American Physical Society survey of Deflategate Science Reporting

[raduray]

http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201503/fumbles.cfm

Interesting read. Here's a fun excerpt:

"He [Martin Schamtz of BU] was somewhat disappointed with the coverage, saying that most of his interviews with journalists were about how he felt about Belichick “behaving as if he’s a scientist,” rather than the science itself.
“They’re afraid to touch the science really,” Schmaltz said. “I could not get the journalist to actually write down the equation himself.”

Must have been referring to MCI.

 

[NashuaPats]

“A lot of people came out and didn’t really use the equation correctly. They forgot to convert the pressure into absolute pressure, so they were using gauge pressure, not absolute pressure,” said Thomas Healy, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon and researcher at HeadSmart Labs.

This really ticked me off at the time. Some of the early, most reported stories included the mistake of not including atmospheric pressure. I haven't taken a science class in twenty years and I got it right. People were misinformed by the NFL about how much the balls dropped in pressure and scientists including Bill Nye and Tyson got the science wrong. When the science was corrected, not many outside of New England was paying attention. By the time the NFL released the true numbers with the Wells report, everyone focused on the text messages.

If this story was reported correctly from the start, it would have died in a few days. The NFL lied, but much of the science community dropped the ball as well.

 

[raduray]

“A lot of people came out and didn’t really use the equation correctly. They forgot to convert the pressure into absolute pressure, so they were using gauge pressure, not absolute pressure,” said Thomas Healy, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon and researcher at HeadSmart Labs.

This really ticked me off at the time. Some of the early, most reported stories included the mistake of not including atmospheric pressure. I haven't taken a science class in twenty years and I got it right. People were misinformed by the NFL about how much the balls dropped in pressure and scientists including Bill Nye and Tyson got the science wrong. When the science was corrected, not many outside of New England was paying attention. By the time the NFL released the true numbers with the Wells report, everyone focused on the text messages.

If this story was reported correctly from the start, it would have died in a few days. The NFL lied, but much of the science community dropped the ball as well.

Tyson retracted, but I don't believe Nye ever did. He lost my respect for that.

 

[borg]

""Healy and his team did their best to recreate the changes in temperature and moisture the ball underwent from the warm locker room to the cold rainy field. They soaked the footballs in water with a damp rag and stored them in a 50-degree room for about two hours. “In that time we saw that there was an on average 1.8 psi drop in the footballs,” Healy said.""

4 games
$2 million in salary
1st and 4th rd draft picks
$1 million fine
Destruction of reputation......priceless

 

[zydecochris]

“A lot of people came out and didn’t really use the equation correctly. They forgot to convert the pressure into absolute pressure, so they were using gauge pressure, not absolute pressure,” said Thomas Healy, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon and researcher at HeadSmart Labs.

This really ticked me off at the time. Some of the early, most reported stories included the mistake of not including atmospheric pressure. I haven't taken a science class in twenty years and I got it right. People were misinformed by the NFL about how much the balls dropped in pressure and scientists including Bill Nye and Tyson got the science wrong. When the science was corrected, not many outside of New England was paying attention. By the time the NFL released the true numbers with the Wells report, everyone focused on the text messages.

If this story was reported correctly from the start, it would have died in a few days. The NFL lied, but much of the science community dropped the ball as well.

IMHO it wasn't so much that the science community dropped the ball as they were ignored by reporters who couldn't understand the science. Bill Nye is a media personality, not a scientist. Tyson is more of a media person also, although he at least is a real astronomer at least (and he apologized for his error to his credit).

 

[Tony2046]

“A lot of people came out and didn’t really use the equation correctly. They forgot to convert the pressure into absolute pressure, so they were using gauge pressure, not absolute pressure,” said Thomas Healy, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon and researcher at HeadSmart Labs.

This really ticked me off at the time. Some of the early, most reported stories included the mistake of not including atmospheric pressure. I haven't taken a science class in twenty years and I got it right. People were misinformed by the NFL about how much the balls dropped in pressure and scientists including Bill Nye and Tyson got the science wrong. When the science was corrected, not many outside of New England was paying attention. By the time the NFL released the true numbers with the Wells report, everyone focused on the text messages.

If this story was reported correctly from the start, it would have died in a few days. The NFL lied, but much of the science community dropped the ball as well.

Mazz once said, 'in order for a football to deflate 2 psi the temperature would have to be -11 deg F'. This was a direct result of someone forgetting use absolute pressure. People called in to correct him but he blew them off. Fricken idiot.

 

[Tony2046]

Tyson retracted, but I don't believe Nye ever did. He lost my respect for that.

Instead he does a demonstration video and harps through the whole video about global warming while never revealing the results of his ball test.

How am I going to believe his global warming spiel if can't get a simple IGL calculation right?

 

[raduray]

Instead he does a demonstration video and harps through the whole video about global warming while never revealing the results of his ball test.

How am I going to believe his global warming spiel if can't get a simple IGL calculation right?

Good point. Let's all tweet him.

 

[patfanken]

The 2 major points I got from this article is that the fact the NFL never corrected the impression that the Patriots balls were 2.lbs BELOW spec, and that immediately contaminated the public's perception of this entire affair. It had by far the greatest impact and caused the greatest damage to Brady, and now ultimately the league. It was part of the reason why the immediate reaction by even science guys like Nye and Tyson erred in their initial reactions when set upon by a rabid media.

The second point was that when the equation is applied correctly and ALL the different elements like timing, location, temp, etc that go into it are applied; the ONLY result that can be possibly determined is that the Pats/Brady/McNally, etc did nothing wrong. The measured out to be right where they were supposed to be. It's incontrovertible. There are no, "yes, but's", or "a pox on both their houses". There is a GUILTY side and an INNOCENT side, and it's scientifically clear which side is which.

BTW- It's nice to know that Neil Tyson was man enough to admit he erred in his initial comments on the topic. I'd be more appreciative if he stepped up now to Blast the NFL for allowing false information to be used to create inaccurate results. He should also add how be feels duped and wants to apologize to Tom BRady and the Patriots for any damage his inaccurate comments has done. Then he'd be a f#cking hero.

 

[Canuck]

I will admit that I am a little confused. If a football is inflated and the PSI is measured, then later the PSI is measured again, the difference between the two is a loss/gain in guage pressure. Now comes the confusion part, if you are doing an experiment on paper, you have to use the absolute pressure to account for atmospheric pressure?

 

[MagicMarker]

Even Troy Vincent admitted as much....they didn't know PSI's drop with temperature. They had their sting and discovered the science didn't support them. So, they lied until they could conjure up some fake science to support their claim. This is fraud! I hope Judge Berman sees all this.

 

[MagicMarker]

I will admit that I am a little confused. If a football is inflated and the PSI is measured, then later the PSI is measured again, the difference between the two is a loss/gain in guage pressure. Now comes the confusion part, if you are doing an experiment on paper, you have to use the absolute pressure to account for atmospheric pressure?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pounds_per_square_inch
Wikipedia
Pounds per square inch absolute (psia) is used to make it clear that the pressure is relative to a vacuum rather than the ambient atmospheric pressure. Since atmospheric pressure at sea level is around 14.7 psi, this will be added to any pressure reading made in air at sea level.

 

[RayClay]

Tyson retracted, but I don't believe Nye ever did. He lost my respect for that.

Nye's a freaking Seattle fan. They have another video with him mocking the whole situation and yelling "go seahawks" at the end.

I think it's funny now. If I was a comedy actor who wore a lab coat on TV and pretended I was a scientist and idiots asked me questions about a controversy involving my team in the SB, I'd do the same thing.

 

[raduray]

I will admit that I am a little confused. If a football is inflated and the PSI is measured, then later the PSI is measured again, the difference between the two is a loss/gain in guage pressure. Now comes the confusion part, if you are doing an experiment on paper, you have to use the absolute pressure to account for atmospheric pressure?

http://www.patsfans.com/new-england...gate-science-simplified.1121137/#post-4246282

 

[XLIX]

I will admit that I am a little confused. If a football is inflated and the PSI is measured, then later the PSI is measured again, the difference between the two is a loss/gain in guage pressure. Now comes the confusion part, if you are doing an experiment on paper, you have to use the absolute pressure to account for atmospheric pressure?

When a gauge says a ball has 12.5 PSI, what that means is the ball has 12.5 PSI above the surrounding atmospheric pressure, which is 14.7 PSI at sea level (and Foxboro is close enough to sea level that we can safely use 14.7 PSI).

So when doing calculations, you have to use the ball's starting PSI as 27.2.

 

[RayClay]

Watch til the end. Anybody who took Nye even the least bit seriously...you've been trolled!!

 

[bruce_w]

IMHO it wasn't so much that the science community dropped the ball as they were ignored by reporters who couldn't understand the science. Bill Nye is a media personality, not a scientist. Tyson is more of a media person also, although he at least is a real astronomer at least (and he apologized for his error to his credit).

Bill Nye is a scientist. Aaa and a douchebag of the highest order.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Nye is an engineer not s scientist. I'm an engineer. Palm Beach is a PhD scientist. There's a difference.

 

[upstater1]

The irony about this quote: “They’re afraid to touch the science really,” Schmaltz said. “I could not get the journalist to actually write down the equation himself.”

I wrote to Schmaltz after the Wells Report came out, and he backed Exponent's conclusions. He said that it was a sound statistical analysis (he didn't get into the gauge problem). The thing about such statistical analysis is that it's even harder to reproduce than the deflated ball experiment itself, since you have to spend a lot of time running regressions. Schmaltz never did--he just took Exponent's stats for granted. These were blown out of the water later by plenty of other people.

 

[PATS16N0]

Mazz once said, 'in order for a football to deflate 2 psi the temperature would have to be -11 deg F'. This was a direct result of someone forgetting use absolute pressure. People called in to correct him but he blew them off. Fricken idiot.

But Mazz is a great scientist.