The Scientific Priesthood

[Meh Gerbil]

Wow, I'm glad didn't put my faith there:
http://theweek.com/articles/618141/big-science-broken

[seer]

Wow, I'm glad didn't put my faith there:
http://theweek.com/articles/618141/big-science-broken

You just need to have greater faith!

Advocates of the existing scientific research paradigm usually smugly declare that while some published conclusions are surely false, the scientific method has "self-correcting mechanisms" that ensure that, eventually, the truth will prevail. Unfortunately for all of us, Wilson makes a convincing argument that those self-correcting mechanisms are broken.

[rogue06]

Medical research is currently a mess. One problem is that there are a bunch of fake, legitimate sounding journals that keep popping up which will print your "research" if you pay them from which you can use that to push for everything from grant money to getting the results picked up and covered by the media.

The TV show "Adam Ruins Everything" covered this in an episode on nutrition where they reported on a journalist who had a fictitious study claiming that eating chocolate helps you lose weight (“Chocolate with high cocoa content as a weight-loss accelerator”) published in the International Archives of Medicine for 600 Euros. It was picked up by multiple news outlets often getting front page coverage.

The entire affair can be read about here: I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here's How as well as here: How the "chocolate diet" hoax fooled millions.

The host of the aforementioned TV show, Adam Conover, had his own fraudulent study "The Possible Irritating Effects of Nutritional Facts" published in a faux journal called Advances In Nutrition And Food Technology to confirm that this does indeed happen. It was pretty obvious that the publisher never read it for it is a blatant spoof.

[metacrock]

Advocates of the existing scientific research paradigm usually smugly declare that while some published conclusions are surely false, the scientific method has "self-correcting mechanisms" that ensure that, eventually, the truth will prevail. Unfortunately for all of us, Wilson makes a convincing argument that those self-correcting mechanisms are broken.

Popper is still the top of the line in terms of philosophy of science. He's the only philosopher of science who is admired by most scientist. His thing is that science is not about truth but verisimilitude.

[metacrock]

Medical research is currently a mess. One problem is that there are a bunch of fake, legitimate sounding journals that keep popping up which will print your "research" if you pay them from which you can use that to push for everything from grant money to getting the results picked up and covered by the media.

The TV show "Adam Ruins Everything" covered this in an episode on nutrition where they reported on a journalist who had a fictitious study claiming that eating chocolate helps you lose weight (“Chocolate with high cocoa content as a weight-loss accelerator”) published in the International Archives of Medicine for 600 Euros. It was picked up by multiple news outlets often getting front page coverage.

The entire affair can be read about here: I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here's How as well as here: How the "chocolate diet" hoax fooled millions.

The host of the aforementioned TV show, Adam Conover, had his own fraudulent study "The Possible Irritating Effects of Nutritional Facts" published in a faux journal called Advances In Nutrition And Food Technology to confirm that this does indeed happen. It was pretty obvious that the publisher never read it for it is a blatant spoof.

Back in the early ought's a study came out claiming that only 16% of scientific medical studies were scientific.

[Sparko]

You just need to have greater faith!

Advocates of the existing scientific research paradigm usually smugly declare that while some published conclusions are surely false, the scientific method has "self-correcting mechanisms" that ensure that, eventually, the truth will prevail. Unfortunately for all of us, Wilson makes a convincing argument that those self-correcting mechanisms are broken.

Dang that sounds just like Shunya's argument about the text books being wrong.

[shunyadragon]

Wow, I'm glad didn't put my faith there:
http://theweek.com/articles/618141/big-science-broken

Second thread referring to First Things magazine. A conservative Christian magazine with a religious agenda.

[seer]

Second thread referring to First Things magazine. A conservative Christian magazine with a religious agenda.

Yep, shoot the messenger - tell us Shuny, what did the piece get factually wrong? And here are links to non-Christian sites making the same case:

In 2009, Science published a paper linking chronic fatigue syndrome with the mouse virus XMRV, prompting a flurry of subsequent studies—none of which could replicate the findings. The paper was retracted last year. The following year, Science published a paper describing a strain of bacteria that incorporated arsenic instead of phosphorus into its DNA backbone, only to publish two studies refuting the findings this July. In this case, the journal has not asked the authors for a correction or retraction, citing the self-correcting nature of the scientific process.

And these high profile examples are by no means isolated incidents. In 2011, scientists at Bayer Healthcare in Germany recounted their dismal experience in trying to validate published research on new drug targets: in more than 75 percent of the 67 studies they attempted, Bayer’s labs could not replicate the published findings. This past March, researchers at Amgen reported a similar problem, successfully reproducing the results of just six of the 53 hematology and oncology studies they attempted.

Indeed, published studies whose findings cannot be reproduced appear to be on rise, and while some such studies are later retracted, many stand, collecting citations, either because no one has tried to replicate the data, or those who have, successfully or not, cannot get their studies published. http://www.the-scientist.com/?articl...Do-That-Again/

Or here: http://protomag.com/articles/replica...search-problem

[shunyadragon]

Yep, shoot the messenger - tell us Shuny, what did the piece get factually wrong? And here are links to non-Christian sites making the same case:

It only cited negative examples and did not address the over all situation of modern history of science.

Yes, I would shoot incompetent messengers with a religious agenda.

[seer]

It only cited negative examples and did not address the over all situation of modern history of science.

Yes, I would shoot incompetent messengers with a religious agenda.

Really Shuny, they are speaking of the same studies, like the Bayer study that First Things referenced.

Many factors contribute to the low odds of reproducibility. The original experiments may have been poorly designed, or there could be problems with how results were analyzed. The trend may also be a symptom of a scientific community in which the job market and funding are tighter than ever, and researchers must publish or perish, leading to a lack of rigor in their research. “It is a dysfunctional scientific climate,” says Ferric Fang, a professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine and editor-in-chief of the journal Infection and Immunity. And because journals favor original research, scientists have little incentive to pursue replicative work. http://protomag.com/articles/replica...search-problem

There is a built in bias not to do replicative work.

[Meh Gerbil]

I didn't expect the edifice of 'science' to show cracks quite this soon.
I thought worshipping the gods of knowledge in their pure white coats would last at least another 100 years.
So much for 'rational systemic thought' leading to enlightenment.

This spawns two additional thoughts:
1: You can criticize the Roman Catholic Church for it's corruption all you want, however, the organization was around 1500 years before the scientific method and by all appearances it will be around 1500 years after the golden calf of rationalism has been melted and fashioned into thuribles. You earn +10 points if you know what a thurible is without looking it up.

2: Anytime a house falls this quickly you can be sure it was built upon a foundation of sand, and oh, how this gerbil loves digging in the sand.

[seer]

I didn't expect the edifice of 'science' to show cracks quite this soon.
I thought worshipping the gods of knowledge in their pure white coats would last at least another 100 years.
So much for 'rational systemic thought' leading to enlightenment.

This spawns two additional thoughts:
1: You can criticize the Roman Catholic Church for it's corruption all you want, however, the organization was around 1500 years before the scientific method and by all appearances it will be around 1500 years after the golden calf of rationalism has been melted and fashioned into thuribles. You earn +10 points if you know what a thurible is without looking it up.

2: Anytime a house falls this quickly you can be sure it was built upon a foundation of sand, and oh, how this gerbil loves digging in the sand.

Stop you are going to give Shuny a stroke!

[rogue06]

Where can I cash in my 10 points?

[Meh Gerbil]

Where can I cash in my 10 points?

As soon as the Trout/Gerbil forum is set up we'll begin work on the store.
Trout and I have really big plans for TWEB, unless of course, short sighted management blocks it.

[rogue06]

As soon as the Trout/Gerbil forum is set up we'll begin work on the store.
Trout and I have really big plans for TWEB, unless of course, short sighted management blocks it.

When Sparko and I become president of the U.S. one of our first executive actions will be to establish a forum for you guys.