Does this work or is it too good to be true ?

[Stevecross]

Peter

 

 

Really did not intend getting into an argument about the merits or de merits of scientific research.

 

Got pulled in by some comments that seemed somewhat out of place on this thread and reacted.

 

No offence intended.

 

Steve

[Peter Cobbold]

 

Peter, I'll agree, or at least stipulate, to most of your comments. But not this part. Sounds like a typical academic's elitist bias to this industrial scientist (smile).

 

The three companies I've worked for in my career have developed a few products that were a bit more than a waste of resource and time. Think Nylon, Kevlar, Tyvek... The first desktop photocopier, the Xerox 914, the hydrocolloids xanthan gum and gellan gum... Knowledge was added to the collective as they've been the subject of hundreds of peer-reviewed research papers. They've been the basis of thousands of products in everyday life as the science was put to work through technology.

 

No, commercial science is NOT a "huge waste" from where I stand.

Don,

Only a fraction of developments succeed to market, and they're the ones that get patented and then published (if the company policy is to do that). Much work never succeeds in reaching a product and that never sees the light of day - no profit in that. Its a tremendous waste. Knowledge that could be of benefit in other areas is lost. And ultimately its the consumer who pays.

I would be very surprised if you regard the cost of publishing your failed lines of research as justifiable, even though the knowledge gleaned might be useful in the future, possibly in an unforeseen direction. The risk in publishing your failures is in helping a competitor avoid that approach. You cannot publish, surely?

The big pharmas are the worst. Billions spent and junked, when the data may be useful to another lab at some time in the future. And we all pay ultimately.

To me there is a divide: academic: 'publish or perish' or commercial: 'perish by publishing'.

Peter

Edited January 21, 2016 by Peter Cobbold

[Peter Cobbold]

Peter

 

 

Really did not intend getting into an argument about the merits or de merits of scientific research.

 

Got pulled in by some comments that seemed somewhat out of place on this thread and reacted.

 

No offence intended.

 

Steve

Steve, No offence taken. I was trying to lend support to a minority activity. Hardly CP Snow I know but I do my best. Peter

[john.r.davies]

Peter

 

 

Really did not intend getting into an argument about the merits or de merits of scientific research.

 

Got pulled in by some comments that seemed somewhat out of place on this thread and reacted.

 

No offence intended.

 

Steve

Steve,

"Recidivist" was a joke. A poor one, but mine own. If it offended you, I really don't care.

 

Peter,

Thank you for springing to the defence of science. Truly it is said, "The good thing about science is that whether you believe in it or not, it's true."

That's 'true' as in sincere, uncorrupted by bias - or at least the best science is.

"Truth" is not the same as "proof", but the media persistently fail to see the difference, nor that science cannot prove anything, just get nearer and nearer to the Truth.

 

And to all, my apologies for the barren link to the title page of PubMed. Here is one to the journal article itself: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412012000566

I regret that you are only allowed to read the abstract, and must pay money to read the whole thing. Strange when the publishers say that they support "open science".

"Correlation is not causation" is a watchword (phrase?) but in this case the research went back many years, and not only correlated the fall in violence after lead was omitted from fuel, but the earlier rise after it was included. Both delayed, indicating the importance of childhood exposure. Moreover, the correlations were highly significant statistically (p<0.001). The experiment should be repeated, of course, but never will be, thank goodness, so we must do the best we can with the information we have.

 

John

[Peter Cobbold]

Steve,

"Recidivist" was a joke. A poor one, but mine own. If it offended you, I really don't care.

 

Peter,

Thank you for springing to the defence of science. Truly it is said, "The good thing about science is that whether you believe in it or not, it's true."

That's 'true' as in sincere, uncorrupted by bias - or at least the best science is.

"Truth" is not the same as "proof", but the media persistently fail to see the difference, nor that science cannot prove anything, just get nearer and nearer to the Truth.

 

And to all, my apologies for the barren link to the title page of PubMed. Here is one to the journal article itself: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412012000566

I regret that you are only allowed to read the abstract, and must pay money to read the whole thing. Strange when the publishers say that they support "open science".

"Correlation is not causation" is a watchword (phrase?) but in this case the research went back many years, and not only correlated the fall in violence after lead was omitted from fuel, but the earlier rise after it was included. Both delayed, indicating the importance of childhood exposure. Moreover, the correlations were highly significant statistically (p<0.001). The experiment should be repeated, of course, but never will be, thank goodness, so we must do the best we can with the information we have.

 

John

John,

Paywalls and publications are a terrible thing. Most of the research was public funded and we are not allowed to access it. Monbiot wrote an excoriating damnation of the greed of science publishers:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist

I think I might have posted it before... Most of my research papers are behind paywalls - and I cant acess them myself, had to sign away copyright. Five in Nature to start with.

Peter

[Don H.]

...Most of my research papers are behind paywalls - and I cant acess them myself, had to sign away copyright...

 

Sounds like academic research is an even bigger waste of time and resources than industrial research, Peter. At least you have products of the successful "commercial" research in the market.

[Peter Cobbold]

 

Sounds like academic research is an even bigger waste of time and resources than industrial research, Peter. At least you have products of the successful "commercial" research in the market.

Don, But academics' research is a product in the market - a market rigged by those cursed publishers. They charge enormous sums to allow academic libraries to access journals their own staff wrote.

We both know it needs both academia and commercial labs to work together, if not directly then through the medium of publication. In developing your products you, surely, refer to public-funded academic research, your staff were trained in universities - whose researchers also teach, and write textbooks. You have access to academics as consultants.

I cant help thinking that, at $30 per article, there will be a widespread reluctance to embrace the latest from the university and institute labs. Thats bad for both sides.

Peter

Edited January 21, 2016 by Peter Cobbold

[Don H.]

I'm showing my age, Peter, and I'm sure you remember far better than I, but loooong gone are those days when an interested researcher could request a reprint from an author and expect to get one by return mail. My first job at a contract research institute used to have reprint-request postcards preprinted with spaces for filling in publication details...

[Peter Cobbold]

I'm showing my age, Peter, and I'm sure you remember far better than I, but loooong gone are those days when an interested researcher could request a reprint from an author and expect to get one by return mail. My first job at a contract research institute used to have reprint-request postcards preprinted with spaces for filling in publication details...

Don, Ah, yes I remember ! - snail mail was more productive in accessing the full article than the internet is today !! And 'Current Contents' was essential weekly reading. I remember CC starting out, I was bottom of the department circulation list, stapled to the front cover. Thank you Eugene Garfield.

 

In the web age I used to find that going to an author's own website would reveal a draft article in Word or such, even after publication. But the publishers seem to have chased them down. For key articles I now email authors to ask for a pdf, but I'm not saying who as I suspect that is also verboten. And its no good for archival stuff.

 

Peter

Edited January 21, 2016 by Peter Cobbold

[John Roberts]

The DRAMATIC reduction in lead levels in the blood of children (the most sensitive of all humans to its effects) was achieved by removing it from house paint, toy paint, lead solder on cans, plumbing and the like.  Even today, children are still at risk from lead in old taps and pipes and from lead paint dust/flakes from the 'me too' crowd imitating the home renovation shows.

[Andy Moltu]

The form that the lead is in makes a significant difference to the availability in terms of its capacity to enter the body and do harm.

Lead pipes are relatively low risk.

Tetra-ethyl lead goes through the skin relatively easily so probably not ideal to handle without a great deal of care.

Why was it removed from fuel. Nothing to do with perceived toxicity from exhaust gasses to those exposed to it, more the fact that it damages catalytic converters. If you want to use cats to clean up exhaust gasses, then the lead had to go. How much of an impact the removal of lead from fuel had on those exposed to it is harder to quantify as other factors like societal change and that many of the areas once considered grotty and thus cheap may well have become trendy and thus expensive. There is a correlation between IQ and income  (not absolute of course) As for violence - again it's too simplistic to blame that on lead alone. Changes to society as a whole and its view of violence in its various forms such as corporal punishment have changed. Likewise attitudes to racism and sexism are substantially different to how they were when I was a schoolboy.

There was little lead in fuel in the middle ages and those were thought to be violent times.

As for these products adding insoluble forms of lead to fuel tanks claiming to be catalysts is simply snake oil selling. What reaction are they catalysing?

Just fit hardened valve seats and get on with driving.