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The scientific establishment has had 2 major crises recently - the replication crisis, and the totally insane unscientific and politicized handling of COVID. A
by monero-xmr 2y ago
The scientific establishment has had 2 major crises recently - the replication crisis, and the totally insane unscientific and politicized handling of COVID.
Additionally there is undeniably a lot of waste, nepotism / back scratching, and completely ludicrous funded social “science”.
While what’s happening now may wind up bad, I have seen very little push from the establishment itself to do anything to restore public faith in the current system. Trump is the executioner, but the conviction was handed down before he came around.
@dang why is this flagged?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- madhadron 2y agoHere speaks someone with no scientific training or knowledge of the NIH, public health, or how any of it operates.
- monero-xmr 2y ago[flagged]
- llamaimperative 2y agowhat? I cannot even parse this argument.
- redcobra762 2y agoCan you elaborate on "years of failure"?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tptacek 2y agoThe replication crisis stuff is mostly a message board fixation. The problem we have is that people unfamiliar with the field don't have a sense of what the denominator is, only the numerator. There is a truly gargantuan amount of NIH-funded research happening; NIH funds over 30,000 PIs per year, and those grants cover years worth of research, most of which involve teams of 5-10 people. I'm not saying research fraud doesn't matter or isn't worth the stories written about it. I'm saying that people commenting on it generally don't have any sense of its scale, and fill in some very weird blanks about it.
- monero-xmr 2y agoI think something like a very public, televised shaming of researchers found to be fraudulent. Furthermore far, far more done to catch fraud before it is published, like bounties paid out, and instant career destruction to the fraudsters. There was decades of “but everyone is doing it!” in the system, so much so that fraudsters became presidents of Ivy League institutions. The reckoning has not come.
- tptacek 2y agoThis is what I mean by how messageboardy this issue is.
- monero-xmr 2y agoWhat is your solution to prevent continued fraud and abuse in our research process, other than random people going through published papers?
- tptacek 2y agoThe optimal amount of fraud in any large system is almost never "zero".
- monero-xmr 2y agoYes I will stick by my opinion we should have scientific fraudsters go on a televised panel to be shamed publicly and mercilessly
- cruffle_duffle 2y ago[flagged]
- LeafItAlone 2y ago>Every single person responsible for how the government handled COVID needs to be fired. Where do you stop? Because the administration overseeing the start of it just got re-elected.
- avs733 2y agoWe just rehired the guy in charge…minor observation I’m sure.
- peterashford 2y agoWhich part of the response? Vaccines and masking were effective. Or was there something else you were referring to?
- arcticbull 2y agoWhat's really cool is seeing the giant drop-off in flu rates during the lockdowns. Flu infections fell 64% and at least one strain went extinct. I'd link to the NIH publication but I'm not sure it'll stay up, lol. [1] [1] https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/a-sharp-drop-in-flu-cases-during-covid-19-pandemic/ https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/a-sharp-drop-in-flu-cases-duri...
- fzeroracer 2y agoSo Trump belongs in jail then? Or do you have a special carve out for the president that oversaw this?
- icameron 2y agoI’m confused by this sentiment. How was science at fault for the collective government response to a global pandemic when the hospitals were full, millions died, and countries closed their borders in attempts to slow the spread? With hindsight you may find some poor choices but at the time, what could a scientist have done differently in your opinion?
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoWait until you learn about the first unscientific politicized traitor to Freedom in the USA. General George Washington, having survived smallpox himself, ordered the mass variolation (via inoculation, much more dangerous than a vaccine) of the Continental Army to protect troops from the disease, marking one of the first large-scale public health initiatives in American history.
- refurb 2y agoInoculating the military isn’t public health. Nobody would call today’s military vaccines a “public health program”, its military readiness. The word “public” is key. You know, the overall population.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoI thought this was a militia made up of the public, so a modern comparison would be anyone in the current USA who happens to execute their second amendment rights?
- refurb 2y agoI'm sorry, what?
- BurningFrog 2y agoPretty sure that would bee illegal in several ways today.
- Jtsummers 2y agoMembers of the US military actually get more vaccines and, until recently, had fewer protections with respect to declining them than the typical US citizen (specifically with COVID, Trump has indicated, not sure if he's done it yet, that he'll reinstate people who refused a lawful order to be vaccinated for it; so now I guess they can just refuse any vaccines even if it impacts readiness). During the run up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, US service members were vaccinated for smallpox (appropriate for this thread). That was this century, 30+ years after smallpox was declared eradicated. They were also vaccinated for other diseases. Join the military and you sign away a lot of your rights (arguably for some good benefits, but we'll see how the new VA head and others treat the veterans and current troops).
- light_hue_1 2y agoCOVID was not a scientific crisis. It was an amazing success. We built and rolled out a vaccine in record time. Science works. Amazingly well. We're making progress on cancer, on many disorders that used to kill or limit many people's lives. Instead of actually looking at what science does for you constantly, every day, you prefer to attack people. The result will be tragic. Realistically, your loved ones will die of heart disease or cancer. Sounds like a really smart move to not fund science that will save their lives. Much better to support Trump and save up for their funerals!