Scientists Fight Back In Canada

Trufagus writes "The current Canadian government is widely regarded as 'anti-science,' and this year they have stepped up their efforts to undermine scientists and control their contact with the media. But now the federal scientists are fighting back and have just launched their own website. Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said, 'If science isn't supported then you're going to find that decisions are going to be made more at the political level,' on Monday as the union launched their website."

Comments

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Burnhard]

Don't you know that the truth is whatever the Party says it is?

The problem with your argument is that it assumes scientists are always right and are always better able to conduct public policy than politicians. Wasn't this precisely what Dwight Eisenhower warned us about in the 1950's?

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Your point also completely disregards the growing philosophy of post-normal science, where scientists can "produce" evidence to support a viewpoint they consider to be politically expedient, even if the evidence does not necessarily incontrovertibly entail the conclusions.

It's rather sweet that you hold all of science in so high a regard. I used to. These days I see Scientists pretty much in the same was as I see politicians: I always want to follow the money.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Burnhard]

And your argument conveniently fails (yet again) to produce any credible reason as to why scientists would fabricate results

Are you seriously suggesting that results are never fabricated? Or that it's not possible for Scientists to behave in a generally dishonest manner in order to advance their own agendas? Or that scientists do not have political opinions that are in direct conflict with the work they perform?

According to David Goodstein of Caltech, there are motivators for scientists to commit misconduct, which are briefly summarised here.

Career pressure

Science is still a very strongly career-driven discipline. Scientists depend on a good reputation to receive ongoing support and funding; and a good reputation relies largely on the publication of high-profile scientific papers. Hence, there is a strong imperative to "publish or perish". Clearly, this may motivate desperate (or fame-hungry) scientists to fabricate results.

To this category may also be added a paranoia that there are other scientists out there who are close to success in the same experiment, which puts extra pressure on being the first one. It is suggested as a cause of the fraud of Hwang Woo-Suk. A main source of detection comes when other research teams in fact fail or get different results.

Laziness

Even on the rare occasions when scientists do falsify data, they almost never do so with the active intent to introduce false information into the body of scientific knowledge. Rather, they intend to introduce a fact that they believe is true, without going to the trouble and difficulty of actually performing the experiments required.
Easiness of fabrication

In many scientific fields, results are often difficult to reproduce accurately, being obscured by noise, artifacts and other extraneous data. That means that even if a scientist does falsify data, they can expect to get away with it - or at least claim innocence if their results conflict with others in the same field. There are no "scientific police" which are trained to fight scientific crimes, all investigations are made by experts in science but amateurs in dealing with criminals. It is relatively easy to cheat. Finances

There is the additional incentive of money. If one has a promising proposal in an area in which federal or other grant money or funding is available, especially in a new technology in which there is no existing standard to compare it with, the submission of preliminary data cannot be confirmed until further research is done.

Ideology

While perhaps the least common incentive, it is still there. The classic example would be anti-abortionists claiming sonograms show the silent scream of an aborted fetus demonstrates the fetus is alive with feeling, while pro-abortionists would submit demographic studies showing that women who considered abortion but later decided against it are doomed to life of dependency on welfare, lower socioeconomic status, relationship abuse, child abuse, drug abuse, etc.

Scientists are Human and subject to all of the same frailties as the rest of us. If you want the political sphere, as Dwight said, "to be held captive" by them, then in my view that is a very naive viewpoint indeed. There are many cargo-cults in science. Its practitioners are no more suited to directing public policy than anyone else.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Mad Leper]

Dissolving government? Really? The Liberals and NDP, backed by the seditionist Bloc party, twice attempted to force a political coup and overthrown the democratically elected Conservative party. Both times they were rebuffed by the Governor General and the people of Canada.

To this day, neither the Liberals nor NDP have summoned the courage to force an actual election, despite numerous opportunities to do so. Want to blame someone for the Harper government staying in power? Blame the cowards leading the Liberals and NDP.

The G20 debacle was the result of jack-booted extremists, anarchists and paid professional protestors hired by various extremist socialist groups that turned what could have been a peaceful protest into a violent mess. After all, peaceful protests don't get you those precious Twitter and Facebook hits do they...

As for the opposition claims that they were excluded from the Google broadcast of the speech from the throne, never ascribe to malice what can readily be explained by sheer laziness and incompetence.