Posted on 09/27/2005 12:36:32 PM PDT by Crackingham
Um, no they don't. You haven't actually read many scientific studies, have you?
Science is dying in America, not at the hands of Republicans, but at the hands of scientists themselves.
"Amplifying the uncertainty," may be a Republican 'tactic,' but it would be a salutory breath of fresh air if it actually happened in the halls of science, where the herd mentality of everyone doing the same thing prevails across the board, largely enforced by funding agencies policies.
Theoretical physics has been doing string theory for 40 years without offering a single testable prediction which would confirm or disconfirm the theory. Indeed the situation is worse than that: the quest for making a prediction has made the 'theory' so nebulous that 'string theory' (or its replacement "M-theory") now makes mutually contradictory predictions. But string theorists make all the funding decisions, so an American physicist wanting to pursue (for instance) Alaine Connes' construction of the standard model of particle physics from non-commutative geometry had better already be tenured and not really need a big raise for the rest of his career.
The project which actually sequenced the human gemone didn't get federal funding because the innovative statistical technique it used would put all the gene sequencers doing the myriad government funded projects to sequence one section of a chromosome at a time out of business. (As indeed it did.)
Evolutionary biology has gone the way of string theory, too, being able to offer 'just so stories' to explain any observation with such ease that it could certainly explain the contrafactual as easily as the observed. (Exercises: 1. Give a Darwinian explantion for the greater upper body strength observed in human females relative to human males. 2. Give a Darwinian explanation for human-to-human telepathy. Hint: It's just as easy as explaining what we actually see.)
Science is entering a medieval state, but this time, instead of commentaries on Aristotle and Euclid, we get commentaries on Schwartz, Witten and Darwin.
#39. Nice post.
Are you as tired as I that the little ones seem to be political footballs on both sides of the ideological divide, treated as very fragile porcelain? Kids are resilient. If they were not, the species would have died out long ago. Most will do OK, no matter how much we try to screw them up. I am an optimist.
No, I haven't. Nor do I intend to. My post was a lampoon of all of the "scientific research" grifters who go to Washington with their hats in had begging for money to study such important things as "why do dung beetles roll up excrement balls". Now, I don't know if such a study has ever been done, but that is an example of the kind of outrageous projects that do get funding through pork barrel politics. My post may have been too lame or too clever by half for you to "get", or it may not have been funny to anyone other than me. But, if you are honest with yourself, there are elements of truth in my post. Its exaggerated claim of "every study" may paint with too broad a brush, but the gist of my post holds true in many cases.
I said, "Our study, while exhaustive in its complexity [Translation: We wrote a whole bunch of stuff that we know you will never be able to make heads nor tails of because all we have to say is that it is scientific jargon that can't be understood by silly lay persons],". As lay people, most of us do not have the expertise nor experience to understand a report generated with jargon exclusive to a specific field of study without our returning to school and getting a doctorate in said field. That lack of ability to comprehend leaves open a broad possibility for fraud. A search on the terms "Fraud scientific research yields this: Results 1 - 50 of about 4,880,000 for Fraud scientific research. (0.34 seconds). The number of hits, almost 5 million, indicates there is at least the possibility of fraud in scientific research.
I also said,"is inconclusive at this time and needs continuing research [Translation: We couldn't gin up enough evidence to prove our supposition one way or another and we want to keep doing the same thing until we can achieve our agenda]". We both know that some projects get renewed funding every year, year after year and little or no progress is made. At some point, when concrete results are not forthcoming utilizing the same processes over and over, the project needs to be halted and looked at from another perspective, especially if the funding for the project comes out of the public coffers.
I also said, "It is our hope that we can get increased funding [Translation: We blew the money on parties and lived high off the hog on the government's dime, and we fervently hope we can schmooze our way into another big bucks grant] to continue this much needed research in our continuing efforts to explore the unknown [Translation: This research grant is needed by us so we can continue living in the lifestyle we have become accustomed to under our previous research grant]". My logic says that if researchers are willing to commit fraud in their research, then they would not be above using research funds fraudulently for other things, including an exorbitant lifestyle, as well, and a Google search turns up 57,200 hits on the terms ""scientific research" fraudulent use of funds".
Finally, I stated, "This research could provide exciting new benefits for all of humanity [Translation: If we do find anything, we will damn sure patent it and secure the benefits for our own wealth even though the research is being done on public funds]". As far as the patent issue is concerned, Google gave this result: Results 1 - 50 of about 5,180,000 for public funding scientific research patents. (0.62 seconds). A good site for a discussion of that can be found here. So the public funding/private profit issue is not a paper tiger. It is my belief that if public funds are used in the research of something profitable, then at least 50% of all profits generated should be returned to the public.
After having viewed your homepage, I assume (probably wrongly) that you are either a scientist or are associated with scientists and therefore took my post personally. If so, I am sorry, but please do not dismiss the possibility of fraudulent use of public funding in science. It does happen, and we all pay for it.
check later
Named for a former President?
False in general. The finding of mammal fossils in pre-cambrian rocks would be a simple observation that refute evolutionary theory. A cat giving birth to a lizard would be another.
I think it was a comic strip character.
Your suggestions are like offering an observation which would refute quantum mechanics and then claiming that because the observation would refute the foundations of string theory, it would refute string theory.
The neo-Darwinian explanatory mechanism is not equivalent to either the theory of common descent (falsified by a hypothetical pre-Cambrian mammal) nor to the short-term fixity of species (falsified by your second example--which, amusingly, also falsifies Biblical-literalist creationism, which applies 'each according to its own kind' to derive the permanent fixity of species as an objection to all evolutionary theories).
In practice evolutionary biology has gone done the scientifically dangerous path of trying to insulate itself from refutation to the point that, like string theory, it can explain mutually contradictory observations. In both cases an unfalsiable superstructure has been erected on falsifiable foundations.
Reading the Amazon reviews, I note that the ubiquitous and obnoxious PZ Myers (he of the scientifically sound but politically boneheaded Pharyngula blog) has not only posted his thoughts, but has decided to steal Physicist's motto, "The world is what it is, and not what we wish it to be". Too bad that PC Myers (as Gene Expression likes to call him) is so selective in applying it.
Named after John Calvin, actually, as it's a Dutch Reform university.
For an anti-science president, Bush sure has supported research in space medicine, planetary exploration and a return to the Moon. I don't the guy thinks it is made up of green cheese;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.