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Posted on 07/04/2024 7:27:05 AM PDT by karpov
In its first year, the Biden administration launched a fast-track Scientific Integrity Task Force, intended to “lift up the voices of Federal scientists of many perspectives and backgrounds” and put scientific integrity “paramount in Federal governance for years to come.” The task force took a “whole-of-government” approach to ensuring the scientific integrity of federally funded research and included representatives from the 21 federal agencies that maintain scientific-research programs. For those with a high pain threshold, the final report may be seen here.
Prominent among the move’s critics have been the Council on Governmental Relations (a consortium of research universities) and the Association of Research Integrity Officers (university staff who conduct in-house investigations into alleged research misconduct). Together, these groups submitted nearly 200 comments representing their respective institutions, most of them opposing the proposed rule changes.
As with all things governmental, one looks at this spectacle and asks “why?” It’s not like anyone is in favor of scientific misconduct. As I have written elsewhere, the rules for trustworthy science are pretty straightforward: don’t lie, cheat, steal, or be beastly to your underlings, basically. The problem is that there seems to be a lot of scientific disintegrity nevertheless. Some of it is high-visibility, as in the recent forced resignation of Stanford’s president, Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Other manifestations appear to be systemic, as in the alarmingly high number of retractions of scientific papers: more than 10,000 in 2023, according to Nature. Nor is the problem an isolated one. An alarmingly large proportion of the roughly 460,000 scientific papers published in 2022 have never been read by anyone, nor is it clear that this voluminous output does anything to advance scientific knowledge.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
Are they going to “claw back” grant funding when papers are AI written, plagiarized, or generally false? That would be interesting.
Of course instead this power will be used as a political weapon.
“The Biden administration’s Scientific Integrity Task Force”
Was this AUTHORIZED by Congress? If not, perhaps they need to ask Congress for the authorization (or ask Chevron, LOL).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_communism
"Diversity" and "integrity" are mutually exclusive goals.
The name sounds like something thought up in a Chinese Think Tank...
“Integrity” from the Biden administration.
And Hitler’s Nazis found SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Mengele, M.D., Ph.D. to be fully compliant with their standards of scientific integrity.
Basic research used to be funded by National Science Foundation.
BUT THAT GOT TOO POLITICAL, so politicians decided to get involved.
Again, the progressive-Left keeps resurecting their political mantra - rule by the experts. A government “Research Integrity Monitor” exemplies that invalid idea.
Why is it invalid?
It is invalid because in all it’s uses it proposes that their is some kind of magic that happens when government appoints experts, as if by that mere appointment they are transformed into auhtorities with such superior levels of discernment that thier opihions should not be quesioned - is “they are the authority after all”.
The idea is both illogical and irrational.
Further, government “Research Integrity Monitor” would become the worst kind of “expert” authority of all, turning all science in government to government approved orthodoxies.
Government does not need government created and approved experts. Government needs to go out of government into the private sector and seek out any number of outside INDEPENDENT views, and try to discern some majority or concensus view of them.
The wolf guarding the wolf house.
Scientific Integrity upheld by large centralized bureaucracy? What could go wrong?
Basic research used to be funded by National Science Foundation.
BUT THAT GOT TOO POLITICAL, so politicians decided to get involve
From President Eisenhower's farewell address:
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Scientific Integrity Task Force...
= = =
They will soon upgrade it to become
Scientific Hyper-Integrity Task Force.
Just wait . . .
The Czar will be Fauci
My thoughts exactly -- there seems to be a lot of corruption in science these days, and driven not just by requirements of political correctness, but also by political agendas.
Scientific grants can be based on doing research that confirms the dominant political ideologies.
So now we'll have a government "Scientific Integrity Task Force" -- to make certain of what?
That all scientific research conforms to the government's ideological dictates?
What could go wrong?
It’s a bad idea - part of the “MAKE AMERICA LAST’ commie playbook.
They will soon upgrade it to become
Scientific Hyper-Integrity Task Force.
Check the Acronym.
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