Also: Poll: Just 6 Percent Of Americans Say They Trust News Media
From the Lewpaper department:
Science is broken. That’s the thesis of a must-read article in First Things magazine, in which William A. Wilson accumulates evidence that a lot of published research is false. But that’s not even the worst part. 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.
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.
For starters, there’s a “replication crisis” in science. This is particularly true in the field of experimental psychology, where far too many prestigious psychology studies simply can’t be reliably replicated. But it’s not just psychology. In 2011, the pharmaceutical company Bayer looked at 67 blockbuster drug discovery research findings published in prestigious journals, and found that three-fourths of them weren’t right. Another study of cancer research found that only 11 percent of preclinical cancer research could be reproduced. Even in physics, supposedly the hardest and most reliable of all sciences, Wilson points out that “two of the most vaunted physics results of the past few years — the announced discovery of both cosmic inflation and gravitational waves at the BICEP2 experiment in Antarctica, and the supposed discovery of superluminal neutrinos at the Swiss-Italian border — have now been retracted, with far less fanfare than when they were first published.”
What explains this? In some cases, human error. Much of the research world exploded in rage and mockery when it was found out that a highly popularized finding by the economists Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhardt linking higher public debt to lower growth was due to an Excel error. Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, largely built his career on a paper arguing that abortion led to lower crime rates 20 years later because the aborted babies were disproportionately future criminals. Two economists went through the painstaking work of recoding Levitt’s statistical analysis — and found a basic arithmetic error.
Then there is outright fraud. In a 2011 survey of 2,000 research psychologists, over half admitted to selectively reporting those experiments that gave the result they were after. The survey also concluded that around 10 percent of research psychologists have engaged in outright falsification of data, and more than half have engaged in “less brazen but still fraudulent behavior such as reporting that a result was statistically significant when it was not, or deciding between two different data analysis techniques after looking at the results of each and choosing the more favorable.”
Then there’s everything in between human error and outright fraud: rounding out numbers the way that looks better, checking a result less thoroughly when it comes out the way you like, and so forth.
Still, shouldn’t the mechanism of independent checking and peer review mean the wheat, eventually, will be sorted from the chaff?
Well, maybe not. There’s actually good reason to believe the exact opposite is happening.
The peer review process doesn’t work. Most observers of science guffaw at the so-called “Sokal affair,” where a physicist named Alan Sokal submitted a gibberish paper to an obscure social studies journal, which accepted it. Less famous is a similar hoodwinking of the very prestigious British Medical Journal, to which a paper with eight major errors was submitted. Not a single one of the 221 scientists who reviewed the paper caught all the errors in it, and only 30 percent of reviewers recommended that the paper be rejected. Amazingly, the reviewers who were warned that they were in a study and that the paper might have problems with it found no more flaws than the ones who were in the dark.
This is serious. In the preclinical cancer study mentioned above, the authors note that “some non-reproducible preclinical papers had spawned an entire field, with hundreds of secondary publications that expanded on elements of the original observation, but did not actually seek to confirm or falsify its fundamental basis.”
This gets into the question of the sociology of science. It’s a familiar bromide that “science advances one funeral at a time.” The greatest scientific pioneers were mavericks and weirdos. Most valuable scientific work is done by youngsters. Older scientists are more likely to be invested, both emotionally and from a career and prestige perspective, in the regnant paradigm, even though the spirit of science is the challenge of regnant paradigms.
Why, then, is our scientific process so structured as to reward the old and the prestigious? Government funding bodies and peer review bodies are inevitably staffed by the most hallowed (read: out of touch) practitioners in the field. The tenure process ensures that in order to further their careers, the youngest scientists in a given department must kowtow to their elders’ theories or run a significant professional risk. Peer review isn’t any good at keeping flawed studies out of major papers, but it can be deadly efficient at silencing heretical views.
All of this suggests that the current system isn’t just showing cracks, but is actually broken, and in need of major reform.
–Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, The Week, 18 April 2016
At its best, science is a human enterprise with a superhuman aim: the discovery of regularities in the order of nature, and the discerning of the consequences of those regularities. We’ve seen example after example of how the human element of this enterprise harms and damages its progress, through incompetence, fraud, selfishness, prejudice, or the simple combination of an honest oversight or slip with plain bad luck. When cultural trends attempt to render science a sort of religion-less clericalism, scientists are apt to forget that they are made of the same crooked timber as the rest of humanity and will necessarily imperil the work that they do. The greatest friends of the Cult of Science are the worst enemies of science’s actual practice. –William A. Wilson, First Things, May 2016
Trust in the news media is being eroded by perceptions of inaccuracy and bias, fueled in part by Americans’ skepticism about what they read on social media. Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public’s view of other institutions. The poll shows that accuracy clearly is the most important component of trust. Nearly 90 percent of Americans say it’s extremely or very important that the media get their facts correct, according to the study. Readers also are looking for balance: Are there enough sources so they can get a rounded picture of what they are reading. –Carole Feldman and Emily Swanson, Associated Press, 18 April 2016
h/t to Benny Peiser of The GWPF
Hard physics is vulnerable in two areas. In Big Science projects replications are often too costly. In some theoretical areas, such as parts of astrophysics there are gatekeepers that exclude alternatives that should be considered. Peer review needs to made double blind insofar as that is possible. It would be hard to hide the origins of work done at Fermilab, but saving a budding Einstein from the gatekeepers would certainly be possible.
One of my favorite examples of this effect goes along with my comment above about astrophysics. The current “consensus” in that discipline surrounds “dark” stuff as an explanation for Newtonian models to explain observations of galactic rotation. Back in the 60’s a fellow named Milgrom noticed the problem and proposed what he called a Modified Newtonian model (MOND I think it was) but was dismissed as a heretic. Over the course of years the kaffee klatch of astrophysics circled their wagons around “dark” theory and no one wants to play with Milgrom at all, save a few die hards mostly not living off grant money.
So we have an example of a once reputable science literally discarding observed evidence in favor of preserving a revered mathematical model. Where I come from, when a hypothesis is falsified by observation, you toss the hypothesis, not the observation. Which is more likely, that Newton’s theories of gravitation and motion were incomplete, or that an entirely new class of matter and energy never before observed exists somewhere beyond the experience of science? How many billions must we spend to find the little man who wasn’t there before we go back to the drawing boards and re-write Newton’s “laws”?
should be “Newtonian models failure to explain…”
Science is fatally compromised. The rot set in in the 90s when many agencies decided that the literature was no longer a repository for human knowledge, it was a metric. A yardstick by which to judge scientists for promotion, tenure, job retention and job selection. Since that time, numeralogical mumbo jumbo such as impact factors, h indices etc has encouraged scientists to game the system for personal gain. The literature, for all scientific disciplines, has been slaughtered on the altar of human mendacity. Vale science.
Science, “real TV” (Kardashians…) and Hollywood = star systems
“two of the most vaunted physics results of the past few years — the announced discovery of both cosmic inflation and gravitational waves at the BICEP2 experiment in Antarctica, and the supposed discovery of superluminal neutrinos at the Swiss-Italian border — have now been retracted, with far less fanfare than when they were first published.”. Please can we have links to these, so that (as good scientists) we can check them out!
The final source of rot in science is not being given enough credit in the decay process-the media. CAGW is a perfect example and the daily march of doom from the weather (obviously caused by man) with x million at risk from a little storm is nauseatingly pervasive. The worst thing that ever happened to science is PR, in all its hyperbolic flatulence. Even the most credible of scientists is subject to the ignorance, exaggeration and spin of the university morons assigned the task of making mountains out of mole hills or plain academic manure. I don’t know how many times Anthony has complained about the lack of a citation in a PR describing another bilious breakthrough in climate science before ripping into the asinine contents. Until we get a handle on how to create honest media (leaving governmental distortion out of the picture), we’ll never return ( if there ever really was) to honorable science as the greatest tool for advancing human knowledge.
I recently saw a program on CBC in Canada on non-criminal psychopaths. I believe CEOs were highest representation at about 3.9%, next were lawyers (no surprise, surely), third was media personnel. Explains a lot I think. Come to think of it, those three professions encapsulate about half the AGW opportunists who are building great careers on B.S.
Government is corruption incarnate so of course government funded science is going to end up as a late stage roman empire style bureaucratic mess. I say let the professors feel the coldly utilitarian hand of the market where if your discovery is wrong or is utterly pointless, you go broke.
The other thing the previous commenters have not hit yet is Pournelle’s Law, that persons who are good at the internal politics of an organization tend to dominate the organization, to the detriment of the purported purpose of the organization. I believe that without real external demands to stay on the purported goals, most organizations will become nastily self-referential, with the problem being how to supply that external check.
Has anyone replicated the Higgs Boson experiment?
You mean other than the LHC? I’m not holding my breath. You think some other consortium of nations will build a copy of it? Not bloody likely.
If there wasn’t an experiment and it wasn’t replicated there wasn’t science.
“It’s a familiar bromide that “science advances one funeral at a time.” The greatest scientific pioneers were mavericks and weirdos. Most valuable scientific work is done by youngsters. ”
In the scientific community, the youngsters agree AGW is real and happening now. Most disagreers are old.
“In the scientific community, the youngsters agree AGW is real and happening now. Most disagreers are old.”
Which youngsters? I know a few in physics and another in marine biology among other fields, none of them believe AGW is a problem or catastrophic. Then again, none of them are feeding off of the climate gravy train either, so there is your correlation
Fine,
Give me your list of youngster scientists disagreeing with AGW ,)
Wagen,
The young postdocs aren’t stupid. They know the trigger words they have to parrot, if they want to have a carreer.
It’s the older folks who either know what a scam CAGW is. And sometimes the older ones, who have been life-long nincompoops find it impossible to change their ways.
It’s the old fools who still believe in “dangerous AGW” that make me laugh. There’s no credible evidence to support their belief. But they still believe…
…sound familiar?
“In the scientific community, the youngsters agree AGW is real and happening now. Most disagreers are old.”
Wagen, clearly you know as much about the “scientific” community as you do about youngsters and skeptics.
🙂
Wagen says,
======================================================
“Fine, Give me your list of youngster scientists disagreeing with AGW ,)
======================================================
David says, Fine, give me your list of youngsters agreeing with CAGW. (Do not forget the C)
Beyond that, more even more cogent, give me your list of non government funded youngsters supporting CAGW.
And finally, give me your evidence that youngsters know more then their older more experienced fellow scientists.
I would say that private research is somewhat better, but not perfect. In the private sector, your results get tested in the rwal world. If your goods do not deliver, then your customers will certainly find out soon enough.
Roger
“If your goods do not deliver, then your customers will certainly find out soon enough.”
That depends on the area involved and how easy it is to tell if the original results are still valid.
See my post above at April 19, 2016 at 5:29 pm
“the supposed discovery of superluminal neutrinos at the Swiss-Italian border — have now been retracted”
That’s an example of a finding most scientists found doubtful, even those who published it. And it was checked and retracted, so that’s a proof science is self correcting (just sometimes).
So this example has no place here. Of course some surprising findings are checked and retracted, but mostly because they go against the mainstream.
You could has well put anti-GMO findings here! (like that very strange “cross-kingdom regulation by microRNA” finding)
One huge issue in science soundbytes is the massive role of closet Bayesians, pretend frequentists in vaccine risk analysis and in risk analysis in general. They reinterpret meaningless null not rejected results as positive results, and reject positive results based on a prior of almost zero or even zero probability of risk. Of course, they refuse to change the null because it would destroy their pathetic fraudulent risk d*nial enterprise. It’s overwhelming and repugnant.
If you don’t like the frequentist framework, you shouldn’t be forced to use it. If you choose to use it, you can’t interpret a null not rejected as ultimate proof of safety. You don’t get to negate your null in your conclusion. It’s sick!
This inversion of the null also happens in “low dose” radiation studies which are “compatible” with the linear excess cancer risk dogma (and just are “compatible” with a finding of no cancer risk whatsoever with low radiation dose rates).
I don’t think the self correcting mechanisms are broken. They are just not going to self correct fast enough before great damage is created for everyone when it comes to climate because natural climate change happens so slow. Eventually the truth will prevail but not in my generation.
“I don’t think the self correcting mechanisms are broken. They are just not going to self correct fast
enough” is a lot like saying “in the long term we are all dead”.
And the economic nostrums advocated by the man who said “in the long term we are all dead” are still being followed despite repeated failures.
I thought the same thing simple-touriste- If the “self correcting” mechanisms are supposed to correct things quickly, and they are not doing that….they are “BROKEN.” Right? LOL. My daughter “broke” her arm. We didn’t cut it off because it was “broken”. There’s a difference between broken and irreparable Ryan. 🙂
What about the UAH V6 temp record?
Ken Stewart’s latest UAH March update still shows a pause in all the regions except the Nth extra tropics.
Here are the Globe and regions.
Globe a pause for 18 yrs 10 months, over half the record.
NH a pause for 18 yrs 4 months.
SH a pause for 20 years 9mths, over half the record.
Tropics a pause for 21 yrs 6 mths , well over half the record.
Trop oceans a pause for 22 yrs 4 mths ‘ as above.
Nth ex tropics no pause, but trend of just 0.13 C per century, so no Stat significant warming at all.
Sth ex tropics a pause for 20 yrs 7 mths. Over half record.
Nth polar a pause for 14 yrs 1 month.
S polar a pause or slight cooling since Dec 1978.
USA a pause for 18 yrs 10 months.
OZ a pause for 21 yrs 1 mth , over half the record.
Of course there is a longer lag time with Sat temps, so the pause could disappear in the coming months. But if a la nina returns later this year the pause may come back after that date.
So far not much to show in all the globe’s regions since 1997.
https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2016/04/08/the-pause-update-march-2016-complete/
Who is performing a trick? Steve McIntyre goes after Nasa’s Gavin Schmidt.
https://climateaudit.org/2016/04/19/gavin-schmidt-and-reference-period-trickery/
Watching this whole debate and most comments are amusing. So whats the fix we let you guys vote on what is right, because you know, you really know (Come back Doug) …. I love it science by layman democracy and voting by the mindless mob.
Okay lets give you the cold hard fact, what you, me or anybody else thinks doesn’t make one bit of difference to science never has, never will. Sure politicians and media may say things and even pass laws based on some wrong understanding of science but none of that really affects science other than possibly slow its progress. The key driver of science is that knowledge gives advantage both economic and military.
The church in 1616 declared the Earth was the center of the universe and it placed bans on anyone writing about or teaching it. The truth was just as obvious to them as it is to many of those making comments here. You may care to read why they had to change their stance.
Perhaps you guys should go down the same line go for full science censorship, that is what many seem to be advocating.
Why I just laugh is, lets imagine the stupids in the mob mentality ruled and say somewhere like USA voted that the congress decides science by a vote in the house (or maybe you appoint a committee). The problem is your science then isn’t progress driven it is decided by an unrelated thing. It would not take very long at all before the USA would fall behind the rest of the world just based on the process.
The reality is hard sciences and engineering don’t give a rats what you think. All you can do is control the purse strings and funding. Fine cut funding, the scientists will move to another country and work there is always some country wanting an edge.
Yeah science is bad, evil, corrupt and broken if that is what you want to believe … but it’s worse it doesn’t care what you think. Have a nice day 🙂
LDB, clearly you neither read the article, or the comments by numerous scientists who frequent WUWT, and numerous well informed laymen who have a deep respect for the scientific method.. Your blind loyalty to the label “scientist” and “science” is more akin to blind faith, then science.
Nobody said “science is bad, evil, corrupt and broken”. This was a post about how much the peer review process is broken, with numerous informative comments. Think more, emote less.
The claim of the article and headline is that Science is broken, it discusses peer review but it certainly claims far more than that is broken. Then read the comments and tell me that I got it wrong.
Perhaps ask the Author to change his title to Peer Review is Broken if that is what you think he means and see what his response is.
The entire article is a beat up about an article by a Software Engineer who I have to say doesn’t give me any conclusive evidence that he actually has a clue what he is talking about. The truth is his rubbish just resonates with a certain audience that have merged around climate change debate in what becomes meaningless babble that every scientist just laughs at and ignores.
I guess William A. Wilson credentials are having cleanup up Software Companies and there claims he has moved over to cleanup Science because of his good track record 🙂
Actually thinking about it I am sure DC claims he is a software engineer among other things … hmm wonder.
He cant speak if he doesn’t emote. It’s all he’s got David A. 🙂
Insinuations, assumptions, opinions, declarations….and magical thinking (he can obviously read minds and knows exactly what “every scientist” does as well as what every skeptic here thinks and believes). Of course, in science we call what such things logical fallacies and cognitive biases, which surely someone as knowledgeable as LdB is, …should know better than to engage in. 🙂
Sorry but I don’t recognise the strawman you think you are demolishing here.
And if you think science isn’t decided by votes in Congress, you haven’t been paying attention – acid rain, diets, CFCs, CO2 – the science of all of these has been decided by votes. The same happens in the EU.
Yes, science is bad, evil corrupt and broken because like everything else it is human.Science can however be self-correcting if we harness the “bad” (e.g. ego, desire for fame, desire to deny fame to your rivals) in the same way markets harness greed to produce good outcomes.To do that requires governments to step back and refuse to decide what is “right” and what is not worthy of funding however.
So much assumption, very little logic or fact. We find you more pitiful than amusing.
That was meant for LdB
DB, did you miss this post…
http://ristvan.wordpress.com/
Here are some ideas.
1. No independent replication, no further grants on the subject matter.
2. Tenure based on quality, not quantity.
3. Severe consequences for academic misconduct. Science would not address or retract Marcott 2013 even when presented with indelible written evidence comparing thesis to paper. Nature Geoscience did not require a correction to OLeary 2013 Figure 3 even when presented with indelible written evidence from the SI.
4. Some percentage of grant budgets (NSF, NIH) mandated to be spent outside the mainstream or on ‘counter research’ seeking to poke holes in theme fads.
5. Any paper using complex statistics, or claiming p values, must also be peer reviewed by a statistician.
What is interesting is NOT ONE commentator actually worked out that “First Things” is a sham front for a Religious Organization to mascarade as something scientific because nothing really has changed since the 1600’s.
For a group of skeptics you all got played hook line and sinker because you didn’t bother to look beyond what seemed to be an appealing story. A simple click on the about screen on the provided links would have told you all what was going on here.
Or perhaps many “worked out” the nature of the blog and recognized that it was irrelevant to the post’s message.
Those of us who have observed science and technology up close and personal for an extended period recognize how great the chasm is between science and what scientists may say–and how little one may in any given situation rely on science’s having been self-correcting.
And those conclusions follow independently of whether the observer thinks that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.
Joe,
I was aware of the publication but did not comment on it because I did not think it was relevant. I don’t think attacking the publication or the writer impugns his thesis. His work stand or falls on the merits of the arguments presented.
In the “religious” publication the article assumes there is a reality that we can know, however imperfectly, and it is possible to advance our deposit of knowledge through the scientific method. He bemoans what he sees as a regress in our current situation.
In the link that thallstd posted to a similar article from a “secular” publication, they author implies that truth is changeable. The title is, ‘The Truth Wears Off”. While the details of the article give empirical reasons for the troubles in science, the conclusion flatly states: “Just because an idea is true doesn’t mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn’t mean it’s true. When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe.”
So, what I find interesting is the religious publication is defending empiricism and the validity of finding at least some truth of reality through the scientific method and the secular publication is proposing that the truth and reality is whatever we choose to believe.
MikeToo
LdB,
Every single time you post here, you demonstrate that you either lack logical skill, or you have zero disregard for it. You also seem to be unable to discern facts from the opinions/thoughts in your own head.
First, “For a group of skeptics you all got played hook line and sinker because you didn’t bother to look beyond what seemed to be an appealing story. A simple click on the about screen on the provided links would have told you all what was going on here.”
For someone who has the ability to read minds, determine motives, and do simple “screen clicking”, you sure got a lot wrong today skippy. The article “BIG (why do you keep ignoring that word?) Science is Broken” was NOT written by William A. Wilson, it was written by Pascal- Emanuel Gobry, and appeared in “The Week”. Anthony is quoting Gobry’s article, not Wilson’s. Pascal-Gobry MENTIONS “the thesis of a must-read article in First Things magazine” written by William A. Wilson. Wilson’s article is titled “Scientific Regress”.
Second- The idea that science and religion are somehow incompatible opponents isn’t even believed by the National Academy of Sciences, so why do you hurl yourself on swords that no one here has brandished?
“Compatibility of Science and Religion”- http://www.nas.edu/evolution/Compatibility.html
Science is not the only way of knowing and understanding. But science is a way of knowing that differs from other ways in its dependence on empirical evidence and testable explanations. Because biological evolution accounts for events that are also central concerns of religion — including the origins of biological diversity and especially the origins of humans — evolution has been a contentious idea within society since it was first articulated by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858.
Acceptance of the evidence for evolution can be compatible with religious faith. Today, many religious denominations accept that biological evolution has produced the diversity of living things over billions of years of Earth’s history. Many have issued statements observing that evolution and the tenets of their faiths are compatible. Scientists and theologians have written eloquently about their awe and wonder at the history of the universe and of life on this planet, explaining that they see no conflict between their faith in God and the evidence for evolution. Religious denominations that do not accept the occurrence of evolution tend to be those that believe in strictly literal interpretations of religious texts.
Science and religion are based on different aspects of human experience. In science, explanations must be based on evidence drawn from examining the natural world. Scientifically based observations or experiments that conflict with an explanation eventually must lead to modification or even abandonment of that explanation. Religious faith, in contrast, does not depend only on empirical evidence, is not necessarily modified in the face of conflicting evidence, and typically involves supernatural forces or entities. Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science. In this sense, science and religion are separate and address aspects of human understanding in different ways. Attempts to pit science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist.
Third- “What is interesting is NOT ONE commentator actually worked out that “First Things” is a sham front for a religious organization…”
I think it’s AMAZING that NOT ONE commentator here thought they had to, because EVERY skeptical person here automatically KNOWS that would be a stupid and extremely low information voter/ irrelevant thing to do. You took the easy cheap shot and attacked “the man” instead of doing the hard work of actually responding to or refuting his arguments.
Fourth -First Things states right on their about page how they feel about religion so even your weasel reference to a “sham” is just one more indication that you have a problem with facts.
LdB, what sham front? The web site calls itself a journal of religion and the public life, not a science journal. No sham here. And surely scientific regress is a concern in public life, especially insofar as science depends on public funds. Do you have any criticism that does not commit an ad-hominem fallacy?
Ok Aphan you want to do something logical the set up your own science review system. See if most of commentators on here actually knew a dam thing about science they would know they could setup there own Journal or Science paper publishing site.
It’s been done already Phillip Gibbs who is a bit of a maverick but at least he knows how science works setup his own science paper publishing site.
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2009/07/whats_arxiv_spelled_backwards.html
So there you go anybody can publish on his site, no references required.
See here is the catch every crackpot and nutter under the sun publishes rubbish on it, and real scientists can’t be bothered wading thru the effluent to use it.
The whole article above is complaint about a system that isn’t actually a system and isn’t set in stone by anyone. It is a process that any new journal, university or even you can change and do your own thing with. That is right you can have your own journal and own university with your own rules so stop complaining.
Then the real issue comes that no real scientists will really recognize or give a rats about your organization and wont give you standing and recognition. That is the problem vixra has, that the scientists avoid the thing like the plague.
So in an article complaining about science process perhaps the writer might have actually spent a little bit of effort to actually try and understand how it all works.
To all the moaning commentators go make your own science structures and if they are so good and wonderful we we all come 🙂
LdB
THAT was your best logical response? You can’t spell, you can’t reason well, you fixated on one very small point of an article citing numerous problems, and you can’t even provide one fact that refutes that one thing. The more you speak, the more you undermine yourself. By all means, continue. 😊
If you are part of “Big Science”, no wonder it’s broken.
It appears to me that LDB is one of those people who believe that you can’t complain about a movie being bad unless you can make a better one.
I should also say Anthony and this site are a perfect example of the above. He didn’t like the way the Climate Science sites were moderating so he did something about it. Take a leaf out of his book.
So “Science is Broken”? This implies that at sometime in the past science was whole and functioned well.
This, of course, is nonsense. There was no “Golden Age of Science” when all experimenters adhered to rigidly precise methodologies and consistently arrived at demonstrably correct conclusions that were easily replicated.
The real question is whether or not scientists are doing a better job today than they did before. Looking at the rising standard of living and the longer life spans that people can expect today the answer is yes. Things are better now than before. Can they be improved? Again yes. Science isn’t broken, it simply has room for improvement.
Has anyone replicated the studies that purport to show that so many studies are irreplicable? Will subsequent work show these studies themselves to be irreplicable? This isn’t a joke. It points to the actual problem being one of methodology.
Methodological problems have plagued science since the time of Thales. Flaws in method leave holes into which both honest and dishonest researchers can fall. More time must be spent on refining methodology and less time bemoaning “broken” science.
Bob, the problem is not just methodological. As explained in the article I link to at my April 19, 2016 at 5:16 pm post, it appears to be rooted as much in human nature and the process of science as the methodology of the experiment or study.
There are always religious groups that blame “fallen” mankind for every problem. When asked “What is the first thing that must be done in order to seek salvation from sin?” a young man answered “First, you must sin”. People selling salvation always see sinful human nature as the problem. The fact that humans are fallible, however, does not mean that they are inveterately wrong.
Did you ever notice that these very same groups never, ever attribute something good to human nature? Anything good comes from God, only bad stuff comes from human nature. That’s why people have to be very careful when reading websites like “First Things”. They often present truth but with a theological basis that really isn’t connected to the facts that they present.
I tend to agree with Lord Acton (oddly, a very religious Catholic) whose maxim about power and corruption applies here. Remove the power of the government to fund science and science will, eventually, correct itself.
Those who dare to discuss the flaws associated with certain theories are often automatically attacked for this by the same people who pretend that everyone who accepts the theory would love to discredit it because of the acclaim that would come from reforming a major paradigm.
But as everyone knows, those who are merely willing to entertain skeptic’s ideas have been made examples of, so reform never comes.
This is a cult, people.
With respect to Levitt, his study was published, others published a response about a statistical error, then Levitt fixed and republished. His latest results had a lower magnitude, but they were still statistically significant. — John M Reynolds
psychology is that even a science? I really am disappointed about this statement and I think it to be really wrong to consider a science what is just literature, philosophy and all other branches of humanism (with all due respect).
Janice Moore, when you apostrophed me with ‘Herr Wundersamer’ I was’nt quit-witted enough answering ‘Gnädige Frau Moore’.
Be assured You’re a relevant Herausforderung.
Best Regards – no answere awaiting. Hans
All in all, I find that this First Things article has too much of a journalistic, canned goods off the supermarket shelf quality to be a really cogent critique of “science”. It doesn’t sound like it’s written by someone who really knows how empirical science actually works.
In the first place, one cannot talk about “science” as such except in the most abstract terms. This is because every area of science has its own accumulation of facts and its own methodologies. In particular, any really sound area of science is built upon a bedrock of observations, that sometimes take centuries to accumulate. Take practically any area of biology – let’s say feeding and metabolism. The basic observations are legion – all animals engage in foraging through much or all of their lives. Investigating this, people discovered the digestive process and later the various facets of metabolism until they got down to chemical systems like the Krebs Cycle, etc. Or take the study of electricity: there were about 200 years between Gilbert’s discovery that a half dozen different kinds of material could be “electrified” and the realization that this property of electrification was something fundamental to the material world. Only then – and with the development of standardized conductors – could one work in a more modern mode of quantitative experimentation. But all of the latter was built upon the observational foundation created in those two centuries.
So what do statistical arguments such as the one about whether an experiment is likely to be right mean in these contexts? I would say, almost nothing. The problem is that research in fields such as the ones just cited (and I could give many similar examples) doesn’t resemble taking balls at random from a urn or searching at random to find a diamond inside a stone. There’s an interlocking network of observation and experimental evidence that determines which studies are done next and how they are evaluated. And I don’t see this reflected in this paper in any way, shape or form.
Another facet of research that this author doesn’t seem cognisant of is measurement and assessment. Advances in this department are often more important that the specific studies that flow from them. I’m thinking for example of things like electrophoresis or radioimmunoassay, which gave rise to a torrent of important studies and discoveries that would have been impossible without the development of such methods.
It’s only in weaker areas of science, such as some areas of psychology, where this bedrock of observation is missing (and the ‘measurements’ are often pretty iffy) that one gets the kinds of situation that the author describes. There there are real problems all right – and in addition such fields seem to be more vulnerable to political influence. (In fact, there’s an epidemiological side to the present corruption in the sciences that would be worth exploring.)
RW,
The article was published in “This Week”. It REFERENCES another article published in “First Things”. The facts are facts whether you find the context they are used in to your satisfaction or not. Why not refute/ discuss the actual problems demonstrated by the factual events he spoke of instead of complaining about how learned or informed you think he is? You know, discuss empirical things rather than abstract things like opinion, assumption, and cognitive biases?
First Things is a public commentary magazine.
http://www.firstthings.com/about/
Yes, it is primarily religious. It is also primarily Catholic, but I’m not Catholic, and I have yet to be even slightly offended by it. The greatest minds of history have been religious. Sound morals are a benefit to sound science, and thorough religion is why we have both morals and science.
Here is the article mentioned above.
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/05/scientific-regress