|
|
|
 |
|
IEA PURPOSE
PURPOSE: WHAT WE DO |
|
|
Description
IEA is a multipurpose organization that seeks to efficiently combine
research and education using state of the art technology to investigate
a genuine scientific mystery. IEA endeavors to demonstrate ways that
science and research can become more creative and attractive to students
by inviting public participation.
Purpose 1: Scientific Investigation
The International Earthlight Alliance (IEA) does scientific research on
Earthlights worldwide. IEA has outlined a detailed methodology (under
construction) to investigate
Earthlights, using high-tech equipment, and to organize results so that
the existence of Earthlights can be evaluated and, if positive, their
mechanism determined. IEA solicits reports of Earthlight sightings and
encourages you, the public, to become “Earthlight scouts” to help solve
this fascinating mystery. IEA, through this web site, acts as a
clearinghouse to engage other scientists’ expertise, and the
observational skills of the public and students to help solve the
mystery of the lights.
The Need: A problem with science
IEA hopes to make science more creative and “user friendly.”
Historically, science has been a difficult profession. Creative
individuals who have made the greatest discoveries have often been
ostracized, persecuted, and even imprisoned by their peers. For
instance, Galileo was imprisoned. His peers refused to look through his
telescope, calling it an “instrument of the devil”. Figuratively, the
same practice continues today and even extends to investigation of
certain natural topics that have been designated “taboo” by the
scientific community.
The scientific community needs improvement. “Publish or perish” shifts
researchers’ focus towards activities that are most likely to insure
future funding, often at the expense of creative research work. Because
of focus on funding rather than ideas, a negative “science culture” has
evolved that can make science an unpleasant discipline in which to work.
Science has become overly competitive, prone to politics, and funding
favoritism. Established scientists invested in their own ideas are often
hostile to new ideas and creative solutions that challenge the status
quo.
Although Taxpayers fund a great deal of scientific research, most
taxpayers are unaware of what goes on in scientific practice and
culture. They do not know what research their dollars fund and how
research projects are selected for funding. It is time the public
realized that the negativity and suppression of creativity in current
science culture could affect their personal future economic status. The
economy could be affected because we are losing scientists. Students who
are exposed to the science culture first hand, are finding science
unattractive, and choosing other careers.
This negative science culture combined with boring didactic teaching
methods is discouraging students from entering scientific careers. Loss
of student enrollment will begin threaten US-Euro technology leadership
in a few years. There has been a 25% decrease in science enrollment in
US Colleges and decreases abroad Lack of student enrollment in science
will result in a future shortage of scientists as older scientists
retire, and fewer new graduates take their place. The problem is so
severe it has been deemed a “national crises” by University of
Washington president George Cohen.
IEA hopes to help reverse this trend by encouraging creativity in
science, showing students that science has the potential to be creative
and fun, and by creating public awareness of the lack of funding for
highly creative research.
Purpose 2. Student and Public education/inspiration/collaboration
Another purpose of IEA and this web site, in addition to conducting
scientific research, is to educate you about science and to develop an
innovative model for a more user-friendly and productive way to do
science through open web based collaboration between IEA scientists and
the public. IEA hopes that by engaging scientists, you the public, and
students in Earthlights research, all will benefit. IEA wants to put the
“gee whiz” back in science. Students and the public may learn science,
and become more familiar and comfortable with scientific principles by
following the interesting information and activities of IEA. It is hoped
that by doing so IEA can demonstrate that science applies to everyday
living and is both practical and fun! IEA also hopes to show that
science can be an adventure in which everyone can participate, and even
non-scientists can make meaningful contributions to a common goal:
solving the Earthlight mystery. IEA invites you to participate in this
web experiment to produce a model for a new, creative way to do
research. Everyone can be a contributor according to his or her own
talents and abilities. Come join us. Scientific contributions will be
acknowledged on this site.
Purpose 3: Scientific Information dissemination, a different way
“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.”
Frank Zappa
IEA has many channels to coordinate the research effort with you and
scientists. IEA will keep members informed by publishing E-newsletters
and E-reports of current activities and expeditions on this web site.
IEA wishes to apply modern day technology to traditional scientific
protocol. For instance, IEA will publish high quality scientific papers
directly to the web bypassing the lengthy peer review process of most
journals.
IEA believes the peer review process was once necessary for quality
control when the means of publication was limited to expensive hard copy
journals. Unfortunately, peer review, intended as quality control, can
also result in censorship and plagiarism. Peer review can add months
between the time a paper is submitted and published. Peer review also
has the potential to limit publication of the best discoveries and
negatively impact scientific progress. Truly creative works often do not
survive the peer review process because by definition, they lie too far
outside of accepted conventional theory. Joliet-Curie makes the point: “The
farther the experiment is from theory the closer it is to the Nobel
Prize.” Continental drift theory, the relationship between
homocysteine and heart disease, and the discovery that ulcers are caused
by a bacterium H. Pylori and not stress and bad food are examples of
ideas that were not initially accepted. To promote creativity IEA will
adopt the approaches below.
Scientific Publications as two-way dialogues:
The Internet provides an inexpensive means of information
distribution so such pre-publication scrutiny becomes less necessary.
IEA believes Scientists and the public are entitled to rapid information
distribution as originally written by the authors, not as tempered by
consensus about prevailing theory. Scientists and the public can make up
their own minds about the validity of the published content by an
information exchange following web publication. IEA publishes papers and
allows the opportunity for categories of public and scientific dialogue,
and opportunities for responses from the author. In this way, scientific
papers may become living dialogues. We believe publishing uncensored
documents written by quality scientists sparks scientific dialogue and
brainstorming which spawns or furthers great ideas . . . as long as that
dialogue, including criticism, is constructive. (Because this is an
experiment in promoting collaboration, flaming and destructive criticism
will not be posted). IEA may not agree with all aspects of the papers it
publishes, but agrees with the right of the scientist to express his or
her viewpoint. Rather than censor, IEA will comment from its own
perspective.
Empirical research encouraged, mechanisms not necessary for
publication
“Round about the accredited and orderly facts of every science there
ever floats a sort of dust cloud of exceptional observations, of
occurrences minute and irregular and seldom met with, which it always
proves more easy to ignore than to attend to...Anyone will renovate his
science who will steadily look after the irregular phenomena, and when
science is renewed, its new formulas often have more of the voice of the
exceptions in them than of what were supposed to be the rules.”
-William James
IEA believes the scientific tradition of the requirement for theoretical
support of an empirical observation before it can be considered valid or
put to use is not necessary in light of today’s statistical tools. Until
about twenty years ago, manually performing the statistics necessary to
demonstrate probabilities to validate a concept was impractical because
it was laborious and expensive. Until then it was most cost effective to
follow theoretical lines of research and not perform laborious
statistical tests on tantalizing empirical observations. With the advent
of desktop computers, sophisticated statistical analysis is readily
available, but the tradition of denying the validity of empirical
results remains in the scientific world.
On the other hand, businesses have applied empirical data exploration
techniques called “data mining” to determine valid and commercially
lucrative relationships between data sets. They use empirical
relationships to make profits even if they do not understand why, (the
mechanism) the relationship exists. An example is a positive correlation
between beer and baby diaper sales. The knowledge allows supermarkets to
profit by placing beer near the baby diapers. While the exact cause for
the relationship remains unknown (though we can speculate), the
knowledge is reproducible, profitable and useful.
Empirical relationships were once the cornerstone of the scientific
method. Empirical observations were used to first formulate an
hypothesis, then the hypothesis was tested with further observations to
confirm a theory. Somehow, use of the scientific method has shifted the
purpose of observations away from idea or hypothesis spawning, to mostly
theory confirmation. Now, empirical observations without a proposed
theory or mechanism are rarely acceptable publication material,
regardless of the strength of results of statistical analysis. Further,
valid observations that do not support theories are often discarded or
overlooked by researchers with theoretical mindsets. IEA believes that
in the light of today’s access to statistical analysis software,
empirical and theoretical approaches are both equally valid roads to
knowledge but that both must be rigorously tested before acceptance as
truth.
Purpose 4: Encourage leading edge research, new topics:
“All great truths begin as blasphemies” -- George Bernard Shaw
“The whole of science consists of data that, at one time or another,
was inexplicable.” --B. O'Regan
Earthlights research is at a very young stage. Earthlights are in a
class of “leading edge topics” which, at present, has no explanation in
known physics. This does not imply that the Earthlight mechanism lies
outside of physics, but rather more data are needed to know what
theories are relevant. There are many hypotheses about Earthlights but
no proof. Conclusive data have yet to be gathered. IEA believes that it
is necessary to keep an open mind for all possibilities, to let the data
speak for themselves by observing and evaluating the empirical data
without trying to fit the data in to any particular hypothesis or theory
prematurely. IEA scientists have open minds to all possibilities
regarding the mechanism and nature of the lights. While there are many
speculations about the nature of Earthlights, the true answer at this
time is “we don’t know what they are.”
Come join us to help solve the mystery!
By Marsha Adams Feb 12, 2004 |
|
top |
|
|
|
