3 ms·

We are in DIRE fucking need of prominent, loud, and substantial public funding for reproducibility studies, and regulations around reporting on scientific disco

We are in DIRE fucking need of prominent, loud, and substantial public funding for reproducibility studies, and regulations around reporting on scientific discoveries/studies. There are so many of these communities of folks who have completely gone off the map regarding some aspect of science, and a sufficient amount of research on your part will lead back to 1 or 2 studies by one doctor who had an axe to grind or money to make, and it's since spawned an utter juggernaut of misinformation and fraud.

altruios 2y ago
I am amazed you are being downvoted for advocating increased funding for reproduceable studies. The Replication crisis is real, and can be avoided if more effort is put in not to discover something new, but instead to verifying the old information we base new questions/studies on.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  > I am amazed you are being downvoted for advocating increased funding for reproduceable studies. I'm not. There are a large contingent of people on here who scream socialism/communism anytime you suggest the government do anything, even when it's demonstrably addressing an existing crisis that's skullfucking our society. They'll probably downvote this one too because they really don't like when people point out their "objective" and "rational" thinking is neither of those things.
  - glenra 2y ago
    To be fair to anyone so motivated: the word "public" wasn't necessary to the comment. Loud, substantial private funding for such an endeavor would presumably solve the problem just as well. (They also might be thinking that "regulations around reporting" pose a substantial free speech issue.)
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      One would counter that if private money was at all interested in resolving this problem they may have done so at any time in the last 3 decades, which is only the most severe the crisis has been, not it's full duration. One would also counter that regulations regarding the accuracy of speech existed in 1987 and were by most accounts, pretty effective at keeping news informative and balanced, as opposed to after those regulations were retired and we got politics being covered like sports and the political divide becoming larger and larger as time goes on because making people angry and scared of the Other is pretty profitable, while getting them balanced, informed coverage is both more expensive and not as appealing to the consumer.
    - altruios 2y ago
      I think you presume too much of private entities, which would always put their financial interest first (lead gasoline science studies come to mind, tobacco/cancer obfuscation... etc)... you can't trust a private company not to act in its own financial interests, that's not how they work. At least with a public entity, you should be able to publicly audit what's happening, and with public funding to answer to, the public's interests and the proposed entity's financial security are aligned properly. in an ideal world...
autoexec 2y ago
> We are in DIRE fucking need of prominent, loud, and substantial public funding for reproducibility studies, and regulations around reporting on scientific discoveries/studies. there's got to be a market for someone to create a new journal that only accepts/publishes research that has been independently reproduced at least a few times and has an actually meaningful peer review process and standards. It could serve as a repository for research that we can actually put some measure of faith in because right now companies can just pay for research with whatever results they want to see in a headline, and there's basically no accountability for scientists that put out garbage research. Everyone seems to agree that "publish or perish" is a problem, but as long as people are forced to constantly put something out there it'd be nice to see more effort put into validating/invalidating prior research. It'd be better than just adding to the pile of never-replicated garbage that nobody can trust but everyone goes on to cite anyway.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  > there's got to be a market for someone to create a new journal that only accepts/publishes research that has been independently reproduced at least a few times and has an actually meaningful peer review process and standards. I doubt it. All the incentives for all parties are in the exact opposite direction: - A journal gains readership based on how many studies it can publish. If it barely publishes any, no one will buy it. Would you buy a magazine that didn't publish anything? - The doctors and their backers in turn wouldn't give a shit if they got declined by this theoretical journal. They get declined all the time for far less legitimate reasons, most of the time submitting to as many journals as they can, since they will be declined by the majority. - The journal itself if it's too choosy and lacks the existing brand recognition is incentivized to publish anything it can, which is why most startup journals are even worse than the existing (bad) ones.

altruios 2y ago

I am amazed you are being downvoted for advocating increased funding for reproduceable studies. The Replication crisis is real, and can be avoided if more effort is put in not to discover something new, but instead to verifying the old information we base new questions/studies on.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
> I am amazed you are being downvoted for advocating increased funding for reproduceable studies. I'm not. There are a large contingent of people on here who scream socialism/communism anytime you suggest the government do anything, even when it's demonstrably addressing an existing crisis that's skullfucking our society. They'll probably downvote this one too because they really don't like when people point out their "objective" and "rational" thinking is neither of those things.
- glenra 2y ago
  To be fair to anyone so motivated: the word "public" wasn't necessary to the comment. Loud, substantial private funding for such an endeavor would presumably solve the problem just as well. (They also might be thinking that "regulations around reporting" pose a substantial free speech issue.)
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    One would counter that if private money was at all interested in resolving this problem they may have done so at any time in the last 3 decades, which is only the most severe the crisis has been, not it's full duration. One would also counter that regulations regarding the accuracy of speech existed in 1987 and were by most accounts, pretty effective at keeping news informative and balanced, as opposed to after those regulations were retired and we got politics being covered like sports and the political divide becoming larger and larger as time goes on because making people angry and scared of the Other is pretty profitable, while getting them balanced, informed coverage is both more expensive and not as appealing to the consumer.
  - altruios 2y ago
    I think you presume too much of private entities, which would always put their financial interest first (lead gasoline science studies come to mind, tobacco/cancer obfuscation... etc)... you can't trust a private company not to act in its own financial interests, that's not how they work. At least with a public entity, you should be able to publicly audit what's happening, and with public funding to answer to, the public's interests and the proposed entity's financial security are aligned properly. in an ideal world...

autoexec 2y ago

> We are in DIRE fucking need of prominent, loud, and substantial public funding for reproducibility studies, and regulations around reporting on scientific discoveries/studies. there's got to be a market for someone to create a new journal that only accepts/publishes research that has been independently reproduced at least a few times and has an actually meaningful peer review process and standards. It could serve as a repository for research that we can actually put some measure of faith in because right now companies can just pay for research with whatever results they want to see in a headline, and there's basically no accountability for scientists that put out garbage research. Everyone seems to agree that "publish or perish" is a problem, but as long as people are forced to constantly put something out there it'd be nice to see more effort put into validating/invalidating prior research. It'd be better than just adding to the pile of never-replicated garbage that nobody can trust but everyone goes on to cite anyway.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
> there's got to be a market for someone to create a new journal that only accepts/publishes research that has been independently reproduced at least a few times and has an actually meaningful peer review process and standards. I doubt it. All the incentives for all parties are in the exact opposite direction: - A journal gains readership based on how many studies it can publish. If it barely publishes any, no one will buy it. Would you buy a magazine that didn't publish anything? - The doctors and their backers in turn wouldn't give a shit if they got declined by this theoretical journal. They get declined all the time for far less legitimate reasons, most of the time submitting to as many journals as they can, since they will be declined by the majority. - The journal itself if it's too choosy and lacks the existing brand recognition is incentivized to publish anything it can, which is why most startup journals are even worse than the existing (bad) ones.