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> science is just another competitive team sport where people compete with whatever means necessary Just one data point, but in my experience in academia that

> science is just another competitive team sport where people compete with whatever means necessary Just one data point, but in my experience in academia that was almost exactly how I found it. The exception that it wasn't a team sport because there's only space for one first author. My feeling is that the recognition and 'impactfulness' tied to being successful in academia are antagonistic to conducting unbiased research.

dmix 7y ago
If you watched the NBA the top 5% of players/top 5 teams get 90% of the media attention. The rest who are still doing good and interesting things fight for the last 10% of the crumbs and are forever complaining they are being excluded despite performance and other factors. It happens in a lot of places. And to be honest it’s what most of the people want and while places like r/nba are more neutral and give respect where it is due, ESPN knows the casual 12yr old knows Lebron James and Steph Curry and they recruit “talent” to only talk about them, not just what is going well for the sport as a whole. It’s a difficult balance that is really up to the power players and the quality of leadership to get right. With science though you’d hope far more meritocracy than big names, but sadly I believe this is a human and non-expert efficiency thing (as most people are not really experts). Some people might blame capitalism of the bio firms but they are just the sum of their people who run and fund them too.
- pharke 7y ago
  Exactly, it's human nature. No matter what arena it plays out in we only have so many patterns of behaviour at our disposal and you'll see the same types of power plays, favouritism, backbiting, and underhanded dealing. We're good at disguising this behaviour, dressing it up as professional ambition or rationalizing it but it's still the same dogged fight for a spot in the social hierarchy. We're not good at thinking rationally about things that involve our own benefit. We'll more often than not only think things through to the point where we avoid breaking any existing rules but still go with the lazy choice that benefits us in the short term.
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    > We're good at disguising this behaviour, dressing it up as professional ambition or rationalizing it but it's still the same dogged fight for a spot in the social hierarchy. If you're in a modern, first-world country you get to decide which part of the Pareto 80/20 divide you sit on. The world doesn't need more mediocre people.
Certhas 7y ago
I completely agree with your second sentence, but also with the OPs statement that there is no conspiracy to suppress correct results. There is intense competition to be right. There is intense competition for funds, so being perceived to be promising is hugely important. But at the end of the day I haven't really ever seen any explicit attempts to suppress uncomfortable results.
- michaelbarton 7y ago
  I agree, that's fair. I don't think it's an explicit conspiracy. However there are some practices that do end up suppressing results. One particular example is that lack of publication of negative results because there is no incentive for doing so. You can imagine a scenario where similar experiments are repeated over and over again in different laboratories because no one writes up the negative result. After all what's the incentive? Not so bad for a few wasted weeks of PhD students time but potentially more damaging for large drug clinical trials? Ben Goldacre's bad science is a great book on this topic. He's an entertaining speaker too. He describes a solution to that particular problem which is registering a clinical trials beforehand. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/oct/07/ben-goldacre-bad-pharma-interview https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/oct/07/ben-goldacr...
  - ethbro 7y ago
    It's a good idea: have a fully-open repository where negative results can be documented. With the ability to tag on if a negative result is replicated. Then gradually re-enculture review boards to expect any given author to have a substantial number of results published to said repository, if they're actively performing research.
  - Certhas 7y ago
    Absolutely, but that's a form of self suppression, rather than a cabal of others suppressing results. Science is incredibly broken in many ways. I think the big underlying culprit is the prevailing ideology that every human activity is best organized as a competition for scarce resources.
- 7y ago
Psyladine 7y ago
Michael Crichton said as much and the community turned on him.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  I tried to find more information and I'm struggling to find information that Michael Crichton said this exact thing and that turned the scientific community against him. I did find that he was a global warming skeptic and also believed in astral projection and auras and the like, both of which garnered scientific backlash. Could you help me clarify?
  - Psyladine 7y ago
    His talk 'Aliens Cause Global Warming' is about this phenomenon in all but name. Consensus science, marginalizing alternate theories and politicizing scientific inquiry. "your theories differ from mainstream" being a black mark rather than a point of inquiry.
    - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
      Right, was the backlash against his global warming skepticism? I'm still confused.
      - Psyladine 7y ago
        Yes, his stance on global warming was controversial at the time and as he died only a few years later is more well known for that, but for reasons he himself laid out in the linked talk. Most relevant is that he was against consensus science, which was highlighted in the submission. Even if you are 'wrong' and in the group consensus, all is forgiven. If you are 'right' but not in the group, you are blackballed, and if you are wrong and not in the group consensus, you are crucified.
      - amw 7y ago
        The backlash against Crichton was well-founded. He used the grain of truth that it's sometimes hard to get new ideas in science funded to build a crazy denialist foundation on that made for exciting fiction, but terrible description of reality.

dmix 7y ago

If you watched the NBA the top 5% of players/top 5 teams get 90% of the media attention. The rest who are still doing good and interesting things fight for the last 10% of the crumbs and are forever complaining they are being excluded despite performance and other factors. It happens in a lot of places. And to be honest it’s what most of the people want and while places like r/nba are more neutral and give respect where it is due, ESPN knows the casual 12yr old knows Lebron James and Steph Curry and they recruit “talent” to only talk about them, not just what is going well for the sport as a whole. It’s a difficult balance that is really up to the power players and the quality of leadership to get right. With science though you’d hope far more meritocracy than big names, but sadly I believe this is a human and non-expert efficiency thing (as most people are not really experts). Some people might blame capitalism of the bio firms but they are just the sum of their people who run and fund them too.

pharke 7y ago
Exactly, it's human nature. No matter what arena it plays out in we only have so many patterns of behaviour at our disposal and you'll see the same types of power plays, favouritism, backbiting, and underhanded dealing. We're good at disguising this behaviour, dressing it up as professional ambition or rationalizing it but it's still the same dogged fight for a spot in the social hierarchy. We're not good at thinking rationally about things that involve our own benefit. We'll more often than not only think things through to the point where we avoid breaking any existing rules but still go with the lazy choice that benefits us in the short term.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  > We're good at disguising this behaviour, dressing it up as professional ambition or rationalizing it but it's still the same dogged fight for a spot in the social hierarchy. If you're in a modern, first-world country you get to decide which part of the Pareto 80/20 divide you sit on. The world doesn't need more mediocre people.

Certhas 7y ago

I completely agree with your second sentence, but also with the OPs statement that there is no conspiracy to suppress correct results. There is intense competition to be right. There is intense competition for funds, so being perceived to be promising is hugely important. But at the end of the day I haven't really ever seen any explicit attempts to suppress uncomfortable results.

michaelbarton 7y ago
I agree, that's fair. I don't think it's an explicit conspiracy. However there are some practices that do end up suppressing results. One particular example is that lack of publication of negative results because there is no incentive for doing so. You can imagine a scenario where similar experiments are repeated over and over again in different laboratories because no one writes up the negative result. After all what's the incentive? Not so bad for a few wasted weeks of PhD students time but potentially more damaging for large drug clinical trials? Ben Goldacre's bad science is a great book on this topic. He's an entertaining speaker too. He describes a solution to that particular problem which is registering a clinical trials beforehand. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/oct/07/ben-goldacre-bad-pharma-interview https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/oct/07/ben-goldacr...
- ethbro 7y ago
  It's a good idea: have a fully-open repository where negative results can be documented. With the ability to tag on if a negative result is replicated. Then gradually re-enculture review boards to expect any given author to have a substantial number of results published to said repository, if they're actively performing research.
- Certhas 7y ago
  Absolutely, but that's a form of self suppression, rather than a cabal of others suppressing results. Science is incredibly broken in many ways. I think the big underlying culprit is the prevailing ideology that every human activity is best organized as a competition for scarce resources.
7y ago

Psyladine 7y ago

Michael Crichton said as much and the community turned on him.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
I tried to find more information and I'm struggling to find information that Michael Crichton said this exact thing and that turned the scientific community against him. I did find that he was a global warming skeptic and also believed in astral projection and auras and the like, both of which garnered scientific backlash. Could you help me clarify?
- Psyladine 7y ago
  His talk 'Aliens Cause Global Warming' is about this phenomenon in all but name. Consensus science, marginalizing alternate theories and politicizing scientific inquiry. "your theories differ from mainstream" being a black mark rather than a point of inquiry.
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    Right, was the backlash against his global warming skepticism? I'm still confused.
    - Psyladine 7y ago
      Yes, his stance on global warming was controversial at the time and as he died only a few years later is more well known for that, but for reasons he himself laid out in the linked talk. Most relevant is that he was against consensus science, which was highlighted in the submission. Even if you are 'wrong' and in the group consensus, all is forgiven. If you are 'right' but not in the group, you are blackballed, and if you are wrong and not in the group consensus, you are crucified.
    - amw 7y ago
      The backlash against Crichton was well-founded. He used the grain of truth that it's sometimes hard to get new ideas in science funded to build a crazy denialist foundation on that made for exciting fiction, but terrible description of reality.