The decline of science

[pendell]

So a couple of months ago someone asked the question "Why don't ordinary people trust science any more?"

This article (http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2011/12/05/the_financially_driven_erosion_of_scientific_integ rity_99401.html), carefully shorn of the politically sensitive bits, gives the best response I've seen so far.



According to a report in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, nearly two-thirds of the experimental results published in peer-reviewed journals could not be reproduced in Bayer's labs. The latest special issue of Science is devoted to the growing problem of irreproducibility. The Wall Street Journal reports that Amgen, Pfizer, and others have abandoned research programs after spending hundreds of millions pursuing academic research that could never be replicated.

...

Exactly what is going on here? To find out, we must analyze the motivations and behaviors that lead scientific investigators first to job security and academic freedom and, sometimes, onward to fame and fortune.

Tenured faculty at our research universities sit at the pinnacle of the scientific community, acting as Principal Investigators (PIs) on government-supported research projects. To become a PI, one must serve an undetermined number of years as an indentured apprentice, first as a graduate student and then as a post-doc. Pleasing one's PI is the key to graduation, publication, and advancement.

The lion's share of actual laboratory work is done by these apprentices. PIs preside over the process. They formulate theories, as they try to become the first to plant a flag in virgin research territory. Well-funded PIs assign apprentices to conduct experiments that will confirm their theories, sometimes assigning multiple teams to work on the same project in parallel. They write grant applications seeking to expand their domain along with the number of apprentices they can support. And they put their names on all the papers that come out of their fiefdoms, acting as gatekeepers in the process.

Fame goes to those that publish first, not necessarily those that do the best, most thorough, or most reproducible science. Grants go to those with the most fame. The work of PIs who publish novel work in prestigious journals may be peer-reviewed, but it is rarely replicated by their fellow PIs.

For some PIs, life gets even better. Thanks to the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, PIs can patent the results of their work even if it was supported with tax dollars. The benefit to society is that both venture capital and industry investments can be attracted to translate breakthroughs into the market that might otherwise languish in academia if they were unprotectable.

The downside is that some peripatetic PIs make a specialty of dashing about planting broad and vague patent land mines. These PIs may never reduce a single idea to practice, but the mines they plant sit and wait to extract tribute from future entrepreneurs who do. Either way, personal fortunes can be made.


...

While outright data fabrication does occur, it is rare. The bigger threat to scientific integrity is the temptation to cherry pick results as they are produced by a Darwinian horde of apprentices clamoring for admission into the guild. Failed experiments never get reported, the definition of failure sometimes including results that call a PI's pet theories into question. Confirmation bias pervades the process much more so than in industry since the consequences of spending billions drilling a dry hole are severe.

But what are the consequences for publishing a paper with irreproducible results? What becomes of tenured PIs whose junk science leads us down blind alleys, polluting the literature while precipitating hundreds of millions of dollars in someone else's losses?

They write another grant application.


I think I mentioned before I spent a 14 year career writing computer simulations for one government shop or another, and most of what I used was for advocacy rather than objectivity -- the people in charge already knew what answer they wanted and would pay for. One of many reasons why I'm in the private sector now.

Has anyone else witnessed these problems? If so, how do we fix it? Most scientific investigations need money, and there's always a temptation to corruption when money's involved. Yet somehow we were able to deliver results for hundreds of years despite this problem.

Ol' Clockwork comics (http://www.clockwork-comics.com/2011/05/05/more_genuine_pursuits/), though only a comic strip, suggests that the Ottoman Empire had the same problem, and the death of Ottoman science was due not so much to the destruction wrought by the Mongols and other outside forces as it did to an internal cause -- to the development of a scientific orthodoxy which rewarded results that favored what orthodoxy wanted, rather than what was actually true. Because of this, a civilization which led the world for hundreds of years hasn't produced much leading scholarship for the last two hundred.

Is this a problem we have? At the very least, laymen perceive this as a problem even if it doesn't exist. And laymen who have had to shell out millions of dollars for results that can't be reproduced are often very touchy about that sort of thing. But what with one thing or another, science is suffering a credibility problem now. How can that be fixed?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Choco]

I dunno, I think it is very possible that things have always been this way. The big difference nowadays is that the internet allows us average joes to hear about it more often and realize how corrupt the system is.

For me personally though, the 2 tipping points were when I realized people were manipulating "science" for political reasons, and the fact that every week it seems that a study comes out that contradicts what a previous study proved. The main example I remember off the top of my head is eggs. Whether eggs are good or bad for you depends on which week you look up the information and what study you look at.

Actually, that second part is probably the biggest problem. How can I trust "science" if you can cherry pick from a sea of contradicting studies to prove whatever you want to be true?

[Raddish]

If you believed every single scientific, um, thing that you read in magazines or on website then you would end up thinking everything could kill you.

Maybe it's just my point of view but a lot of the things that get reported and considered 'important' by news website or things like that tend to be focused on proving something is bad for you, or something is good for you despite it usually being considered really bad.

[Tyndmyr]

If you believed every single scientific, um, thing that you read in magazines or on website then you would end up thinking everything could kill you.

Maybe it's just my point of view but a lot of the things that get reported and considered 'important' by news website or things like that tend to be focused on proving something is bad for you, or something is good for you despite it usually being considered really bad.

Right. This isn't a science problem, this is a reporting problem. They thrive on conflict, drama, and fear. Any actual development isn't reported at all accurately in general. Instead, it's gone through a few levels of summary that mostly strip it of actual meaning, and the most provocative viewpoint on it possible is taken. If none is available...it won't likely get reported on.


Actually, that second part is probably the biggest problem. How can I trust "science" if you can cherry pick from a sea of contradicting studies to prove whatever you want to be true?

It isn't science just because you call it a study. It needs to be replicable. So, you want the published, peer reviewed, replicated studies. In fields where these are in good supply, metastudies exist, and are quite useful for this purpose.

[Yora]

Scientists are like any other businessmen. They will tell you everything if they believe they can get away with it. However, it seems that you can get away with increasingly less. I don't think that we have a higher amount of fraud and sloppy work, but rather a higher amount of these cases being exposed, which would be a positive development.

[Synovia]

Maybe it's just my point of view but a lot of the things that get reported and considered 'important' by news website or things like that tend to be focused on proving something is bad for you, or something is good for you despite it usually being considered really bad.

The problem is that your average person doesn't read well enough, or just plain isn't intelligent enough (or entertained enough) to read that actual results/papers, so they have to read someone else's interpretation of them. If that someone else is a newspaper, you're going to get the most newsworthy spin possible, even if the original results/paper don't indicate that at all.


Well-funded PIs assign apprentices to conduct experiments that will confirm their theories, sometimes assigning multiple teams to work on the same project in parallel.

Thats not science. You create experiments to DISPROVE your hypothesis.

Articles like this make me very weary, because the terminology in the article cleary shows that the writer doesn't understand the scientific method at all.



The work of PIs who publish novel work in prestigious journals may be peer-reviewed, but it is rarely replicated by their fellow PIs.


What does the author think "Peer Reviewed" means? It means having the results reproduced by others. Things don't go in real scientific journals unless they can be reproduced.

The real problem is that there are plenty of journals/etc out there owned by big pharma/big oil/the green people/etc, who aren't scientific journals, but merely exist to cloud the water.

Thats not a problem of science though, thats a problem with regulation, and people not being willing to put any effort in to determining what is actually correct before forming an opinion.

[Yora]

Thats not science. You create experiments to DISPROVE your hypothesis.
Of course it's science! There is no proof of a theory in science, there is only lack of disproof. If the science community accepts a theory depends, in theory and under ideal circumstances, on whether or not people agree that enough attempts to disprove it have been made without success. At some point, the majority simply says "this theory is so solid and could not be disproved despite all these attempts, that we have to assume the theory is true and an experiment done under these specified parameters will always turn out the same way" and they decide to use this theory in their own work, until someone comes up with something more convincing.

[Tyndmyr]

Of course it's science! There is no proof of a theory in science, there is only lack of disproof. If the science community accepts a theory depends, in theory and under ideal circumstances, on whether or not people agree that enough attempts to disprove it have been made without success. At some point, the majority simply says "this theory is so solid and could not be disproved despite all these attempts, that we have to assume the theory is true and an experiment done under these specified parameters will always turn out the same way" and they decide to use this theory in their own work, until someone comes up with something more convincing.

Well, you can disprove other alternative theories. In practice, this is, while not proof, sort of similar. Having the best remaining model of something equals a win.

[Eldan]

What does the author think "Peer Reviewed" means? It means having the results reproduced by others. Things don't go in real scientific journals unless they can be reproduced.

Not necessarily. Often it means "X other scientists working in the same field have read the article, and thought it didn't contain any major mistakes". They don't necessarily have to reproduce the results to get them published. They have to read them and think that the results sound plausible and the methods sound.

[pendell]

Not necessarily. Often it means "X other scientists working in the same field have read the article, and thought it didn't contain any major mistakes". They don't necessarily have to reproduce the results to get them published. They have to read them and think that the results sound plausible and the methods sound.

Here's the Science Magazine (http://www.sciencemag.org/site/special/data-rep/index.xhtml) the author was referencing. I'm not reading in detail, but the gist I'm taking away is that "peer review" doesn't mean what it used to mean, as people are finding it harder and harder to reproduce the results being published. There's also an editorial on "scientific fraud" in the sidebar.

ETA: Here's an interesting question also in the sidebar.



Ideally, scientists would fully disclose their own raw data and methods and also spend time replicating others' work. What would best ensure this good behavior?


The fact that the question needs to be asked implies that this isn't happening. And why not? I surmise that scientists are paid for writing their own papers, not for confirming someone else's work. So naturally reproducing other people's results takes a distinct lower priority to "publish or perish". Likewise, if your results are in any way iffy or might not pass the smell test, there is the temptation to be less than forthcoming about methodology, which adds even more pressure for already overworked people to simply nod at the paper rather than try to verify the results by reproducing them.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[arguskos]

Thats not science. You create experiments to DISPROVE your hypothesis.

Articles like this make me very weary, because the terminology in the article cleary shows that the writer doesn't understand the scientific method at all.
Having read this article, I think this was the entire point. It sounded suspiciously like "hey guys, that process? NOT REAL SCIENCE. IS PROBLEM. US FIX TIME NOW."


What does the author think "Peer Reviewed" means? It means having the results reproduced by others. Things don't go in real scientific journals unless they can be reproduced.

The real problem is that there are plenty of journals/etc out there owned by big pharma/big oil/the green people/etc, who aren't scientific journals, but merely exist to cloud the water.

Thats not a problem of science though, thats a problem with regulation, and people not being willing to put any effort in to determining what is actually correct before forming an opinion.
And that's the point I got from the article, that Science(tm) is being drowned in regulatory issues and corruption as people try to buy the answers they want. The result is that the majority of studies and whatnot that most folks hear about are not real Science(tm), and that this is a problem. I did *not* get the impression the author was saying "oh teh noes, siences iz doomd", but instead "oh teh noes, siences iz obscured", and that's something I can fully agree with. This whole "buy your answer" bull**** needs to stop.

[Yora]

Take for example any results from experiments at CERN. How many other people are there in the world, who have the equipment to reproduce the experiment?
When they had the neutrino anomaly some weeks ago, there was pretty much only one other place in the world that could attempt to recreate the experiment.

[Tengu_temp]

I'm pretty sure that neither unethical scientists who pursue their agendas instead of trying to make new discoveries, nor ignorant masses who don't trust science because they don't understand its processes are not exactly new things. Both are problems that need to be fixed, but that doesn't mean we're not progressing right now - if anything, a lot of scientific fields are going forward faster than they did 30 years ago.

[Lord Seth]

What does the author think "Peer Reviewed" means? It means having the results reproduced by others. Things don't go in real scientific journals unless they can be reproduced.I thought peer reviewed meant that several other scientists (the "peers") would look over the paper and try to correct any problems in it before publication (the "review"), and to simply reject publishing it at all if there were too many problems in it? The point of it was to prevent someone from trying to print some really goofy and nonsensical paper and spreading misinformation. It's why some people, rather than try to get published in a journal, just write a book for the mass market in order to get their claims out.

[Eldan]

Take for example any results from experiments at CERN. How many other people are there in the world, who have the equipment to reproduce the experiment?
When they had the neutrino anomaly some weeks ago, there was pretty much only one other place in the world that could attempt to recreate the experiment.

Or the simple issue of time. Would you care to, say, collect 10'000 specimen for a study in ecology or genetics? Then analyze them all? Mostly unpaid, of course, since you aren't really getting paid for peer reviewing.

[shadow_archmagi]

The problem is that your average person doesn't read well enough, or just plain isn't intelligent enough (or entertained enough) to read that actual results/papers, so they have to read someone else's interpretation of them.

To be fair, it isn't really viable to keep up to date on "science" as a leisure activity; I can't imagine trying to wade through a few thousand pages of dry, citation encrusted documents every night trying to keep abreast of everything from the therapeutic value of global warming to the revolutionary new chemicals found in underwater snails.

Even a genius couldn't read all the papers, and only someone incredibly devoted would want to.

[Telonius]

Not necessarily. Often it means "X other scientists working in the same field have read the article, and thought it didn't contain any major mistakes". They don't necessarily have to reproduce the results to get them published. They have to read them and think that the results sound plausible and the methods sound.

This. I personally work as lower management in a major science journal (won't say which one, but it's not Science), and this is exactly what "peer reviewed" means.

"Gift authorship" is definitely a problem within scientific publications, and the industry is taking some steps to tackle it. At least some of the major journals now require authors to specify how they contributed to the study, and publish that information on the title page of the article. That way, there's some amount of accountability for each portion of the research. If we know that John and Jane Grad Student performed all the tests, and nobody can replicate them, that could mean problems for their continued employment.

It's also standard practice to ask whether or not any of the authors have a conflict of interests regarding the work - things like owning stock in the company, having a patent pending, that sort of thing. All of the reputable journals have footnotes about this (either the authors disclose a CoI, or that the authors affirm none exists). Most of them require this from the peer reviewers as well. There is only so much a single journal can do - performing background checks on all manuscripts that come in is beyond the ability of even an organization so big as AAAS - but at least everybody is on record as having claimed no CoI. Having a conflict doesn't prevent publication; somebody from the drug companies might actually have discovered a real drug. But the Conflict note is there as an FYI for readers, so they can take that into account.

There are other ways that we check to verify that papers are for real, but we like to keep those under our hats (so the shady "scientists" don't know what we're looking for). :smallcool:

Anyway, the biggest problem is that it often takes a long time for people to catch on that something is amiss. Conducting research is very, very expensive. Universities dependent on NIH grants, or private firms who want to maximize their profits, are not going to redo an already-published study unless there is a really excellent reason to do so.

Until somebody does a study directly building on the results of the first study, and unless that second study gets a really, really different result than the first study, a faulty paper won't be caught. (That's how most instances of data fabrication are found). And bad data really is virus-like. If a paper published ten years ago is suddenly discovered to be false, then every other paper that cited it - and every paper that cited those papers - is potentially contaminated with bad data.


I'm pretty sure that neither unethical scientists who pursue their agendas instead of trying to make new discoveries, nor ignorant masses who don't trust science because they don't understand its processes are not exactly new things. Both are problems that need to be fixed, but that doesn't mean we're not progressing right now - if anything, a lot of scientific fields are going forward faster than they did 30 years ago.

This is actually part of the problem. I started working at my current job back in 2003. We're getting more than twice the number of papers submitted to us now than we did back then. The sheer amount of information being produced is just astonishing. One of our office jokes is that we're eventually going to run out of scientists, but there's an increase every year. (If I didn't read the newspaper and just went by what I see in my job, I would never know there was a recession on). There have always been frauds and fakes in science, there's just so many more people doing research now that the number is going to increase.

[Brother Oni]

I'm going to answer this from an industrial pharma point of view - I don't have much academia research experience and some of the regulatory aspects may not apply to other fields of science.

I can say from experience that the broad and vague patent landmines do exist, but if the patent holders do nothing but sit on them (or make them too vague), they can be challenged in the courts, opening up the way for other people to use them.

As for cherry picking ideal results and ignoring the bad ones, that's generally not an option in pharma, at least not where the big official regulatory bodies are involved (FDA, MHRA, EMEA, etc).
You can do further testing to prove it was a statistical anomaly or investigate whether there was a reason for the odd result, which can lead to justification for you to downplay or ignore the bad results, but you can't pretend they never happened (and since most inspectors receive fraud detection training, they know what to look for).

The article is also very US-centric - what the writer observes is not universal over the world for a variety of reasons. It also suggests that all the best science only happens via PIs at research universities working on government supported projects, something that is blatantly not true.

[Tyndmyr]

To be fair, it isn't really viable to keep up to date on "science" as a leisure activity; I can't imagine trying to wade through a few thousand pages of dry, citation encrusted documents every night trying to keep abreast of everything from the therapeutic value of global warming to the revolutionary new chemicals found in underwater snails.

Even a genius couldn't read all the papers, and only someone incredibly devoted would want to.

Look, if something makes it to news I read(and in my case, it's New Scientist, so it's already a wee bit better than random stuff on the news), that sounds important to me, I just go to the source. It's not hard, and it really doesn't take long, and it often has a LOT more details.

Doing that is pretty easy, and the lack of reporters even doing this is pretty shameful.

[Karoht]

Top Reasons Why Science is Ignored, in no particular order.
(Totally just my observation, but here is is)
1-The Internet. Everyone has an opinion, no one is held accountable to it. As such they can say pretty much anything they like. Some people will fall for pretty much anyone says, and many people are presenting false or conflicting "scientific" viewpoints.

2-Conflicting viewpoints. Global warming is a major example of this. Yes, there is a consensus of climate scientists who claim that global warming is indeed a thing. However, if you ask a geologist, or anyone who studies climate events over the course of the entire cycle of the planet, these scientists remain unconvinced. Vulcanologists will also tell you that volcanic activity in the pacific has been on the rise. Guess what puts up more CO2 than humans? Volcanoes.
Now, I'm not saying that any of these viewpoints are correct, but they all have weight. And the fact that it appears to the general public that these scientists don't talk to one another doesn't help. It creates the appearance that the climate scientists are sitting there with their fingers in their ears while the vulcanologists and geologists try to be heard.

3-Doom and Gloom
I'm going to keep using Global Warming as an example here, mostly because it is easy to talk about.
In most cases, when someone talks about climate change, it's all doom and gloom forecasting. Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, etc. The conversation tends to be rather negative. Yes, this is a harsh truth, but the common person tends to not take bad news well.

4-Lack of Solutions to Real Problems
The problems are well known, the impact/s if we don't solve the problem are well known, but solutions are very rarely discussed, or are discussed ambiguously. It's easy to say "we need to cut emissions" but very few people discuss how to go about it. Also, the word 'cut' is used, and to most that means that people need to 'cut' some luxuries. Sustainability is only now circulating as somewhat of a buzzword, but very few people understand what that means, the methods or technology that goes into it, or the impact to the common person's lives that sustainability might (or might not) bring. Add that to the doom and gloom stuff and people start imagining a return to horse drawn carriages.

5-Ignorance of Focus
It's funny how in almost any discussion of Climate Change, automobiles are discussed more than industrial waste, large scale electrical generators (IE-Diesel/Coal) agriculture, or any other major greenhouse gas emitters. Yet, automobile emissions are actually a rather small drop in the bucket compaired to any of the others. It's a doom and gloom situation, highly critical that we do something about it, but go after the area where the least amount of change can/will occur. Good job science!
Actually, we can blame people other than scientists for that, but you get how people would react when 'science' preaches the loudest about our cars rather than about everything else.

6-Economic incentive/influence
There's lots of money for carbon capture, there suddenly isn't much money for green tech power systems which would make massive cuts into how much CO2 we put in the air. On the flip side, taxes on CO2 useage (and the ever feared birth of the CO2 economy) somehow has massive support.
Yes, neither of these things have anything to do with science.
To the common person, these economic impacts get attatched to the words of scientists, and thus becomes blurred together.
Notice how often people assert that we could cure cancer, but the economic incentive of keeping people sick so the medical sector can profit? Same idea. It's suggesting that economics are what prevent advancements. Same with Oil VS Electric Car, and probably many other such issues.

7-Public Perception and Blinders
Methane is actually a more problematic greenhouse gas. No one ever really talks about it.
Well, it turns out that scientists did comment on this, quite a bit really, and even came up with some solutions. There was an article in Scientific American about it. Why am I mentioning this? I have a subscription to Scientific American and even I didn't know about this. Someone on this website had to point it out to me, and I had to dig through my back issues to read it.
Relevance? A lot of good science is done. A lot of good science is published, talked about, real solutions presented, remarkable advancements. Unfortunately, their stories tend to get blurred or buried. We hear about the same drivel (we're nearing extinction, we have to do 'something' and soon, we should all stop driving cars, carbon tax, carbon capture) over and over again (seriously, I've heard the same line with the same proposed solutions for what feels like a decade, it might even be longer than that), and after all this time, people are going to eventually just get fed up and start tuning it out.

8-The Public is Dumb
Yes, this sounds offensive. Don't worry, it's no one's fault.
They don't teach this stuff in schools.
People who like science are branded nerds and antagonized in school.
People who study the environment, realize it's importance and want to protect it, are typically branded as hippies.
This is before we bring in problems of the media skewing the issues big time, along with providing distractions left and right. Scandals get more press than the looming danger of something as ambiguous as climate change. Then we add on all the internet trolls, the conflicting arguements and opinions even among scientists. Science fiction then gets added in and we get people afraid of silly things like the 2012 predictions, AI that 'goes crazy' and tries to kill us all, flying cars and jet packs set bizarre benchmarks that science still has yet to reach.
Naturally, the public gets fed up and just stops listening.

10-Hyper-Logic
When people think of a world run by scientists, they think of cold and clinical environments. Houses all looking the same. Everyone wearing the same clothing, eating the same flavorless meal paste, etc. I'd get into where this fear comes from, but that leads into a discussion of politics and religion so we'll steer clear for now. How scientists get branded this way is what I call hyper-logic.
If A is true, than in an extrapolated case, B must be true because A is true.
IE-Scientists are all about efficiency.
If it is more efficient to make one kind of car, than if scientists had their way we would all drive the same kind of car.
In all seriousness, this couldn't be further from the truth. Scientists want tools, lots of tools, to solve a problem. It's why so many tools exist, is because scientists eventually learned that as much as you have a hammer in you're hand, you can't see every single problem as a nail.
Going back to the cars example, cars fill all kinds of needs. Recreation, artistic, conveyance of people, conveyance of loads of product. In other words, not every car can be used (or used well) to solve every kind of situation. You aren't going to move your friend's living room set with a Honda Civic. You aren't going to win the F1 in a Van.
Science is used a lot in the F1. Not every car is the same. Cars are tuned to drivers and their particular driving quirks, they are also tuned for the track and the conditions of the day. Science makes all that flexibility, all that choice, possible. Scientists would never take that choice away, because the problems would then be solved poorly, scientists seek to solve the problem, and solve it better and better.
They say that a scientist run world would never have invented the Bugatti Veyron. I strongly disagree, and say that because science is so prevailant, that the Bugatti Veyron even becomes possible, let alone becomes an actual production car rather than a drawing on paper.


========
I am a firm believer that science can save this world. But we have to fight a public that thinks science has collectively brought more harm than good.
I'm looking at you anti-vaxers. But if you want to look at what we as a society can do VS what we as a society think we should do, it is a different way to look at the world and the future.
www.earthship.net
www.omegagarden.com
Two existing sets of technology that prove we can be 100% sustainable, right now, if we honestly tried to make it happen.
But to make it happen, yes, we do have to trust to cold hard science and cold hard facts and cold hard reality. Because the cold hard reality is that we are honestly doing many things today completely backwards, and that much of our world and it's systems are fast becoming obsolete.
Ever hear of Technological Unemployment? Look it up. Consider the impact. Trust me.


*Disclaimers*
I apologize if any of this post stray's too far into political discussion, this is not my intent and I have made an effort to avoid it. If any portion of this post must be removed for forum rules sake, I'd rather remove portions of it rather than the whole post.
Also, I don't support the Climate Change Bogeyman (especially for economic reasons thus far), but I don't support those who ignore it either.
Lastly, I'm not a scientist, but I do try to approach problems objectively and with an open mind. I try to read as much fact as I can into an issue before I weigh in on it. That said, some of my above post is generalization, please don't read too heavily into it.

[Delwugor]

Anyone who remembers the Cold Fusion fiasco please raise their hand. Nothing there that hasn't happened plenty of times in the past and will happen in the future.

I think the trustworthy problems lay outside of the scientific communities and more in what others do with published results.
News and media of course are the easily pointed to culprits. Sensationalism has always sold in mass media and when it occurs to scientific information the expectations become overblown.
The government wants and/or needs standards, so base those off of the expert's opinions. These standards are only as good as the experts opinions of the information they have at that time. Though this is logical from a strict government view there are three glaring holes: latest information at the time gets outdated, experts opinions and/or analysis does not necessarily mean correct and of course who are the experts.
Finally with today's vast repositories of data and information normal people can't keep up with the scientific community even with the benefits of internet communications. Also very few people (even very smart people) can truly grasp the technicalities in scientific research and reports, so we rely on their analysis of data to give us results which can be used. This complements the governments use of experts to give those results leading again to standards.

In general the problem to me is that Expert Analysis has come to mean Correct. So when Experts are shown to be wrong people have problems because we relied on them to be right.

IMO the solution is to stop thinking Experts are 100% correct 100% of the time because that impossible criteria for anyone to meet.

[Tyndmyr]

Vulcanologists will also tell you that volcanic activity in the pacific has been on the rise. Guess what puts up more CO2 than humans? Volcanoes.

That is not actually correct (http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/2011EO240001.pdf), and rather negates your point about controversy handily. Or rather, it indicates a false controversy as an alternative source.


Now, I'm not saying that any of these viewpoints are correct, but they all have weight. And the fact that it appears to the general public that these scientists don't talk to one another doesn't help. It creates the appearance that the climate scientists are sitting there with their fingers in their ears while the vulcanologists and geologists try to be heard.

Not at all. It indicates that a great many people are persistently misinforming people on what vulcanologists report. They do so with sufficient frequency that assuming it to be intentional is reasonable.


3-Doom and Gloom
I'm going to keep using Global Warming as an example here, mostly because it is easy to talk about.
In most cases, when someone talks about climate change, it's all doom and gloom forecasting. Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, etc. The conversation tends to be rather negative. Yes, this is a harsh truth, but the common person tends to not take bad news well.

This is sketchy. News media outlets make a great deal of money selling bad news, and even extremely questionable outlets like tabloids compete with each other to invent ever more implausible disasters.

I do not feel like science is overly negative at all in comparison.


4-Lack of Solutions to Real Problems
The problems are well known, the impact/s if we don't solve the problem are well known, but solutions are very rarely discussed, or are discussed ambiguously. It's easy to say "we need to cut emissions" but very few people discuss how to go about it. Also, the word 'cut' is used, and to most that means that people need to 'cut' some luxuries. Sustainability is only now circulating as somewhat of a buzzword, but very few people understand what that means, the methods or technology that goes into it, or the impact to the common person's lives that sustainability might (or might not) bring. Add that to the doom and gloom stuff and people start imagining a return to horse drawn carriages.

Scientific studies are generally tight in scope. This is highly desirable. Studies have happened on all those things you mentioned, but they are separate studies, and should be evaluated as such.

The alternative would basically be someone just telling you how to live. That's a very hard thing to peer review.


5-Ignorance of Focus
It's funny how in almost any discussion of Climate Change, automobiles are discussed more than industrial waste, large scale electrical generators (IE-Diesel/Coal) agriculture, or any other major greenhouse gas emitters. Yet, automobile emissions are actually a rather small drop in the bucket compaired to any of the others. It's a doom and gloom situation, highly critical that we do something about it, but go after the area where the least amount of change can/will occur. Good job science!
Actually, we can blame people other than scientists for that, but you get how people would react when 'science' preaches the loudest about our cars rather than about everything else.

According to the EPA (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/fq/emissions.html#q3), a third of emissions come from transportation. That is rather more than a "drop in the bucket". They also do not omit the other major polluters, and there has been rather notable discussion of other major players, such as alternative energy sources for power.

I don't think you can reasonable blame any of this on scientists.


6-Economic incentive/influence
There's lots of money for carbon capture, there suddenly isn't much money for green tech power systems which would make massive cuts into how much CO2 we put in the air. On the flip side, taxes on CO2 useage (and the ever feared birth of the CO2 economy) somehow has massive support.
Yes, neither of these things have anything to do with science.
To the common person, these economic impacts get attatched to the words of scientists, and thus becomes blurred together.
Notice how often people assert that we could cure cancer, but the economic incentive of keeping people sick so the medical sector can profit? Same idea. It's suggesting that economics are what prevent advancements. Same with Oil VS Electric Car, and probably many other such issues.

Well, you're certainly stuck on this particular example, but I would like to point out that your claims are unsourced and unspecific. A CO2 tax/economy has massive support? With who? Who fears this?

And the idea that scientists are "keeping people sick" for profit is a bit ludicrous. If it were as simple as inventing a pill that cured cancer(it's really not), then someone would have done so, and greatly enjoyed the fame and fortune that would have followed for him. The incentives greatly reward scientists who make huge breakthroughs.


7-Public Perception and Blinders
Methane is actually a more problematic greenhouse gas. No one ever really talks about it.
Well, it turns out that scientists did comment on this, quite a bit really, and even came up with some solutions. There was an article in Scientific American about it. Why am I mentioning this? I have a subscription to Scientific American and even I didn't know about this. Someone on this website had to point it out to me, and I had to dig through my back issues to read it.
Relevance? A lot of good science is done. A lot of good science is published, talked about, real solutions presented, remarkable advancements. Unfortunately, their stories tend to get blurred or buried. We hear about the same drivel (we're nearing extinction, we have to do 'something' and soon, we should all stop driving cars, carbon tax, carbon capture) over and over again (seriously, I've heard the same line with the same proposed solutions for what feels like a decade, it might even be longer than that), and after all this time, people are going to eventually just get fed up and start tuning it out.

I fear you might be getting a bit off the topic and caught up in the example. You are complaining about people "spouting drivel" while ignoring the sources, and you have not bothered to cite sources yourself, and have indeed made clearly false claims.

This is, in addition to being fairly ironic, pretty indicative of the core problem.

Note that while Methane is about twenty times more heat-trapping than Co2*, reports (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/downloads11/US-GHG-Inventory-2011-Complete_Report.pdf) DO include this factor, and while the US yearly emissions are currently at about 5,500 million metric tons of CO2, Methane is only the equivalent(post adjustment) of about 686 tons.

Therefore, Methane is clearly not more problematic overall than carbon in terms of emissions.

*Source: EPA again.


8-The Public is Dumb
Yes, this sounds offensive. Don't worry, it's no one's fault.

Er, causality would indicate that it is, indeed someone's fault.


They don't teach this stuff in schools.

Checking sources and citing references is indeed commonly taught in many schools.




For starting off by saying that nobody is at fault, it sounds remarkably like you're calling certain groups out as being at fault.

[quote]10-Hyper-Logic
When people think of a world run by scientists, they think of cold and clinical environments. Houses all looking the same. Everyone wearing the same clothing, eating the same flavorless meal paste, etc. I'd get into where this fear comes from, but that leads into a discussion of politics and religion so we'll steer clear for now. How scientists get branded this way is what I call hyper-logic.
If A is true, than in an extrapolated case, B must be true because A is true.
IE-Scientists are all about efficiency.
If it is more efficient to make one kind of car, than if scientists had their way we would all drive the same kind of car.
In all seriousness, this couldn't be further from the truth. Scientists want tools, lots of tools, to solve a problem. It's why so many tools exist, is because scientists eventually learned that as much as you have a hammer in you're hand, you can't see every single problem as a nail.
Going back to the cars example, cars fill all kinds of needs. Recreation, artistic, conveyance of people, conveyance of loads of product. In other words, not every car can be used (or used well) to solve every kind of situation. You aren't going to move your friend's living room set with a Honda Civic. You aren't going to win the F1 in a Van.
Science is used a lot in the F1. Not every car is the same. Cars are tuned to drivers and their particular driving quirks, they are also tuned for the track and the conditions of the day. Science makes all that flexibility, all that choice, possible. Scientists would never take that choice away, because the problems would then be solved poorly, scientists seek to solve the problem, and solve it better and better.
They say that a scientist run world would never have invented the Bugatti Veyron. I strongly disagree, and say that because science is so prevailant, that the Bugatti Veyron even becomes possible, let alone becomes an actual production car rather than a drawing on paper.

This is, if anything, a problem with perception, not a problem with science itself. Anyone who is fairly conversant about cars tends to admire the engineering that goes into high end vehicles.


========
I am a firm believer that science can save this world. But we have to fight a public that thinks science has collectively brought more harm than good.
I'm looking at you anti-vaxers. But if you want to look at what we as a society can do VS what we as a society think we should do, it is a different way to look at the world and the future.
www.earthship.net
www.omegagarden.com
Two existing sets of technology that prove we can be 100% sustainable, right now, if we honestly tried to make it happen.

They don't prove that, though. They are useful, interesting topics, but they hardly encompass the scope of human endeavors. I doubt the creators themselves would make that claim, and I suspect you're somewhat oversensationalizing this.


*Disclaimers*
I apologize if any of this post stray's too far into political discussion, this is not my intent and I have made an effort to avoid it. If any portion of this post must be removed for forum rules sake, I'd rather remove portions of it rather than the whole post.
Also, I don't support the Climate Change Bogeyman (especially for economic reasons thus far), but I don't support those who ignore it either.
Lastly, I'm not a scientist, but I do try to approach problems objectively and with an open mind. I try to read as much fact as I can into an issue before I weigh in on it. That said, some of my above post is generalization, please don't read too heavily into it.

I have no problems discussing climate change/emissions/etc from a strictly scientific perspective, but by calling it a bogeyman, etc...I fear you're going toward emotion, politics, etc. In addition, I suspect you're getting a wee bit off the topic of this thread in doing so. If the mods have no problem with it, you could start a thread solely to discuss the science of climate change, but I imagine that getting into impassioned partisanship without justification would result in an eventual lock for flaming or politics, and I'd rather we stayed well clear of that.

[Asta Kask]

This is, if anything, a problem with perception, not a problem with science itself. Anyone who is fairly conversant about cars tends to admire the engineering that goes into high end vehicles.

And anyone who knows scientists know they're not hyper-logical emotionless robots. You could easily make a soap opera about a scientific instititution and the various intrigues that go on there.

[dehro]

how to solve the problem of non verifiable pointless research in easy steps.

1) take 10 scientists with extensive preparation on the subject you want researched
2) give them proper funding and equipment
3) lock them up with it
4) take away their internet
5) take away their porn
6) give them a reasonable amount of time to produce results
7) by the end of that time, take a panel of 9 other scientists in the same field and let them review their results.
8) have those results reviewed again by an independent company to see if either group has been lying through their teeth.
9) if anything useful has been produced or if something unexpectedly discovered/invented has applications in other fields, you have results that will probably give a decent financial return. If no result has been produced or if it has no useful application, have 9 of the 10 scientists shot, and have the surviving scientist lead and motivate the "reviewing comittee" as they have a try at tackling the same issue.
10) hire 9 scientists for the new reviewing panel

general rule: if anyone comes near those scientists trying to tell them what they want them to discover or how they should go about it, shoot them in the face... with prejudice.

[Tyndmyr]

And anyone who knows scientists know they're not hyper-logical emotionless robots. You could easily make a soap opera about a scientific instititution and the various intrigues that go on there.

God, yes. I would seriously watch such a thing.

[Eldan]

how to solve the problem of non verifiable pointless research in easy steps.

1) take 10 scientists with extensive preparation on the subject you want researched
2) give them proper funding and equipment
3) lock them up with it
4) take away their internet
5) take away their porn
6) give them a reasonable amount of time to produce results
7) by the end of that time, take a panel of 9 other scientists in the same field and let them review their results.
8) have those results reviewed again by an independent company to see if either group has been lying through their teeth.
9) if anything useful has been produced or if something unexpectedly discovered/invented has applications in other fields, you have results that will probably give a decent financial return. If no result has been produced or if it has no useful application, have 9 of the 10 scientists shot, and have the surviving scientist lead and motivate the "reviewing comittee" as they have a try at tackling the same issue.
10) hire 9 scientists for the new reviewing panel

general rule: if anyone comes near those scientists trying to tell them what they want them to discover or how they should go about it, shoot them in the face... with prejudice.

Congratulations: You have just increased the cost of research tenfold. Now just tell me who's paying for it, and I'll be rather happy. You have banned any and all research without direct applications, which is rather fundamental for progress. What about science that basically only makes other science easier (e.g. taxonomy, botany, research into new instruments) or opens up new fields in which applications can then be found?
And you have incarcerated scientists under rather cruel conditions, which is not very productive if you want them to be motivated (nevermind that you seem to forget just how important the internet is for research. In my experience, I spent about equal amounts of time, i.e. a quarter of my time each, in the field, in the lab, doing statistics and researching or communicating on the internet. It's not called scientific community fo rnothing.

[Tyndmyr]

how to solve the problem of non verifiable pointless research in easy steps.

1) take 10 scientists with extensive preparation on the subject you want researched
2) give them proper funding and equipment
3) lock them up with it
4) take away their internet
5) take away their porn
6) give them a reasonable amount of time to produce results
7) by the end of that time, take a panel of 9 other scientists in the same field and let them review their results.
8) have those results reviewed again by an independent company to see if either group has been lying through their teeth.
9) if anything useful has been produced or if something unexpectedly discovered/invented has applications in other fields, you have results that will probably give a decent financial return. If no result has been produced or if it has no useful application, have 9 of the 10 scientists shot, and have the surviving scientist lead and motivate the "reviewing comittee" as they have a try at tackling the same issue.
10) hire 9 scientists for the new reviewing panel

general rule: if anyone comes near those scientists trying to tell them what they want them to discover or how they should go about it, shoot them in the face... with prejudice.

I feel like under these rules, "scientist" will be a very unpopular career choice.

[Telonius]

how to solve the problem of non verifiable pointless research in easy steps.

1) take 10 scientists with extensive preparation on the subject you want researched
2) give them proper funding and equipment
3) lock them up with it
4) take away their internet
5) take away their porn
6) give them a reasonable amount of time to produce results


... if there are any survivors, proceed to 7.

[Vacant]

I, personally, think science spirals a little farther down the drain every time Richard Dawkins utters or writes a word, maybe even every phoneme.

[Zen Monkey]

The decline of science and the increasing privatization of science seem to be linked. It's difficult to find sufficient funding for objective science. If you're employed by a drug/oil/environmentalist company, they're paying you to produce a particular result. If you aren't willing to push their agenda, they'll find someone else who will. If you prove the exact opposite of what they want, you'll have a hard time getting that evidence out since your research (and all of the tools used for it and places to store it) is their property. Of course, that's if you don't accidentally use a patented thought process along the way.

A lot of scientific results have to be viewed like news stories. Consider the source, and remember that the people behind it are likely trying to sell some sort of product to their target audience. A lot of news magazines now are running advertisements that look deceptively like journalism. There's a title and a 'doctor' author and pictures that may carry on for several pages of 'research' about how a particular product is what you need. The average person is going to have a tough time discerning a study from a sales pitch.

[Tyndmyr]

I, personally, think science spirals a little farther down the drain every time Richard Dawkins utters or writes a word, maybe even every phoneme.

I feel like this might require some justification. As it stands, this post is just a slam on a very highly recognized evolutionary biologist. Is there something in particular you feel he's done that's damaged science?

[nolispe]

Actually, I think this thread is rapidly spiraling into decay. We've seen a sudden cascade in poorly-informed unsourced claims...
Can we perhaps request that people start new threads for their personal bugbears?
It's getting painful, watching Tymndyr trying to argue with every badly thought out claim...

On topic, I think we should always be careful when someone claims that things are declining. As someone said, everyone always thinks that their age is the time of decay* and we should take it with a pinch of salt - As someone else said right at the start of this thread, we have hugely more research going on now, and things will probably be alright on that front. It's not perfect, certainly, but sciencce isn't declining, quite the opposite in fact.


*Since I was just complaining about people not sourcing things, I'll source this one to Orwell, Twain, and Swift, all of whom make decay a prominent theme of their essays and novels. (Not Twain so much, but most of his essays carry that theme)

[dehro]

I feel like under these rules, "scientist" will be a very unpopular career choice.

one for very brave and talented people, instead of pen-pushers
:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

Congratulations: You have just increased the cost of research tenfold. Now just tell me who's paying for it, and I'll be rather happy. You have banned any and all research without direct applications, which is rather fundamental for progress. What about science that basically only makes other science easier (e.g. taxonomy, botany, research into new instruments) or opens up new fields in which applications can then be found?
And you have incarcerated scientists under rather cruel conditions, which is not very productive if you want them to be motivated (nevermind that you seem to forget just how important the internet is for research. In my experience, I spent about equal amounts of time, i.e. a quarter of my time each, in the field, in the lab, doing statistics and researching or communicating on the internet. It's not called scientific community fo rnothing.

wait..are you actually taking what I said seriously?

if I have read the gossip columns correctly, one of the noble price winners this year..the guy who got it posthumously, got it for having made groundbreaking discoveries, or at least considerable advancements, in the field that affected him directly, on account of having been diagnosed with something lethal... and then finding methods to stave off his demise for long enough for it to be called a result. he ultimately died from it, but way later than his own GP had thought he'd die... apparently, others will benefit from his work and who knows, maybe one day a cure will be found.
if all of this is true, then apparently one's incipient mortality IS a strong motivating factor and breeds productivity.

but yeah..seriously...it was meant as a joke..I thought the "take away their internet" line was kind of where it became obvious that it wasn't meant to be taken seriously... hell... I do ALL of my research on the web... and I'm not even a scientist :smallbiggrin:

[Delwugor]

Top Reasons Why Science is Ignored, in no particular order.
Very nice post Karoht. Though I would probably use String Theory (or String Hypothesis as I call it) instead of Climate change just to avoid the emotional arguments trumping your good points.

[Karoht]

Ignore my poorly sourced claims. And Climate Change.
They were examples, aimed at detailing how perception of science is rather dodgy these days, but somehow that message got bogged down by the poor examples. I screwed up.

While the vulcanology thing was indeed my mistake, others such as the 'keeping people sick' part was more about conspiracy theories which have cropped up over the years, as a direct result of poor perception of science. They were unsourced because that is exactly the point, they are unsourced claims made due to poor perception (although with probably a few other factors as well).

No, I do not refute climate change, I just don't subscribe to the dichotomy of Crisis or Ignorance that some seem to jump into.

Again, points were about public perception of science, my message got bogged down by poor examples.


However, in regards to Methane I want to clarify this point.
You're entirely right Tynd, in terms of raw numbers. However, Methane lasts in our atmosphere for much longer, and we don't have very many options for doing much about that. Where as CO2 we can do plenty about. Like cutting down less trees. Which would have more impact/s than cutting emissions at the tailpipe of a car.
The point of Methane in the discussion of Climate Change, is that most people have no idea what impact Methane has or it's relationship to the cattle industry. It rarely comes up in most public discussions of the topic (IE-The Media). Climate Scientists seem (again, perception) to ignore it outright, though you and I both know this isn't actually the case. This is probably a better example of my point regarding the perception of science as it relates to an issue.


Hopefully that makes a bit more sense. Maybe?



Very nice post Karoht. Though I would probably use String Theory (or String Hypothesis as I call it) instead of Climate change just to avoid the emotional arguments trumping your good points.I would, but I don't know much about String Theory/Hypothesis. I was trying to keep to a consistant example to provide kind of a consistant theme, but again, I sort of borked it. Oh well. Thanks for the kudos though.

[Vacant]

I feel like this might require some justification. As it stands, this post is just a slam on a very highly recognized evolutionary biologist. Is there something in particular you feel he's done that's damaged science?

Terrible writer. His "contributions" to evolutionary biology probably stand out only because they seem brilliant when compared to any occasion he opens his mouth about anything else. Seriously, they should reprint The God Delusion as like Argumentative Fallacies: The Book or Unfounded Pedantry: A User's Guide. While his writing in his own field is mostly just a pop-sciencey waste of everyone's time (seriously, the gene-centered/adaptationist view? C'mon), his writing in other fields actually impugns the reputation of everyone else who ever claims to be a scientist by association. I would say his "philosophic" writings are the worst drivel since Ayn Rand, but that's not really fair to objectivism.

I guess what I'm trying to say is "Pretty much everything." His actual writing on science borders on tolerable, I guess, but his writing on everything else serves only to parade his own self-absorbed, arrogant ignorance.

[Brother Oni]

The decline of science and the increasing privatization of science seem to be linked. It's difficult to find sufficient funding for objective science. If you're employed by a drug/oil/environmentalist company, they're paying you to produce a particular result.

If I deliberately falsified or doctored results to be in line with what the project goals were, I'd be dismissed for gross misconduct.

I've heard of this happening in big pharma QC labs, where management were unhappy with how many batches of product were passing and wanted analysts to improve their pass rate, but QC isn't research and management is treading on very shaky ground.

Edit:

I think we're misunderstanding each other here. A drug company funding a piece of research to try and drum up a need for a product isn't very nice, but isn't illegal.

However there are a number of checks and balances in the system that stop extraneous medicines for 'frivolous' conditions getting onto the market - if the product isn't likely to be picked up by the prescribing/reimbursement authorities (NICE (http://www.nice.org.uk/) in the UK), then it makes it much harder to sell it, thus you're not going to get your money back.

As for objective science - there's plenty going on, for example at the ICH (http://www.ich.org/). For example, research on better test equipment is constantly going on (and was until very recently, well funded by big pharma like Pfizer) and is usually developed in accordance with both the industry, academia and the regulatory authorities.

[Karoht]

@Richard Dawkins
For the record, I've never actually read his book/s but it is on my reading list.
This is something I've always found interesting. The Science VS Religion debate. Sadly, it tends to leave both sides with black eyes. Even when Science is doing it's job by pointing out the facts or lack thereof, and even when Religion is doing it's job by indicating that faith isn't meant to be logical.

I've always found it odd that there is such a sharp dichotomy. Well, okay, it isn't odd, it's the realm of facts and figures VS the realm of not facts and figures. Or to put it another way, the realm of Objectivity VS Subjectivity.

On a show called 3rd Rock From the Sun, an alien gives a eulogy. And I still think it's one of the best I've seen on TV. The comedy of the moment comes from the fact that he was discussing a scientific phenomena that his people know of, and yet it was interpreted by the earthlings as a deeply spiritual statement.

Mostly just some thoughts.

[Tebryn]

On topic, I think we should always be careful when someone claims that things are declining. As someone said, everyone always thinks that their age is the time of decay* and we should take it with a pinch of salt - As someone else said right at the start of this thread, we have hugely more research going on now, and things will probably be alright on that front. It's not perfect, certainly, but sciencce isn't declining, quite the opposite in fact.


Going to echo this strongly and also say we should probably avoid the whole big R thing because...ya. Don't want this thread to close really.

The thing is, the evidence is sorta starkly against the whole decline of science thing. Show me some concrete evidence...and I'll believe it. But as a member of the general public I look ever forward to what science brings with it. I want more more more, certainly not less.

[shadow_archmagi]

Giant refuting post


Sometimes I wish I could be like you and make giant posts that just set everything straight and true

[thubby]

the problem is people. they try and pass off nonsense as science. so when real science gets done, the public doesnt trust it.

[Serpentine]

Re. Dawkins: Meh. From what I understand of him, he's no worse - and there's fewer of him - than those on the other side of his battle of choice. I, personally, don't agree with (what I understand to be) his absolutist views - any more than I agree with those on the other side (although my sympathies lie more with him, I admit), but I don't resent his right to express them, particularly when even milder and more accomodating versions of them are so underrepresented.

Re. Science: I think the main solution, aside from doing things that disconnect science from corporations/ideologies, is simply education. People need to understand citations, view-points, biases, how to follow up claims and trace them to their sources, and so on. This won't just help the acceptance and proper understanding of scientific claims, but is also important for thinking use of the internet, news, politics, religion, capitalism/advertising, and so on. And, in my experience, there just isn't any much education on proper fact-checking until university, to where not everyone goes.

To pinpoint another major problem, there's always this insistence that science is always arguing that it's either X or Y. Sometimes there is that argument, but - from my studies in both the sciences and the humanities - ultimately, if there is a choice between possible causes or something, or "true accounts" or whatever, the vast majority of the time the answer is somewhere in-between. And most of the time, although to outside-viewers the argument appears to be "the answer is X" vs. "the answer is Y", the argument is actually "the answer is this ratio of X to Y, probably" vs "the answer is Y then X, most likely".
To take the Climate Change example (yet again :smallsigh:), the fact that climatologists and other relevant scientists are engaging in debates on the subject makes outsiders assume that the argument is over whether or not there is Climate Change and/or whether or not humans are causing it. In actual fact, the debate is really about to what degree humans are causing it, what effects Climate Change is likely to have on the planet and in particular humanity in the next few decades/centuries/forseeable future, to what extent it can be prevented or reversed, and what the best options are to prevent, reverse or deal with the impacts. But then the media - and therefore the public - sees some people with little, if any, relevant background on the subject make a claim that "it's not happening" or "humans have nothing to do with it", sees debate in the relevant community, and comes to the conclusion that the two extremes are what the arguments are about.

The same thing happens with all sorts of topics. Someone mentioned eggs at the start. In that case, "eggs are good for you" vs. "eggs are bad for you" actually would be "eggs are good for you in some ways and circumstances and bad for you in others, when should or should not someone eat them and in what quantity to gain the most benefit?"
"Evolution is fast" vs. "evolution is slow" = "evolution can be fast or slow, what is it that makes the difference?"
"These two creatures are separate species" vs. "these two creatures are the same species" = "according to what criteria are these two creatures the same or separate species?"
"The Vikings went a-viking because of land pressures" vs. "the Vikings went a-viking because of political pressures" = "which was the most important or earliest factor in the Viking movements, political or land pressures?"

Etc, etc, so on and so forth. The media and the public just don't see graduations or details of debates. It just gets boiled down to an "us vs. them", X vs Y dichotemy that in fact most of the time simply doesn't exist.

[Tyndmyr]

Terrible writer. His "contributions" to evolutionary biology probably stand out only because they seem brilliant when compared to any occasion he opens his mouth about anything else. Seriously, they should reprint The God Delusion as like Argumentative Fallacies: The Book or Unfounded Pedantry: A User's Guide.

I feel I can't get into the details of this book(though I have, of course, read it), without going uncomfortably close to the board rules on religion. However, I will state that exactness, while frequently called pedantry, is pretty common in all philosophical works of note. You rather need to pay attention to the details if you want to form a cohesive philosophical theory.


While his writing in his own field is mostly just a pop-sciencey waste of everyone's time (seriously, the gene-centered/adaptationist view? C'mon), his writing in other fields actually impugns the reputation of everyone else who ever claims to be a scientist by association. I would say his "philosophic" writings are the worst drivel since Ayn Rand, but that's not really fair to objectivism.

That is writing about science for non-scientific readers. Comparing this to a scientific journal is not really correct. It's more akin to comparing against normal media reporting on science. Certain subsets of his views are controversial, yes, but none of them are outside the bounds of accepted science.


I guess what I'm trying to say is "Pretty much everything." His actual writing on science borders on tolerable, I guess, but his writing on everything else serves only to parade his own self-absorbed, arrogant ignorance.

If his scientific writing is good, then, IMO, he's not really a problem for science. People frequently have a life outside of one field, and just because, say, a doctor spends his free time on a hobby you find ridiculous or uninteresting should not reflect poorly on the profession of doctoring as a whole.



However, in regards to Methane I want to clarify this point.
You're entirely right Tynd, in terms of raw numbers. However, Methane lasts in our atmosphere for much longer, and we don't have very many options for doing much about that. Where as CO2 we can do plenty about. Like cutting down less trees. Which would have more impact/s than cutting emissions at the tailpipe of a car.
The point of Methane in the discussion of Climate Change, is that most people have no idea what impact Methane has or it's relationship to the cattle industry. It rarely comes up in most public discussions of the topic (IE-The Media). Climate Scientists seem (again, perception) to ignore it outright, though you and I both know this isn't actually the case. This is probably a better example of my point regarding the perception of science as it relates to an issue.

Hopefully that makes a bit more sense. Maybe?

Honestly, if something is both more harmful overall AND is easier to fix...it makes a great deal of sense to focus on that first.

The details are there for anyone interested in finding them, and the scientists are most certainly not ignoring those details, but a summary can never include all the details. Selecting the important ones and accurately reporting those is what makes a summary useful.

Also, cutting down less trees(which I don't feel is underreported. I've seen plenty of "save the rainforest" stuff) is of limited help. Carbon capture of trees is limited. Long term, cutting down and replanting is not at all bad, and is in fact necessary if you wish to optimize the carbon sinking of a forest, along with putting the wood(which contains a bunch o' carbon) somewhere it'll not decompose for a good long time.


Sometimes I wish I could be like you and make giant posts that just set everything straight and true

Er, thanks. =) I make it a habit to randomly google claims. If something seems suspicious, I'm especially likely to check up on it, but occasionally I'll even check on claims that seem obvious. I've learned a lot of interesting things that way. I'm no master of disproving everything myself, but there are a ton of people out there who are, alls I have to do is find it.

[Telonius]

Etc, etc, so on and so forth. The media and the public just don't see graduations or details of debates. It just gets boiled down to an "us vs. them", X vs Y dichotemy that in fact most of the time simply doesn't exist.

XKCD has a similar strip (http://xkcd.com/882/) about the media problem. (Mouse over the comic for the last bit of the punchline).

[KnightDisciple]

@Richard Dawkins
For the record, I've never actually read his book/s but it is on my reading list.
This is something I've always found interesting. The Science VS Religion debate. Sadly, it tends to leave both sides with black eyes. Even when Science is doing it's job by pointing out the facts or lack thereof, and even when Religion is doing it's job by indicating that faith isn't meant to be logical.Despite not being able to go into detail due to rules, I must object to this, as it's not at all how I (and many of my friends/peers within my belief group, as well as many authors) see things. At all.


I've always found it odd that there is such a sharp dichotomy. Well, okay, it isn't odd, it's the realm of facts and figures VS the realm of not facts and figures. Or to put it another way, the realm of Objectivity VS Subjectivity.

On a show called 3rd Rock From the Sun, an alien gives a eulogy. And I still think it's one of the best I've seen on TV. The comedy of the moment comes from the fact that he was discussing a scientific phenomena that his people know of, and yet it was interpreted by the earthlings as a deeply spiritual statement.

Mostly just some thoughts.For many of us, there is no "dichotomy", there is no "conflict". Each does what it's supposed to, and the two mesh to make a greater, harmonious whole.

Not all people view it this way...from either side of the "aisle".

Keep that in mind.

[Serpentine]

Karoht and I just discussed that in private and came to much the same conclusion. Just so's you know. He's talking about an observation of the supposed conflict between Science and Religion, not his own beliefs - nor what he assumes are everyone else's beliefs - on the matter.

[KnightDisciple]

Karoht and I just discussed that in private and came to much the same conclusion. Just so's you know. He's talking about an observation of the supposed conflict between Science and Religion, not his own beliefs - nor what he assumes are everyone else's beliefs - on the matter.He wasn't talking about supposed conflicts with the first bit I quoted in my post. At least, not with the language he used.

If that was not his intent, I apologize, but I was responding to the text of the post present in the thread, rather than what the two of you perhaps discussed.

[Vacant]

I feel I can't get into the details of this book(though I have, of course, read it), without going uncomfortably close to the board rules on religion. However, I will state that exactness, while frequently called pedantry, is pretty common in all philosophical works of note. You rather need to pay attention to the details if you want to form a cohesive philosophical theory.
It's largely the lack of exactness (or, more accurately, lack of rigor) I object to. His arguments amount to hackneyed rhetoric, either employed on its own or arrogantly hurled at strawmen, depending on if he is arguing for his own idea or against another's, respectively.


That is writing about science for non-scientific readers. Comparing this to a scientific journal is not really correct. It's more akin to comparing against normal media reporting on science. Certain subsets of his views are controversial, yes, but none of them are outside the bounds of accepted science.
Sure, his science writing isn't terribly objectionable, I'm just saying it isn't exactly noteworthy, either. It certainly isn't noteworthy enough to make up for his writings not directly related to science. His criticism of what he terms "postmodernism" is worth reading only for shadenfreude. It's pretty much a paradigm shift in the fields of concept misapprehension and point-missing.


If his scientific writing is good, then, IMO, he's not really a problem for science. People frequently have a life outside of one field, and just because, say, a doctor spends his free time on a hobby you find ridiculous or uninteresting should not reflect poorly on the profession of doctoring as a whole.
I suppose, but I still feel individuals like him weaken the intellectual credit, or at least the perception thereof, of an idea or field, which, I feel, gives some accountability for a "decline" in science, real or imagined.

[Reluctance]

Replace "Logical" with "testable", then. Faith should be internally self-consistent, but if it could be handily tested through experiment, it wouldn't be faith anymore.

Re: Dawkins, his earlier works aren't half bad. It's just that by being the best-known name in a field that has become a flash point for a lot of manufactured controversy, he sees the ugliest side of a lot of people. If you saw lots of people trying to excuse disingenuous behavior because they were wearing purple, you'd be against purple-wearers in no time at all yourself.

Re: science, most people don't know just how much rigor it takes for something to be labeled proper science, or how to test to see that it's been through that process. Without that process, science is nothing more than appeals to authority and technobabble. And appeals to authority are easy to come by nowadays. (Technobabble can be alternately replicated, or "give it to us in plain English".) Given the sheer amount of information out there, it's understandable that people will go with what appeals to inner heuristics before one that relies on distant, counterintuitive rigor.

[Telonius]

. (Technobabble can be alternately replicated, or "give it to us in plain English".) Given the sheer amount of information out there, it's understandable that people will go with what appeals to inner heuristics before one that relies on distant, counterintuitive rigor.

Another thing that people don't often realize ... taking a real science article and translating it to "plain English" is hard. To be able to do it well, you have to be top-notch in your understanding of science, as well as your skills in writing and communication. You have to be able to simplify without dumbing down. On top of that, you have to do it on an extremely tight deadline. That sort of really specialized skill-set is really hard to find. I know for our journal, the process for hiring a new science writer takes almost a year. Absolutely worth the time to find one, though - the best science writers are worth their weight in gold. But if somebody does a halfass job, the general public is not going to be able to tell the difference.

[Karoht]

Despite not being able to go into detail due to rules, I must object to this, as it's not at all how I (and many of my friends/peers within my belief group, as well as many authors) see things. At all.

For many of us, there is no "dichotomy", there is no "conflict". Each does what it's supposed to, and the two mesh to make a greater, harmonious whole.To be honest, this is how I see it. Science and Religion don't have to conflict. This is both a deeply personal belief as well as just a logical conclusion.
But we can't ignore the fact that they occasionally do conflict from time to time. Put a Priest and a Scientist in a room together. They're actually rather likely to find common ground and have a wonderful conversation most of the time, though this is rather anecdotal of me to say. In the media, there appears to be more conflict, or the conflicting viewpoints seem to be overstated.



Not all people view it this way...from either side of the "aisle".
Keep that in mind.Entirely agree. Not all X's are Y's. This applies to scientists, this applies to members of a minority group or pretty much any given culture. Not all Germans enjoy Beer and Bratwurst. Not all scientists will turn a discussion about religion into a sharply divided arguement. Not all religious people ignore or attempt to refute scientific facts when attempting to explain their faith.
'Faith' in this context meaning both their particular beliefs and feelings, and also meaning their denomination of religion.

[Knaight]

Another thing that people don't often realize ... taking a real science article and translating it to "plain English" is hard. To be able to do it well, you have to be top-notch in your understanding of science, as well as your skills in writing and communication. You have to be able to simplify without dumbing down. On top of that, you have to do it on an extremely tight deadline. That sort of really specialized skill-set is really hard to find. I know for our journal, the process for hiring a new science writer takes almost a year. Absolutely worth the time to find one, though - the best science writers are worth their weight in gold. But if somebody does a halfass job, the general public is not going to be able to tell the difference.

Moreover, you need a specialist. The people who can translate a real science article regarding advanced QM and the people who can translate a real science article regarding advanced relativity aren't necessarily the same people, and both of those are at least studied by most everyone who tries to become a physicist. If you are looking at vulcanology and biochem the overlap is probably closer to nonexistent. That mass media can't effectively simplify without dumbing down isn't really a mark against it. By no means does that mean that science reporting is largely acceptable - there are plenty of flaws which are less than fully excusable. Not having access to a bunch of writers capable of explaining studies from every field is simply not one of them.

[pendell]

But we can't ignore the fact that they occasionally do conflict from time to time. Put a Priest and a Scientist in a room together. They're actually rather likely to find common ground and have a wonderful conversation most of the time, though this is rather anecdotal of me to say. In the media, there appears to be more conflict, or the conflicting viewpoints seem to be overstated.


It seems the fundamental common ingredient is humility. A priest who's willing to engage someone out of his faith system and not simply 'preach to the choir' is presumably someone who's learned to dialog politely with those who don't share his point of view. Likewise, a really good scientist is one who has the humility to throw out conclusions when experiment doesn't back them up.

Two such people, both having learned humility in equally hard schools, would probably get along together.

By contrast, media doesn't sell copy by showing people getting along together. No, they thrive on controversy! Forbidden knowledge which man was not meant to wot of! With 1000 elephants!

Which presumably is why media is always trying to start up controversy even when serious practitioners could care less.

I'm a little bit surprised that, in a thread I started discussing why ordinary people mistrust science, this automatically became a discussion of "faith" as if it were the opposite of science. As if human paradigms are zero-sum games, where if science wins faith must lost and vice versa. But that's not really true. There have been plenty of scientists who had faith (Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton) and there have been men of faith who study science.

But I guess it gives us something to fight over when there's nothing more substantive to argue about :).

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Knaight]

Likewise, a really good scientist is one who has the humility to throw out conclusions when experiment doesn't back them up.


That is not a really good scientist. That is the baseline standard, below which one shouldn't be doing science.

[Tyndmyr]

I'm a little bit surprised that, in a thread I started discussing why ordinary people mistrust science, this automatically became a discussion of "faith" as if it were the opposite of science. As if human paradigms are zero-sum games, where if science wins faith must lost and vice versa. But that's not really true. There have been plenty of scientists who had faith (Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton) and there have been men of faith who study science.

Faith is a practice that is, if not the opposite of science, certainly not a part of the scientific method. That's fairly well defined, and faith is not a component of it. Nor is the scientific method a component of the definition of faith. As quite separate reasons for supporting views on reality, it is not unlikely for the two rationales to come into conflict on occasion.


On a purely historical note, I must correct your claim to Albert Einstein as well. As someone who explicitly denounced belief in a deity publicly and repeatedly, it takes significant twisting of words to justify him as having faith in such a context. I hesitate to expand on this or link to sources, as this would again, get uncomfortably close to religion discussion, but you can find evidence of this in short order with google.

[Karoht]

I would assert that in the Science VS Religion debate, there is no issue with science, and there is no issue with religion. It's the people talking (not in this thread) that cause any issue.


Religion has the nasty stereotype of a sort of intentional ignorance of fact. Again, this isn't a religion problem, it's a people problem, and such stereotypes typically start with some bad apples spoiling the bunch.. I would assert that the acceptance of science is also a people problem, but in this case, it's a problem typically of the people reporting it (it is challenging to report findings in a way everyone can understand, but not impossible), the media reporting it (for what ever reason discussing one aspect of an issue and not the whole picture, but this is a media problem as a whole), and people not paying it much of any attention.

The last part there, people not paying it much of any attention. This is something we can fix.

Someone once said to me, that the reason he was sad to see the cancellation of the shuttle program down at NASA, was not that we wouldn't be sending manned missions to space for a while. It was the inspiration and interest factor. He said that every time he and his kids watched a shuttle launch, his kids would suddenly be extremely excited about science and learning for about a week afterwards, and then it would slowly wind down. If we could just keep these kids and maybe some more adults 'wound up' then perhaps Science might take a tad bit more presence than it currently does today.

[Rockphed]

That is not a really good scientist. That is the baseline standard, below which one shouldn't be doing science.

Precisely. Hence why Fleichman and Pons* got chased out of science after their hubristic manipulation of data to fit their preconceptions. It is why that Korean who claimed to have cloned a human is no longer working at a university. It is why there is such a brouhaha over East Anglia's CRU's emails that purport to show improper behavior thereat. When scientists put their pride before their work, there can be no end but tears.

*I have no idea how to spell their names, but it is the two guys at the University of Utah who claimed to have produced cold fusion.

[MikelaC1]

Thats not science. You create experiments to DISPROVE your hypothesis.

My old science teacher taught us that the hypothesis is actually the last part of the experiment that gets written. You test something to see what happens if you mix A with B, see the result of C, and then write the hypothesis that mixing A and B will produce C.

[Tyndmyr]

My old science teacher taught us that the hypothesis is actually the last part of the experiment that gets written. You test something to see what happens if you mix A with B, see the result of C, and then write the hypothesis that mixing A and B will produce C.

It's a cyclical process. Your hypothesis should be based on the best experimental results available, and you should design your hypothesis to be falsifiable and, if possible, test it to see if it's good. If not, rinse and repeat.

[Karoht]

If one were to believe everything one has read on the internet, there still exists science 'influenced' by companies to draw a certain conclusion.

Really bad example: Cure for Cancer XYZ is "buried" by biased or influenced peer review.

How does good and proper science get burned in peer review, if supposedly it is in fact legit? How does poor science squeek through peer review from time to time when it is not legit?

[Serpentine]

How does good and proper science get burned in peer review, if supposedly it is in fact legit? How does poor science squeek through peer review from time to time when it is not legit?Sheer volume, I think.
One of my history lecturers told me they could do absolutely nothing else but read for the rest of their life and they wouldn't even come close to reading half of the material produced even about their own narrow field of expertise. It is literally physically impossible to read everything out there, even just on a single topic.
With such an overwhelming mass of Stuff, I think it's inevitable that a lot of good work will get lost, and a lot of crap will get through. All we can do is try to minimise it, and try to detect and remove it when it happens.

[Telonius]

How does good and proper science get burned in peer review, if supposedly it is in fact legit?

I think that some of the problem is related to presentation. We get our fair share of crank papers - obviously unscientific, mad scientist types, that have maybe three references, one of which is to Einstein's relativity paper, where the cover letter has tons of ungrammatical sentences and claims that their findings will totally revolutionize everybody's total understanding of science.

Unfortunately, some actual research has similar issues. When a cover letter has brash and brazen claims, or takes an arrogant tone, that sets off little alarm bells in the mind of any editor that looks at it. This can be a particular problem for people who aren't native English speakers, since they don't always realize the tone they're taking. (There's a scene in "The Little Prince" where the scientist who discovered Asteroid B6-12 delivered his findings in traditional Turkish garb, and was laughed out of the building; then put on a normal suit and was hailed as a great man. I try to keep that scene in mind whenever I'm not sure).

Reviewers are usually scientists too. When you send in a paper, it might be sent to a reviewer who's particularly hostile to a theory you're advancing (somebody who's published data directly contrary to yours, for instance). Ideally, the reviewer would be able to put that aside and judge the paper on its merits, but that doesn't always happen, especially if (as is usually the case) the review is anonymous. Most journals send papers out to a minimum of two separate reviewers for just that reason - they're less likely to be sunk by a single hostile reviewer.

Sometimes, a decently good paper has a hard time finding a journal. Kind of like how a cross-genre book might have a hard time finding a publisher. If your paper is biochemistry with elements of applied physics, it might not be right for a journal specifically about cell biology. If the paper is about a super-small area of science, it might not be the best fit for an interdisciplinary journal. It's always a hard call on the editorial side to reject a paper like that, because it really is good science; just not good for the journal in question.

And then, there's the unfortunate case where the scientist in question really is doing bad work, but is too arrogant to see it. His brilliant papers keep getting rejected by everybody, so obviously the problem is that the peer review system squelches new research and counter-intuitive ideas. I've had the misfortune to have dealt with a few of these individuals; it's never pleasant.


How does poor science squeek through peer review from time to time when it is not legit?

A combination of factors, depending on the situation. Overworked editors, monetary incentive to cheat, reviewers not going far enough to check the data, less-rigorous journals seeking to make news instead of promote science, university departments (or individual researchers) cutting corners, honest mistakes, statistical blips, outside factors nobody realized futzing the numbers, simple human desire to see things that support what you already believe. Any one of these things could allow bad science into the system.

[Rockphed]

A combination of factors, depending on the situation. Overworked editors, monetary incentive to cheat, reviewers not going far enough to check the data, less-rigorous journals seeking to make news instead of promote science, university departments (or individual researchers) cutting corners, honest mistakes, statistical blips, outside factors nobody realized futzing the numbers, simple human desire to see things that support what you already believe. Any one of these things could allow bad science into the system.

Aren't journals, and the peer review process, not really supposed to bother checking data? My physics professor was talking about how one of the peer reviewers of a paper on high temperature superconductivity tried reproducing the experiment before publication, but couldn't come out and say "their paper is wrong" because they weren't supposed to be doing that. Turned out the paper was on something involving Yttrium, but instead of writing Y all over the place, they wrote "typoed" Yb. Then when the final proofs came in, they just said, oh, whoops, there are all these 'b's that shouldn't be there. My professor thought that such was probably smarter than coming up with the superconductor in the first place.

In short, what do you mean when you say "check the data"?

[Tyndmyr]

If one were to believe everything one has read on the internet, there still exists science 'influenced' by companies to draw a certain conclusion.

Really bad example: Cure for Cancer XYZ is "buried" by biased or influenced peer review.

How does good and proper science get burned in peer review, if supposedly it is in fact legit? How does poor science squeek through peer review from time to time when it is not legit?

Well, there is a certain degree of influence, in that if you have money, you can pay for the types of research you want done. This isn't the same as squelching, but there will be a natural bias on the part of say, an oil company, to research things like new uses for oil instead of negative aspects of oil use.

So, at a certain scale, where you direct the dollars can affect public perception to some degree, but that's not really the same as some conspiratorial killing of good science for money. A *lot* of people rather oversell the influence corporations have on science in this particular manner.

[Karoht]

Peer Review doesn't involve fact checking? Lolwut?

If there is an experiment outlined in a paper, do the peer reviewers attempt to recreate it as outlined, or not?

I can understand the reviewers debunking the premise, the hypothesis, the method, or the conclusion, but that data not so much.

[Eldan]

Depends. In my experience, most often not, no. Usually, they know and have done similar experiments and just check if the methodology holds up, then comment on the results.

You can't just replicate experiments that take years when no one is paying you for it, you know.

The number one basic fact of science: you have never enough money.

[Telonius]

Aren't journals, and the peer review process, not really supposed to bother checking data? My physics professor was talking about how one of the peer reviewers of a paper on high temperature superconductivity tried reproducing the experiment before publication, but couldn't come out and say "their paper is wrong" because they weren't supposed to be doing that. Turned out the paper was on something involving Yttrium, but instead of writing Y all over the place, they wrote "typoed" Yb. Then when the final proofs came in, they just said, oh, whoops, there are all these 'b's that shouldn't be there. My professor thought that such was probably smarter than coming up with the superconductor in the first place.

In short, what do you mean when you say "check the data"?

Basically, looking at the data and seeing if the conclusions seem anywhere near reasonable. Not necessarily doing the experiment themselves - that would bog down every paper for months. But just paying close enough attention to the paper that they can tell if the authors meant one element instead of another, or if it's something that totally flies in the face of previous evidence. That shouldn't necessarily be a reason to reject - new findings can and do overturn older conceptions all the time. But it's definitely something to bring up with the editor before making a decision on acceptance. (Ideally, the authors would be asked about that sort of thing before they turn in the final revised version of the paper - catching things like that is the whole point of having a round of review).

It's easier to keep tabs on the reviewers if they're actually on the journal's staff. That's the case in a few major publications. But in many others, the reviewers are basically volunteers; experts in the field who are asked by the editors to give their time to help the scientific cause. Most journals absolutely couldn't function without them, but they do have their own schedules and responsibilities and time pressures. Most of the time they're pretty good about responding promptly and thoroughly, but sometimes they can get distracted.

[Serpentine]

If there is an experiment outlined in a paper, do the peer reviewers attempt to recreate it as outlined, or not?It would be physically impossible for a journal to recreate every single experiment described in all the papers submitted to them for publication, even if they had the billions of dollars that would be necessary to afford it. The best they can do, I think, is to have a look at their methods, see if their results seem reasonable, compare with the results of similar experiments, and put it out there for someone else to redo if they think it's dodgy.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Here is basically the easiest way to feel at least somewhat secure in scientific knowledge.

First, ignore the media. Journalists are generally very educated people. But they're educated in being journalists, not in interpreting data correctly. They will, without fail, report incorrectly.

Second, ignore think tanks as much as possible. They tend to be privately funded and to have an agenda. A good example is a study that shows that cheese actually causes good dreams - which just happened to be funded by the British Cheese Board.

While this does happen to cut out a lot of scientific discoveries, it gives you a level of certainty that is comforting and at least reasonably acceptable.

[Eldan]

The problem with that?

Pretty much all research is at least in part privately founded. And publicity gives you more funding money. So you can't ignore the media. Why do you think some researchers make such a lot of media fuzz? They need the PR. Say, Craig Venter of the Craig Venter Institute and winner of the Craig Venter Award for the discovery of the Craig Venter Gene.

[Serpentine]

Second, ignore think tanks as much as possible. They tend to be privately funded and to have an agenda. A good example is a study that shows that cheese actually causes good dreams - which just happened to be funded by the British Cheese Board.I don't think you can, or should, do that. To take your own example, sure it's gimmicky, but why shouldn't the British Cheese Board be interested in investigating stuff about cheese? It just means you have to take it with a great big heaping teaspoon of salt, be extra-aware of their partiality and check other sources.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Yeah, I'll admit that ignore was too big of a word. Doubt would have been better.

[Serpentine]

Doubt works. Scepticism is probably better - it usually is.
An interested party is hardly likely to trumpet the experiment results that make them look bad, but that doesn't mean they'll be able to completely fabricate ones that make them look good ('course, doesn't mean they won't, either, or that they won't use other underhanded methods to disguise the truth...).

[Trekkin]

An interested party is hardly likely to trumpet the experiment results that make them look bad, but that doesn't mean they'll be able to completely fabricate ones that make them look good ('course, doesn't mean they won't, either, or that they won't use other underhanded methods to disguise the truth...).

My first lab PI once quoted the following to me, from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri:


"What's more important, the data or the jazz? Sure, sure, 'Information should be free' and all that--but anyone can set information free. The jazz is in how you do it, what you do it to, and in almost getting caught without getting caught. The data is 1's and 0's. Life is the jazz." -- Datatech Sinder Roze, "Infobop"

He then went on to explain that the data are and indeed need to be inviolate, but just reporting data is not, to use his term, sexy enough. Unfortunate or not, science works according to people's perception of people, and even if a lot of those are internal (H-factor) they're still externally important. There certainly are outright unethical methods, but it's really easy to cry foul at an honest and necessary attempt to portray data in a manner that makes other scientists and funding sources interested. I've written papers for journals in multiple fields covering the same data before, and they get written dramatically differently to highlight the interesting parts to whoever's going to be reading it. Same data, different jazz.

Yes, some scientists are unethical enough to disguise the truth, but usually it's just the same boasting everyone does and everyone sees through--except the media, which is why you get all these claims of cancer cures and renewable energy and whatever else is fashionable when they're merely reporting on research that's been done in those areas. Sure, compound X inhibits tumor formation in rats. So does table salt, if you dump enough into their systems. It's interesting to the field, and it will be reported in the literature as potentially significant to oncology, and it is, but the language can't be simply reproduced verbatim in the larger world without cries of obfuscation and overconfidence.

Perhaps, in the main, I'm just too optimistic, but it seems to me that a lot of the lack of trust and belief in "science" that can't be attributed to all the negative qualities we love to give the general public can be ascribed to scientists talking to scientists in ways that don't mean what the words literally mean and those words being interpreted literally by the media.