Posted on 03/09/2016 6:39:11 AM PST by Heartlander
Date: 04/03/16
Melanie Phillips , The Times
According to a new study, scientists’ claims that coral reefs are doomed by ocean acidification are overplayed. An “inherent bias” in scientific journals, says the editor of ICES Journal of Marine Science, has excluded research showing marine creatures are not being damaged.
Instead, he says, many studies have used flawed methods by subjecting such creatures to sudden increases in carbon dioxide that would never happen in real life. No surprises there. The claim that CO2 emissions are acidifying the oceans is a favourite of climate-change alarmists.
Man-made global warming theory has been propped up by studies that many scientists have dismissed as methodologically flawed, ideologically bent or even fraudulent. The problem of scientific integrity, however, goes far wider. Psychology, neuroscience, physics and other scientific areas have been convulsed by revelations of dodgy research.
Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, has written bleakly: “The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.”
One reason is that cash-strapped universities, competing for money and talent, exert huge pressure on academics to publish more and more to meet the box-ticking criteria set by grant-funding bodies. Corners are being cut and mistakes being made.
But whatever happened to peer-review, the supposed kitemark of scientific integrity produced by the collective judgment of other researchers? Well, that seems to have gone south too. In 1998 Fiona Godlee, editor of the British Medical Journal, sent an article containing eight deliberate mistakes to more than 200 of the BMJ’s regular reviewers. Not one picked out all the mistakes. On average, they reported fewer than two; some did not spot any.
The problem lies with research itself. The cornerstone of scientific authority rests on the notion that replicating an experiment will produce the same result. If replication fails, the research is deemed flawed. But failure to replicate is widespread. In 2012, the OECD spent $59 billion on biomedical research, nearly double the 2000 figure. Yet an official at America’s National Institutes of Health has said researchers would find it hard to reproduce at least three-quarters of all published biomedical findings.
A 2005 study by John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University, said the majority of published research findings were probably false. At most, no more than about one in four findings from early-phase clinical trials would be true; epidemiological studies might have only a one in five chance of being true. “Empirical evidence on expert opinion”, he wrote, “shows that it is extremely unreliable”. [...]
Underlying much of this disarray is surely the pressure to conform to an idea, whether political, commercial or ideological. Ideological fads produce financial and professional incentives to conform and punishment for dissent, whether loss of grant-funding or lack of advancement. As Professor Ioannidis observed: “For many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.” [...]
Underlying this loss of scientific bearings is a closed intellectual circle. Scientists pose as secular priests. They alone, they claim, hold the keys to the universe. Those who aren’t scientists merely express uneducated opinion. The resulting absence of openness and transparency is proving the scientists’ undoing. In the words of Richard Horton, “science has taken a turn towards darkness”. But science defines modernity. It is our gold standard of truth and reason. This is the darkness of the West too.
It may not have started, but was certainly spurred on when, man, bear, pig -algore, made a fortune, received a Nobel Prize, and Oscar and who knows what else, for preaching Globull Warming. There's big bucks to be made and like all liberal agendas, they NEVER let the facts stand in their way.
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/12/video_oregons_lubchenco_gives.html
String theory too.
Many of us predicted that government funding would turn “science” into a profession of whores.
In addition “top secret” projects hinder open communication in the sciences—dooming them to conventional thinking long after secret breakthroughs have been made that make public science a generation behind current advances.
A major factor in Einstein’s inquiries and ultimate breakthroughs in science and physics was his belief that there was a God and that God made everything.
Today, scientists’ minds are darkened by atheism and Darwinism.
Thanks for the post.
This is what happens when government is nearly the only finder or research. Politics gets in the way. Companies used to do a lot of pure research because they understood that you never know what the next ah ha is. That has gone away and now companies and universities beg the govt for funds. It is pathetic
Einstein's theism is greatly exaggerated. He did not believe in a personal god and certainly did not believe in HaShem.
Not all!
Look up Vera Rubin.
Didn’t say Einstein believed in a personal God, but he did believe that there was a God and that God made everything. It was a key factor in his inquires and breakthroughs. Today’s scientists are by comparison darker in their understanding because of their atheism and Darwinism.
Since I can remember I have been told that the world is going to end and that I am responsible for it for living in the USA.
My earliest memories from Kindergarten was the coming ice age and we’re all going to starve if we don’t do something like ban hairspray.
Then. The Ozone hole was going to kill us all because of our refrigerators and hairspray again.
Then. The oceans were going to be dead from pollution and acid rain.
Then. Global warming
Now. Catastrophic climate disruption.
In my 41 years on this rock I have managed to live through dozens of end of the world happenings. Don’t even get me started on all the food products that were going to kill me.
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