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I've crossed paths with the man, and attended a "Doctors for Disaster Preparedness" conference that he ran. He's undeniably brilliant, but that whole scene is f

I've crossed paths with the man, and attended a "Doctors for Disaster Preparedness" conference that he ran. He's undeniably brilliant, but that whole scene is filled with people whose primary emotional motivation is a sense of grievance that the scientific community does not share their personal theories. Every talk at that conference was framed as a brilliant insight that was being suppressed by the scientific community. Highlights, by my recollection, include that climate change is false, radiation is good for you, and most alarmingly in my opinion that HIV does not cause AIDS. Not surprised at all that Dr. Robinson has since got tied up in vaccine denial, and been extensively funded by the Mercers et al. Nor that he has since become a perennially losing congressional candidate in Oregon. There's a great quote at the end of this article, in which he says that science is fundamentally a populist endeavor, and that one man can be right and all others wrong. I'd point out that science is also fundamentally a human endeavor, and that those who practice it cannot escape their own motivations or cognitive traps. Perhaps Dr. Robinson and his crowd really are onto something the scientific consensus is blind to. But they're also creationists, climate deniers, and anti-vaxers. We know what cognitive biases drive people to those opinions, and we judge their research output accordingly.

yters 9y ago
Shouldn't you judge the research based on the research?
- vkou 9y ago
  Research that contradicts the positions that anti-vaxers hold tends to not be judged by anti-vaxers on its merits. The typical narrative is wailing and gnashing of teeth about big pharma, sheeple, dogmatic self-serving faith by established academics, etc. The wonderful thing about research is that when enough research gets done, you can cherry-pick a research paper that will agree with any belief you hold. [1] If you then proceed to ignore all the results that contradict it, you have an unassailable position. After all, you're just a yet-unrecognized Leonardo. [1] https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/
  - yters 9y ago
    One wrong does not justify another wrong.
    - vkou 9y ago
      No, but independently, consistently, reproducible research justifies a lot of things. When we see some from these guys, they may start being taken seriously.
      - yters 9y ago
        I don't disagree, but the problem is with an institutional bias it is hard to have results that stand out. It can be difficult to differentiate between institutional bias and cranks when both sides have an emotional commitment.
- jackmott 9y ago
  yes we are and it indicates the man is nonsense.
api 9y ago
I sympathize deeply with the complaint that science is too bureaucratized. I myself left science when I realized I'd never actually be able to work on anything close to what I wanted to work on. Instead I'd likely end up like so many others as an endless postdoc slave or constantly trying to play politics in a bureaucracy instead of doing interesting work. That being said, the problem with alt-science (or alt-anything) is that inverting a biased paradigm simply yields another biased paradigm. These folks are just anti everything the mainstream of science is for. Let's say the mainstream is wrong with a 50% probability. In that case these folks will also be wrong with a 50% probability. They'll just be wrong in the inverse. This is not independent thought. Every single conclusion they reach is in line with a political agenda. It just happens to be a different political agenda than the dominant one in most academic institutions. This is also not an independent venture. Just as mainstream science must conform to a certain political zeitgeist to chase academic and government funding, these folks must also conform to a certain zeitgeist to chase funding from right-wing personalities like Robert Mercer. I highly doubt Mercer would fund an independent scientist who concluded that excess CO2 will likely cause climate change. Art's funding will dry up as soon as he reaches a conclusion Mercer doesn't like.
- msla 9y ago
  > That being said, the problem with alt-science (or alt-anything) is that inverting a biased paradigm simply yields another biased paradigm. These folks are just anti everything the mainstream of science is for. Let's say the mainstream is wrong with a 50% probability. In that case these folks will also be wrong with a 50% probability. They'll just be wrong in the inverse. This also implies another huge problem with their worldview: They can't do original research. Not because it requires funding, not because the Men In Black will shut them down, but because the results of that research might be politically incorrect within the politics of the group that is doing it. The field is sterile. All it has is anomaly-hunting, which looks like research until you realize how dishonest it is, and endless whining, a droning blare of outrage at the people who are mostly ignoring them and making a concerted effort to advance actual fields of study.
  - api 9y ago
philipkglass 9y ago
I've known a couple of people who were anti-Einstein, anti-relativity cranks. They were also (respectively) a skilled research chemist and a skilled electrical engineer. Both had doctorates from mainstream institutions. They were fine to consult on topics related to their expertise, as long as it didn't touch on their mission against Einstein. Trained scientists can compartmentalize information and fool themselves too. (As the article notes, of course; Robinson once worked at UCSD alongside Linus Pauling. Pauling had some bad ideas too.) As a general heuristic, "discount all of a person's scientific ideas once you've seen them championing one howler" is fine. But if you think that your bullshit meter is calibrated well enough to tease signal from noise, there are autodidacts and non-institutional researchers who have good ideas or insights alongside their offputting HIV/AIDS denialism, Young Earth Creationism, Electric Universe-ism, or what-have-you.
- unchocked 9y ago
  Agreed. And Art's work on biomarker detection is conceptually valid, though subject to practical challenges similar to those vexing Theranos. But Art's past association with Pauling, combined with his charisma and rugged good looks are systematically used to provide top cover for a grievance-oriented movement of cranks. It's exactly the veneer of respectability that Bob Mercer needs to put these guys in political power. The urinalysis is a red herring.
- KGIII 9y ago
  I think it's important to remember that expertise in one domain doesn't imply expertise in another. It is a bit more broad than that and a recent example was when I bowed out of offering an opinion and explicitly stated that I was unqualified to opine. Their response was that I was smart and they'd value my opinion anyhow. So, it's a two way street and reinforced by external stimuli. In the example case, I'm a mathematician and don't know a damned thing about psychology. My opinions on it should carry no weight and my declination to opine should have signaled that.
humanrebar 9y ago
> But they're also creationists, climate deniers, and anti-vaxers Creationism is a metaphysical claim and is unlike the other two example you provide. One can point to isotope measurements, fossil records, etc. and still not make a dent in the final argument, which is "God made it that way". It may seem preposterous that God would make extensive fossil records, but that opinion isn't a scientific one but a philosophical or theological one.
- SpikeDad 9y ago
  As usual claims that can't be examined are worthless. Putting a religious claim in the same strata as a thoroughly proven scientific claim is a waste of breath and has no validity.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > As usual claims that can't be examined are worthless. This also is a metaphysical and philosophical position. It cannot be examined empirically. But it is one's prerogative to have that position, and I can understand why one would.

yters 9y ago

Shouldn't you judge the research based on the research?

vkou 9y ago
Research that contradicts the positions that anti-vaxers hold tends to not be judged by anti-vaxers on its merits. The typical narrative is wailing and gnashing of teeth about big pharma, sheeple, dogmatic self-serving faith by established academics, etc. The wonderful thing about research is that when enough research gets done, you can cherry-pick a research paper that will agree with any belief you hold. [1] If you then proceed to ignore all the results that contradict it, you have an unassailable position. After all, you're just a yet-unrecognized Leonardo. [1] https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/
- yters 9y ago
  One wrong does not justify another wrong.
  - vkou 9y ago
    No, but independently, consistently, reproducible research justifies a lot of things. When we see some from these guys, they may start being taken seriously.
    - yters 9y ago
      I don't disagree, but the problem is with an institutional bias it is hard to have results that stand out. It can be difficult to differentiate between institutional bias and cranks when both sides have an emotional commitment.
jackmott 9y ago
yes we are and it indicates the man is nonsense.

api 9y ago

I sympathize deeply with the complaint that science is too bureaucratized. I myself left science when I realized I'd never actually be able to work on anything close to what I wanted to work on. Instead I'd likely end up like so many others as an endless postdoc slave or constantly trying to play politics in a bureaucracy instead of doing interesting work. That being said, the problem with alt-science (or alt-anything) is that inverting a biased paradigm simply yields another biased paradigm. These folks are just anti everything the mainstream of science is for. Let's say the mainstream is wrong with a 50% probability. In that case these folks will also be wrong with a 50% probability. They'll just be wrong in the inverse. This is not independent thought. Every single conclusion they reach is in line with a political agenda. It just happens to be a different political agenda than the dominant one in most academic institutions. This is also not an independent venture. Just as mainstream science must conform to a certain political zeitgeist to chase academic and government funding, these folks must also conform to a certain zeitgeist to chase funding from right-wing personalities like Robert Mercer. I highly doubt Mercer would fund an independent scientist who concluded that excess CO2 will likely cause climate change. Art's funding will dry up as soon as he reaches a conclusion Mercer doesn't like.

msla 9y ago
> That being said, the problem with alt-science (or alt-anything) is that inverting a biased paradigm simply yields another biased paradigm. These folks are just anti everything the mainstream of science is for. Let's say the mainstream is wrong with a 50% probability. In that case these folks will also be wrong with a 50% probability. They'll just be wrong in the inverse. This also implies another huge problem with their worldview: They can't do original research. Not because it requires funding, not because the Men In Black will shut them down, but because the results of that research might be politically incorrect within the politics of the group that is doing it. The field is sterile. All it has is anomaly-hunting, which looks like research until you realize how dishonest it is, and endless whining, a droning blare of outrage at the people who are mostly ignoring them and making a concerted effort to advance actual fields of study.
- api 9y ago

philipkglass 9y ago

I've known a couple of people who were anti-Einstein, anti-relativity cranks. They were also (respectively) a skilled research chemist and a skilled electrical engineer. Both had doctorates from mainstream institutions. They were fine to consult on topics related to their expertise, as long as it didn't touch on their mission against Einstein. Trained scientists can compartmentalize information and fool themselves too. (As the article notes, of course; Robinson once worked at UCSD alongside Linus Pauling. Pauling had some bad ideas too.) As a general heuristic, "discount all of a person's scientific ideas once you've seen them championing one howler" is fine. But if you think that your bullshit meter is calibrated well enough to tease signal from noise, there are autodidacts and non-institutional researchers who have good ideas or insights alongside their offputting HIV/AIDS denialism, Young Earth Creationism, Electric Universe-ism, or what-have-you.

unchocked 9y ago
Agreed. And Art's work on biomarker detection is conceptually valid, though subject to practical challenges similar to those vexing Theranos. But Art's past association with Pauling, combined with his charisma and rugged good looks are systematically used to provide top cover for a grievance-oriented movement of cranks. It's exactly the veneer of respectability that Bob Mercer needs to put these guys in political power. The urinalysis is a red herring.
KGIII 9y ago
I think it's important to remember that expertise in one domain doesn't imply expertise in another. It is a bit more broad than that and a recent example was when I bowed out of offering an opinion and explicitly stated that I was unqualified to opine. Their response was that I was smart and they'd value my opinion anyhow. So, it's a two way street and reinforced by external stimuli. In the example case, I'm a mathematician and don't know a damned thing about psychology. My opinions on it should carry no weight and my declination to opine should have signaled that.

humanrebar 9y ago

> But they're also creationists, climate deniers, and anti-vaxers Creationism is a metaphysical claim and is unlike the other two example you provide. One can point to isotope measurements, fossil records, etc. and still not make a dent in the final argument, which is "God made it that way". It may seem preposterous that God would make extensive fossil records, but that opinion isn't a scientific one but a philosophical or theological one.

SpikeDad 9y ago
As usual claims that can't be examined are worthless. Putting a religious claim in the same strata as a thoroughly proven scientific claim is a waste of breath and has no validity.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > As usual claims that can't be examined are worthless. This also is a metaphysical and philosophical position. It cannot be examined empirically. But it is one's prerogative to have that position, and I can understand why one would.