{"id":19376,"date":"2016-05-25T18:17:37","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T10:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-fires-back-at-nathan-myhrvold-in-spat-over-asteroid-missions-data\/"},"modified":"2016-05-25T18:17:37","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T10:17:37","slug":"nasa-fires-back-at-nathan-myhrvold-in-spat-over-asteroid-missions-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-fires-back-at-nathan-myhrvold-in-spat-over-asteroid-missions-data\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA fires back at Nathan Myhrvold in spat over asteroid mission\u2019s data"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"WISE
An artist\u2019s conception shows NASA\u2019s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, making observations. WISE observations of near-Earth objects were analyzed for the NEOWISE mission. (Credit: NASA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BELLEVUE, Wash.<\/strong> \u2013 NASA issued a statement today disputing Seattle tech icon Nathan Myhrvold\u2019s critique of asteroid data analysis from the space agency\u2019s NEOWISE mission.<\/p>\n

The statement follows up on reports published this week by GeekWire and other media outlets. In those reports, Myhrvold said NEOWISE\u2019s analysis relied on flawed statistical calculations, which resulted in incorrect or highly uncertain measurements for thousands of asteroids.<\/p>\n

When GeekWire showed Myhrvold\u2019s critique to scientists associated with NEOWISE and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, they identified what they said were serious errors \u2013 including misinterpretations of NEOWISE\u2019s methods and an apparent confusion between radius and diameter in one key equation. GeekWire\u2019s report on Monday referred to those problems, as well as Myhrvold\u2019s acknowledgment of mistakes.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s NASA statement refers to those errors as \u201cmistakes that an independent peer review process is designed to catch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile critique and re-examination of published results are essential to the scientific process, it is important that any paper undergo peer review by an independent journal before it can be seriously considered,\u201d NASA said. \u201cThis completes a necessary step to ensure science results are independently validated, reproducible and of value to the science community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nathan
Nathan Myhrvold (GeekWire photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The space agency pointed out that the NEOWISE team\u2019s results endured the peer-review process. \u201cNASA is confident that the processes and analyses performed by the NEOWISE team are valid and verified, and stands by its data and scientific findings,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

In a posting to a Yahoo discussion group on near-Earth objects, Australian amateur astronomer David Herald reports three measurements of asteroids derived by stellar occultations that are consistent with NEOWISE\u2019s analysis, but not with Myhrvold\u2019s recalculations. Those findings suggest that NEOWISE\u2019s methods are more accurate than Myhrvold gives them credit for.<\/p>\n

Myhrvold is known not only as a self-described gadfly who has previously raised questions about the statistical analysis of dinosaur growth rates, but also as Microsoft\u2019s former chief technology officer, the author of \u201cModernist Cuisine,\u201d and the founder and CEO of Bellevue-based Intellectual Ventures. His net worth is estimated at $650 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I seem to have made the big time, or anyway enough that NASA has issued a press release about me  :-).  Now if only it was positive,\u201d he told GeekWire today in an email.<\/p>\n

Myhrvold said he welcomed peer review of his findings, which have been submitted to the journal Icarus for publication.<\/p>\n

\u201cExperts will review whether my new material and analysis is worth publishing,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, the issues with data problems in NEOWISE is not my<\/em> peer review. It is about problems with their work, which happened to slip past peer review. Those issues are properly addressed by others \u2026 and have nothing to do with my peer review.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both NASA and Myhrvold noted that the public and the scientific community could check the NEOWISE data for themselves. The NEOWISE team has provided a guide to its latest data release, as well as data products and academic references associated with the mission. Myhrvold, meanwhile, posted \u201cA Simple Guide to NEOWISE Data Problems\u201d to Medium.com today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An artist\u2019s conception shows NASA\u2019s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, making observations. WISE observations of near-Earth objects were analyzed for the NEOWISE mission. (Credit: NASA) BELLEVUE, Wash. \u2013 NASA issued a statement today disputing Seattle tech icon Nathan Myhrvold\u2019s critique of asteroid data analysis from the space agency\u2019s NEOWISE mission. The statement follows up on reports […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1519,5556,5218,1325],"class_list":["post-19376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asteroids","tag-myhrvold","tag-nathan-myhrvold","tag-neowise"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}