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Many Scientists Admit Unethical Practices
jangobongo writes "A surprising number of scientists engage in questionable research practices says a story at the Washington Post. According to a large-scale survey of scientific misbehavior, 15% admit to changing a study under pressure from a funding source. Other reasons for altering data include dropping data from a study based on a gut feeling and failing to include data that contradicts one's own research. This chart gives a quick rundown of the percentage of U.S. based scientists who reported having engaged in questionable research practices according to the survey."
does this mean pigs can fly? have we had the cure for cancer all along??
I want my mommie.
Beat the computer, program your life.
Next they'll be telling us that politicians aren't ethical either. :)
People are always tempted to take the easy route...
When I did my last research project, I had no clue what my results meant and made that clear in my paper!
This was an undergraduate ornithology project that was supposed to take six weeks, according to my advisor. Every professor I've told about it since then has said, that's graduate level at least...
Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? --Chris Burke 09-08-10
Don't trust the science behind this story!
My other sig is extremely clever...
unlike religion, science is self-correcting over the long term. If someone fudges the data and comes up with a wrong conclusion eventually someone else will discover that and get it right.
This is why we have peer review, independant repetition of studies, randomised double blind trials etc. It all comes out in the wash.
Deleted
It had to be the Professor of Gilligan's Island fame. If he could come up with a car, fix the radio, etc. don't you think he could have come up with a way to fix the boat.
In truth he just liked the attention of hanging out with Ginger, the movie star and Maryanne, the girl next door.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
That's why the Scientific Method requires reproducibility. It's not just to weed out confirmation bias or experimental error, but to double check against fraud.
Is there any way to say that this isn't surprising without being considered a troll?
The person who wrote conducted this research lied about the results. There are actually no researches whatsoever who falsify data.
That for most of us that believe in the Scientific Method, to the point, almost to the exclusion of all else, we need to be reminded that sometimes we can be just as blinded by the theories that we believe as those we criticize.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
No, really. Scientists deny altering findings
If you leave out the plagiarism and resume builders then the numbers don't look so bad!
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
This sort of behavior is encouraged by the Bush Administration if results are fudged to favor its position on the environment. Anybody catch this story in the NY Times about the White House doctoring reports on climate change? Here's an interview with Warren Olney about the incident. It seems to me that if we can't trust scientists to tell us the truth regardless of the political implications or of pressure from outside sources, we're really fucked.
...Falsifying reports on the unethical practices of scientists in order to get posted on Slasdot!
I used to be a sys-admin at an University. I was in the computer lab when a grad student started cussing and screaming. I walked over and asked him what was going on. It turned out he was complaining about the data coming out of his model. It "Didn't make sense!!" I suggested that the input data might be wrong, he replied that was impossible because he created the input set and all the numbers "made sense"
There's nothing unethical about my practices....I tell you those sharks wanted those frickin' laser beams grafted to their heads...they pretty much begged for them!
^_^
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I expect 9 out of 10 scientists are secretly using unethical practices, and I welcome it. I'm sure that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of technological, biological, etc... advances that would be impossible without. All those other pussy-footing scientists should learn from their examples.
My wife worked in a group at Northwestern that kept a greaseboard of in-jokes made by the various members. My favorite was always, "Let red denote the fabricated data..." It just sounds so natural.
blarg.
...unavailable for comment.
We've all heard about Bush pressuring scientists to only report findings which support his argument...
I saw this earlier in the print edition, and it's not really what it sounds like. The question to which 15% said yes was whether you'd ever changed the procedure, methodology, or results of an experiment in response to pressure from a funding source. Well, changing the results would be very, very bad, but they actually asked a separate question on that one and only 0.3% (a statistically insignificant number) said yes. Changing methodology is not necessarily illegitimate; if your funding source says "give me X precision", or "measure Y too while you're at it", then the procedure's going to change to reflect that. It doesn't mean there's bias, it means the question was asked incorrectly.
Science is too much about money. Scientists are under pressure to make a money-making discovery for whoever pays their bills. If it's not profitable, the boss man doesn't want to hear it. If scientists could just be paid to be scientists, we'd probably be more advanced than we are now.
Windows isn't the answer... it's the question. NO is the answer!
Maybe they work at the White House, funded by the oil industry to select "winning" research.
--
make install -not war
Well, I find the chart about 15% suspect, because as we know, surveys are manipulated by scientists...
I think my head just exploded from circular logic... *OUCH*
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
I posted that story twelve hours ago and it was rejected. Maybe because the link was in the Baltimore Sun (only link I found with Google, I read the story in a French webnewspaper) and not in Yahoo News / Washington Post ?..
</rant>
here is a additional link from the Baltimore Sun.
The full original article is in Nature.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink =1522707
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
So, global warming is actually true? Green house gases really do exist?
Who can I trust if I can't trust a scientist? My TV? My congressman? Oh, the MADNESS!
"It's not rocket science, Smithers! It's only brain surgery!" --Mr. Burns
God is the only Truth, people. And until our constitution is amended to set this in stone, we will ALL be under threat of the whims of the unethical, godless special interest groups. This simply CANNOT BE ALLOWED.
100% of politicians lie, cheat and steal. Even scientists are *gasp* human. Unethical behavior should not be condoned, but what I'd like to see is a similar report done on lawyers and politicians. THe only problem is none of them would answer honestly! At least this research got some people to admit they were fudging numbers. The actual results are probably skewed to the low side, if anything, because undoubtedly there are some scientists who will lie to cover up their other lies. These are the wannabes to watch out for. Like Bill Frist.
What are the odds that the Republicans are going to use this report to try to smear scientists even more than they have?
Although if you look at the original Nature article...
...it actually sounds an awful lot like the Bush White House.
Further proof that the evangelicals are right; science is sinful. Jesus Christ died so that I can fudge my data.
Certain types of research have bias built-in. If BigDrugCo wants research results on NewExpensiveDrug they aren't going to farm the research to the people who told them their last drugs were worthless. Therefore, if I want BigDrugCo's $$$ in the future I'll try to design the study and present the results in the most positive way. Whether or not I'm aware of it there will be some underlying pressure.
As such, I feel that this type of study needs what I've coined a "triple-blind study" in which a neutral party is placed between the funder and the researcher.
This neutral party would then choose researcher(s) at random from a pool of candidates qualified to do the research and frame the question in a neutral way. The funding source and desired outcome would be withheld from the researcher.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Here's a Catch-22: this study was a study that might have been rigged to make sensationalist claims for the Post, right?
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
What about scientists in South America, Europe, Asia, Canada, Africa, Australia, and other non-American regions? Do they follow a similar trend of data manipulation, forgery and misbehavior? If so, then perhaps this just isn't a problem with American scientists, but scientists in general. That would lead me to believe that it is more just a problem with human nature: the inability to accept that one's beliefs may be incorrect.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Such behavior is known as the tenure track.
BS. Any funded research has similar pressures. Many of those have hidden agendas too. So, it's not "encouraged by the Bush Administration". Your post is simply FUD.
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Error 500: Internal sig error
National Public Radio in the U.S. ran a story about how Merck ran a campaign to pressure M.D.s who were doing research showing Vioxx was a problem in patients, causing damage to the heart.
The story is right here and it outlines a major problem with all scientific research, but most acutely in the pharmaceutical industry, where the Bush administration has gutted the FDA and made them the lapdog of the drug companies. Capital markets use science and statistics as weapons, and objective evidence of problems exists only when other drug companies that compete fund research to show problems.
Bush said last week that he still wasn't interested in a Kyoto like treaty, because global warming needed more "research" and study. And, of course, the report that shows that an employee of the American Petroleum Council was sitting inside the EPA censoring reports that showed any causality between burning fossil fuels and global warming. Can't have that.
Corrupt scientists. No objective sources of information. And people wonder why there is a skyrocketing reliance on religion by our political leaders, who pander and are willing to teach nonsense like "Intelligent Creation" alongside scientific evidence of darwinism and natural selection. Divinity sells. And a assailable scientific community only makes it easier.
We seem to be leaving an age of reason, and entering a new Dark age. Instead of Thomas Aquinas we have Dr. Phil.
"Rejected by the Q-test" was a personal favorite of mine.
... out it went.
If some piece of data was outside of 2 standard deviations from the mean
ahahahaha, all this bullshit about peer review and reproducible results. Yeah, maybe if your working in something sexy in which a hundred scientists are clamouring over your work. But the vast majority of scientists are working in incredibly specialised fields which remain largely unexplored due to lack of interest. Fake as much data as you want, nobody can be bothered double checking on it. If someone says they're not getting the same results, just tell em they must of set up the trial differently. Do you think people care what the result was? They just want a string of papers after their name for tenure.
Whats even funnier is to read through the literature and find all these people being excruciatingly polite in stating that Researcher X is a scum bag thats full of shit.
"According to a large-scale survey of scientific misbehavior, 15% admit to changing a study under pressure from a funding source."
:)
I suppsoe we're supposed to believe this number hasnt been inflated since the study was done by a ethics evaluation company?
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Also, if graders at university level care more about how a paper is formatted and (nicely) written, than if the experiments were properly conducted, bad behaviour is encouraged.
I know people who made one good measurement, made up the rest and spend the remaining part of the time on the paper due at the end of the day. While others spend their time on the experiments and had to write their papers quickly and hasty, forgoing a nice layout.
You didn't had time to do both.
Guess who had the better grade?
Sure, measuring the period of a swinging pendulum may not be groundbreaking, but it's all about instilling the correct work habit.
Perhaps what they did was good for getting a good grade, and they were the smarter of the rest of us. But it was damned lousy science.
Yes, after all these years, I am still "upset" about it.
All I want to know is... what the figure is for reporters (I say higher, but thats from my observations that I've fixed.... gah. who can we trust these days?)
By reading this, you have given me brief control of your mind.
Now, for the story. When I was working in the biology lab at the University of Western Ontario, I was completing some tests for a paper to be submitted at an upcoming conference. To make a long story short, a woman in the department really needed my results to go a certain way. If they did, her thesis would gain quite a bit of strength and her standing and prestige would rise accordingly. The weekend before the conference she came to the lab to check my results. Unfortunately for her but fortunately for me, the results were actually weakening the conclusion of her thesis. So, right there in the lab at 3:30 in the afternoon, she took off her top and asked me if I liked what I saw. I nodded in approval and then she proceeded to give me a good time like I've never had before. Needless to say, the results ended up quite different and she did quite well at the conference.
Quoting the NYTimes is like quoting the National Enquirer, friend. Neither are worthy of trust.
This is like a whole new uncovering of scandal and politics. Sure, it's probably been happening for as long as its been around, but it's kind of scary to think that something as crucial and sensitive as science, which is so important in our lives can have the interest of business (or money) before fact and well being.
Beat the computer, program your life.
Let's not blame the Bush administration for this. If you read the article, even Mendel may have fudged his numbers. And the highest percentage of unethical behavior seems linked more to career or research advancement, which appears to be built into the current system of funding. To get grants or tenure you have to bring in the money, which means appealing to those who have the money to give, be it private or public money.
While I agree that the current administration appears to be most guilty of fudging numbers, I seriously doubt that they originated it or that previous administrations didn't fudge numbers elsewhere.
... with the help of this online english/"science" language companion.
As someone who does scientific research for a living, I have to point out that changing a study because of pressure from a funding source is not necessarily unethical. It's very common for a scientist to say "I want money to study X, Y, and Z" and have a funding source respond "We only really care about X, Y and Q. How about studying those? We'll pay for that." Our the source might say half-way through the study "We've heard that one of our competitors is researching W. Will you look into that instead of Y?" Remember, 'changing a study' is not necessarily unethical. Studies change all the time even without pressure from a funding source, often simply because the researcher comes up with a more interesting or effective way to conduct the study.
Um.... it says that having questionable relationships and falsifying data can be prosecuted, but endangering humans and avoiding minor rules for safety isnt? WTF!
-SaNo
I saw an episode of "In Search Of.." with Leonard Nemoy. The show argued that plants have feelings!! Plants were put in equal environments - but one group were told mean things like "you'll never amount to anything! you're just a weed to me!" while the other plants were told "you are great! people love you." According to the study, the socially deprived plants died quickly. Now, ask yourself.. if this study were actually TRUE, wouldn't plants all over evil dictatorship countries die early? Point being: researchers often make theories. They get funding. Without results, no funding. This goof who studied plant feelings had to of changed the data results to prove his point: plants have feelings. Since then, I don't trust a lot of researchers -- including myself.
I also noted, despite the inevitable excitement of some /. theorists, that there are no numbers for government pressure. While this category may have been omitted, I do not believe the Washington Post would have done so if the numbers were significant.
Reached for comment, the researchers admitted that the actual number was 9%, but they felt some scientists were not willing to admit their wrong-doing, and their editor wasn't going to publish the story unless the number was at least 15%.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
... that scientists are merely human
:-(
Woe is this day
the reason I think this stuff happens is that the "publish or perish" pressure is just too insane at top universities. It's not just publishing in any archival journal; to maintain funding, to get tenured, high quality publications in high profile journals are a must. I can't speak for other fields, but in the biological sciences, not only is the pressure to publish in quality AND quantity getting greater each year, the field has exploded to such a degree that the burden of proof for one's hypotheses is increasingly heavier. Exploratory studies cannot be carried out; the emphasis is almost entirely on what can be completed and published in a reasonably short period of time. Experiments are hard to do. If a grant deadline/tenure review is coming up and the data is not quite what it needs to be, people might be tempted to fudge it a tiny bit.
None of what I just said excuses scientific misconduct. But I think why it happens is just a symptom of a bigger problem (at least in biology). There are too many Ph.D. level scientists! The incessant cranking out of these highly educated people is creating an oversupply of researchers. Every Ph.D. who gets a tenure-track research position (these positions are highly competitive; typically 50-100 highly qualified individuals who have equally impressive CVs compete for one spot) has to stake out their little project and protect it like a lioness protects her cubs. If they're not careful and blink the wrong way, they could be scooped by competitors (i.e. beaten to publication); a good chunk of their career just went down the drain. This after a completely unreasonable length of postgraduate training (6-7 years for a Ph.D. and 4-5 years postdoctoral training after that is quite typical), poor pay and lousy hours. All because IMO there are too many people working on the same shit.
I think that to fix the problem, something fundamental needs to change in the way scientists are produced. I don't pretend to know what the best solution would be, but one idea I've been throwing around is to train more M.S. level people than Ph.D. level people. These would be employed as staff scientists rather than independent principal investigators, such that there would be enough of a labor pool to actually do the work, but without having one's career constantly in jeopardy.
NO CARRIER
This does not even take into account those that are paid to do 'creation science'
The thing about science, and this is something that our president and the these guys with the so-called 'masters' in BA do not understand, is that science is a observational. When we crunch the numbers, we are looking for a way to represent the world and predict what our actions might have on it, not a way to lie to the public. The intent is to better the world, not get enough money so that we acquire another mistress, while having enough left over to keep the wife busy at charity events, not to mention the payoff for the sexual assault lawsuit brought against our sons, and of course the continuing funding of terrorism through the drug deals of our daughters.
I believe science is beyond many people understanding because they cannot comprehend that one might want to look for the truth rather than construct the truth that would maximize personal power. It probably never occurs to them that result are based on painstakingly collected evidence, and not on the personal preference of the researchers. These morons probably think that all they are doing is compensating for personal bias, as no one is really as selfless as to do something purely to make the world a better place.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Well said. Further evidence of religions/churches (they're not the same thing) changing: the modern creationist movement.
A century ago, virtually all christian sects had no problem with the scientific conclusion that the Earth is several billion years old.
Starting in the 1960s, and just reaching a fever pitch, we have millions of christians who swear that their bible/religion/church says that the Earth is only 6000 years old.
Sure, religion changes all the time. It's just that science generally changes in response to *evidence*. Religion changes in response to someone's agenda.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Did you even read the link provided?
Here in Canada it was all over the news... The white house changed the wording of scientific research to make it sound like there was a great doubt on the climate change and its link to human activity.
I guess that would confirm the affirmation "encouraged by the Bush Administration"
It's not so clear from the description that what they're doing is really faking data or anything as out-and-out fraudulent as that. There's a whole gray area there. See this wikipedia article, for example. Also, science is almost never done by impartial, objective people, the way they described it in sixth grade. Scientists generally have strong opinions, and then set out to prove them. A great read on this is the book Microbe Hunters, by Paul de Kruif. (You have to ignore the racism.)
Find free books.
[1]
More than 5 percent of scientists answering a confidential questionnaire admitted to having tossed out data because the information contradicted their previous research or said they had circumvented some human research protections
[2]
Her[Susan Ehringhaus] organization does not favor redefining federal research misconduct to include the many variants included in the survey, she said.
Scientists have to publish or perish. That's the direct end-result of our society that's based on a competetive all-or-nothing crush-everything mentality. Have fun!
Come and see the violence inherent in the system!
If a you were an NIH-funded researcher and you'd lied, cheated, and fudged results, would you admit doing so to some college kid doing a survey? Knowing that the survey, although purportedly "anonymous", could very easily have internal clues that could point back to you? And that the admission could very well cost you your funding, your job, your reputation, and your career?
Me neither.
If you want to see the biggest coverup in science it has to be the rising incidence of cancer and noone knows why.
Maybe this article would shed some light on how the plastics and pesticide industry owns the media and covers it up. They actually control the American Cancer Society which they use skillfully use to control anything that might hurt business.
We know the cause of cancer. More here on cause of breast cancer and organochlorides. We just can't stop the industry that owns our government.
One more link on the frontline investigation that industry tried to stop on pestcide effects on children.
The scientists behind this study ARE lying. The title reads "MANY Scientists.." yet the article says only %15 lied.
Last time I checked the use of the word MANY constituted at least %16 of the sample pool.
"It's not rocket science, Smithers! It's only brain surgery!" --Mr. Burns
I'm dubious toward any study that predicts DIRE CONSEQUENCES unless immediate action is taken.
After all, why would anyone grant you additional funding if all you have to say is that everything is A-OK?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
"Just 0.3 percent admitted to faking research data, and 1.4 percent admitted to plagiarism. But lesser violations were far more common, including 4.7 percent who admitted to publishing the same data in two or more publications to beef up their résumés and 13.5 percent who used research designs they knew would not give accurate results."
/ explore-items/-/0393310728/0/101/1/none/purchase/r ef%3Dpd_sxp_r0/104-7714779-0891168
Required reading for editors: How to Lie with Statiscs
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/sim-explorer
If you want to see the biggest coverup in science it has to be the rising incidence of cancer and noone knows why.
Maybe this article would shed some light on how the plastics and pesticide industry owns the media and covers it up. They actually control the American Cancer Society which they use skillfully use to control anything that might hurt business.
We know the cause of cancer. More here on cause of breast cancer and organochlorides. We just can't stop the industry that owns our government.
One more link on the frontline investigation that industry tried to stop on pestcide effects on children.
84.5% are lying.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I don't wanna start a political tussle, but harping on the Bush administration for this leaves out the fact that liberals do this kind of thing, too.
Take a look at the various reactions to studies that show different ethnic groups, nationalities, and other genetically-similar categories of people (including men vs. women) have different intelligence distributions. The less-controversial results are the ones that say "Men are better at this type of abstract task, women are better at this other type of brain use," and even these get attacked by people who simply don't want to believe that their could be built-in differences.
And then you have "The Bell Curve" and similar studies. That specific study is questionable (not wrong, but it has issues), but other studies have repeatedly confirmed that different ethnicities can have markedly differing average IQs. The differences are statistically significant (meaning that they're not attributable to mere chance), though they're probably not practically all that significant. And it's not like saying "I'm Chinese, you're African, therefore I'm smarter than you," it's just saying that Chinese people tend to be smarter.
Strangely enough, the Left attacks these results bulldog-style. And most of the attacks aren't about the methodology, or the validity of the results. Most of the attacks seem to be "How could you possibly say such a thing?" It's like the reactions to Kinsey's sexuality studies: people base their values on assumed truths about the world, and when careful study reveals that the assumptions are false, people don't want to discard the basis of their value systems.
The point is, ANYbody, regardless of politics, can fall victim to resisting the truth because it's intellectually convenient to do so. Don't just blame the Bushies.
The only dark matter is between their ears.
And how many normal people admit to unethical behavior? Sure, scientists are in a position of power, but it's not like policemen or congressmen or doctors or lawyers or judges or anyone else says they're perfectly ethical. People everywhere make mistakes and misjudgments.
Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.
Nice Troll, Troll
Come on - admit it!
Scientists are using questionable methods, including "borrowing" eachoher's work in order to progress thier work which is, at least in some cases, good for the whole of man kind?
Where's the problem?
Next you'll be telling me that we can't use nanotech because people will take thier clothes.... oh wait, that was down below.
I myself was told that when it came to publishing, quantity is more important than quality.
Not something you hear out-in-the-open though, but it's definitely `known'.
Well, as long as you get the right results, it's ok, just look at Millikan's famouse oil-drop experiments. As long as he found the fundamental charge, it must be ok.
And of course, in Soviet Russia, fundamental charge finds you (sorry, I've always wanted to do one).
I'd like to point out that this is a survey only of scientists funded by the NIH (National Institutes of Health). It has no bearing on conduct of scientists in other life sciences or in the physical sciences. I would imagine that given the closer industry ties of human health-related research, there would be different, and perhaps greater, pressure to falsify data. There is also clearly no opportunity to violate human subject research standards when you're studying subatomic particles.
Physics Today has a good story on ethics issues in physics. It seems that data falsification is relatively rare (the few high-profile cases demonstrate that it is generally a career-ending move), but other ethical problems certainly do occur. In particular, Physics Today talks about the abuse of graduate students (a problem that's probably not limited to physics).
As a graduate student myself, I've got things pretty good, but some of my friends are definitely being mistreated. One guy is working 70-hour weeks and is still getting told by his supervisor that he's not working hard enough. I'm sure that if he protested he'd quickly find himself tossed out of the group and having to start his thesis research again from scratch.
From the summary: "A surprising number"
I'm surprised that the numbers aren't higher.
I've taught college courses, and can't see why people would become more honest when money/prestige is more directly on the line than it was when they were students.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
It's easy to be tempted to tinker with your research if there's a risk that the results might be considered unacceptable to certain vocal segments of the population.
Just look at what happened to the president of Harvard when he dared suggest that men might be better at math and science than women. The people who screamed the loudest didn't even get far enough to even consider that it might be possible. It was simply an unacceptable result.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
"A surprising number of scientists engage in questionable research practices..."
Like "borrowing" their undergrad-student's work, and publishing it like it were theirs?
Scientists, however, are still believed to be objective. No study of the lives of the great scientists will confirm this. They were as passionate, and hence as prejudiced, as any assembly of great painters or great musicians. It was not just the Church but also the established astronomers of the time who condemned Galileo. The majority of physicists rejected Einstein's Special Relativity Theory in 1905. Einstein himself would not accept anything in quantum theory after 1920 no matter how many experiments supported it. Edison's commitment to direct current (DC) electrical generators led him to insist alternating current (AC) generators were unsafe for years after their safety had been proved to everyone else. [Edison's pigheadedness on this matter was partly the result of his jealousy against Nikola Tesla, inventor of AC generators. Tesla, on the other hand, refused the Nobel Prize when it was offered to him and Edison jointly because he refused to appear on the same platform with Edison. Both of these geniuses were only capable of "objectivity" and science in certain limited laboratory conditions. If you think you have a higher "objectivity quotient" than either of them, why haven't you been nominated for a Nobel prize?]
Science achieves, or approximates, objectivity not because the individual scientist is immune from the psychological laws that govern the rest of us, but because scientific method--a group creation--eventually overrides individual prejudices, in the long run.
linky
If there is anything less trustworthy than Science it is news stories. They are specifically driven by the same thing that bad science is. Quick money.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
According to a large-scale survey of scientific misbehavior, 15% admit to changing a study under pressure from a funding source.
In other news, the scientists who conducted the survey are now admitting they fabricated the survey results.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
There is an aphorism about a baby and some bathwater you may want to check into.
Let's be blunt...
There are too many stupid people in university and from that pool graduate students are selected. Often ambitious, but not too bright, undergrads ingratiate themselves to faculty who for any number of reasons enlist these students within their labs. It ranges from needing a free RA to having a good looking girl in the lab. In the end these students are provided glowing letters of reference without ever being challenged to think and produce.
Further faculty suffer the same personality defects found in the population - laziness, indifference, self-absorbed, and so on. All of these contribute to the the large percentage of PhDs without a clue. -- I firmly believe students should also be weighed on their apparent ethical stance. Toss them if they are loose with the rules.
That said, the average PhD is in fact smarter and for the many that slave over their research we are indebted. Take a look at the technologies and discoveries that make your life better - or the services rendered (as a whole). The reason places like Google seek the highly educated is because it is a reasonable filter to begin the selection of the best. (Yes, many will be missed because they chose to leave after an undergrad degree.)
To continue those not so bright with perhaps less than honourable personalities will engage in the same level of deceit found in the population. This includes unethical research practices to further personal agendas or they simply don't have the skills to do research.
Another source of extremely bad and dishonest science is the medical community. Too often medical students are selected based on personality and appearance rather than the ability to think. These are self-promoters who often continue as researchers or pretend researchers who attach their names to papers because of participation in clinical trials.
Society as a whole accepts and even praises a system based on other than merit (e.g., the MDs).
100 bucks says the majority of *mistakes* are found in forensics, psychology, pharma (paxil, ridlen, etc...), and those handy little stats that convince us that THE WORLD MUST DIE!!!
...the procedure tends to be very messy.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
This situation seems very similar to that of the news media, namely due to the sources of funding.
A scientists or news media group who must obtain their funding via commercial means will never have reliable information as their first goal.
Their first goal will always be to obtain further funding. In the scientific world this leads to falsified results and very unscientific behavior. Similarly, in the American corporate news world, the focus is not so much on presenting the truth, but rather it is on maintaining advertisers (by not publishing articles that may "offend" such advertisers), increasing reader-/viewership by appealing to fundamentalist views, and other non-integrity related issues.
On the other hand, when money is not a problem, the reporting is often far better. We can see examples of this in the state-funded news broadcasters such as the CBC and BBC. The reporting and journalistic integrity of such broadcasters is extremely high, as they do not need to grovel for financial support. When it comes to scientists, those who need do not need to fight tooth and nail for funding will far more often be able to produce high-quality results. That is just the nature of the game.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I agree with you in general.
But I think your "don't just blame the Bushies" sounds too much like "accept what the Bush administration does wrong because the democrats do it to." I think when any administration is caught editing scientific reports to support their point of view they should have the crap kicked out of them (metaphorically, that is).
And, for what it's worth, the whistleblower in this case has been in a number of administrations, democratic and republican, and says he's never seen anything like this kind of political manipulation of science before.
"Actually, religion doesn't change as much as it forks"
I didn't realize religion plays M:TG
Benjamin "Giant Growth, Beserk, Fork" Jacobs
Did you even read the link provided?
Oh, I don't disagree with the news. However, if you just use one incident to generalize over all scientific frauds, would that ring you as logic generalization error?
I'm not a fan of Bush administrator either. But using one incident to blame them is simply FUD. Pure FUD.
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
You mean our society is not structured to reward the ethical behavior?
Something is not right.
Who should be blamed and ridiculed for this lapse and transgression?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Comparing liberal reaction to "The Bell Curve" study to to the Bush admin's manipulation of science is disingenuous. Criticism is not the same as suppression/manipulation. The Clinton administration didn't prevent or change the bell curve study (or have anything to do with it, as far as I know).
Nah it just means the people surveyed aren't really scientists at all, which is what happens when you sidestep the method.
color me surprised. There's a reason there's been no "evidence" that medical marijuana works. (never mind that angel reich has an inoperable brain tumor, and was confined to a wheel chair, UNTIL using medical marijuana...) Shrugs, people do what they're told to do. Unfortunately this includes some scientists, mostly scientists on the govt's payroll.
I do question the wisdom of releasing this information at a time when the powers that be are looking for reasons to cut funding for science. (/rant mode off)
Obviously no one in Canada did, because the extent of the "revisions" this guy made was to add the word, "extremely" in front of the word "difficult" in the sentence "Because there are so many factors involved in the determination of systems producing and sequestering greenhouse gases, the determination of the exact amount of greenhouse gases added by any particular souce is extremely difficult."
He also removed a paragraph which speculated on the effect on farming caused by the future melting of glaciers as being "speculative and in the opinion of the researchers unbacked by finding of fact."
Oh boy, let's crucify the guy. This in a 20+ page report. And the guy's job was specifically to review and edit such final reports for clarity.
Yup, I can see where that totally changed the meaning of the report.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
15% sounds just about right. The norm for most human bahaviour fits into a bell shaped curve. with 15% on either end as extremes. So on the one end 15% cheat, and on the other probably 15% are overly rigid.
Androk
The headline could also read "Vast Majority of Scientists Ethical and Trustworthy."
Also, there's a difference between science and individual scientists. Any individual scientists who makes up data and gets the wrong answer will be found out eventually, and science will move on with the right answer. Sure, I'd be happier with 100% of scientists always doing the right thing, but I wonder what percentage of businessmen cheat on their taxes?
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
I work in science department at a large university and what srikes me is the degree to which scientists here are ethical about science, but only science. In all other aspects - lying to their employees, misdirecting funding, fudging non-scientific reports- they are devious lying weasels. But they are adamantly against fudging data, I have never seen it or even suspected.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
I was quoted out of context in my autobiography...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Throwing out data that doesn't fit is old news. In reviewing his original notes, one sees that Millikan threw out data points that didn't seem to fit in with the rest of his data in his famous "oil drop" experiment to discover the value of the charge of the electron. Had he kept these data points and used them in his calculations, his calculated value would have ben much closer to the modern value.
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
So this is about scientists in US (Not that others aren't similar). Just to be clear.
This sort of behavior is encouraged by the Bush Administration if results are fudged to favor its position on the environment.
Don't pretend this only happens on the political right.
Assuming that Christ is who he said he is in the New Testament:
Then Christianity isn't new.
In fact Judaism was Christianity until Christ came to Earth. Then the Jews that rejected him were no longer Christians, but a separate faith.
Isaiah, Moses, Noah, Adam, etc. would have all been looking forward to the same Messiah, thus were Christians too.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Here's an excerpt:
Gee. How dare they try to describe uncertainties.
The NY Times is a political opponent of the Bush Administration -- as much as John Kerry was, if not more. The NY Times is, furthermore, a proponent of climate-change "remedies" that the Bush Administration opposes. Is it any wonder that the two sides of the political fence might have different choices for the wording of a climate-change report?
Supposed liberals do , Real liberals should find it appalling . In-fact Real conservatives find it appealing too , having just spoken to a friend on the issue who is thoroughly to the right .
Its the Sudo corrupt people who find it acceptable , those who are unwilling to change and only wish to have their world vies justified . This is not an issue of Right vs. left but Right(as in correct) vs. wrong.
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Is there anybody out there that scored an 85 in physics or chemistry that didn't get an A?
I thought it was common knowledge that non-commercial research is driven by and large through government special interest.
Mine is Good
I'll ignore the anti-religious flamebait and move on to point out that the same pressures which cause one group of scientists to fudge data may exist across an entire field.
Read this Slashdot article. In the second linked article, on the forth page, the scientist who initially got a furor started about the effects of cell phones on DNA states:
The problem may be that many people reproduce the results but many other people don't. Sometimes a powerful moneyed interest throws up all sorts of funding into research with strings attached to deliberately muddy the waters. As long as there are contradicting studies, those very people's lobbyists can say, "But look! Scientists can't all come to the same conclusion on the issue! Clearly there's more to it than what your scientists are saying!"
You see this in global warming research. You see this in research on the effects of cell phones and high-tension power lines on people. You see this in research about the toxicity of industrial chemicals. You see this in pharmaceutical research on drugs like Vioxx and Celebrex. We saw this with tobacco's effects on health. As long as tainted money is the only source of money for science, results will be reproduceably deceptive. This is a tool of modern industry to prevent the public from learning facts that would get in the way of their agenda.
This is effecting the people of our nation, and it's helping to shape policy in our government. The EPA has not made coal power plant treat mercury as a pollutant to clean up to meet standards set by the Clean Air Act. A senior White House environment official (and former American Petroleum Institute lobbyist) has been caught deleting findings from environmental science reports. There is a concerted effort right now to hide the truth from the American people to avoid hurting the profits of certain wealthy people in power, and science is losing.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I know enough of many religions and religious practitioners to know that "All that matters to religion is the control it has on people." is true in many cases.
I also know enough to know that it is not true in anything like all cases.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
The chart seems to indicate these are percentages of those that reported engaging in questionable practices; i.e. 15% of *those* changed a study under pressure from funding sources. That wouldn't imply that 15% of the total scientific population has done so, just those that admit unethical behavior. That could represent 15% of 1% of all scientists.
Funding pressures only END at falsifying results to satisfy patrons. It begins much more subtly.
Anybody will be more likely to propose studying X that he knows he can get a grant and not consider studying Y that he thinks nobody will fund.
OTOH, I'm probably just paranoid b/c I finally read Michael Crichton's _State Of Fear_ last weekend.
Scientists these days are no more ethical than Used Car Dealers or Politicians. They go where the money is. And there's no money in proving that humans aren't causing Global Warming. And there are no publications that will give ink to alternative theories. Scientists get their funding from grants. Mainly from the government, but from NGOs as well. The money says, "Prove that humans are causing Global Warming". Yes, the money talks. And the scientists listen. Moral of the story: Don't trust a scientist any more than you would trust a poltician or used car dealer.
I was trashed for this opinion, but guess what? I WAS RIGHT!!!! Scientists are no more trustworthy than politicians or used-car salespersons.
I don't mean to excuse what is definitely not excusable behavior, but in the business world my experience would be that 15.3 percent of the business people I have dealt with are ethical! And politicians? Probably less ethical than scientists. And priests, ministers, etc? What do you really think? Probably a close run. Scientists seem surprizingly ethical!
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
This is a crime, and should result in a much larger scandal than cigars in the Oval office... HOWEVER, it's also not new.
In the mid-90s a Solar Astrophysicist friend of mine worked for an observatory that was labeled an "enemy of the planet" and consequently was unable to get federal funding because they published data that suggested significant influence on global warming from the sun. Researchers at the time who were coming up with data that suggested otherwise (or simply ignored causes, and supported the fact that the Earth is warming) were able to get funding.
The fact that the offense is being committed in the opposite direction now is neither a better nor worse situation.
Any scientist worth anything doesn't believe an article they read as gospel. It is a data point with error bars. There are is no fact in science; there is only hypothesis.
Therefore, if results are tainted it will be found at some sort when someone tries to build upon the knowledge the tainted results broached.
However, if a person doesn't get quite the same results as someone else there certainly is peer pressure (herd mentality). So, science-system correction is not fast. It is slow.
I want to state that again because this is different then how technology development works (read: slashdot ppl).
Science moves slowly. Technology moves quickly.
Most techology doesn't require rigorous reproducibility as techology is market driven.
My person feeling why this sort of behavior exists is because scientists place market value on their research. There is a phrase for this: "Publish or Die."
Finally, science is not irrefutable, nor does it pretend to be.
I fudged my stoichiometry results during a couple of my labs in Grade 11. Operating a pipet is hard when you're trying to check out the hot ladies in front of you.
Naive youth...
... salesman when it comes to making their product look goo dto their customers.
Having been involved in physical sciences research, I can assure you that the primary goal of most researchers is CONTRACT RENEWAL!
Scientists are no different than used car, software, computer services,
So, while fudging may be uncommon, and I've seen some that put dotcom boom demos to shame, one should always read VERY CAREFULLY to sort the beans from shit
I'm wondering if they also did something to their data. After all, they claim that 15% of researches do it.
So, they have a bit more than 1/10 chance of having done it.
I wonder?
Esta es una firma en Espanol.
I work near a local Ag. school and a friend of mine did some research (in Ag. Economics) of the effect of having all the meat major packing companies subcontract purchasing to one company. His conclusion was that it was a defacto monopoly. The paper was funded by the Dept. of Agriculture and so prior to publication they reviewed it.
After review he was warned that if he published it he would lose all current and future funding. Apparently the meat packers did not appreciate the information. AFAIK it has never been released toa journal.
In general, Ag. research was subverted long ago, as was probably Economics. What is new is that ideology is now playing a major role, including things such as 'Intelligent design', not just money. In general, it is starting to look more like Germany circa early 30's where only ideologically pure research could be done. If I were a reasearcher I would be looking for a research friendlier country.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I was wondering if there is no really good robotics because the "robot geniuses" are uninspired to replace the human laborer. In the end it will only mean a larger gap in the economy between the haves and have nots. We have reached a technological point along time ago where we really dont have to work nearly as hard as we do now to live a happy life. But this status symbol in democracy, and tryant instinct in communisim keeps holding us back. In the end robotics will help only give those with power even more power.
According to a large-scale survey of scientific misbehavior, 15% admit to changing a study...
I attend a large university and have worked in three labs as an undergraduate. In nearly every case I found either a grad student or advisor altering data to their benefit. In some cases they were out-right wrong and in others they needed the numbers to be more telling. I have seen everything from changing graphs, altering data sets, down to slightly modifying standard deviations. From my perspective it appears more rampid than may actually be reported and the whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth when considering graduate schools and a possible permanent career in academia. To their credit, I never saw any of these alterations appear in articles or papers they had written and most did seem in context to funding. However, competition sometimes spurs this lying and cheating and if you are even considering it, DON'T! There is nothing more shameful than cheating, and worse yet, when you are caught cheating!
I am still uncertain of my career choices, but I have definitely not had the best mentors and advisiors to look up to when shaping my ideas of graduate school and academic careers.
[[ the only 15 letter word that is spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable: it may soon be, however. ]]
As it may be unethical for anyone to do it, wouldn't it be more important that one's government not to do it at all since not only are they supposed to represent the most moral aspects of society but also have responsibility of tax's payers money. (Damn I sound like a libertarian)
Secondly, saying something is FUD does not make it so just because you state it to be so. You have to explain why this is not causing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Saying that all research has similar pressures does not make his statement FUD. Mind you I voted for Bush in 2000 and used to be a Republican (I'm just calling myself a Moderate party member these days even though such a thing does not exist)
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Luckily, the culture of science is generally one of disclosure, so if you have problems with somebody's findings, you can go try to reproduce it yourself, presumably...
Currently hooked on AMP
I don't think so. Such a study shows that there are significant differences in performance between ethnicities on some specific, arbitrary intelligence test. The source of the disparity could lie within the test, not the people taking it.
It's pretty well known that IQ tests, the American SAT, etc. rely on unconscious social knowledge which non-natives may not possess, things like cultural metaphors and idioms. The SAT in particular is wrought with questions of the form: "The author of this passage would be most likely to agree with which of the following 5 statements." Being able to spot the "correct" answers to these questions often hinges on unconscious knowledge of social norms within a particular society.
So a Chinese person might perform better on a particular test than an African because the test is intrisically biased toward people who come from that social background.
Making objective judgments of the relative intelligence between ethnic groups is predicated on the existence of a perfectly objective test of intelligence. Such a thing doesn't exist.
The point is that changes where made in a way to put more importance to the doubt raised on the matter... And if you consider that the guy in question is an ex-Lobbist for the oil industry... I would say that is more than enough to at least say that the guy should never have been in charge of editing that report in particular.
Not to mention that there is a common scientific concensus around that issue (G8 declaration, Kyoto Protocol...) And that the only official report coming to the conclusion : "wait and see..." are the one from the US and that most of those report that conclude on major doubt is funded by the oil industry (to which your president is closely related by the way...)
All in all that makes the situation quite dubious and the addition of those changes to a report regarding that issue made by a Bush apointed official and ex-oil lobby makes the already pretty obvious situation just a little bit clearer.
So maybe just that report in itself is not enough to condemn anybody, but you have to look at the whole picture... not one thing at a time saying : "hey this in itself is no proof..." You have to look at things in correlation to another...
True, but people will keep harping on the Bushies more because while sad that people have problems listening to whether one ethnicity may be on average smarter than another, that's not likely to cause massive environmental ruin. Ignoring things like...pollution in general, however, will. While yes, we need to remember that everyone is stupid, I'm gonna focus most of my efforts on the people that are likely to destroy the majority of life on the planet than the ones who are trying to be overly politically correct.
In a section on the need for research into how warming might change water availability and flooding, he crossed out a paragraph describing the projected reduction of mountain glaciers and snowpack. His note in the margins explained that this was "straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings.
He's not changing the facts here, he is just removing a somewhat offtopic section that reports something he doesn't want focused on. Research on human effects on the environment is VERY political on both sides...down to the scientists, the people funding, and the (non-scientists) editing. For all you know the person who originally wrote that section put it in their to advance their own side's agenda, rather than anything having to do with what the paper was supposed to be about.
I'm curious as to what it would look like if we apply what you just wrote to slashdot posting:
...the "post or perish" pressure is just too insane in the top board sites. It's not just posting on any webpage; to maintain 1337ness, to get karma, high quality posts on high profile boards are a must. ...the pressure to post in quality AND quantity getting greater each year, the field has exploded to such a degree that the burden of proof for one's hypotheses is increasingly heavier. Exploratory posts cannot be carried out; the emphasis is almost entirely on what can be completed and submitted in a reasonably short period of time. First posts are simply hard to do. And, in popular articles, although an original post is desired, the data is often not quite what it needs to be, people might be tempted to fudge it a tiny bit.
and now back to the fallout shelter...
What matters to me is that the only part of the essay that I'm sure about is wrong, so I can't trust the rest.
I know almost nothing about the subject being discussed here, but I can relate to that sentiment. When reading some articles in wikipedia on topics I have knowledge of, I have seen enough blantantly wrong information that I never use wikipedia as a source.
It's unfortunate because it really is a good idea and I'm sure there is some valid information in it written by people qualified to write what they did. However, the signal to noise ratio is just too off.
You're the one who's full of shit. The WHITE HOUSE CHANGED THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE STUDY because it contradicted their beliefs. Read the link; hell I even provided a realaudio link in case reading is too hard. I can't think of another presidential administration that has pulled anything like that. When the government is telling scientists what they should be concluding, we might as well be IN SOVIET RUSSIA.
Well this is interesting and all considering we're all bantering back and forth about the ethics to be known from one little chart with some percentages on it from a SURVEY of researchers and scientists.
Lest we so quickly forget, I am compelled to repeat the oft quoted phrase:
"There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."
And now, this one:
"These aren't the statistics you're looking for... You can go about your business... move along."
I don't think so. Such a study shows that there are significant differences in performance between ethnicities on some specific, arbitrary intelligence test. The source of the disparity could lie within the test, not the people taking it.
This is a common misconception about the state of intelligence testing. It's understandable, though, because it's a perfectly valid objection to the basic statement "We had a bunch of people take this test that measures intelligence". The reality of the tests is a lot more sophisticated.
The standard IQ tests aren't perfect, but they're okay for people who speak the same language fluently. You have to be careful not to confuse "cultural values" with "cultural understanding". When a person learns a new language (and is exposed to the concepts of a culture that speaks/writes in that language), they don't lose their original values, but they do gain an appreciation for the new culture's way of understanding the world. So if you assume that an Indian Hindi speaker learns American English fluently, they have almost certainly been exposed to Americans and their media, and so they possess some cultural understanding of how Americans think and view the world even if they don't agree with it. It's not a perfect relationship, but it's quite strong--enough that the test scores are similar as long as the language requirement is satisfied and the test-makers have eliminated any obvious "trick questions".
Also, there are other tests, like the Ravens, that remove all language and cultural aspects from the test, which is basically an abstract pattern-recognition game with utterly simple instructions that can be translated clearly into virtually any language.
There are also statistical methods that can help distinguish the effects of different factors BESIDES ethnicity on a test and control for those. For instance, any good intelligence survey will examine the effects of language, income, social status, and other demographic factors on people WITHIN THE SAME ETHNIC GROUP, in order to establish how much of an effect each factor has on its own. Then it becomes more possible to subtract the effects of these extraneous factors from the final result. The math is a little more complex than I'm giving it credit for, here, but it's all in a 1st-semester Statistics class.
The point is, though, that many, many researchers approached early results that said "intelligence distributions differ amongst different ethnic groups" with a grain of salt, and applied these kinds of methods in attempts to either invalidate or confirm the results. And the results have been repeatedly confirmed in ways that satisfy the objection you raised in your comment.
(As a side-note, this is the precise problem that I and others have with "The Bell Curve"--it's not nearly rigorous enough in how it approaches these questions. But the conclusions have been mostly validated by other, better research.)
Peer review doesn't mean your peers repeat your experiments and test your conclusions. It simply means your peers read the article closely looking for obvious blunders. That's still a day's work or more (unpaid).
But it takes special ignorance and malice to wholeheartedly resist the truth when you're the leader of the free world, and have thousands of highly trained scientists clamoring to advise you.
Who cares what "the Left" (whoever they are) think -- there are a lot of leftists in universities, but they don't suppress or defund behavioral genetics as a field.
On the other hand, Bush's administration is (for instance) eliminating Uganda's amazingly effective "ABC" AIDS prevention approach (Abstinence, Being Faithful, Condoms) because their theocratic masters don't like the "C". So the Ugandan government has stopped distributing condoms in a nation where 10% of the population has AIDS.
The real difference between "the Left" and the government is that when the government relies on ignorant faith and convenient facts over scientific truth, people die.
So what indicates that the ethnicities that do poorly on anglo-american IQ tests show their intelligence in other ways?
My brother knew a Japanese student at Cal-Tech who spoke english as a second language and got perfect scores on the SAT.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
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Fair enough, the left distorts science too, but this is different. The NYT article is about a Bush Administration official (a nonscientist, by the way) specifically doctoring the conclusions of studies in order to keep them in line with the Administration's dogma with regard to global warming. What you're talking about is leftists brushing off scientific conclusions because they find them distasteful. You're right, that behavior is lame, but it runs no risk of being interpreted as the conclusions of legitimate scientists on the government payroll. So I really don't think the two situations are even comparable.
Actually it isn't just one incident. The Bush Administration has been trying to tell scientists what to think since 2000. This may just be the most egregious example of distorting scientific conclusions. There was a House investigation into the issue, and was covered on slashdot before. Worse, the administration attitude toward science is affecting public discourse more generally. This is truly unprecedented and it really is a problem with the Bush Administration. "FUD" has nothing to do with it.
Yes, there are asshole liberals too. That doesn't let the Bush administration off the hook, especially since they are arguably the most powerful entity on the planet right now.
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
The issue isn't science vs religion. The issue is truth and honesty vs dogma (or political correctness.)
Religious and non-religious groups have been guilty of supressing truth to support their agenda. Ditto for big, wealthy groups and small activists.
Should be pointed out that many famous scientists were Christians. Isaac Newton, Bacon, Galileo, etc. Their stand for truth wasn't against religion, it was against political forces.
Should also be pointed out that those founding fathers of modern science based it on princples taught in the Bible. Check out the introduction of 1 John 1. (It's toward the back.) Look at the intruduction to Luke. Note the scientific method.
Your post is in fact, so terribly bad and misinformed that I have no recourse other than to respond.
First I feel the need to address your use of stereotypical terms. I point out, that the /. story uses much better terminology: 'The Bush administration'. While you use abstract steryotypes in your post 'Liberals' the 'Left'.
The term 'The Bush Administration' is not perfect. People can disagree on who exactly is included in under this umbrella, however you can narrow this down in a discussion to refer to specific people so it's not so bad. Your terms 'Liberals' and 'The left' are terrible and should not be part of any competent discussion because:
Secondly, I would like to point out that your personal experience does not a theorem make. The fact that you have (only?) come across people who judge these studies you mention based on irrelevant bases does not prove as you state, that these are the only people out there. Ok, so you don't have the funding or time to carry out such a study and would like to include personal experience in your opinion, that's fine. However at no point did you say that you even tried to seek out those who see these studies as flawed *and also* do this based on sensible arguments. Since you have not even attempted to find counter examples to your personal experience I feel it is in poor form to use it as any kind of evidence. Please, at least google up some valid counter arguments which denote these studies as false, it's not hard.
Now on to the studies themselves ("The Bell Curve" and company). I have to admit that I have somewhat of an advantage over most people in judging their validity and I have to include this as a disclaimer. Both of my parents and step parents are developmental psychologists at prestigious universities IE 'study how people learn things'.
Among people in this field, the authoritative experts, there is very strong concensus that these studies are absolute junk. Because of this I can appeal to authority and make the logical argument stick.
If I can explain it in simple terms, these studies are flawed because there is no way to measure intelligence in human beings. I hope I don't get flamed for saying this but it's true. IQ tests are a load of bollocks. You can measure people's aptitude and practice at taking IQ tests or solving similar problems, but in no way can that be related to 'intelligence' as it is normally thought of. Think of idiot-savants. Think of street kids who are really good at doing math in their heads, but using their own methods, think great creative minds, think of dislexia, think of numerous other forms of intelligence or reasons why tests do not measure intelligence.
Furthermore, the question of nature vs. nurture is not settled, although the concensus is that both have great influence on organisms nowhere near precise models exist. So, any conclusions drawn from those studies, which are already flawed, will likely be flawed in and of themselves.
This is why these studies are so utterly flawed they are laughed at in their respective fields just as medieval medicine is laughed at by modern day physicians. They are mistakes, however mistakes can sometimes be beneficial because they can teach us new things. Eg. We can learn why they are junk science and how to av
Liberty.
But in any case, there goes the scientific credibility of near any american 'scientists' or 'scientific' study.
I really don't know what the ramifications are, but I do know this: they ain't gonna be good.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Cooking meat at high temp and grilling can create changes in the meat.
Good changes or bad changes? Chemically speaking, what sorts of changes? Cooking meat is a very old tradition, probably as old as fire. Was it a bad idea all along? And how do certain methods of cooking create these changes; do others create difference changes?
As a recent devotee of poached chicken and fish (it's not namby-pamby! it's a perfectly manly way of cooking, like frying but with beer instead!), I really am curious.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
85% better than the House, Senate, or White House can claim.
But seriously, scientists are human too, and feel the same desires to be right and for instant gratification as any of us do.
This particular kind of fudging, intentionally misstating scientific conclusions in order to be "ideologically correct," is, in my opinion, unprecedented.
I didn't. I said it was done by the Bush Administration. They happen to be in power right now, and their doctoring of scientific conclusions is alarming. If another Administration did this sort of thing I would also be alarmed; the fact is, no other one, to my knowledge, has done so.
Finally, if your best point is to whine that the NYT is a Bush opponent, get a grip. I suppose if I had cited slashdot it would be more credible to you?
Have any sources or links that others can see, or is this all hearsay from your friend? I agree that this would be just as bad if another administration did it, but I suspect your example is a poor one. Either way though you cannot deny that the Bush Administration's hostility to science that does not confirm its narrow worldview has been unprecedented.
harping on the Bush administration for this leaves out the fact that liberals do this kind of thing, too.
Congratulations! The people in power are no better than the other choice!
What has our country come to, when the people we get to choose from all scrape the bottom of the scum barrel?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Two good reasons for the Prof to stay on the island.
I actually know of a case of a scientist smuggling genetically-modified mice into the country in his pants, to get around obstacles to a) getting the mice *out* of the source lab and b) getting them *in* to his lab.
Pretty much the whole incident got a shake-of-the-head then a wink-and-a-nod from the scientist's peers and superiors.
It's no surprise to me that unethical behaviour often gets a blind eye in academic circles. After all, same thing happens in corporate circles. And in Political Circles.
I suppose if I had cited slashdot it would be more credible to you?
Yes. Much more.
After all, since everyone used to do that in the 90s and blame those in the White House and President for such things, I figure it must be the current occupants' examples of unethical behavior.
Tsk. I remember when Truth, Justice, and the Scientific Way were hallmarks of America, last century. Not now.
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what did you want, more lawyers or politicians or investment brokers instead?
Geesh! Get real - if it weren't for scientists, most of Africa would have died off from AIDS/HIV and we wouldn't have vaccines for Ebola and Marburg virus today.
Scientists and Engineers are all that keep the wolves from your door.
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A study was once done to measure bias among scientists. They were measured against other professionals including a group of clergy. The scientists were 2-5 times more likely to hold onto a conclusion they were inclined to believe was true. They were, in effect less likely to abandon the conclusion and start the problem over again.
Cool! Since some scientists are not honest, this outright proves that the earth was created 5000 years ago and that every word of the Bible is correct!
First off, criticism of Bush doesn't automatically make it a liberal vs. conservative issue. Bush seems to enjoy breaking a lot of the rules that liberals and conservatives both followed until recently. This is one of them.
Second, there is an enormous difference between a) loudly disagreeing with someone, and b) using money and authority to get them to change their position. They're so different, they should be next to each other in ethics textbooks as examples of the right and wrong way to handle things.
Third, "The Bell Curve" is not some dry, statistical report that's being irrationally attacked. It's a book that tried to sell itself on shock value and pandering. A lot of people were shocked, but that doesn't mean all the criticism was based on emotion.
I happen to think that IQ is a snake-oil metric. I thought so long before "The Bell Curve" was published, and so did a lot of other people. I really don't care if someone has a survey showing that IQ is correlated with race or "social success," but I will criticize flawed assumptions about why those correlations exist. Any correlation between race and success is most likely due to successful parents having the resources to raise successful kids, and some races being discriminated against. As far I can tell, IQ measures how experienced you are at taking standardized tests with contrived questions. It's not surprising or meaningful that coming from a wealthy family increases that particular skill.
But that's a side issue. Even if we--the critics of "The Bell Curve"--were a bunch of irrational leftist windbags, we would merely be saying the authors are wrong. That's is not the same as getting them to alter the book by writing them a check or threatening to fire them. That book wouldn't exist (or would be written very differently) if it proved the point you were trying to make.
-- . . ramblin' . . .
And we are supposed to trust the NY Times?... Most major newspapers, and TV News networks have questionable credibility themselves, as we've seen numerous times in the past year or so.
Any time there is potential for a political agenda (read... any negative story about Bush), the above-mentioned media types (and more) have questionable credibility as well.
And no, I don't think Bush is necessarily better than them either.
"The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right." - Henrik Ibsen
or let's think of a study to see if you can find crystals from proteins in a certain strain of Pfal, and you find that you can get crystals when you cross-express with the same primer in Pyoelli or Pberghei instead, so you change it so you find the structures that can crystallize which let you determine the common protein pathways instead of banging your head against a wall because you can't get anything to express.
Is that unethical or merely adapting to the realities of the world? If you end up with the same result, documented and proven by other labs due to peer review and other later studies, how is it bad to change?
In biochemistry you have to pay attention to the biology as well. Sometimes you may start with certain concepts which don't pan out, because you discover something even more interesting instead.
Kind of like the PhD from Cambridge here last month you started on a 2 year project to discover certain things and ended up spending 20 years, but discovering - get this - a cure for 50 percent of all known cancers.
Is it bad that at many points he changed from his simple model of how the pathways worked? Or is it good that he listened to the science and the biochemistry and the biology and followed the much more complex regulatory systems that actually existed and found the cure for half of all cancers?
Not everyone is measuring light emissions in astronomical labs. Some of us deal with the real world. If it hadn't been for someone noticing the connection with bat caves, we wouldn't have vaccines in trials for Ebola and Marburg today.
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"A surprising number of scientists engage in questionable research practices says a story at the Washington Post. According to a large-scale survey of scientific misbehavior, 15% admit to changing a study under pressure from a funding source."
Actually the number was only 2%, but the data was fudged to make the story more appealing.
Vote for Pedro
Thanks for the info!
Ha. Score! Stewing, boiling, or poaching are done at or below 100C (212F); cooking at this low temperature creates negligible amounts of the chemicals. Me and my trusty bottle of Steel Reserve/can of peach nectar/apple juice are good to go!
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
and out of 625 trials, 8 of them come up with something on the other end that isn't what it should be.
It could be that the source DNA or cDNA or RNA isn't what it was supposed to be.
It could be that the primers were - well - WRONG.
It could be that something inside your Cell-Free or standard E.coli that interacted with the siRNA or other fragments that just came along in the specific conditions you used.
Regardless, you know - because you checked and it is NOT the correct coded sequence - that it isn't the Open Reading Frame or variant you're looking for.
So, to be frank, you TOSS it.
This is good science. Not bad science. Something messed up. Now, if it happened a lot, the same way, then it IS something you should follow up on, but sometimes - frankly - stuff happens.
Maybe it was the sponsor who pointed it out. Is that BAD? They just want good results. The bad results have nothing to do with what you're studying.
So this could explain some of the results in this survey.
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Well, obviously, that particular dude spoke English pretty well--it's hard to get an 800 on the SAT verbal section when you're all "I come to America, long way. Speak English good!"
And the studies can't possible show that every Asian is smarter than every white, or something along those lines--that would be trying to prove a negative. So anecdotal evidence isn't all that useful.
If somebody ever asked if I ever changed a study under pressure from a funding source, I'd have to answer "Yes"
I've submitted proposals to NIH, which came back unfunded with study section critiques asking for additional controls, and I've done those controls and gotten funded. Is that misconduct? No, because what they wanted was reasonable, and the work that resulted was better, or at least more convincing, as a result. I've never changed a result due to pressure from a funding source, but that wasn't what was asked.
since Intelligent Design is running the universe, I'm sure it'll make the fake science turn out for the best.
-pyrrho
Someone seems to be trying to manufacture a scandal, or they have an exaggerated view of the perfection of experiments. The questions are badly phrased, and cover ethical activities in addition to unethical activities. Quotes in italics, comments in roman:
More than 5 percent of scientists answering a confidential questionnaire admitted to having tossed out data because the information contradicted their previous research or said they had circumvented some human research protections.
Yes, one tosses out data occasionally. One would be an idiot not to, under certain circumstances, because THINGS SOMETIMES GO WRONG IN EXPERIMENTS. Duh!
One should never do it lightly, but there is always a balancing act going on: "Is my data bad, or are the previous publications wrong?" Ideally, one would not throw out data unless you could prove that your experiment was flawed, and knew what was broken, but sometimes things are just too confusing. Real experiments are often complicated things, and they can suffer from subtle problems. Sometimes you "know" something is wrong, but simply cannot pin it down. It would be a dis-service to publish such data. The world has enough junky papers; one should not contaminate the literature further with the results of broken experiments.
Ten percent admitted they had inappropriately included their names or those of others as authors on published research reports.
There's no excuse for such behavior, but it doesn't make the results invalid. It's a human sin, not a scientific sin. It's often done to steal credit, or to borrow a reputation. Personally, I would string up the perpetrators, but I would not distrust their results. (There are also grey zones: what do you do for the guy who lends a willing ear at lunch, and then spent a couple of volunteer days on a data analysis algorithm that you didn't use? Should he be an author or not?)
And more than 15 percent admitted they had changed a study's design or results to satisfy a sponsor, or ignored observations because they had a "gut feeling" they were inaccurate.
Changing results is bad, but changing a study's design can be quite reasonable. There's nothing magical about the design -- it's just a question one asks of Nature. Some designs are better than others, but often there are many reasonable questions one can ask. Why not change the question? One shouldn't change the design to avoid unpleasant results, of course, but there are certainly many situations where changing the design can be quite reasonable and ethical.
As for ignoring results, well, one cannot condone it, but (as above) things sometimes go wrong. If the gut feeling has some plausible basis, if one is honestly suspicious about the data, it's not necessarily a terrible thing. It's dangerous, because it is very easy to fool yourself into dropping correct but theoretically inconvenient data. It's bad practice, because it makes the published results less trustworthy, but it can be done honestly. It really boils down to whether or not one admits it in the publication: if you admit that you dropped the data, and if you dropped it without trying to influence the result, it's OK. Other researchers will be warned; they may take your results with a grain of salt, but the paper can still be valuable especially if the amount of data dropped is small. Dropping data and not admitting it in the publication is marginal at best, unless you are darn sure there was something wrong with the experiment. (Bad data points are often better addressed by using more sophisticated statistical techniques, but many people don't understand the necessary techniques or even realize that they exist.)
None of those failings qualifies as outright scientific misconduct under the strict definition used by federal regulators. ...
Because they are either
sudo corrupt? For when they don't already have the privileges to be corrupt?
Look, I haven't got the time to refute this whole thing, point-by-point, so I'll leave you with this:
1) I AM A LIBERAL. Self-described, loving the term "liberal", and totally OK with it even if Jon Stewart doesn't like it. Screw him. I was not trying to attack liberals.
2) You misinterpreted me big-time: To say that "liberals do it, too" does NOT mean "ALL liberals to it"--it merely means that liberals, conservatives, and people of all political affiliations have been willing to attack or deny scientific work because it's conclusions are inconvenient. YOU were the jackass that took it all wrong (notice how nobody else, in 11 responses, made that same mistake?), and started a flaming unproductive bitch-fest. Which does prove that you can't read, BTW.
3) Whether IQ tests are valid or not is beside the point. Your attacks on IQ further proves that either a) you can't read, or b) you didn't bother to read my post. The concept of "g", a sort of generalized intelligence that expresses itself as a generic problem-solving and pattern recognition skill, is widely accepted in the psychological community. There are tests that have been formulated specifically to measure it, regardless of language/culture/upbringing influences. Your examples:
- street kid: could score well on a "g" test as easily as a Harvard graduate. A good test won't ask anything that education could influence.
- "idiot-savants" (horrible term, BTW): their skills in number-crunching or eidetic memory aren't a part of "g"--those are separate facilities that would have to be measured by different tests.
- "dislexia" (spelled "dyslexia", BTW): generally score just as well on tests like Ravens as their non-impaired counterparts do. Dyslexia makes reading/writing difficult, but a proper "g" test won't have any reading/writing components.
- "great creative minds": may have high "g", may have low "g'. Like the savants, these abilites are something other than "g".
Now, is "g" a valid concept? Like I said, most of the scientific community agrees that there is a generalizable intelligence. Go read the literature.
4) No matter who your parents are or what they do, you have to learn these things for yourself. My dad has a PhD. in electrical engineering, and a MA in CS, but anything I know about those subjects is largely a result of what I learned on my own. You haven't got any advantage in judging "The Bell Curve" or anything else, because YOU are not an expert in shit. I can't believe you even tried to pull a logical fallacy like that--it's just silly.
5) You took a discussion that is otherwise insightful, respectful, and intelligent, and barfed a flame on me for no particular reason, without even reading or understanding most of my post. Go piss up a rope.
As an undergrad with database experience at a top tier university in the early 90's, I was hired to 'clean' research data. The study for which this was done attempted to correlate communication behaviors with physiological responses.
Participants were questioned on a variety of topics, while physiological responses were monitored and later 'tagged.' Heart rate, blood pressure, etc. My role was initially pitched as the removal of 'spikes' in the data caused by the subjects' movements rather than actual physiological response. This was to be accomplished through an analysis of videotape accompanying the session.
Graduate students would view that tape along with the data stream, and note 'jerky' or broad movements corresponding with data spikes which might conceivably have caused a tug on the the monitoring devices' wires.
This was bad enough methodology given that people might tend to make large movements when engaging in certain communications behaviors (e.g. lying), but as a publication deadline approached, I was given a new task; remove the spikes above and below given values for each measurement criteria, irrespective of participants' actual movement.
When I questioned this approach, I was told that spikes outside this range were surely caused by movement, as they couldn't possibly be genuine physiological measures, even though some peaks were clearly not attributable to participant motion when viewed alongside the video. The elimination criteria also were conspicuously close to the study's original hypothesis.
The way the work was segmented, I was never supposed to see the video footage. I just happened to ask to sit in on a graduate viewing session early on in order to better understand the work I was assigned.
After refusing to do the requested work, I was fired. The paper was later published in a reputable journal and is referenced in dissertations and research papers to this day.
That was a major blow to my belief in 'science:' much of what's being put forward today as scientific 'knowledge' isn't based on empirical science at all.
But lesser violations were far more common, including 4.7 percent who admitted to publishing the same data in two or more publications
Only 4.7 percent? Ridiculous. Every scientist publishes the same data in two or more publications. Not only do they have to do that to meet preset quantities of publications (which are ridiculously high), but it is also a way to get more attention for their work. Furthermore, I have found that journals and conferences often approach me to ask for a derivative of an article I wrote somewhere else. What could possibly be wrong about writing two aricles on the same data?
Oh come on. You're the third person to whine about it being from the Times in this thread. A generic whine about "the media" is not a response to a specific media story, this one based on evidence scrawled on the report that can easily be looked up. This story was also covered in much of the major media around the world, including NPR here. The Bush Administration is interviewed on the realaudio link I liked and they don't even deny the story. So do you people automatically disbelieve everything you read in the Times, and only believe what you read on slashdot? I can't believe I'm wasting my time responding to this....
Really? So the Bush administration rules Uganda now?
They believe that the Bible should not be taken literally
w rong interpretation.
A literal reading of the Bible is self-inconsistent in many places. Anyone who takes a literal reading of the Bible to be truth is either not educated sufficiently to understand the document that they are reading or simply refuses to accept truth.
The best Christianity can hope to sell to people these days is a patchwork of literal and metaphorical-where-it-allows-the-Bible-not-to-be-
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
What's crazy is you appear to be serious. Anyway read this.
This study has been funded by the state of Kansas.
When all the media criticizes Bush, I like to think to myself "they're all lying, and they've all got a political agenda", and then I stick my fingers in my ears and sing "LA LA LA LA LA!"
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
The Norse had it right all along: Science vs. Norse
"Me claiming Satan exist is just as valid as you claiming an atom exists" - 1inChrist
"Yes, science is by nature self-correcting, but when the errors are endemically embedded in the existing systems it can take a lot of time and convict a lot of Gallileos before it gets around to it."
Galileo was persecuted by the Catholic church because he didn't follow the Aristotelian view of the universe. It has absolutely nothing to do with fudged evidence by previous scientists.
"he is just removing a somewhat offtopic section that reports something he doesn't want focused on."
Offtopic? Lets see... a report about climate change and we remove section about the effects of climate change... Yeah Offtopic I guess, or maybe a little bit too annoying to the oil agenda to disclose...
I still remember being told by an atmospheric scientist when I was an undergrad *not* to go into atmospheric science, because it was almost impossible to do science in that field anymore. If you wanted funding you either took it from the pro or anti global warming people. And if you took money from one crowd and your results DIDN'T support their position, you'd have a very hard time getting funding from them again. This was in 1993. I'm sure it's much worse now.
Basically, anytime the science gets politicized it starts getting questionable. I'll easily trust what comes out of solid state physics, because it has no political import, and the commercial consumers don't *care* what the results are as long as they allow them to do real physical things that are cool. I don't trust atmospheric science because it's SO political at this point.
A friend of mine has a project in *****. Now it turned out that one of the more ambitious students of one of the collaborators there had copied several chunks of my friend's published text, verbatim. No changes, at all... and published it in an even higher impact journal than my friend had. My friend, co-authors, and publishing company are taking actions, right now.
Copying and republishing large chunks of text should be included in that list. Or, was it an obvious too dumb to seem possibly true?!
1) I AM A LIBERAL.
First, I don't know what that means. Because nobody does. There is no popular or agreed upon classification for someone to be a 'liberal'.
Whether IQ tests are valid or not is beside the point.
erm, wtf are you smoking? that is the entire point of those studies you mentioned and you then go on to try to prove they are valid in the same paragraph..
a) you can't read
oh yes, I am in actual fact the first person on this planet who can write without reading
b) you didn't bother to read my post
yah, of course! because I can't reeeeeaaaad
There are tests that have been formulated specifically to measure it, regardless of language/culture/upbringing influences.
ding dong! they are called 'bogus'. I have also formulated a perpetual motion machine in my basement, would you like to buy it? I've even patented it! Oh and I also have some supplements to help you BULK UP like hulk, it's scientifically proven can lengthen your penis, make you longer lasting and improve your masculinity too! AS SEEN ON TV!!
- street kid: could score well on a "g" test as easily as a Harvard graduate. A good test won't ask anything that education could influence.
Erm Please describe the tests used to measure IQ in the "BELL CURVE" and explain how never having had any formal education whatsoever would have no effect on them. You obviously haven't met a street kid and know nothing about the subject so I'll just leave it at that
skip the part where you further prove you have no idea about IQ tests
Now, is "g" a valid concept? Like I said, most of the scientific community agrees that there is a generalizable intelligence. Go read the literature.
g as you state it is a valid concept, unfortunately it's meaningless in terms of measuring what we call intelligence, btw please point me towards any references you have where current accepted scientific papers say there is a generalizable intelligence which is measureable by tests I would like to see it! Unfortunately for you, intelligence cannot be measured on a scale, much less a single number.
4) No matter who your parents are or what they do, you have to learn these things for yourself. My dad has a PhD. in electrical engineering, and a MA in CS, but anything I know about those subjects is largely a result of what I learned on my own. You haven't got any advantage in judging "The Bell Curve" or anything else, because YOU are not an expert in shit. I can't believe you even tried to pull a logical fallacy like that--it's just silly
actually it's very informative to cohabit with people who are interested and well-informed in a certain subject. Furthermore it directly applies to the bell curve study because you can learn a lot while eating your cornflakes if you ask the right questions. And yes they have previously talked about that specific study over meals. It's a headline-grabbing, emotional study for some people. It's gossip, oh and btw, it is junk science. And btw, if you consult some of the better logic sites on the internet (and I'm sorry if they are wrong, then I am wrong), they state that it is a perfectly valid logical argument to appeal to authority where there is a concensus by authority figures in a certain domain. Fallacy? not as far as I know.
What a great example of this global warming is! The entire respected scientific community says "it exists". The current administration says "nobody knows if it exists! and further changes their commissioned studies to say so!
5) You took a discussion that is otherwise insightful, respectful, and intelligent
wow, those are the antonyms of the words I would have picked.
I'm sorry that you are so stuck in your ways that you cannot change your point of view or listen to dissenters, even when you are wrong. That being the case this will be my last reply and I hope to leave you to ed
Liberty.
... are made up.
42
Does saying *anything* trollish get you modded funny so long as you word it as a question?
--
Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 37 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
A scientist who has absolute faith in his craft is sort of like the emporer who wears no clothes.
Plenty of research gets burried and/or remained unpublished because of exactly that.
...That wont get published, not because the research is bad, but it can be career ending to publish non-pc results. Those who have published anyway often found their research validated, but their funding dry up, tenure suddenly out of the question, and/or death threats. Acedemia is a PC hell with a narrow dogmatic view. Even the appearance of stepping one toe outside of that view is often severely punished.
There are plenty of studies out there on rape, domestic violence, homosexual lifespan and societal costs
There is another type of corruption that I think is just as insideous, that is the one of false premise for commercial gain. A certain drug company wanted to open up a new market for their drugs, but they couldn't show that their drug was useful for the condition(not depression, pain). In fact, its been pretty well proven by people working independantly that the original drug which had its sales sore is not effective, nor of the others that were able to enter the market because of the bad first study. While I can't prove that they asked the researcher to change the results, I can prove the results are false and conclusion greatly misleading. Yet these results went on to turn the direction of research for 10+ (and still is happening) years. The research was looking to find*(and paid to find if not create) serotonin deficiency in people with a certain pain condition. In order to get the results they wanted, they had to screen out the healthies with a variety of test to ensure that they could find a difference, and they eventually found a slight but mostly insignificant difference. But when comparing that result to society at large, there was no difference.
The drug company then launched a multimillion dollar PR campaign to include this finding (without stating the rest of it) in literature sent to doctors likely to encounter these patients, and the mass media at large. They also invinted another lie in another study to say that another class of drugs was ineffective for the condition, even though it was never tested and many case reports stated otherwise - it was included in just about every paper that this drug company funded that this other class didn't work, and they all cited the original paper for the 5-HIAA work.
The condition had uncertain cause at the time, and so many assumed it was psychogenic, and it told them what they wanted to hear. They adapted the party line on why this could help after it was shown the illness was not psychogenic. For 10+ years all drug development and testing focused in this direction because of that. The drug companies made billion on off label treatment, the patients continued to suffer and worsen. Negative result after negative result went by that these drugs were not effective for the condition, and no one was every able to manipulate the results enough to get a positive result for the first 2 generations of them - almost all of those negative results unpublished because you don't try to seek FDA approval with them. The third, however, after excluding entire populations of people was able to get that result by averaging out a variation not much larger than pure chance and throwing away the results after week 12. It showed a slight gain in weeks 2 and 12 and no point in between. Again a multimillion dollar PR campaign was launched for something they knew was largely ineffective, but it made a great PR hit with outlandish claims of efficacy. The drug is continuing to be prescribed widely off-label for this purpose based on this flimsy data. All of the drug companies sent mailers and people to lunch with the doctors, and loaded up their sample cases.
In fact, more than 5 million of those who suffer from the condition in the US alone have been treated with these drugs which have no effect on the condition whatsoever.
My point is not that scientist can be corrupted, we know this, nor that drug companies do corrupt and illegal thi
and Angelina Jolie is hot.
Now, back to bed.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
No, his previous experience makes him a skeptical reviewer, which is a very good thing. Did he try to change the results? No. He added a few adverbs to enhance concerns that are already expressed in the documents. For instance, pointing out that modeling environmental change is "extremely" difficult. I have to agree: it *is* extremely difficult. His comments are designed to increase the skepticism with which we interpret these very complicated and very preliminary scientific studies.
Skepticism lies at the FOUNDATION of science. Rather putting blind faith in the mantra of Soothsayers and Shamans, scientists conduct consistent, reproducible, and well-defined experiments designed to test whether these mantras seem to be plausible.
But it is this very skepticism that the Environmental Movement lacks! The best way to capture a huge audience and convince people that something is incredibly important is to tell them that if they ignore you, they will die soon! And the best way to do that is to use a classic technique of persuasion called Scaremongering.
And it is the technique of Scaremongering that the Environmentalists have perfected to a science. It is, if you will, the Mantra of the Environmental Movement. And this mantra conflicts directly with scientific scepticism, which the Environmental Movement attempts to quash at every step. "We don't have TIME to be skeptical!" they say. "We don't have TIME to study this any more! We must act now or we're all DOOMED!" And conveniently, the only way to act is to do precisely what they say, because the Mantra is Truth and will show us the Way.
No one is denying that the Earth is warming ever so slightly, by roughly 0.5 degree Celsius over the past 50 years. The contentious argument is over whether human beings are causing this temperature change, or whether it is a natural trend resulting from our continuing thaw from the last Ice Age. I have seen disturbingly little research attempting to rule out this theory. How can ANYONE just "believe" that human beings must be the cause of Global Warming without seeing any scientific proof?
Also, scientists have come to no consensus whatsoever regarding what the rate of warming will be for the next few decades. In fact, the numbers from "research studies" I have seen are SO wildly different that most scientific communities would hesitate to even call it publishable research. More like "guesswork."
The Bush Administration, to its credit, has refused to jump on the Global Bandwagon here and instead has commissioned studies, at public expense, to determine whether human-caused Global Warming poses the level of threat which environmental lobbying groups claim. Personally, I don't care what the Bush Administration's motivation is for this skepticism. Skepticism is exactly what this situation requires.
I am thrilled that we are not simply throwing billions of dollars at the problem before we even understand it enough to produce consistent scientific studies!
Marijuana causes chromosomal abnormalities that will kill the user. It also causes violence and crime. It has been "proven" in a study by American scientists. Power lines do not cause birth defects and cancers. American studies proved it. Removing guns from individuals will reduce crimes. Pit bulls are not viscious. Providing free money to the indigent will encourage them to improve themselves to the point of no longer accepting welfare. Sex offenders won't attack again after spending a few months in prison. Honestly! who didn't realize that you can't believe everything you read. Especially in the nations mass media, which pontificate truths unchecked by scientific peer review. And even groups of scientific peers can be coerced to agree on mistruths.
"I agree that this would be just as bad if another administration did it, but I suspect your example is a poor one."
While that's a wonderful shield against having to accept ugly truths, no this is a sadly excellent example. I spoke to him, got a chance to see some of their work, and watched as their funding dried up. The phrase "enemy of the planet" was explicitly used in funding conversations.
It's really sad, but it's not the first time. Check out a book by Herman from the 70s titled Sun, Weather and Climate. He suffered the same fate for saying the same thing.
"Either way though you cannot deny that the Bush Administration's hostility to science that does not confirm its narrow worldview has been unprecedented."
There is only one presidential administration that I can think of that didn't behave that way *as much*, and that's Carter. It's not that that kind of reactionary beuracracy wasn't there during Carter's administration, but his people were actually quite a bit less heavy-handed than Kenedy's, Johnson's, Nixon's, Ford's, Reagan's, Bush Sr.'s, Clinton's or Bush Jr.'s.
Was presented on Oct 25, 1988, on PBS.
e ntist/t-Fraud-investigators
"Abstract:
This video examines the troubling question of scientific fraud: How prevalent is it? Who commits it? And what happens when the perpetrators are caught? Factors contributing to "bad science" include sloppy research, personal bias, lack of objectivity, "cooking and trimming", "publish or perish" pressure, and outright fraud. The limits of peer review and other quality control systems are discussed."
I haven't watch my VHS copy in several years, but IIRC the rate of cheating among all scientists was bout 48%.
In another case two NIH scientists followed up on report of cheating brought to them by other scientists. http://onlineethics.org/reseth/okie.html
"As a result of her allegations, O'Toole claims she has been effectively barred from getting a job as a researcher. She worked for her brother's moving company for a while and is currently unemployed. It was likely that any investigations of Baltimore and Imanishi-Kari would have been dropped at this point. However, after persuading O'Toole to send them the data, Stewart and Feder, NIH scientists who have taken it upon themselves to criticize current scientific standards, conducted an unofficial investigation of their own. They concluded that the presentation of the data was misleading and inaccurate and that it seemed to contradict some of the researchers' own main conclusions. Stewart and Feder attempted to publish an article that discussed their findings, but reviewers for NIH claimed that a paper based only on an examination of partial data and without consultation with the Cell paper's authors should not be published. Stewart and Feder sent their paper to the authors and asked for more data, but the authors refused. The NIH finally allowed Stewart and Feder to submit their paper to Cell, but Cell refused to publish it."
Because of their whistle blowing they eventually lost their jobs. http://felix.unife.it/Root/d-University/d-The-sci
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Maybe it will even out, but what about the science which only deals with the present?
E.g. Implementing local government policy:
It seems increasingly common these days for companies to do the research themselves (sometimes it may be claimed 'independant', but ofcourse it is under their parameters and so sure to put them at the top).
then give it to the local government (or the relevant privatised service/utility company) who are all to willing to accept a scheme where they can quote existing research (often misleadingly masquerading it as 'independant' or 'fair' when it is neither,) rather than spend time & money doing there own proper research.
Future science won't help the state or town which has just wasted millions (on say a computer system from a more expensive company) due to incorrect research.
I've done... questionable things. But nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let me into heaven for. Woo-Hoo!
"If Adam and Eve were the only two people, where the heck did Cain get a Wife???"
Many people bring this issue up, but the answer seems quite simple. Adam and Eve surely had more children than just Cain and Abel, and some of those children were likely female as well (Genesis 5:4 states that Adam had other children). Back then, the gene pool was definately purer (given all the source material was coming from two humans freshly created), and genetic defects weren't really a problem yet. Marrying your sister may seem like a gross thing to do nowadays, but there wasn't much of a choice back then.
Of course, if God can create one woman from a rib, He could create more. Indeed, a God who could create a universe from just speaking wouldn't need a rib to make a female.
I'm not good at explaining things late at night, so here's a good resource to get some answers from (a lot of fluff on there, but scroll down about half way and you'll find some answers).
Whether or not Easter originated with Constantine may be debatable, but your implication that Easter was did not have an origin outside of Christianity is dubious at best.
Quote: "Passover" and "Easter" are the same word in the Greek Bible.
I've done full-text searches for the word "Easter" in 20 different translations of the Bible, but only three of them produced the word. One of these matched due to the phrase "...a wind of hurricane force, called the north-easter..." (Acts 27:14, NIV UK) The two that did match with that meaning were the King James and the 21st Century King James, both for Acts 12:4. Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words notes on this translation specifically. Under the heading of Easter, we read:
Now consider this: Jesus and his apostles were celebrating Passover the night before he died. Both his death and the Passover landed on the Jewish date of Nisan 14 (since days begin and end at sundown in the Jewish calendar). Jesus' resurrection, which Easter claims to celebrate, came on the "third day" (Nisan 16). Why would the same word be used for a celebration that happened two days apart from that event? Obviously the Bible writers were not referring to Easter in this passage. One edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica stated the following:
Quote: There's no credible cultural or etymological link between "Ishtar" (whom Constantine did not worship at any point in his life) and "Easter".
What about the paralellism between Easter customs and Babylonian worship? The Two Babylons stated:
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary states:
There's nothing you have that they can't take away: Absolute zero, Gentle Jack, bottom line.
Again this example is not comparable. I agree the phrase "enemy of the planet" is pretty unprofessional in this context, but it's quite possible that your friend's funding was denied on merit rather than ideology. But in either case it doesn't compare to actually editing the conclusions of scientists to change the results to match ideology. For me this isn't a case of liberal vs. conservative -- while I disagree politically with the Reagan, Nixon, Bush 1 admins, I never would have expected such obviously Orwellian actions from any of them. This administration is a cartoon....
One has to wonder... if they were dishonest enough to fudge research data, what was their motivation to give an honest response to this survey? Were they perhaps paid under the table to participate? Were those selected to participate conveniently all lapsed Catholics with guilty consciences?
Wow. After that I can only add one thing. Basically all of the studies used by the Kyoto treaty were based on the predictions made by the 1995 IPCC conference report. Every one of those predictions have been off by huge factors, including the rate of release of CO2, the prediction of which, over a mere 7 years, was off by a factor of 300%. In science, the standard deviation is the measure of accuracy. The first standard deviation is less than 10% of variance. To accept Kyoto you must accept that something 9 standard deviations out is still acceptable science.
Otherwise, I think the original response hit just about every point I would have brought up. Thanks for saving me the typing.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
They should do a survey asking how many of them lie on surveys. lol.
Islamists even say there will be many profits... Each with a new message.
A central tenet of Islam is that Mohammed is the last prophet. The last. No more, not now, not ever.
Sheesh. I know almost nothing about Islam, but I do know that.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Even better, he just got a big fat job at Exxon Mobil.
I think the message coming out of Government is "Help destroy the world and get a high paying job for a multinational when you are exposed.".
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Sorry to be adding so late, but how the heck should his voice have weight enough to be repeatedly editing scientific reports.
He had no scientific credentials, he was just a lobbyist for the oil industry. The government seems to be doing anything it can not to answer questions as to his credentials and why he was fit to edit the copy of scientific reports.
Now (I'm sure completely unrelated to his services in the White House) he was given a high paying job over at Exxon Mobil. How does that show his objective skepticism. Just being against something does not make you a skeptic worth listening to.
Shit, they guy is just an attorney, that IMO proves he is evil beyond redemption, a beast that can only act in it's own self interest at the cost of all others.
Now I do agree with much of what you type scientifically (warming trends and whatnot) but for fucks sake, it's clear he is anything but what you want to believe he is.
I guess in retrospect it is not surprise the White Houses policy on Global Warming was written by Exxon Mobil itself. In light of recent events doesn't this make all this just a little suspect?
Where is your skepticism that all this was in our (humanity, Americans, whatever works for you) best interest?
People like these are the traitors and evil in the world. They care not and will never do anything to help anyone but themselves (or someone they can use). It's frigging treasonous IMO.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
"No, his previous experience makes him a skeptical reviewer, which is a very good thing."
... Take my skepticism over this guy to be a good thing. He had no qualification to edit this report, yet he did and he did it in a way that supported its old company... He even got a job from them afterward.
He is no scientist, his job was to sell (lobby)... Which by definition means trying to show all the good point of something in order to convince it is good...
Now if you want skepticism
As for not editing it, he also removed entire section regarding the effects of global warming on the environments. Does that sound objective to you?
And yes I agree that GW is not an easy phenomenon to understand, but there is a scientific concensus amoung almost all other governements except yours. Are all the others biased hippies run governement...
Or is the connection between your administration and the oil industry crossed with its stand alone stance on the issue a bit suspicious...
As for skepticism, putting an ex-oil lobby in this position is like putting an UFO freak in charge of determining if they happen to exist or not. It is in no way a thing a true scientific sceptic would do.
Skepticism is good, but apply it not only to the facts, but also to the intents of people...
Wishfull Thinking or denial never solved any problems in the long run... It only serve to make them worst.