Posted on 08/27/2021 9:58:22 AM PDT by DeweyCA
...
Ariely’s 2012 paper found that people were more honest when they signed a promise to be honest at the beginning of a transaction than when they signed the same promise at the end. ...
The only problem is, it’s not true. Other scientists found that his work couldn’t be replicated. And a deep dive into the data Ariely used determined that it couldn’t possibly be correct. Even Ariely agrees that the criticisms are “damning” and “clear beyond doubt.”...
Meanwhile, leading names in the field of social psychology turn out to have committed research fraud to an extent that it tainted the entire field. And as the Wall Street Journal reported, “One noted biostatistician has suggested that as many as half of all published findings in biomedicine are false.”
Research on “implicit bias” drives all sorts of campus and government policies on race and diversity, but the Implicit Association Test underlying it turns out to be highly dubious. In 2012, the firm Amgen set out to reproduce the results in 53 “landmark” studies in hematology and oncology. Only six of them replicated.
Indeed the term “replication crisis” is now often used to refer to a situation in which so many major and influential studies don’t produce the same results — or any results — when other researchers set out to test them. And it really is a crisis....
Bad research guides behavior — whether it’s government policy or drug development budgets or energy research — in the wrong direction. ...
Even more dangerous than the things we don’t know are the things we think we know that are wrong. Bad science produces things that sound important — maybe because they match our prejudices — but that are wrong. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
It never was.
And it sure isn't now.
Remember how science said ulcers were induced chiefly by stress or spicy food? It turns out, they are induced chiefly by bacteria. Whoops.
The history of science is littered with "no wait....that's wrong...THIS is right..." going through the rinse and repeat cycle endlessly.
And that's ok. Inquiry and challenge and "being a science heretic" is, in many ways, how mankind learns more and can fix more problems.
But science isn't math. Your checking account balance is the sum of deposits less sum of withdrawals. Always. Forever.
The problem arises when people try to equate science with math...usually they call it "settled science" or what I like to call nowadays "political science." And, to be sure, robust inquiry and disciplined application of the scientific method usually gives you clear and distinct results. Then, science is settled...until we get new data or better techniques, and then we get "wait a minute..".
For example, there was a most excellent article posted on how "settled science" wasn't so settled, wherein:
seems that Earth has been misplaced. According to a new map of the Milky Way galaxy, the Solar System's position isn't where we thought it was. Not only is it closer to the galactic centre - and the supermassive hole therein, Sagittarius A* - it's orbiting at a faster clip.
It further noted other "errors" in SCIENCE:
A good recent example of this is the red giant star Betelgeuse, which turned out to be closer to Earth than previous measurements suggested. This means that it's neither as large nor as bright as we thought. Another is the object CK Vulpeculae, a star that exploded 350 years ago. It's actually much farther away, which means that the explosion was brighter and more energetic, and requires a new explanation, since previous analyses were performed under the assumption it was relatively low energy
The other problem arises when Certain Powers work overtime to suppress assiduous inquiry. Which, is what we have today as well. It's a bad double whammy.
In the interest of full disclosure, my "science isn't math" quote came from a recent post on social sciences, that featured this brilliant give and take involving a Harvard faculty member critical of Charles Murray from the original article, that is worth reprinting - it is with regard to the "certainty of SCIENCE":
"so why should we let someone teach social science that we know to be wrong in our social science courses?"
Because it is possible that you are wrong.
Science is not mathematics. Newtonian physics was wrong. And social science is a further three rungs down in certainty from science.
Your level of certainty and arrogance about what can be said, and probably thought, smacks of religion, and not science. This is a political religion that permeates academia at the moment. And which I am fairly sure you will swear does not infect you, while the rest of us can see the symptoms quite plainly.
Only religions ban heretics from speaking because of the wrong-think they might cause. Real science loves a good heretic. In fact, honestly, the entire goal of science is to be a heretic. To have an idea that no other person ever had. Science is the pretty much the antithesis of your thought-police approach.
And most of academia used to be the antithesis of your thought police approach as well, until the religion of leftism took it over, with the direct help of people like you.
Please note - I am told Newtonian physics wasn’t wrong, but it was incomplete. Your mileage may vary.
If we ‘followed the science’, we would have free nuclear power in every city on earth by now...................
If a study, funded by McDonalds, concluded Americans needed to eat more hamburgers, would you believe it?
Why do people believe studies, funded by government, that conclude Americans need more government?
That applies to global warming, vaccines, systemic racism, etc.
Depends on how much error is tolerable. It's gives a very close approximation for most everything earth-bound.
Sort of like your checking account balance when the bank folds. You find out that it's not your money, as a matter of law. It's merely a promise, and could be a failed promise.
‘Your checking account balance is the sum of deposits less sum of withdrawals. Always. Forever.’
eh...? what about interest accruals...?
Well, thank God all of the globull warming science is accurate, or we’d be spending trillions of dollars just chasing our own tail!
Science created it; or science creates what science wants to destroy.
Not quite.
My view is that there are pure sciences, and impure. Biology is impure - there is virtually no set formula they can come up with to guarantee anything. That applies to paleontology all the way up to current medicine. It’s alot of guesses and based on what happened to be observed, but still has controls with lots of variables involved.
Physics is much more pure. Generally what happens can be reduced to a formula.
Lol. Psychology is pure claptrap. Always has been. These are the nuts who come up with all these crazy and destructive social theories. Like CRT. Open Marriage. Transgenderism. All pure garbage. Worse than garbage. Highly destructive theories that have ruined our civilization.
That’s a deposit.
And it can still be calculated based on a formula.
Starting with that devil, Dr. Spock.
Lol. Einstien is “wrong” too. There are many phenomena that can’t be predicted with the theory.
But for practical purposes if you violate Newton you will get in a hell of a lot of trouble. Try it sometime.
When my bank pays me interest, it’s a deposit, assuming it’s a checking account with interest.
But even settled physics can change. Maybe not often, but it changes. I got lectured several times on FR about the Newtonian physics claim.
My point, is over conflating the certainty of science with "1+1=2" that I see happening. To be fair, maybe some of this is ignorance - everyone SHOULD know that vaccine efficacy (VE) is time-variant and can (and often does) decline as the earth rotates. I'm not a doctor and even I know that.
But, simultaneously, I don't see the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx VOLUNTEER the knowledge of VE time-variance when in front of a camera. Nor do I see any reporter do some basic research when reporting on the subject. They simply say "VE is 96% - STFU and get in line for the shot because ya know science and Trump is bad and all that."
I’m happily married. I don’t want to violate anyone.
“Newtonian physics was wrong”
I disagree. Newtonian physics provides correct answers, dependent upon the tolerence that one finds aacceptable. However, it is a less accurate description of the physical world than relativity theory and quantum physics.
Much of it is sloppy methodology. Much of it is outright fakery. “zombie trials” ’ they call them, ie trials that never happened, or results that were simply made up to appear to be significant. In academia, publications are the coin of the realm, and can be exchanged for tenure, or lucrative grant awards. No surprise there are a host of counterfeiters infesting the universities.
there once was a guy who figured out a way to truncate interest to the bank accounts and paid himself the extra cent when they were supposed to round up. who was ever going to check the calculation? and then realize that rounding was the rule?
it worked well for him, until they caught him.
Hmm, this story appears to be a myth. Not sure I agree with all the math, but the logistical issues involved do make it unlikely. I unlearn something every day.
Love your post. Especially the lashing given to the “thought-police”.
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