This kid super genius..

S. Shaffizan
Make Solar Panel Blog Webmaster

NOW! I’m not faulting Aidan for his method or calling it pseudoscience. This was his first outing. He will learn to be more rigorous (I hope). If, on the other hand, with the encouragement of Media and general public, he grows up and goes on doing experiments and reporting in this manner…then he WILL be doing pseudoscience.

Who am I faulting? Those who jump conclusions–without conducting the needed further inquiry and verification–believing this a notable discovery, and don’t recognize this as one of a young person’s first forays into doing experimentation–and learning how to do it.

So, with that in mind….

First, I do suggest that anyone take a good look at Aidan’s report, at:
http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/youngnaturalistawards/2011/aidan.html

Some points:

After many years of doing research myself, it seems to me that part of becoming a mature scientist has to do with learning to use good judgment about “what experiment to do next.” And how to do it. And then there’s also the little matter of knowing how to be rigorous in looking at your own results. Aidan is starting down this learning path–and more power to him. 47 years from now, if he’s like me, he’ll be still learning how to better “do science.” We never get there. But we do need to learn not to jump to conclusions, and to verify our method and our data and results. Another thing we have to do, is not write a “report” that builds up and advertises our own insightfulness, as Aidan’s report appears to do–raising red flags about credibility.

Looking at the graphs of the data in Aidan’s article, it looks to me like there’s something funny going on in them. Why are the widths of daylight narrower for the fixed array? I don’t pretend to know, and I certainly don’t imply any kind of massaging of the data, but, if it were my experiment, the first thing I would do would be to take a good look at my apparatus and instrumentation to figure out what’s going on with it and verify that it’s giving valid readings. Actually, in that respect, it reminds me of one of MY first experiments! Anyway…In a rigorous report, such obvious quirks in the data would be explained and accounted for by the experimenter. And any reasonable media outlet would insist on it before publishing. Any good editor would also want to know: by what mechanism does the researcher think System A produces more power than System B?

I’m also a bit concerned that Aidan is being encouraged by many to believe that the youthful enthusiastic magical thinking that we all have at that age, is good science. There are a whole BUNCH of parameters that Nature has used in designing a tree (probably more than mankind even knows about), other than light collection. So, to jump to the thought that Fibonacci numbers explain why trees are built the way they are and further conclude that solar panels ought to be arranged that way….Well, it’s an interesting thought, and worth thinking about. But without providing some mechanism by which it would be better, it’s a real long shot as a hypothesis. Seems kind of magical and woo-woo. But….

But it’s okay for an experimenter to “follow a hunch.” As Aidan grows up and learns more and does more experiments, his hunches will get better and better–if he’s encouraged to think rigorously–unlike most of the people in the Media and in this blog. Or, alternatively, if he continues to develop his ability to impress people with his ideas and his writing (with propositions that are popular and capture our fancy, whether valid or not), and if he continues to believe that he’s right and is determined to prove it (despite the evidence) then he might someday run for President.

Dr. Andrew Johnson, once called the most intelligent man in the world, from his chair pointed out the flaws of bicycles, saying that the user not only had to use the force to propel his body forward, but the bicycle as well, and thus was inferior to walking as far as energy consumption was concerned.

Did he reference this (or any other) texts for his work (there are many to chose from)? So, what happened to “scholarship” as part of the measure of academic success? Will everyone in the future be allowed to just re-invent science?

Anyway, this is nothing compared to the 2004 Siemens Science Competition!!! Now THAT was a really bad job by the media, especially ABC News that got completely suckered by it (so much so, that they have not reported on this particular competition again!).