Triple Fail: Big Science Blunders
June 4, 2020
Three strikes in one day: scientific theories and assumptions in unrelated fields have blundered big time. What are the lessons?
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Scientific Discoveries Can Cast Doubt on Long-Held Beliefs
July 28, 2018
You have to look beneath the surface veneer of bluffing in science news to see how the sausage is made before it gets packaged to the press.
Lightning Fries Impact Theory
July 18, 2017
A signature in rock that was thought to come from extraterrestrial impacts could have been caused by plain old lightning. “Impact Geologists, Beware!” That’s the headline of a short paper in Geophysical Research Letters by H. J. Melosh of Purdue. His subtitle is, “A Cautionary Tale for Impact Geologists.” Why the alarm? Another “proxy” for […]
Cave Climate Conclusions Compromised
December 22, 2016
Widely used to infer past climates, isotope measurements from stalactites and stalagmites in caves can mislead researchers.
Geology Fail: The Problem with Proxies
June 25, 2015
Using an observable data set as a stand-in for a theoretical model can be misleading, as several new geology papers illustrate.