5 ms·

As a person working in science (long past PhD), I disagree. There are tons of problem in science: grant system, pressure to publish etc. Also everyone in scien

As a person working in science (long past PhD), I disagree. There are tons of problem in science: grant system, pressure to publish etc. Also everyone in science is still a person with standard people problems: ego, desire to be right, wanting recognition etc. Also some fields had more issues because of poor statistical methods etc. But the self-correcting nature of science is still its biggest redeeming feature. And therefore unless I can figure out things by myself, I'll trust scientific consensus. I may not trust individual papers, as people make mistakes, may have an axe to grind, but I'll believe the consensus. For sure occasionally even scientific consensus will be wrong.

raziel2p 5y ago
It may be useful to separate science itself (with its self-correcting nature and such) from academia and the community/economics of scientists and research. Furthermore, if the incentives for publishing research are wrongly aligned, can you really trust published papers in mass? Scientific consensus can be a hard thing to define sometimes. Climate change is an example where there are enough studies out there that a meta-study can prove consensus, but what about something more recent and difficult to measure, like the effectiveness of covid vaccines/measures?
nsainsbury 5y ago
Science does eventually self-correct, but unfortunately it takes far too long to do so. One area I've studied pretty extensively is the history of cancer treatment. In the long story of the history of cancer treatment, it is absolutely scandalous how often the scientific consensus was wrong and persisted for years in spite of the evidence. For example, the radical mastectomy for the treatment of breast cancer continued to be used for many years, leaving many women disfigured, in spite of wide evidence that it did not produce better outcomes vs more restrained breast tissue removal. In the history of science, many of these kinds of bad ideas have persisted simply due to deference/seniority - the incentives are all stacked towards paying your dues and not challenging the status quo and absolutely not towards being right/following the actual scientific method. There is a reason the saying "Science advances one funeral at a time" exists - as Max Planck noted: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
- anitil 5y ago
  The oil drop experiment was a nice example of this same phenomenon - a slow correction over time - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment I remember seeing a plot of the values over time, but my google-fu is failing me.
  - function_seven 5y ago
    I found this article that has a whisker plot. https://alexholcombe.medium.com/confirmation-bias-in-science-39031b9ccab6 https://alexholcombe.medium.com/confirmation-bias-in-science... It that the one you remember?
    - anitil 5y ago
      Thanks! It must be that one
- cgrealy 5y ago
  > Science does eventually self-correct, but unfortunately it takes far too long to do so. So kinda like the democracy then.... the worst system, apart from all the others (paraphrased)?
- overgrownzygote 5y ago
  This seems to be a particularly salient issue in the area of medicine, since many practice but may not actually “do science” unless they’re affiliated with a university or research hospital. Most doctors are more like engineers than physicists.
  - ketzo 5y ago
    I just got the horrifying image of a lead engineer who refuses to move on from Java 9 because "it's all you need," but they're working on human bodies. Yeesh.
    - 5y ago
chana_masala 5y ago
You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. – Michael Crichton
- wumpus 5y ago
  Great choice of critic -- who has written many books about scientists commiting fraud because of their lust for grant money. Too bad his criticism comes from fantasy, instead of facts. And of course he's a climate change denier.
  - vba616 5y ago
    >Too bad his criticism comes from fantasy, instead of facts. The quoted passage specifically says his area of expertise is show business. Do you know of misinformation that he endorses or spreads on that topic?
    - wumpus 5y ago
      His books all have a scientist doing evil because of their lust for grant money. "State of Fear" is a polemic against climate science. If all you read was the comment I responded to, then it's no surprise that you don't think I provided enough information to criticize his books. Read his books, then read my criticism.
      - neartheplain 5y ago
        >His books all have a scientist doing evil because of their lust for grant money. How unrealistic. Scientists like Peter Daszak and the EcoHealth Alliance would never do anything evil or untoward, such as using grant money to perform dangerous gain-of-function research on coronaviruses, demonstrably lying to the NIH about the scope of this research, and then misleading the public on the COVID-19 lab-origin theory while failing to disclose their financial and professional ties to the lab in question [0][1][2]. [0] https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-grant-darpa/ https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/25/one-person-who-might-know-what-really-happened-wuhan/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/25/one-perso... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak-pandemic-origins-even-messier/620209/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak...
nradov 5y ago
Where can we find the official consensus statements and who is in charge of writing them?
brigandish 5y ago
It's going to be hard to "self-correct" when sceptical and critical voices are muted.
mostertoaster 5y ago
What’s weird is it makes sense to trust scientific consensus, even though scientific consensus is also kind of territorial and protective. It always fights against anything new, and will try to be opposed to anything against the status quo. It is so confident it is right it actually feels like it is doing the right thing by trying to suppress ideas opposed to the establishment. Kind of like Galileo I guess, and the religious leaders of hus day are like the intellectual elitists of our day. Thinking about the copernican revolution it made sense the establishment was opposed to it, not because it wasn’t factually correct, but it was like knowledge people aren’t ready for. And it was too unpredictable what it would do if the idea became dominant.
pfortuny 5y ago
Sorry but the self-correcting nature of science is similar to the “all bugs are shallow”. People have done lots of harm (burning money is doing harm) with crap science. That is totally wrong and harmful. What may happen later is not a solution.
- hnfong 5y ago
  I agree, but it's not even that. I don't think most people really try to argue against "science" as is, or even the scientific process in the large scale. The gripe we have is against people who first do bad science (or popularize them), refuse to admit they're wrong, then patronizingly tell the public to trust them anyways, and still have the audacity to reassure us that "it will all work out (50 years later)".
  - immibis 5y ago
    And who is doing that?

raziel2p 5y ago

It may be useful to separate science itself (with its self-correcting nature and such) from academia and the community/economics of scientists and research. Furthermore, if the incentives for publishing research are wrongly aligned, can you really trust published papers in mass? Scientific consensus can be a hard thing to define sometimes. Climate change is an example where there are enough studies out there that a meta-study can prove consensus, but what about something more recent and difficult to measure, like the effectiveness of covid vaccines/measures?

nsainsbury 5y ago

Science does eventually self-correct, but unfortunately it takes far too long to do so. One area I've studied pretty extensively is the history of cancer treatment. In the long story of the history of cancer treatment, it is absolutely scandalous how often the scientific consensus was wrong and persisted for years in spite of the evidence. For example, the radical mastectomy for the treatment of breast cancer continued to be used for many years, leaving many women disfigured, in spite of wide evidence that it did not produce better outcomes vs more restrained breast tissue removal. In the history of science, many of these kinds of bad ideas have persisted simply due to deference/seniority - the incentives are all stacked towards paying your dues and not challenging the status quo and absolutely not towards being right/following the actual scientific method. There is a reason the saying "Science advances one funeral at a time" exists - as Max Planck noted: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

anitil 5y ago
The oil drop experiment was a nice example of this same phenomenon - a slow correction over time - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment I remember seeing a plot of the values over time, but my google-fu is failing me.
- function_seven 5y ago
  I found this article that has a whisker plot. https://alexholcombe.medium.com/confirmation-bias-in-science-39031b9ccab6 https://alexholcombe.medium.com/confirmation-bias-in-science... It that the one you remember?
  - anitil 5y ago
    Thanks! It must be that one
cgrealy 5y ago
> Science does eventually self-correct, but unfortunately it takes far too long to do so. So kinda like the democracy then.... the worst system, apart from all the others (paraphrased)?
overgrownzygote 5y ago
This seems to be a particularly salient issue in the area of medicine, since many practice but may not actually “do science” unless they’re affiliated with a university or research hospital. Most doctors are more like engineers than physicists.
- ketzo 5y ago
  I just got the horrifying image of a lead engineer who refuses to move on from Java 9 because "it's all you need," but they're working on human bodies. Yeesh.
  - 5y ago

chana_masala 5y ago

You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. – Michael Crichton

wumpus 5y ago
Great choice of critic -- who has written many books about scientists commiting fraud because of their lust for grant money. Too bad his criticism comes from fantasy, instead of facts. And of course he's a climate change denier.
- vba616 5y ago
  >Too bad his criticism comes from fantasy, instead of facts. The quoted passage specifically says his area of expertise is show business. Do you know of misinformation that he endorses or spreads on that topic?
  - wumpus 5y ago
    His books all have a scientist doing evil because of their lust for grant money. "State of Fear" is a polemic against climate science. If all you read was the comment I responded to, then it's no surprise that you don't think I provided enough information to criticize his books. Read his books, then read my criticism.
    - neartheplain 5y ago
      >His books all have a scientist doing evil because of their lust for grant money. How unrealistic. Scientists like Peter Daszak and the EcoHealth Alliance would never do anything evil or untoward, such as using grant money to perform dangerous gain-of-function research on coronaviruses, demonstrably lying to the NIH about the scope of this research, and then misleading the public on the COVID-19 lab-origin theory while failing to disclose their financial and professional ties to the lab in question [0][1][2]. [0] https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-grant-darpa/ https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/25/one-person-who-might-know-what-really-happened-wuhan/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/25/one-perso... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak-pandemic-origins-even-messier/620209/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak...

nradov 5y ago

Where can we find the official consensus statements and who is in charge of writing them?

brigandish 5y ago

It's going to be hard to "self-correct" when sceptical and critical voices are muted.

mostertoaster 5y ago

What’s weird is it makes sense to trust scientific consensus, even though scientific consensus is also kind of territorial and protective. It always fights against anything new, and will try to be opposed to anything against the status quo. It is so confident it is right it actually feels like it is doing the right thing by trying to suppress ideas opposed to the establishment. Kind of like Galileo I guess, and the religious leaders of hus day are like the intellectual elitists of our day. Thinking about the copernican revolution it made sense the establishment was opposed to it, not because it wasn’t factually correct, but it was like knowledge people aren’t ready for. And it was too unpredictable what it would do if the idea became dominant.

pfortuny 5y ago

Sorry but the self-correcting nature of science is similar to the “all bugs are shallow”. People have done lots of harm (burning money is doing harm) with crap science. That is totally wrong and harmful. What may happen later is not a solution.

hnfong 5y ago
I agree, but it's not even that. I don't think most people really try to argue against "science" as is, or even the scientific process in the large scale. The gripe we have is against people who first do bad science (or popularize them), refuse to admit they're wrong, then patronizingly tell the public to trust them anyways, and still have the audacity to reassure us that "it will all work out (50 years later)".
- immibis 5y ago
  And who is doing that?