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This is pretty weak and unscientific evidence. The author, directly or indirectly, lumps politicians like Bill Clinton and for-profit business like Scripps into

by dahart 3y ago

This is pretty weak and unscientific evidence. The author, directly or indirectly, lumps politicians like Bill Clinton and for-profit business like Scripps into the “science” boat, which in my opinion, is bad reporting. Those are not evidence of the academic field gone awry. A small list of gaffs by institutions doesn’t say anything about the magnitude, and completely ignores how much is going right with science. There’s no question that some academic institutions and people get it wrong and/or succumb to dramatic and wrong science, that has always been true. The pressures in science might even be getting worse over time because it’s more crowded and most low-hanging fruit has been picked, so publishing is getting more difficult. (BTW if you haven’t seen BobbyBroccoli’s “The Rise of Jan Hendrik Schön” on YouTube, it’s fantastic and worth watching!) Even that isn’t evidence of academics getting it wrong in this case, and it doesn’t compare in magnitude to how bad science reporting in the media is. Reporters don’t generally understand the science they report, they are under space and time constraints, and they have every incentive to drop subtlety and magnify drama. There’s not even a question about why science reporting is bad: because almost all reporting is bad for the same reason. Academic Science isn’t crap Bill Clinton or Scripps says, it’s a process that assumes nothing is true and seeks truth by testing. There has been nothing better in human history, and nothing that has brought the world further faster, than science. Yes people sometimes corrupt it, because that’s what people do to everything, but the only choice we have is to keep on top of corrupting influences and keep doing science.

cycomanic 3y ago
> This is pretty weak and unscientific evidence. The author, directly or indirectly, lumps politicians like Bill Clinton and for-profit business like Scripps into the “science” boat, which in my opinion, is bad reporting. Those are not evidence of the academic field gone awry. A small list of gaffs by institutions doesn’t say anything about the magnitude, and completely ignores how much is going right with science. Hold on, you are omitting Craig Venter in that statement, also importantly it was a science initiative. And to quote wikipedia: "Scripps Research, previously known as The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI),[1] is a nonprofit American medical research facility" On top of that the section you referring to is a quotation from another article. > There’s no question that some academic institutions and people get it wrong and/or succumb to dramatic and wrong science, that has always been true. The pressures in science might even be getting worse over time because it’s more crowded and most low-hanging fruit has been picked, so publishing is getting more difficult. (BTW if you haven’t seen BobbyBroccoli’s “The Rise of Jan Hendrik Schön” on YouTube, it’s fantastic and worth watching!) That's the issue though. As someone on the inside of academia, the pressures to do "publicity" have gone up significantly. > Even that isn’t evidence of academics getting it wrong in this case, and it doesn’t compare in magnitude to how bad science reporting in the media is. Reporters don’t generally understand the science they report, they are under space and time constraints, and they have every incentive to drop subtlety and magnify drama. There’s not even a question about why science reporting is bad: because almost all reporting is bad for the same reason. You're absolving academics of responsibility to easily. Just reading the claims in journal articles (and particularly high impact ones like Nature), makes me want to roll my eyes. The impact is typically strongly exaggerated. I understand the reasons, i.e. the journals want to see this high impact, otherwise they don't publish you. Considering that a Nature article can be career defining, it's understandable why academics play the game. > Academic Science isn’t crap Bill Clinton or Scripps says, it’s a process that assumes nothing is true and seeks truth by testing. There has been nothing better in human history, and nothing that has brought the world further faster, than science. Yes people sometimes corrupt it, because that’s what people do to everything, but the only choice we have is to keep on top of corrupting influences and keep doing science. I don't think the article claims that science is crap. The argument as I read it is that academics can just only blame others for the bad reporting if they often make the bold claims themselves, approve university press releases which grossly exaggerate impact and are the ones reviewing grants and giving bad marks if there aren't the exaggerated impact statements.
- dahart 3y ago
  All fair points. I don’t mean to absolve academic science at all, there is a credibility problem, completely independent of reporting. I’m mostly saying that when it comes to reporting and blame for bad reporting, this is an issue of degree, and science reporting mucks things up far, far more often than scientists do, enough so that looking for blame outside of reporting seems pointless. Bad reporting and bad science are two separate problems, and the article we are commenting on says it’s about about bad reporting. I’m not very familiar with exaggerated claims in Nature, can you provide some examples? My experience with science reporting is almost always one of looking up the primary source and finding far more nuanced claims than were reported.
bmer 3y ago
I think this is a weak comment that misuses the term science. > The author, directly or indirectly, lumps politicians like Bill Clinton and for-profit business like Scripps into the “science” boat, which in my opinion, is bad reporting. The author is referring to the use of "science-style" as a rhetorical device: something that is possible due to the trust earned by boring science. The above comment falls for using science-style as rhetoric too: 0) It begins by saying "weak and unscientific", yet the comment itself is not scientific in any sense that should allow it to make a claim such as "unscientific". It is worth asking: what does it mean for something to be unscientific? 1) The post's description of science ("assume nothing is true, and seeks truth by testing") is extremely simplistic even by high school standards. A slightly less simplistic outline of the process would be: i. (hypothesizing) the forging of observations and experience into a hypothesis (i.e. a story which can be tested), ii. (testing) using the hypothesis to predict likely outcomes, and then comparing those predictions with observations, iii. (full-circle) going back to step i. In particular: there is a fractal like nature to the above, in that one can choose to examine scientifically any part of the process above. For example, doing so with step i. might lead one to forming Bayesian ideas. Takeaway 1: the process of science itself is not necessarily scientific. Whether something is "scientific" is not necessarily a black and white "yes or no". Takeaway 2: an important first step in science is to forge experiences and assumptions into a testable story. This has nothing to do with "assume nothing is true". On the contrary, it has the purpose of becoming aware of assumptions (a never ending process) by providing a bundle of assumptions (the story), which can be carefully teased apart (the testing). Science therefore, is about examining our assumptions. That we learn to become wary of assumptions that we are aware of, by engaging in the process of science, is neither here nor there, as far as the scientific process is concerned. Takeaway 3: the question "how scientific?" is non-scientific. Put differently, if we were to ask "can a process be more scientific?" the answer is always "yes". 2) Therefore: that the original post provides one or two examples does not imply anything about the pervasiveness of the issue (or lack thereof), as is implied by the phrase "a small list of gaffs". That the original author attempts to use their observations and experience to form a story is non-scientific, not unscientific. Whether or not the original author's story could be turned into a scientific question is irrelevant to the story they are telling, as the answer to that for every story is "yes". 3) There is a cost to doing science. It takes time, and effort. People cannot be expected to engage in science 100% of the time (nor would we want them to, if they could). Therefore, the non-scientific is not unscientific, and it is a blatant misuse of science to say that the non-scientific is unscientific, because: 4) Arguably, to say that someone's description/experience is "unscientific" is actually unscientific, because it declines observation-data, without ruling it out scientifically. In this particular case, consider Scripps: i. its use of "Institute" (in the past) and (today) "Research" in its name ii. its use of ".edu" in its URL iii. it is non-profit (not for-profit as the above post claims) iv. it does also engage in useful science (it has 2000+ scientists, and 150+ laboratories) v. it produces bullshit too, like many other scientific institutions (e.g. MIT) These points begin to form a story in one's head: perhaps a story about how some can choose to clothe themselves in science-style, or perhaps a story about how being a scientist does not free one from being human. I don't think it is unscientific to claim that Scripps is only one of many institutes ("institutes"?) which has the above characteristics. Nor is it unscientific to say that in modern America, businesses do have outsized influence on institutions which should have been non-business oriented, as is evidenced by the fact that "non-profit" means very little as far as "scientific" or "unbiased" is concerned. On the other hand, none of the above is scientific either. Does that matter? No. If we cared to, we could be more scientific about it all. That we might not care to has more to do with a variety of other factors (e.g. time, energy, motivation, sickness, etc.) that have nothing to do with un-science. E.g. of a scientific fact: I am not going to be scientific when I need to react quickly. 5) Stop silencing scientists who are pointing out the hijacking of science by business and politics. They're engaging in the scientific process by allowing us to form a hypothesis which we might eventually test. More importantly, they're engaging in being human, by sharing with us a story that we might otherwise be utterly unaware of.

by dahart 3y ago

cycomanic 3y ago

> This is pretty weak and unscientific evidence. The author, directly or indirectly, lumps politicians like Bill Clinton and for-profit business like Scripps into the “science” boat, which in my opinion, is bad reporting. Those are not evidence of the academic field gone awry. A small list of gaffs by institutions doesn’t say anything about the magnitude, and completely ignores how much is going right with science. Hold on, you are omitting Craig Venter in that statement, also importantly it was a science initiative. And to quote wikipedia: "Scripps Research, previously known as The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI),[1] is a nonprofit American medical research facility" On top of that the section you referring to is a quotation from another article. > There’s no question that some academic institutions and people get it wrong and/or succumb to dramatic and wrong science, that has always been true. The pressures in science might even be getting worse over time because it’s more crowded and most low-hanging fruit has been picked, so publishing is getting more difficult. (BTW if you haven’t seen BobbyBroccoli’s “The Rise of Jan Hendrik Schön” on YouTube, it’s fantastic and worth watching!) That's the issue though. As someone on the inside of academia, the pressures to do "publicity" have gone up significantly. > Even that isn’t evidence of academics getting it wrong in this case, and it doesn’t compare in magnitude to how bad science reporting in the media is. Reporters don’t generally understand the science they report, they are under space and time constraints, and they have every incentive to drop subtlety and magnify drama. There’s not even a question about why science reporting is bad: because almost all reporting is bad for the same reason. You're absolving academics of responsibility to easily. Just reading the claims in journal articles (and particularly high impact ones like Nature), makes me want to roll my eyes. The impact is typically strongly exaggerated. I understand the reasons, i.e. the journals want to see this high impact, otherwise they don't publish you. Considering that a Nature article can be career defining, it's understandable why academics play the game. > Academic Science isn’t crap Bill Clinton or Scripps says, it’s a process that assumes nothing is true and seeks truth by testing. There has been nothing better in human history, and nothing that has brought the world further faster, than science. Yes people sometimes corrupt it, because that’s what people do to everything, but the only choice we have is to keep on top of corrupting influences and keep doing science. I don't think the article claims that science is crap. The argument as I read it is that academics can just only blame others for the bad reporting if they often make the bold claims themselves, approve university press releases which grossly exaggerate impact and are the ones reviewing grants and giving bad marks if there aren't the exaggerated impact statements.

dahart 3y ago
All fair points. I don’t mean to absolve academic science at all, there is a credibility problem, completely independent of reporting. I’m mostly saying that when it comes to reporting and blame for bad reporting, this is an issue of degree, and science reporting mucks things up far, far more often than scientists do, enough so that looking for blame outside of reporting seems pointless. Bad reporting and bad science are two separate problems, and the article we are commenting on says it’s about about bad reporting. I’m not very familiar with exaggerated claims in Nature, can you provide some examples? My experience with science reporting is almost always one of looking up the primary source and finding far more nuanced claims than were reported.

bmer 3y ago

I think this is a weak comment that misuses the term science. > The author, directly or indirectly, lumps politicians like Bill Clinton and for-profit business like Scripps into the “science” boat, which in my opinion, is bad reporting. The author is referring to the use of "science-style" as a rhetorical device: something that is possible due to the trust earned by boring science. The above comment falls for using science-style as rhetoric too: 0) It begins by saying "weak and unscientific", yet the comment itself is not scientific in any sense that should allow it to make a claim such as "unscientific". It is worth asking: what does it mean for something to be unscientific? 1) The post's description of science ("assume nothing is true, and seeks truth by testing") is extremely simplistic even by high school standards. A slightly less simplistic outline of the process would be: i. (hypothesizing) the forging of observations and experience into a hypothesis (i.e. a story which can be tested), ii. (testing) using the hypothesis to predict likely outcomes, and then comparing those predictions with observations, iii. (full-circle) going back to step i. In particular: there is a fractal like nature to the above, in that one can choose to examine scientifically any part of the process above. For example, doing so with step i. might lead one to forming Bayesian ideas. Takeaway 1: the process of science itself is not necessarily scientific. Whether something is "scientific" is not necessarily a black and white "yes or no". Takeaway 2: an important first step in science is to forge experiences and assumptions into a testable story. This has nothing to do with "assume nothing is true". On the contrary, it has the purpose of becoming aware of assumptions (a never ending process) by providing a bundle of assumptions (the story), which can be carefully teased apart (the testing). Science therefore, is about examining our assumptions. That we learn to become wary of assumptions that we are aware of, by engaging in the process of science, is neither here nor there, as far as the scientific process is concerned. Takeaway 3: the question "how scientific?" is non-scientific. Put differently, if we were to ask "can a process be more scientific?" the answer is always "yes". 2) Therefore: that the original post provides one or two examples does not imply anything about the pervasiveness of the issue (or lack thereof), as is implied by the phrase "a small list of gaffs". That the original author attempts to use their observations and experience to form a story is non-scientific, not unscientific. Whether or not the original author's story could be turned into a scientific question is irrelevant to the story they are telling, as the answer to that for every story is "yes". 3) There is a cost to doing science. It takes time, and effort. People cannot be expected to engage in science 100% of the time (nor would we want them to, if they could). Therefore, the non-scientific is not unscientific, and it is a blatant misuse of science to say that the non-scientific is unscientific, because: 4) Arguably, to say that someone's description/experience is "unscientific" is actually unscientific, because it declines observation-data, without ruling it out scientifically. In this particular case, consider Scripps: i. its use of "Institute" (in the past) and (today) "Research" in its name ii. its use of ".edu" in its URL iii. it is non-profit (not for-profit as the above post claims) iv. it does also engage in useful science (it has 2000+ scientists, and 150+ laboratories) v. it produces bullshit too, like many other scientific institutions (e.g. MIT) These points begin to form a story in one's head: perhaps a story about how some can choose to clothe themselves in science-style, or perhaps a story about how being a scientist does not free one from being human. I don't think it is unscientific to claim that Scripps is only one of many institutes ("institutes"?) which has the above characteristics. Nor is it unscientific to say that in modern America, businesses do have outsized influence on institutions which should have been non-business oriented, as is evidenced by the fact that "non-profit" means very little as far as "scientific" or "unbiased" is concerned. On the other hand, none of the above is scientific either. Does that matter? No. If we cared to, we could be more scientific about it all. That we might not care to has more to do with a variety of other factors (e.g. time, energy, motivation, sickness, etc.) that have nothing to do with un-science. E.g. of a scientific fact: I am not going to be scientific when I need to react quickly. 5) Stop silencing scientists who are pointing out the hijacking of science by business and politics. They're engaging in the scientific process by allowing us to form a hypothesis which we might eventually test. More importantly, they're engaging in being human, by sharing with us a story that we might otherwise be utterly unaware of.