A Little About Scientific misconduct.

7 thoughts on “A Little About Scientific misconduct.”

1. This is misattributed – Karl Pearson was quoting anonymously a critic of his (Pearson’s) work on alcoholism.

2. “The educated man and the scientist are as prone as any other to become the victim of his own prejudices. He will in defense thereof make shipwreck of both facts and methods of science, by perpetrating every form of fallacy, inaccuracy and distortion.” Karl Pearson.

3. I would agree. I don’t think most academics are evil, just human. Scientific inaccuracy isn’t necessarily a matter of outright lying. It’s often as simple as choosing a path that will earn the most money, fame, or respect. My favorite example is the habit of paleontologists to declare sparse partial fossils a new species. You get to name a new species. You’ll be immortalized amongst your peers for generations as a footnote in a textbook. Not nearly as much attention is given to someone who finds yet another fragment of an already well-known specimen. Consider a future paleontologist finding fossilized remains of a chihuahua and a great dane. Would they be classified as the same species? I’m not even saying they do it on purpose. The desire to do what’s best for yourself is a powerful, subconscious motivator. Most bias and inaccuracy aren’t disingenuous. The perpetrators are just wrong. Honest, straightforward, and wrong.
   To complicate the issue, most of academia isn’t given an excessive amount of attention by the pop culture media. Often the most important thing being covered up is how small a group of experts actually is. Of all the talk about massive support for CAGW, the same few names keep getting cited as original sources. The only true knowledge is empirical knowledge. All else is hearsay. Unfortunately, in todays world of instant global communication and hundreds of competing 24 hour news sources, you can generate a lot of hearsay in a very short amount of time. When a PHD says he “believes” something, it often means nothing more than he assumes the source didn’t do anything blatantly wrong. The need to move on to something new and exciting prevents people from bothering to try to replicate results unless they expect to get marketable results. It’s not a matter of conspiracies and cover-ups. It’s just ratings. If you want a lot of people to hear what you have to say, first you have to sell it. Consequently, the only ones that make the news are the few willing to exaggerate the importance of their work.
   To me, though,the big problem isn’t that scientists make personal decisions for the same reason I do. I don’t even fault the sensationalist journalists that are just trying to keep a job. The real problem is with the acolytes that give undue respect to anything they’re told “scientists say” and treat dissenting view points as heresy. Their cult-like mentality stands in the way of reasoned debate amongst the rational lay people. No important inaccuracy can stand so long as people are willing to debate like adults.

4. nooooooo. that’s my problem mr. B, that researchers in public health are not reliable or honest at all. Consider epidemiologists who claim they have found something, when they have found nothing.
   Now if you are talking medical researchers on basic stuff or other kinds of researchers–OK. My problem is public health, EPA bought, tox researchers dredging for something to support the agency game. Some of them are so bad they would make a guy like you puke. People like Jarrett and Pope and Schwartz, and Dockery who do air pollution research.

5. The mix of people is pretty much the same anywhere. Most of academia is pretty honest and straightforeward.

6. The bottom line is that scientists need to eat too. They’re subject to the same set of motivations and temptations of anyone else. Somewhere along the line the mythic notion of “pure science” was popularized as a noble and incorrupt pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. That just doesn’t exist in the real world. The standards and practices of the scientific method were developed to protect research from the researcher for that exact reason.
   Unfortunately, many people have elevated science to the position of a religion. It’s practitioners are revered like priests. Their devotion is not to be questioned by us lay people. When a person’s close peers are the only ones allowed to judge their work, corruption becomes a matter of when not if.

7. Reblogged this on Lake Erie Conservative and commented:
   … especially considering ClimateGate !! …