The President of the Royal Society Wants Scientists To Abandon The Scientific Method

Sorry Sir Paul Maxime Nurse, PRS (President of the Royal Society), in science funded by the public purse you’ve got to show your work when asked for it. If there are any scientists who refuse to show their work they can expect to get Freedom Of Information Requests. All they have to do is put their work with all the full details fully documented so that their entire paper including all data and details of experiments can be replicated step by step up on their research lab’s web site so that their work can be verified, corrected or refuted in part or in whole. It’s all very easy if they have already done their science carefully!

“Show and justify your work”: If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen, and if you can’t stand skepticism about your methodology, assumptions, and analyses get out of science — go into religion. – Indur M. Goklany, Science and technology policy analyst, United States Department of the Interior, Represented the United States at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and during the negotiations that led to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

But no Sir Paul Maxime Nurse, the all mighty and all powerful President of the Royal Society wants scientists to abandon and give up the scientific method. If you hide data or details of your papers that are required to replicate the alleged claims then expect to be challenged on it especially when the alleged claims have a significant impact upon the public purse or policy.

“Freedom of information laws are being misused to harass scientists and should be re-examined by the government, according to the president of the Royal Society.” – Guardian

Woops, can’t do that as it’s in violation of the rules of the scientific method and you should know better than that Sir Paul Maxime Nurse. Heck your own Royal Society says:

Irony abounds and the endarkened bronze age threatens to return. Obviously Sir Paul Maxime Nurse, PRS, has forgotten the motto of the Royal Society: “Nullis in verba. Take no one’s word for it.” As such Sir Paul Maxime Nurse, PRS, needs to take remedial courses in the philosophy of science and in particular in the scientific method.

The whole point of the Royal Society is to ASK for the evidence since no one can be trusted, words must be tested with evidence and preferably by independently replicable and verifiable (or refutable) experiments!!!

Yet here we have the President of the Royal Society advocating that scientists don’t have to obey the scientific method nor the Royal Society Motto!!! Where are those leg irons?

The President of the Royal Society is advocating that people “accept claims on authority” rather than requiring government funded scientists to have to show their work!!! That is in direct violation of the scientific method and the Royal Society rule Nullius In Verba! Leg irons indeed before he wrecks science in the UK.

“The Latin phrase for “Take no man’s word for it” is the motto of The Royal Society of London, which is a shortened and less meaningful change from the original name. Loosely organized in 1660 by the greatest minds in the history of science, they petitioned King Charles II and were granted a Royal Charter in 1662. The name this distinguished group chose was the “Royal Society for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge by Experiment”
…
“They created the methods that would unlock the secrets of steam power, electricity and magnetism. Later members of this Royal Society would provide the greatest transportation, manufacturing and medical systems in the world. Humanity is forever in debt to the great minds who took little on trust and everything to open, measurable and repeatable empirical data. This is the foundation of all good science, which is best distinguished from bad science…”. – Canada Free Press

It’s really strange that Sir Paul Maxime Nurse would want people to stop using the scientific method, especially considering the motto of the Royal Society!

“Nullius in verba (Latin for “Take nobody’s word for it”) is the motto of the Royal Society, that signifies the founders’ determination to establish facts via experiments and profess objective science ignoring the influence of politics or religion.

It comes from Horace’s Epistles, where he compares himself to a gladiator who, having retired, is free from any master’s control.

These words in the original context: “Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri, quo me cumque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes.” (“I am not bound over to swear allegiance to any master; where the storm drives me I turn in for shelter.”)”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullius_in_verba

Another translation hits the head on the nail a bit harder still:

““Nullius in verba”, which is the Latin motto of the Royal Society of London, the UK’s national academy of science, means literally :”On the words of no one” , as NULLIUS(genitive case) corresponds to ‘of no one’ and IN VERBA to ‘on the words’.

In fact the motto of the Royal society points out that we must believe in the words of nobody, but we have to use science to establish “the truth of scientific matters through experiment rather than through citation of authority”.” – http://en.allexperts.com/q/Latin-2145/Nullius-verba.htm

Sir Paul Maxime Nurse, PRS, certainly needs to sign up for remedial courses in the philosophy of science and in particular the scientific method, not to mention he needs to abide by the Motto of the Royal Society, or presumably be ejected from it.

It is likewise necessary on this occasion to remark, that it is an established rule of the Society, to which they will always adhere, never to give their opinion, as a Body, upon any subject, either of Nature or Art, that comes before them. And therefore the thanks, which are frequently proposed from the Chair, to be given to the authors of such papers as are read at their accustomed meetings, or to the persons through whose hands they received them, are to be considered in no other light than as a matter of civility, in return for the respect shown to the Society by those communications. The like also is to be said with regard to the several projects, inventions, and curiosities of various kinds, which are often exhibited to the Society; the authors whereof, or those who exhibit them, frequently take the liberty to report and even to certify in the public newspapers, that they have met with the highest applause and approbation. And therefore it is hoped that no regard will hereafter be paid to such reports and public notices; which in some instances have been too lightly credited, to the dishonour of the Society. – Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, Volume 113, By Royal Society (Great Britain), MDCCCXXIII, 1823

For violating this old rule of the Royal Society it’s currently sitting President, one Sir Paul Maxime Nurse, PRS, must forthwith resign or be ejected for dishonoring the Royal Society. Leg irons now.

This quote sums it up nicely:

“Show and justify your work”: If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen, and if you can’t stand skepticism about your methodology, assumptions, and analyses get out of science — go into religion. – Indur M. Goklany, Science and technology policy analyst, United States Department of the Interior, Represented the United States at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and during the negotiations that led to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.