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The vast majority of science research doesn't affect public policy. It's toward some goal, like making a process work better. Those scientists still need to be
by tlb 10y ago
The vast majority of science research doesn't affect public policy. It's toward some goal, like making a process work better. Those scientists still need to be honest, but nobody is throwing big money at them to sway their agenda. Then sometimes, suddenly, huge money depends on a question of science.
I assume concussion research was like this for a long time: they were just trying to find the best way to heal brains after damage, and it was fine to take money from whomever would fund it. Then suddenly there's a question relevant to policy: do football players suffer a lot of permanent brain damage?
In fact it's crazy that such research would be funded by an organization that would be destroyed if the answer turned out a certain way. One should expect no better than with cigarette companies funding lung cancer research.
- themartorana 10y agoWhen an organization "funds" research that comes to a conclusion said organization knows to be false, that is fraud, outright. We should not accept fraud as "par for the course" or "we should expect no better." Actively attempting to defraud customers, employees, or government should be a crime.
- tlb 10y agoHow could they know something to be false, when their own scientists said it was true? They should have known it was bullshit (in Frankfurt's technical sense [0]), though. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit: "As such, bullshit can be neither true nor false; hence, the bullshitter is someone whose principal aim—when uttering or publishing bullshit—is to impress the listener and the reader with words that communicate an impression that something is being or has been done, words that are neither true nor false, and so obscure the facts of the matter being discussed"
- dluan 10y agoMaybe when the stakes go up, it's harder to call something out as bullshit. One $10M study saying the NFL is safe for mental health will outweigh 100 $10k studies too scared to state the opposite. tbh, the NFL was smart to lump so much money as a promise to the NIH, pitting all of the institutes against one lab at BU.
- woodman 10y agoThat doesn't seem like a very well thought out way of defending a logical endeavor like scientific research. I don't know how you plan to learn what an "organization knows", but lets pretend that is economically feasible - what do you think the logical move is for these bad actors? Well there would be a pretty strong incentive to never "know" anything, so that wouldn't be very good. As it is now, if the funded research is bad then it won't survive for long, and neither will those with their names on the papers. Also, fraud is already a crime - but again I don't know how you plan on demonstrating the "attempting" part.
- ghgfhgfhn 10y ago"if the funded research is bad then it won't survive for long" that is not necessarily true.
- woodman 10y agoOk, I can be more explicit: If the funded research is bad -- and it is an area of interest (political, social, industrial, etc) -- then it won't survive for long. So you are correct, if Philip Morris funded bad research relating to the mating habits of fruit flies in a zero gravity environment - it is unlikely to be challenged in a timely manner... but as nobody cares, it doesn't matter.
- ghgfhgfhn 10y agoI'd also argue that it is possible for cultural bias and injected money to suppress truth over longer time scales - generations.