This infographic from www.clinicalpsychology.net is interesting. It speaks to President Eisenhower’s second warning in his famous farewell speech. More below.
Here’s the references as actual links:
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005738
http://techyum.com/2011/03/omg-aliens1-or-is-it-just-more-fake-science-news/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=researchers-failing-to-make-data-public
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/aug/22/riot-control-newspapers-distorting-science
http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/92prom.html
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This WUWT post: Ike’s second warning, hint: it is not the “military-industrial complex” is well worth a read for the prescient context it provides to this infographic.
Of course he’s not serious! But it’s so hard to spoof PCism by saying something totally stupid and exaggeratedly self-righteous that’s it’s clear or at least inferrable without labels. Which is why WUWT and other sites insist on tags like /sarc or /send-up. Renowebb forgot to use one, that’s all!
/maybe
Alan D McIntire says:
February 7, 2012 at 4:25 pm
I can see how scientists can subconsciously cherry pick data, but I cannot for the life of me understand why 1 in 50 would admit to falsifying data
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That’s because the other 49 don’t know their source was a crock………….
The stats are much worse than reported above. See ‘Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Research’, available from Amazon. Pharmaceutical research (which constitute most of medical studies) and climate science are nothing more than Money Pits at heart.
Wait – the “bad apple” scientist is the only one who actually managed to construct a monster! Is that nothing?
Too many of us have become complacent and just accept that scientists and engineers know what they are doing, and that published data is reliable. As anyone paying attention to this website has observed, a lot of published data is garbage.
We have also come to rely on software that we just automatically assume is carefully designed and properly used.
I found one Russian language software which called up the wrong library files and gave the German words instead of Russian.
I have found errors in software packages for electrical engineering. I have found:
*Using the AC resistance for wires in plastic conduit for aluminum conduit (ignores eddy currents in the aluminum, a 20% error on large size wires).
*Data libraries using generic ground impedance data instead of specifying the actual ground impedance (grounding conductors, trays, conduits and earth return paths.)
*Claims to make proper calculations for the effects of parallel power lines, but in fact ignoring parallel power lines in fault calculations.)
*On two-circuit towers, ignoring the static wire for the opposite circuit.
*Concentric neutrals (smaller wires wound around a power cable) which are either ignored in thermal calculations or treated like layers of copper.
Most engineers seem to be blissfully unaware that their software is giving them wrong answers.
I have found engineers treating wind turbine generators like they were regular generators such as diesels or steam turbines when in fact they are double-fed induction motors whose output decay in 8 cycles after they short circuit their field to protect the electronics.
I checked one engineer’s work after he had spent months modeling a massive industrial power system and discovered he had incorrectly entered ALL of the impedance data.
It is a sad situation, with lives at risk not to mention the property damage, and it is getting worse every day.
I cannot agree with the anonymous author, suggestion. There needs to be some ultimate responsibility.
A Pseudonym Author, that the journal will expose in a specified timeframe, say 3,4,5 years might be a useful compromise. 5 year of protection would give cover to responnsible authors that properly call a halt to fraud, but short enought that malicious falsehoods would be actionable and have significant blow-back on a reckless or pseudonymed author.
I’m disappointed that they list “mining data” as a questionable research practice. Are they confusing data mining with so called data dredging? Then again what can you expect from psychologists 🙂 I recalling reading somewhere that half their papers are in error.
Many if not most of clinical, pharmacological, and medical researchers are not scientists in the sense that biologists, chemists, and physicists are scientists. The former three categories are more in the way of technical workers or medical engineers, in that they doing epidemiological studies (dose-response) or methods development rather than testing a general theory or making empirical explorations in a theory-driven context.
The more engineer-like the medical/pharmacological researcher becomes, the less likely it is that falsehood can be successful, because engineers must produce working devices. For example, a medical worker or pharmacologist developing an analytical test kit will not be able to falsify that work. The kit must perform. Engineering attracts people who are generally dedicated to getting it right.
Where results are testable and/or important, falsehoods are readily detected. It would not take a questionnaire-type study to reveal an engineering-level falsified device or result.
The on-going AGW scandal is a fine case in point. Published errors have been found because the work is testable and the results are analytic. Anthony’s entire surface stations project detected undeniably wide-spread and large problems. O’Donnell 2010 corrected Steig 2009. I’m not saying those falsified works were actual falsehoods; merely wrong. But falsehoods are analytically indistinguishable from error except where the falsehood is so naively constructed as to rely on obviously fabricated data. Work by actual scientists, therefore, is precise enough and objective enough to permit a verifying test.
So, those medical workers who agree that they, or others, falsify work must typically be doing mushy research where falsified results are not testable, have considerable subjective content, or are not important enough to be tested by others.
It appears likely to me that the authors of the head-post study must not have been appropriately discriminating about the kind of work being done by the clinical, pharmacological, and medical researchers they interviewed. The objectively analytical content of the work their researcher cohort does, should have been included as part of the weighting.
I’d bet those medical/pharmacological workers doing engineering-quality work not only do not falsify their results, but also have a powerful personal ethic and a strong professional integrity about *not* falsifying their results.
The rest of their cohor, clinical psychologists and psychologists in general, are not scientists in any sense of the word because there is no falsifiable theory of psychology. It’s very easy to falsify results in these fields, even while trying to be honest, because so much of the work is subjective.
So, I’d aver that the head-post study itself is a kind of scientific falsehood because it claims to be talking about praxis among scientists, even though its subject cohort consists primarily of non-scientists.
The study authors are being promiscuous, in other words, with the term “scientist;” using that word to give a false importance to their work. In spectacularizing their work this way, they damage the reputation of actual science — the praxis they have not studied.
My understanding is that in the past, one could do pure research under a government grant and hit a dead end, but that was OK, because results from research is not a given. Today things are different and “it didn’t work” is not an acceptable answer to how the grant turned out. They expect results. If this is correct, then we’ve created a system where scientists are under pressure to make up results when there’s a dead end.
I have no way to verify if this is true or not, but if true, it says a lot about government funding and fake science.
I am so glad to see this. It amounts to restating what a true, honest and decent scientist already knows: Truth matters, and science is different from pseudoscience.
The honest responses this study gathered are likely due to the fact this study involves psychology, and many psychologists are aware they are involved in a pseudoscience. They can be honest about messing around with the truth, for it is part of their profession. (While an honest man would blush, confessing about times he was dishonest, a con-artist can brag about it.)
In a more real world, it is hard enough to make things work even when you strive to be honest, and to face facts, and to be pragmatic. If you don’t believe even honest engineers can find honesty is hard and that they made honest mistakes, in spite of all their efforts to be pragmatic, just Google “Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse.” Even engineers don’t know everything, and can be surprised by elements of truth called “Chaos Theory” and “Strange Attractors.” (That is where the grant money should go, rather than to “climate science.”)
History show us, (as an earlier reply mentioned,) that this delightful thing we all would like to have, called “Power,” is a thing that corrupts. It doesn’t only happen to a fairy-tale hobbit called Frodo, if he puts on Sauron’s ring. It happens over and over in history, and is happening today.
If you read some of the oldest English we have, you read Chaucer describe how monks, who were suppose to be holy men, sometimes hid in hedge-rows and leapt out to ravish country girls who happened to be walking down lanes. Chaucer might describe this hypocrisy with humor, but the monks were obviously not enacting the Christianity Christ himself urged. Therefore, as is usually the case with humor, Chaucer made many laugh by pointing out human hypocrisy, but also angered others. (Which is likely why he only showed his humor to friends.) Who might he anger? He of course angered the monks he Mocked, but he also likely angered the ravished maidens, who did not feel being attacked by a sexual predator was a laughing matter.
If you leap forward a mere millennium, you now find us cracking jokes about climate scientists. The jokes anger them, and some want to sue us. However who is the ravished maiden, in our current situation?
I think the ravished maiden is Europe, which is facing a third cruel winter with dependable sources of energy shut down, and stupid sources of energy being erected. It is no joke, no laughing matter. People are very cold. They are getting very pissed off. The big-shots, in high places of power, are getting nervous.
It serves them right. They fell prey to stupidity. You see it over and over in history, and it works like this:
There is a sound moral system which works. However power corrupts, and at some point people in high places discover they can afford to break the rules which poorer people can’t afford to break. (It matters little if the rules are religious rules, or scientific rules.) Somehow privileged people get it into their heads that rules are not wise, and are only for stupid bumpkins. The poor go on obeying rules, or going to jail for breaking rules, even as breaking rules becomes the very fabric of life, for lar-de-dar snobs.
It is the sophisticated people who are the true dolts and morons. They think being sophisticated is a good thing, without ever understanding what a scum-bag a “sophist” is.
Therefore they are not like the honest engineer, trying his best to be true but involved in a Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse because they don’t know everything. Instead sophisticated people don’t lift a finger to be true. They believe only Bumpkins obey rules. They think they are above the rules. They are sophists, Oh so smart and rich and clever. They play the sophist game, bribing the right guy, and getting the right payback, and laughing up their sleeves at all the bumpkins who are honest. However sooner or later there is hell to pay. Suddenly….all Europe is freezing.
Sophists, I fear, must face the music sooner rather than later. The bumpkins of Europe are awaking to the fact that it is thirty below, and rather than a coal stove they have a windmill and a solar panel. That is a hard fact for any politician to deny, and, across the pond, even the most glib sophist is now looking for the exit.
Now let us skip back a millennium to Chaucer. What was his humor pointing out? It was pointing out the exact same thing which, (when dense sophists didn’t get what Chaucer tried to point out in a friendly way), Martin Luther inked on paper and pounded to a church door with a very loud hammer: “Truth is Truth, damn it all!”
To return to the point of this “Reply to a Post,” I delight in the simple demands proposed by this post, for it is not humor like Chaucer’s, but is more like Martin Luther. It demands REFORM, with a loud hammer.
Reform, a millennium ago, was more or less religious, whereas now it is scientific. However Truth hasn’t changed. Truth never does change. Truth remains true.
When sophists intellectualize, “The ends justify the means,” what they are in essence saying is, “Truth doesn’t matter now, because someday we intend to get around to facing it.” Unfortunately, they don’t get around to facing it until it is jammed into their face. Sadly, that is what is now happening in Europe, as we speak.
Here in America the winter has been kindly, but I like to believe we don’t require our butts to be frozen off, before we demand scientists speak the Truth. Why wait? Nail the thesis to the door now, without any more procrastination, this very day!
My colleagues and I have long joked that we can predict with amazing accuracy what any student’s final grade will be after the second week of term. Sometimes a student will surprise us, but most of the time we nail it. However, like scientists, we have to allow the term to progress and collect actual data to support our conclusions, because anything else would be unprofessional and unethical–no matter how much time we would save not having to score papers.
Right?
I am honored Anthony for your replay , It was tongue deep in to my cheek .I have read you for years , and believe me am grateful for all your hard work..Everyone else take a chill pill.:)
Where is the link to the original infographic?
We know we can’t trust journos, pollies, businesspeople, and religious teachers.
But now we can’t trust sciency types either?
We’re doomed!
Caleb says: (February 7, 2012 at 8:43 pm) “I am so glad to see this. It amounts to restating what a true, honest and decent scientist already knows: …
Thank you, Caleb, for an enjoyable and instructive comment. I delighted in it.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8416197
AW. well worth a read and relevant. Aussies who follow this site will appreciate the article.
regards
Nice graphic, but worrying figures, considering the publicly perceived ‘scientific’ nature of psychology. Let’s not forget either that too many of these junk results end up being used in advertising, to make us splash the cash on trash we never wanted, and politics, to make black look white – nor that, in practice, they often work all too well as humans are too, too easy to fool.
Non-UK readers might also enjoy (Dr.) Ben Goldacre’s site Bad Science, where he regularly lays into … well, bad science, also primarily medical. (It hasn’t escaped my notice that he steers clear of a subject well known to readers of WUWT, though this may be just a result of writing for the Guardian and wanting to continue writing for the Guardian.) Check his Oct 18th post, which links to an excellent (and downloadable, for cheapskates like me) book on ‘Testing Treatments’.
@bkindseth – re ISO standards, I recall when a PCB subcontractor of ours had just managed to achieve ISO 9000 certification without outside help – his first delivery of boards to us were mirror-image to what we wanted. Everything was perfectly documented – just wrong!
On “truth”:
Excerpt from “Philosophy of Science” (Okasha, 2002, OUP): “The theory-ladenness of data had two important consequences for Kuhn. Firstly, it meant that the issue between competing paradigms could not be resolved by simply appealing to ‘the data’ or ‘the facts’, for what a scientists counts as data, or facts, will depend on which paradigm she accepts. Perfectly objective choice between two paradigms is therefore impossible: there is no neutral vantage-point from which to assess the claims of each. Secondly, the very idea of objective truth is called into question. For to be objectively true, our theories or beliefs must correspond to the facts, but the idea of such a correspondence makes little sense if the facts themselves are infected by other theories. This is why Kuhn was led to the radical view that truth itself is relative to a paradigm.”
Ummm….
Why has the major paper in this subject, by Dr. John Ioannidis, not been referenced?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/
Well worth a read. Or a paraphrase here, should you be less interested in stats.. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/
RE: sensorman says:
February 8, 2012 at 1:12 am
“….This is why Kuhn was led to the radical view that truth itself is relative to a paradigm.”
Sorry, but I always smell a fat, when people get all esotaric about the Truth.
Yes, Scientists don’t know everything.
Yes, Scientists have much to learn.
However we do know better than to build windmills and expect them to heat our homes when it is thirty below.
I fear Europe will wind up in ruins once again, but this time the USA can’t afford to rush over and save them. I sure hope China is feeling kindly.
I meant to say, “smell a rat.”
renowebb says:
February 7, 2012 at 1:51 pm
These people are racist , every caricature is of a minority type person. I am calling the Whitehouse.
REPLY:I don’t see it that way. It seems more to do with the graphical color scheme than anything. – Anthony=================
actually it could be said to be more truthful:-)
as majority of folks on the planet are NOT white:-)
Maybe I missed something, but psychology is not a field/degree of the Sciences so I am not suprised by some of the findings. I have never held much respect for the field of psychology after taking a course and interacting with several professors in the arena because they consider themselves a MD when they have very little if no medical training.
“If wishes were horses beggars would ride”
To use one example; the second-hand smoke studies that “proved” the danger of second-hand smoke just had to be true because cigarette smoke is smelly and disgusting and we all wanted the studies to be true. One part of the problem lies with our modern attitudes where the public’s “feelings” are more important than the pertinent facts.
In the early days of science, it was all experimental. Bias and fudging were much less because people could repeat your experiment. Other sciences were observational (psychology, natural history) and thus not taken as seriously. When modern social sciences began they developed and used lots of statistics, but the topic was still very squishy and experiments not clearly relevant to the real world (eg students playing games in a lab) so it became easy for a little massaging of the data (oh, always for good reasons of course) to become common place. The advent of modeling has further worsened this practice because in models one must always make assumptions to get anything to compute, and the assumptions are easily hidden from the reader.
Dr. Dave says:
A really good example are the last studies that “proved” second-hand smoke presents a health risk. There were three very large, well designed studies that explored this question. Problem was they kept getting “the wrong answer”. Eventually the anti-tobacco zealots cobbled together a much smaller study with ridiculous confidence limits. At last! They got the desired answer.
Can you share any links to more detail on this?