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>What would it take to convince you? Not speaking specifically to this issue, but I've lost a lot of my trust in science after reading a great deal of literatu
by Lawtonfogle 12y ago
>What would it take to convince you?
Not speaking specifically to this issue, but I've lost a lot of my trust in science after reading a great deal of literature in psychology and paying attention to how funding impacts results. To reference XKCD, if I really wanted to and had enough funds, I could produce findings that a given candy causes acne. And if the opposition side is too politically unpopular to have comparable funding (to say nothing of the funds to distribute the results to society in general) then they could do little to counter me.
- jbooth 12y agoYeah, but if you were to speak specifically to this issue, the exact opposite is the case. If someone could poke a scientific hole in the AGW theory, they'd be set for life. Maybe they're all too risk-averse and want to stick with their guaranteed poverty-level postdoc wage?
- sgt101 12y agoScience on the tv and radio works this way (also, sadly Science as a career as well) but Science proper doesn't. You could do a study that showed candy causing acne, but if I falsified your hypothesis with a single cheap study showing that I fed the candy to another group of people and saw no effect (double blind etc), and other people reproduced that - then Science would move on (chewing the sweeties and spot free!) The trouble is that nothing like enough of this behaviour (checking, falsifying) goes on - because it doesn't make a career.
- Lawtonfogle 12y agoIf all scientists were apolitical and resisted any outside influence it wouldn't be much of a problem. But reality is that many aren't and it takes a lot of effort to identify who is and who isn't. >The trouble is that nothing like enough of this behaviour (checking, falsifying) goes on - because it doesn't make a career. Yep, this is another part of the problem.