what can be seen. The same bias exist for someone that usually builds a detached house asked to build a tall flat - but the differences isn't that far off.

Or, as Phill says more or less in his blog, "you don't need to mathematically calculate all the force working on the thrown ball to be a good pitcher - you need to practice."

Also, we're talking about radius.

One imminent question that I want to ask the author (Nathan) is this : are the basic relation between albedo and emmisivity holds for different wavelength ? (it isn't, right) Not to mention we never use something like "bolometric albedo".

Edited June 3, 2016 by YNM

[DDE]

https://retractionwatch.com/2018/06/14/two-years-of-stonewalling-what-happened-when-a-scientist-filed-a-public-records-request-for-nasa-code/

https://medium.com/@nathanpmyhrvold/myhrvold-guide-to-neowise-4866a2f7b76d

TL;DR Serial science contrarian (among other things) tries to obtain a NASA dataset due to what looks dangerously like fudged-up science. NASA science team proceeds to try and stonewall him (and their own colleagues, having essentially monopolized the field of study) while fixing or erasing the more blatant errors in their data. A $400-600 mil mission is at stake for that team.

To my knowledge these are the most up-to-date links.

Edited November 17, 2018 by DDE
More like pathologically refined headline, amirite

[LaydeeDem]

Fascinating, but after reading more on this, I'm not sure Dr. Myrvold's claims and (very serious) accusations hold weight.

 

Some relevant information:

• Myrvold's model fails to predict the diameters of asteroids with known size.
• Data from IRAS and the Japanese Akari spacecraft corroborate the NEOWISE team's results
• Ground-based occultation data corroborates the NEOWISE team's results, not Myrvold's
• His claims of fraud are unfounded, unprofessional, and more importantly, wrong. Including results from other observations to improve the accuracy of the model =! fraud.

Now, I'm even more of an armchair astronomer than Myrvold, the extent of my knowledge is a semester of Astronomy 101 and some books on amateur differential photometry, but if you want my uneducated opinion as a layperson:

He's wrong, and like other "contrarians" (wannabe Galileo's imo), suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect and believes himself to be more qualified than the people who actually spend their lives studying what he's critiquing. His paper can be summed up as an error-riddled complaint about "spherical cows". Asteroids have incredibly complex surfaces. Of course the NEOWISE team's model simplifies things. The team is well aware of the simplifications they're making. The question then is whether the model approximates reality. And it does, pretty well.

[YNM]

I've seen Phil Plait's comment on the affair long ago as well, although I'll say it seems like things are being turned upside-down equally by each side here (or at least it looks as so).

I guess I'll scuttle back to my own side of the world (engineering). But in any case, if someone attempts a fraud in science it is very very dangerous. You don't want to design something to the wrong parameters - in those cases no data is better than any data.

[Green Baron]

I read, he is as well an "expert" for Dinosaur growth rates ....

[kerbiloid]

Dinokillaz relate to both dinos and their killers.

9 hours ago, Nutt007 said:

and believes himself to be more qualified than the people who actually spend their lives studying what he's critiquing

When I was helping with a fuel storage calculations (irl), we found enormous amount of obvious mistakes in official standard tables. Up to several per page.

All those tables were calculated by professionals _{or students told by the professionals to do that}.

The difference is: you can always measure a tank with a rope, but you have to believe the professionals talking about asteroids.

Upd.
Another nice sample which shocked me when I was a pupil: a book about SDI (star wars) with a lot of formulas, etc, written (officially) by several professors and doctors, where several formulas just were partially inverted (even dimensions were wrong). I had a continuous headache trying to get the same results from the same numbers until I realized that.

If some work is done by a professional, do not be too much sure that he hadn't pinned the routine work on his lazy or fool apprentices.
And obviously he hadn't then checked every number humself.

Upd2.
I won't tell about some local scientific researches about natural spa properties which I was helping with.

Edited November 18, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Vanamonde]

Thank you for bringing this up, @DDE, but it turns out we already have a thread for this dispute. The threads have been merged. 

[LaydeeDem]

17 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Dinokillaz relate to both dinos and their killers.

When I was helping with a fuel storage calculations (irl), we found enormous amount of obvious mistakes in official standard tables. Up to several per page.

All those tables were calculated by professionals _{or students told by the professionals to do that}.

The difference is: you can always measure a tank with a rope, but you have to believe the professionals talking about asteroids.

Upd.
Another nice sample which shocked me when I was a pupil: a book about SDI (star wars) with a lot of formulas, etc, written (officially) by several professors and doctors, where several formulas just were partially inverted (even dimensions were wrong). I had a continuous headache trying to get the same results from the same numbers until I realized that.

If some work is done by a professional, do not be too much sure that he hadn't pinned the routine work on his lazy or fool apprentices.
And obviously he hadn't then checked every number humself.

Upd2.
I won't tell about some local scientific researches about natural spa properties which I was helping with.

I'm not trying to say that professionals or even scientific consensus is infallible. But if your goal is to upend the current line of thinking, you better do a darn good job. From what I've read, Myrvold hasn't. The evidence (Radar images, occultations, spacecraft visits, IRAS data, Akari data) favors NEOWISE.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, Nutt007 said:

I'm not trying to say that professionals or even scientific consensus is infallible. But if your goal is to upend the current line of thinking, you better do a darn good job. From what I've read, Myrvold hasn't. The evidence (Radar images, occultations, spacecraft visits, IRAS data, Akari data) favors NEOWISE.

Does it actually favour Neowise or does it favour Neowise because they copy-paste those numbers?

[Green Baron]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

Does it actually favour Neowise or does it favour Neowise because they copy-paste those numbers?

This is nonsense. The paper cites correctly. It is Myrvold who mixes up data to support his claims. The moment he publishes a peer reviewed paper in the same journals i will take him serious.

Edit: i forgot to mention: authors usually publish their work exactly for being constructively discussed and criticised. Some times there are cases of fraud or cheating, but usually, they are revealed even if it might take some time. Seeing fraud or cheating in published work usually tells more about the squaller than the authors. And a PhD costs 20.000 funds these days.

Edited November 19, 2018 by Green Baron

[LaydeeDem]

54 minutes ago, DDE said:

Does it actually favour Neowise or does it favour Neowise because they copy-paste those numbers?

They look copied because they are, but not due to fraud. Read my previous post:

 

On 11/17/2018 at 6:38 PM, Nutt007 said:

Fascinating, but after reading more on this, I'm not sure Dr. Myrvold's claims and (very serious) accusations hold weight.

 

Some relevant information:

• Myrvold's model fails to predict the diameters of asteroids with known size.
• Data from IRAS and the Japanese Akari spacecraft corroborate the NEOWISE team's results
• Ground-based occultation data corroborates the NEOWISE team's results, not Myrvold's
• His claims of fraud are unfounded, unprofessional, and more importantly, wrong. Including results from other observations to improve the accuracy of the model =! fraud.

Now, I'm even more of an armchair astronomer than Myrvold, the extent of my knowledge is a semester of Astronomy 101 and some books on amateur differential photometry, but if you want my uneducated opinion as a layperson:

He's wrong, and like other "contrarians" (wannabe Galileo's imo), suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect and believes himself to be more qualified than the people who actually spend their lives studying what he's critiquing. His paper can be summed up as an error-riddled complaint about "spherical cows". Asteroids have incredibly complex surfaces. Of course the NEOWISE team's model simplifies things. The team is well aware of the simplifications they're making. The question then is whether the model approximates reality. And it does, pretty well.

 

They're using other, non-infrared observations to build and refine their model. The technique is discussed in great detail here and cited in several subsequent papers. A little weird that the NEOWISE team would so openly discuss their "scientific misconduct".

[DDE]

48 minutes ago, Nutt007 said:

They look copied because they are, but not due to fraud. Read my previous post:

They're using other, non-infrared observations to build and refine their model. The technique is discussed in great detail here and cited in several subsequent papers. A little weird that the NEOWISE team would so openly discuss their "scientific misconduct".

So are you directly refuting Myrvold’s claim that the main dataset of results contains unmarked ROS results that were subsequently deleted?

[Green Baron]

Ooooh ... conspiracy .... they are hiding something. Cut loose solar sails ? Accelerating asteroids ? Changing color and luminosity ? Alien ads in the sky ? Or just their own errors ?

------

Come on. The whole thing is in open discussion, has been cited, will surely be developed farther. Nothing to see there for the open minded.

Edited November 19, 2018 by Green Baron

[DDE]

On 11/19/2018 at 4:24 PM, Green Baron said:

Cut loose solar sails

The ultimate source of tin foil.

[Ozymandias_the_Goat]

On 11/19/2018 at 8:24 AM, Green Baron said:

Changing color and luminosity?

Actually, the true concern is not necessarily the change in color, rather, it is a subtle change in value that would truly be a clear- cut sign of trouble.