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I'm biased - I'm a researcher at a big research institution and finished my PhD 15+ years ago. Seeing how the sausage is made shouldn't cause one to become les

I'm biased - I'm a researcher at a big research institution and finished my PhD 15+ years ago. Seeing how the sausage is made shouldn't cause one to become less "pro-science". It should give people perspective that the scientific process is a process performed by humans, with all their flaws (ego, ambition, competition, etc). Furthermore, science is all about making hypotheses and seeing how they work out - with the understanding that many are wrong for all kinds of reasons (bad idea, bad motivations to push known bad ideas, etc.). When I hear people disillusioned with how science works, more often than not I see someone who is forced to see that the mental model they had of how it works doesn't line up with how it actually works. It's messy, and has always been messy. Just read some history books, and you'll see "scientific" ideas in the 19th and early 20th century that persisted for a long time simply because some people disliked specific other people with opposing ideas. You'll see horrible egos, non-scientific arguments to reject ideas, people scheming and trying to undermine each other, and so on. Basically, humans being humans to each other. There never was a time when science was performed in the idealized model that we sometimes wish it was done: it always involves people being people, flaws and all. Plus, I don't know any working scientist who doesn't assume most scientific discoveries are complete bullshit (or, more likely, they aren't bullshit as much as they ultimately contribute no new knowledge or understanding). We all know how the game works and why people put ideas out there (especially with the increased volume of publications people are expected to have now). What keeps people like me going is that I know most ideas are dumb or flat out garbage, but good ones emerge from that churn too and push things along. I like to think that some of my dumb ideas, when I throw them into that churn, will also occasionally push things along. Don't get me started in the "believe in the science" line. The fact that we've turned that phrase into a political cudgel is not helping the situation.

beerandt 5y ago
>aren't bullshit as much as they ultimately contribute no new knowledge or understanding How else do you define bullshit?
- pvarangot 5y ago
  So in science the game is never be caught lying, and they usually define bullshit as lying. I’m with you in that getting payed to write two six page papers that contain absolutely no new information per year is bullshit. Not because what’s on the papers is a lie, but because pretending society needs to invest in you so that in the future we are all more productive or happy or wise is a lie. Science itself is not bullshit and most papers are not bullshit, what’s bullshit is that we need to have so many useless science just in the from within it some useful discoveries will emerge, which is a strong underlying premise under which a lot of scientists get payed.
AussieWog93 5y ago
GP here - I honestly think we're honestly mostly in agreement! It's obviously not a completely worthless institution - there have clearly been some impressive discoveries despite all of the bullshit. I think the main source of distrust comes from the jarring disconnect between the way that the institution is presented to the public vs. the way it actually functions in real life. "Messy" is a beautiful way to describe things from the inside.
- emilsedgh 5y ago
  Your comment makes it sound like there's an agenda in some entity consciously misrepresenting how acamedia works. But academia is really accessible to public nowadays. The problem, in my opinion, is how external entities treat science. Some examples: * Media reporting low grade papers as "Science" which constantly contradict each other. "Scientists found out $something causes cancer", then a year after that "Scientists found out $thatsamething cures cancer * Pseudo scientific drugs being sold for a health-and-beauty-obsessed general public with little to no effect * Political think tanks funding flawed research to push their own agenda and heavily echoing those researches in their echelons for political gain It seems that academia has become a foundation for other entities to cling on for profit, and now the it's the acamedia's reputation that has been shattered.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    >Your comment makes it sound like there's an agenda in some entity consciously misrepresenting how acamedia works. There absolutely is. Scientists and universities are constantly declaring themselves to be bastions of reason and enlightenment, and their research that they themselves know is shit to be of great significance and rigor. I'm not even talking about the outright corruption that you mentioned - just the more mundane things like researchers publishing papers with completely useless/misleading information (e.g. testing a ML algorithm on a single dataset and declaring it as a breakthrough in neurosignal decoding) just to get those updoots from your mates.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    Even when something in academia doesn't have an agenda, it will be interpreted by everyone else as if it does. Despite all the brilliant minds and appearance of professionalism and pride and campus pageantry... it's easily a much more insecure, drama-filled, immature, and petty social dynamic and environment than most high schools. That seems imo to be due to a combination of academia itself and a govt (or govt style) administration apparatus, where everyone is constantly trying convince everyone else of the importance of what it is they do.
j7ake 5y ago
I agree. One can be sceptical of the system while still working in the system and trusting that there will be a small number of winners that compensate for the sea of noise. I feel the HN community might resonate with how startups are seen currently. Most of them fail, some are outright fraud, but a few completely change the game. The model to assess the scientific enterprise should be similar to a VC. Most will fail but the few big successes will more than compensate for the losses.
- immibis 5y ago
  Noise is one thing. There are plenty of instances where humans have had to pick out signals from seas of noise. The anti-pro-sciencers are claiming there is not just noise, but a sea of deliberately fabricated conspiracy theories concocted over many decades with an ultimate end goal of putting tracking chips in them.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
silent_cal 5y ago
If that's the case, this is not a process that should be guiding public policy.
resonious 5y ago
Thanks so much for the realistic take. I'm in the software industry with a bachelor's degree and currently considering going back to school because I want to try research. Your comment is a very refreshing take. HN is absolutely loaded with anti-academia posts that are rather demotivating to read.

beerandt 5y ago

>aren't bullshit as much as they ultimately contribute no new knowledge or understanding How else do you define bullshit?

pvarangot 5y ago
So in science the game is never be caught lying, and they usually define bullshit as lying. I’m with you in that getting payed to write two six page papers that contain absolutely no new information per year is bullshit. Not because what’s on the papers is a lie, but because pretending society needs to invest in you so that in the future we are all more productive or happy or wise is a lie. Science itself is not bullshit and most papers are not bullshit, what’s bullshit is that we need to have so many useless science just in the from within it some useful discoveries will emerge, which is a strong underlying premise under which a lot of scientists get payed.

AussieWog93 5y ago

GP here - I honestly think we're honestly mostly in agreement! It's obviously not a completely worthless institution - there have clearly been some impressive discoveries despite all of the bullshit. I think the main source of distrust comes from the jarring disconnect between the way that the institution is presented to the public vs. the way it actually functions in real life. "Messy" is a beautiful way to describe things from the inside.

emilsedgh 5y ago
Your comment makes it sound like there's an agenda in some entity consciously misrepresenting how acamedia works. But academia is really accessible to public nowadays. The problem, in my opinion, is how external entities treat science. Some examples: * Media reporting low grade papers as "Science" which constantly contradict each other. "Scientists found out $something causes cancer", then a year after that "Scientists found out $thatsamething cures cancer * Pseudo scientific drugs being sold for a health-and-beauty-obsessed general public with little to no effect * Political think tanks funding flawed research to push their own agenda and heavily echoing those researches in their echelons for political gain It seems that academia has become a foundation for other entities to cling on for profit, and now the it's the acamedia's reputation that has been shattered.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  >Your comment makes it sound like there's an agenda in some entity consciously misrepresenting how acamedia works. There absolutely is. Scientists and universities are constantly declaring themselves to be bastions of reason and enlightenment, and their research that they themselves know is shit to be of great significance and rigor. I'm not even talking about the outright corruption that you mentioned - just the more mundane things like researchers publishing papers with completely useless/misleading information (e.g. testing a ML algorithm on a single dataset and declaring it as a breakthrough in neurosignal decoding) just to get those updoots from your mates.
- beerandt 5y ago
  Even when something in academia doesn't have an agenda, it will be interpreted by everyone else as if it does. Despite all the brilliant minds and appearance of professionalism and pride and campus pageantry... it's easily a much more insecure, drama-filled, immature, and petty social dynamic and environment than most high schools. That seems imo to be due to a combination of academia itself and a govt (or govt style) administration apparatus, where everyone is constantly trying convince everyone else of the importance of what it is they do.

j7ake 5y ago

I agree. One can be sceptical of the system while still working in the system and trusting that there will be a small number of winners that compensate for the sea of noise. I feel the HN community might resonate with how startups are seen currently. Most of them fail, some are outright fraud, but a few completely change the game. The model to assess the scientific enterprise should be similar to a VC. Most will fail but the few big successes will more than compensate for the losses.

immibis 5y ago
Noise is one thing. There are plenty of instances where humans have had to pick out signals from seas of noise. The anti-pro-sciencers are claiming there is not just noise, but a sea of deliberately fabricated conspiracy theories concocted over many decades with an ultimate end goal of putting tracking chips in them.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

silent_cal 5y ago

If that's the case, this is not a process that should be guiding public policy.

resonious 5y ago

Thanks so much for the realistic take. I'm in the software industry with a bachelor's degree and currently considering going back to school because I want to try research. Your comment is a very refreshing take. HN is absolutely loaded with anti-academia posts that are rather demotivating to read.