Whatever Happened to Science?

Coach is Right ^ | 10/28/13 | Michael D. Shaw

[Oldpuppymax]

For the Baby Boomers, born under the halo of victory in World War II, and into the 1950s, one of the key themes was the promise of Science. Electrical power–courtesy of splitting the atom–would be so plentiful that consumers would simply pay a flat monthly fee, and the discovery of the structure of DNA meant (somehow, although this was never fully explained) that a cure for cancer was just beyond the horizon. The successful rollout of the Salk/Sabin polio vaccines would further demonstrate the great humanitarian power of Science, and its unblemished search for Truth.

However, as the 1960s played out and the public’s respect for all manner of once cherished institutions began to crumble, Science too was put under scrutiny. Its great promise and past accomplishments now forgotten, the accounting was done, and on the bottom line were

[Jeff Chandler]

I want my flying car. They promised!

[nvscanman]

The scientific method has been sacrificed on the altar of
political correctness and quick easy profits.

[Disambiguator]

Science has been blinded by ideology.

[dfwgator]

[FreedomPoster]

We are living in the future
I’ll tell you how I know
I read it in the paper
Fifteen years ago
We’re all driving rocket ships
And talking with our minds
And wearing turquoise jewelry
And standing in soup lines
We are standing in soup lines

— John Prine

http://youtu.be/2ftvh9eWkAc

[rey]

We went to the Bay Area Science Festival. Most of the displays were environmental ideology falsely displayed as science. If the presenters were asked hard science questions (many were kids, a little unfair, but they were put forth as the “scientist”) they could not answer. There was too much carbon in the atmosphere, but no one could say what percentage of the atmosphere is oxygen, hydrogen, or carbon. And no one could say why a one to two year cycle for so-called bio-fuels was good but a multi-million year natural cycle for carbon based fuels bad.

There was very little hard science. It was mostly a display of what type of science related jobs are out there. It was ok, but clearly slanted to anyone who wasn’t on the save everything band wagon.

[BitWielder1]

The ideal of science still works, scientists however are often corrupted by prestige, money and political pressure.
Give the "wrong" answer and the grant money dries up.
Whenever you see a new controversial study, check who paid for it.

[blueunicorn6]

It is conducted by humans, and humans are just bags of emotions walking around.

[onedoug]

But for physics and math. “Nature cannot be fooled.” —Richard Feynman

[Incorrigible]

It’s poetry in motion

[huldah1776]

search for Truth.

A very high percentage of studies first performed cannot be replicated but they are published and funded. so make money while you can.

search for “scientific study fraud” and “scientific study replicated” or replication and just read the headlines.

Here’s a good one:
http://www.science.slashdot.org/story/12/04/06/139231/majority-of-landmark-cancer-studies-cannot-be-replicated

[dfwgator]

“Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto, you’re beautiful.”

[huldah1776]

Here’s another one:

“Significantly skewed

Ioannidis and his colleagues mined a database of meta-analyses — analyses of data from multiple studies — of neurological disease research on animals. They focused on 160 meta-analyses of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and spinal-cord injury, among others.

The researchers then estimated the expected number of statistically significant findings, using the largest study as a reference. Studies with the largest sample sizes are considered the most precise, and the assumption was that these would best approximate the effectiveness of a given intervention.

Of the 4,445 studies, 919 were expected to be significant. But nearly twice as many — 1,719 — reported significant findings. Among the groups most likely to report an inflated number of significant findings were studies with the smallest sample sizes, and those with a corresponding author who reported a financial conflict of interest.”

http://www.nature.com/news/animal-studies-produce-many-false-positives-1.13385

[BuffaloJack]

‘Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.’ - Thomas Edison

If Edison were around today it would be “the other eight-five percent are liberals”.

[slowhandluke]

The ideal of science still works, scientists however are often corrupted by prestige, money and political pressure.

This is right, but needs to be extended. The problem is that the vast majority of those grants comes from the government. Single payer fails every time it's tried.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

In truth, science is still very productive. Its biggest problem is science fraud, and the unwillingness to unmask it, end the careers of the fraudsters, and get nothing in return for doing this.

I know a dentist who spent the first part of his career vetting medical science papers. He learned that just by reading them he could tell if they were faking their data, as well as their degree of confidence in their conclusions.

Fakes must write a certain way to cover their rear ends in case it all blows up. The most successful fakes are those that are mentally too far gone to care. The middle group are fakes that band together to produce data supporting predetermined conclusions. But they get so caught up in their fraud that eventually the weak link breaks and the whole operation is unmasked.

Degree of confidence, while more legitimate, is often subtler, and shows that the scientist is caught up in the expectations of others. Likewise this indicates that “basic science” isn’t enough, that to be a success they must innovate “technologies”. But the two things are often “apples and oranges”.