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I'd put my money on most research that wouldn't be replicated successfully if eventually tested being industry propaganda, psychology, and sociology. There's li

I'd put my money on most research that wouldn't be replicated successfully if eventually tested being industry propaganda, psychology, and sociology. There's likely a lot of unchallenged complete garbage that goes back many many years. The cool cutting edge scientific research that's just too new (or too difficult) to have been replicated yet is always going to be somewhat of an issue, but it's the wrong stuff that's been around for ages that worries me most. Not only because of what it's influenced in all this time, but because when something believed to be true for a long time is invalidated it can cause problems for a lot of other research that was built off those lies, not to mention huge amounts of wasted time/effort/money.

wizzwizz4 3y ago
> but because when something believed to be true for a long time is invalidated it can cause problems for a lot of other research that was built off those lies, Most of the examples of flawed research (e.g. Thenaros; single-factor treatments of cancer/aging/neurodegeneration (e.g. Aβ*56, telomeres); those MMR vaccine claims in 1998) were known to be erroneous by experts in the field long before they were officially debunked. Some of them have yet to be officially debunked (e.g. Sigmund Freud's theories of psychosexual development; the high-/low-functioning autism distinction; "ABA is harmless and curative"; Blanchard's typology; most use of revealed preference theory; "React is fast"), so many outsiders (e.g. people who decide who gets grant funding) still consider their advocates experts in their respective fields – but the claimed results are just so obviously wrong that they're ignored wherever you can get away with ignoring them. Academic science is eventually correct, but sometimes it takes a long time getting there. Even so, you can usually tell the difference between "academia knows this" and "academia claims this but something went wrong": all the examples I've given are of the same, largely-social, phenomenon.

wizzwizz4 3y ago

> but because when something believed to be true for a long time is invalidated it can cause problems for a lot of other research that was built off those lies, Most of the examples of flawed research (e.g. Thenaros; single-factor treatments of cancer/aging/neurodegeneration (e.g. Aβ*56, telomeres); those MMR vaccine claims in 1998) were known to be erroneous by experts in the field long before they were officially debunked. Some of them have yet to be officially debunked (e.g. Sigmund Freud's theories of psychosexual development; the high-/low-functioning autism distinction; "ABA is harmless and curative"; Blanchard's typology; most use of revealed preference theory; "React is fast"), so many outsiders (e.g. people who decide who gets grant funding) still consider their advocates experts in their respective fields – but the claimed results are just so obviously wrong that they're ignored wherever you can get away with ignoring them. Academic science is eventually correct, but sometimes it takes a long time getting there. Even so, you can usually tell the difference between "academia knows this" and "academia claims this but something went wrong": all the examples I've given are of the same, largely-social, phenomenon.