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Scientific Fraud Caused by Social Pressures
Softparanorma web site ^ | August 10, 2009 | Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov

Posted on 11/21/2009 6:46:20 AM PST by grey_whiskers

<snip>

2.4 Diagnosis #4: The Attraction of Magnificent Academic Trusels. A "trusel" is an idea or a finding that is widely perceived to be true, but which is largely useless (or even of negative value). (The idea that a truth may lack value may be disturbing, but it is true, although it is not a trusel and probably will not be thought to be magnificent.)

A "Magnificent Academic Trusel" (MAT) is a trusel that has been widely acknowledged for its intellectual content (explicitly or implicitly), but without a corresponding amount of attention being given to its utility or even to its potential negative value for society. The negative value may come from commission or omission. It may deal with the content of a discipline, with the way a discipline is perceived, with knowledge that cuts across disciplines, and even with "integrative studies".

Academia is an environment where two main things go on as the defining part of the image that characterizes academia. These are: (a) faculty actions, involving the advancement of thousands of ideas to a student clientele (whether formally in the classroom or informally in the research environment) and (b) administrative actions involving the imposition of dozens of decisions that affect faculty-student performance and morale.

For reasons that are widely understood and accepted, the advancement of particular ideas is almost never subjected to prior scrutiny for evaluative purposes. Thus the concept of "quality control" in academia is weak, at best, and there is little likelihood that this situation will ever change through administrative action alone. Any attempt to "police" faculty utterances in the classroom will meet with deserving scorn.

(Excerpt) Read more at softpanorama.org ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Education; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: academia; catastrophism; fraud; godsgravesglyphs; groupthink; liberalloons; science; stringtheory; xplanets
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http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/scientific_fraud.shtml


21 posted on 11/21/2009 12:42:48 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: Smokin' Joe

The petition now has been signed by over 32,000 scientists.


22 posted on 11/22/2009 3:59:41 AM PST by AFPhys ((Praying for our troops, our citizens, that the Bible and Freedom become basis of the US law again))
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To: freedumb2003

http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/scientific_fraud.shtml


23 posted on 11/26/2009 8:14:02 AM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Smokin' Joe

Very profound, SJ.


24 posted on 11/26/2009 8:19:52 AM PST by Walmartian (Wally "Angelo" Martian. A made man.)
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