In my classes, I spend a significant amount of time on the scientific method. I hope the students leave my course with a comprehension of what separates good science from bad science. Today, I would like to share with you some of that as well as a powerful and current illustration of why this matters to me so much.
When I was in graduate school, I saw a lot of unethical behavior. In fact, I think it bothered my primary investigator when he saw me enrolled for the course Ethics in Scientific Research. For various reasons, some better than others, I saw data omitted, deleted, or missing from reports. Sometimes researchers do this to protect something so that they can study it before other people know about it. More often than not, it reveals weaknesses in their conclusions.
Scientific research is primarily concentrated at the academic level in universities and their affiliated laboratories and in government institutions. All of these are funded at public expense, mostly with taxes and sometimes by philanthropic endeavors backed by regular people who buy the goods and services that provided the capital. Most of the researchers in academia are students without much expertise who are learning how to be scientists. Most of the scientists whose names are on the door spend their time in their offices writing grants, doing paperwork, and reviewing journal articles. Mine was one of the few who got out on the lab bench. As such, research is agenda driven, ALWAYS. They either have to justify money spent on supplies or money spent on personnel, many of whom work with hopes to graduate based on the research they do. Either way you slice it, either in money or in manpower, you pay for bad science, sometimes with your life.
Very little research has real end-user application. I know some researchers who do it for their career, who do it for personal interest, and who do it for money. I know fewer than five who care about how you can use it when they are done. All of those people are researchers in industry/commerce, or, gasp Big Business.
Data is not very reliable. They leave it out, they make it up, they make it fit, or they do without. I made myself quite a nuisance at conferences when I asked about statistical relevance and about poor controls. The take home message is that I could not rely on their data or reproduce it, and as such it was garbage.
On his radio show this morning, Rush Limbaugh reported how the Washington Times raised concerns about a firm at East Anglican University caught deleting information that would harm them and fighting the release. As far as the media is concerned, this did not happen. The scientists will move on to other jobs, other grants, other institutions, and the politicians will force us to conform to the consensus. They just want money. This is what I tell my students:
When I was in graduate school, I saw a lot of unethical behavior. In fact, I think it bothered my primary investigator when he saw me enrolled for the course Ethics in Scientific Research. For various reasons, some better than others, I saw data omitted, deleted, or missing from reports. Sometimes researchers do this to protect something so that they can study it before other people know about it. More often than not, it reveals weaknesses in their conclusions.
Scientific research is primarily concentrated at the academic level in universities and their affiliated laboratories and in government institutions. All of these are funded at public expense, mostly with taxes and sometimes by philanthropic endeavors backed by regular people who buy the goods and services that provided the capital. Most of the researchers in academia are students without much expertise who are learning how to be scientists. Most of the scientists whose names are on the door spend their time in their offices writing grants, doing paperwork, and reviewing journal articles. Mine was one of the few who got out on the lab bench. As such, research is agenda driven, ALWAYS. They either have to justify money spent on supplies or money spent on personnel, many of whom work with hopes to graduate based on the research they do. Either way you slice it, either in money or in manpower, you pay for bad science, sometimes with your life.
Very little research has real end-user application. I know some researchers who do it for their career, who do it for personal interest, and who do it for money. I know fewer than five who care about how you can use it when they are done. All of those people are researchers in industry/commerce, or, gasp Big Business.
Data is not very reliable. They leave it out, they make it up, they make it fit, or they do without. I made myself quite a nuisance at conferences when I asked about statistical relevance and about poor controls. The take home message is that I could not rely on their data or reproduce it, and as such it was garbage.
On his radio show this morning, Rush Limbaugh reported how the Washington Times raised concerns about a firm at East Anglican University caught deleting information that would harm them and fighting the release. As far as the media is concerned, this did not happen. The scientists will move on to other jobs, other grants, other institutions, and the politicians will force us to conform to the consensus. They just want money. This is what I tell my students:
Science never proves anything. It removes all other possibilities until only the truth remains.
Said Rush, "There is no point in endorsing a piece of legislation aimed at reducing something that is not happening." I have seen this firsthand, but never on this scale. Most of the people I saw do it did it for their careers and their degrees. These scientists did so to advance their careers and their names and their pocketbooks. Unlike them, I would never fudge science for my own advancement, and I have paid the price for it. Unlike Senator John Ensign, who told me so in a personal letter, I would never do the wrong thing instead of doing nothing at all, no matter what price I pay for it.
What this means is that we now have reason to doubt anything a scientist says who receives public money. What this tells us about the scientists is that they know they are liars. I don't know where my cousin got this quote, but it's his status today and I agree: "No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar." If they were truly interested in the discovery of truth, they would be glad to be proven wrong. They care instead apparently about their career more than their field and its product- truth. Name names, call them out, just as we would those who have proven unfaithful to marital oaths or oaths of loyalty to the Constitution. Who knew it? When did they know it? What will they do about it? Nothing. The President doesn't care about truth. He cares about his agenda, regardless of the lies.
You cannot be hurt by something you do not do. GK Chesterton said that what's wrong with the world is that we do not ask what is right. I wish that the peer review process worried more about how much of what we publish in science is right and less on whether they happen to agree with it. Every time they ignore facts, people die.
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