Where are your error bars?
Tags: climate model, error bars, global warming, model, reproducibility, scenario, variabilityPosted in Ethics, Getting published, Tips for junior scientists
Experimental observations always are coming with uncertainties. Any measurement is an estimate of the real value, if indeed such an objective value exist.
The uncertainty in the magnitude of a measured quantity is more important as the value itself. Many readers will find this remark alarming. The determination of the “error bars” is considered a dull, redundant exercise. Especially when the reported observable quantity has a surprising value that reporting it without the associated uncertainty will certainly get the authors the attention of the media, or get their manuscript accepted in Nature or Science.
The problem with a reported observable without an uncertainty is that people, including the reporting scientists, will draw conclusions from these observations that are in no way corroborated by that experiment.







Readers' comments
I agree that the Windows installation can be tricky, it worked much better on the Mac or Linux. But one ...
12 Mar 2010 22:05, Jan
Well, you'd hope that the chair(wo)man does the job when someone is about to go over time. If you don't ...
11 Mar 2010 20:56, Mirjam
(I'm typing this comment for the third time now... *sigh*) Many people don't know this, but Google Docs has a built-in ...
9 Mar 2010 23:47, cpbotha
For senior scientists it may be a conscious (although stupid) choice to give a talk to impress people, instead of ...
9 Mar 2010 10:35, Mirjam
What do you mean by 'pointing stick'? Obviously, we don't live in an ideal world, but fortunately most scientists will ...
22 Jan 2010 8:28, Mirjam