4 ms·

> That is, nobody is particular looking for people doing poor work and handing out rewards. I'd challenge that. If you look for people with high impact factors

by hannob 10y ago

> That is, nobody is particular looking for people doing poor work and handing out rewards. I'd challenge that. If you look for people with high impact factors you are asking for people doing poor science. If you only publish "significant" results and refuse to publish negative results you are asking for bad science. There are structural problems that lead to bad science, and often it's not about costs.

taeric 10y ago
I argue that you are modeling out real expense. In this case, the cost of not publishing significant findings. You could try to penalize bad faith actors. You could also try to stop putting undue pressure on good faith actors. It isn't just spending money. But opportunity cost of throw away work. As it is we have what can be modeled akin to baseball where most at bats are failures, but not even swinging is frowned upon and eventually leads to you not being sent to bat.
afarrell 10y ago
Given that plan to decimate the economy of America's 4th largest and most racially diverse city (Houston, TX), I am quite keen to know if these issues also affect climate science. Don't get me wrong, I'm still pretty convinced that anthropogenic global warming is happening. But if there is a change that it isn't and we can avoid all of the murders and suicides that come with throwing large numbers of people in one area out of work, we should investigate the possibility.
- lmm 10y ago
  These issues affect all science. That's not an argument for ignoring science when it's politically convenient. (At least not any more than you already were based on the results. Whatever your all-in number for how often science is right or wrong is, that number already incorporates all these issues). If anything I would expect standards to be much higher in climate science than less controversial areas. There are a lot of people who would stand to gain (or, equivalently, avoid losing) huge amounts of money if the climate science was wrong, they will be going over papers with a fine-tooth comb in a way that doesn't happen to most papers.
  - afarrell 10y ago
    > ignoring science when it's politically convenient And I'm not making an argument for it. I'm making the argument that "getting this wrong is personally costly for a lot of people, therefore we should be examining these results with a fine-toothed comb before basing massive social change on them." But you're right, there would already be monetary incentive to do that.

by hannob 10y ago

taeric 10y ago

I argue that you are modeling out real expense. In this case, the cost of not publishing significant findings. You could try to penalize bad faith actors. You could also try to stop putting undue pressure on good faith actors. It isn't just spending money. But opportunity cost of throw away work. As it is we have what can be modeled akin to baseball where most at bats are failures, but not even swinging is frowned upon and eventually leads to you not being sent to bat.

afarrell 10y ago

Given that plan to decimate the economy of America's 4th largest and most racially diverse city (Houston, TX), I am quite keen to know if these issues also affect climate science. Don't get me wrong, I'm still pretty convinced that anthropogenic global warming is happening. But if there is a change that it isn't and we can avoid all of the murders and suicides that come with throwing large numbers of people in one area out of work, we should investigate the possibility.

lmm 10y ago
These issues affect all science. That's not an argument for ignoring science when it's politically convenient. (At least not any more than you already were based on the results. Whatever your all-in number for how often science is right or wrong is, that number already incorporates all these issues). If anything I would expect standards to be much higher in climate science than less controversial areas. There are a lot of people who would stand to gain (or, equivalently, avoid losing) huge amounts of money if the climate science was wrong, they will be going over papers with a fine-tooth comb in a way that doesn't happen to most papers.
- afarrell 10y ago
  > ignoring science when it's politically convenient And I'm not making an argument for it. I'm making the argument that "getting this wrong is personally costly for a lot of people, therefore we should be examining these results with a fine-toothed comb before basing massive social change on them." But you're right, there would already be monetary incentive to do that.