09-20-2024, 09:25 PM
This post was last modified 09-21-2024, 03:44 AM by Maxmars.
Edit Reason: grammar
As you might imagine, I can't be attractively brief in my response to this... it's a failing of mine...
A few criticisms...
Opening with the CON:
The author begins with an account of a researcher who 'convinced' many that "something" was "desirable," namely, that eating chocolate contributes to weight loss.
In pursuit of that goal, he crafted a fake website and called it the product of an "Institute" with a scientific sounding name... providing all manner of website content to 'bolster" the image of legitimacy.
The result could have been easily expected from this falsehood about a sweet - and often sought after - confectionary ingredient.
Then he exposed that it was - as the author characterizes it - "a joke."
The researcher was attempting to quantify just how easily people are misled in scientific reporting... but failed to focus on where exactly the problem is manifesting.
There is a kind of hypocritical (and maybe even base) fraud here. What he measures is the result of his deception, and how it affected the media... but he reports it as a 'flaw' in common understanding of the scientific information consumer, rather than media, which is solely for the sake of "commerce."
What he actually showed was that lying, is more effective when a so-called report 'contains' the lie.
Reproducibility
Again, it seems unclear why it isn't understood that "science" as he intimated with the video title, is not the problem... the problem is in the media (publication;) science publication was never to be simply, "Here's my paper... print it." But for reasons (again of commerce) it has generally become so, as the initial example so readily demonstrates. Institutions, to hail back to the earlier example, are now most frequently effectively corporate fronts... AP-level marketing tools. They are the the one's "producing" the most "exciting" 'science news.' So much so that they frequently "publish" themselves.
It is not a wonder that pretty much half of published results are not reproducible? Why would that EVER be a marketeers concern? The "con-men" of the world are not motivated to nullify their own claims. But commerce compels them to publish claims as truth anyway.
This is not caused by "science"... it's caused by "selling" scientific output as a "commercial product."
For many people, irreproducibility implies fraud... While fraudulent works will always be a potential reality in the world of science reporting, that would also imply that the fraud leads to a desired end either the scientist, or the publisher, is directly seeking. Enter the fog of commerce... and it's new dalliance's into the "anti-news market."
Knowing what all they know... you will be very hard-pressed to find a single published scientist who will say they don't trust scientific papers. I would be surprised if any who did weren't ultimately ostracized, denied support, or even professionally punished for making such an admission... Does anyone really wonder why?
Why does fraud constitute the leading cause (43%) of 'scientific paper retraction' ("retraction" meaning withdrawal after official publication?) Are nearly HALF of all scientists "intentional frauds?"
Even so, the problem remains NOT to be of "science"... it remains in the publishing of science... by publishers... a "paid" concern. Seeing any hints there?... I am.
The video author mockingly tells us "so much for scientists as disinterested truth-tellers." I find this posture to be wrong-minded.
Scientist, true scientists, are concerned with the measuring and reporting of reality... everything else is 'external.'
Scientist can be wrong in their assessments, through error, or personal bias towards an outcome... at best. Intent to defraud is just a worst-case bias, but without tacit support, it withers on the vine. "Publishers" sell that tacit support because it is zero-risk for them... maybe that should change.
How much science refers to (and builds itself upon) prior publications... and where might that lead?
A few criticisms...
Opening with the CON:
The author begins with an account of a researcher who 'convinced' many that "something" was "desirable," namely, that eating chocolate contributes to weight loss.
In pursuit of that goal, he crafted a fake website and called it the product of an "Institute" with a scientific sounding name... providing all manner of website content to 'bolster" the image of legitimacy.
The result could have been easily expected from this falsehood about a sweet - and often sought after - confectionary ingredient.
Then he exposed that it was - as the author characterizes it - "a joke."
The researcher was attempting to quantify just how easily people are misled in scientific reporting... but failed to focus on where exactly the problem is manifesting.
There is a kind of hypocritical (and maybe even base) fraud here. What he measures is the result of his deception, and how it affected the media... but he reports it as a 'flaw' in common understanding of the scientific information consumer, rather than media, which is solely for the sake of "commerce."
What he actually showed was that lying, is more effective when a so-called report 'contains' the lie.
Reproducibility
Again, it seems unclear why it isn't understood that "science" as he intimated with the video title, is not the problem... the problem is in the media (publication;) science publication was never to be simply, "Here's my paper... print it." But for reasons (again of commerce) it has generally become so, as the initial example so readily demonstrates. Institutions, to hail back to the earlier example, are now most frequently effectively corporate fronts... AP-level marketing tools. They are the the one's "producing" the most "exciting" 'science news.' So much so that they frequently "publish" themselves.
It is not a wonder that pretty much half of published results are not reproducible? Why would that EVER be a marketeers concern? The "con-men" of the world are not motivated to nullify their own claims. But commerce compels them to publish claims as truth anyway.
This is not caused by "science"... it's caused by "selling" scientific output as a "commercial product."
For many people, irreproducibility implies fraud... While fraudulent works will always be a potential reality in the world of science reporting, that would also imply that the fraud leads to a desired end either the scientist, or the publisher, is directly seeking. Enter the fog of commerce... and it's new dalliance's into the "anti-news market."
Knowing what all they know... you will be very hard-pressed to find a single published scientist who will say they don't trust scientific papers. I would be surprised if any who did weren't ultimately ostracized, denied support, or even professionally punished for making such an admission... Does anyone really wonder why?
Why does fraud constitute the leading cause (43%) of 'scientific paper retraction' ("retraction" meaning withdrawal after official publication?) Are nearly HALF of all scientists "intentional frauds?"
Even so, the problem remains NOT to be of "science"... it remains in the publishing of science... by publishers... a "paid" concern. Seeing any hints there?... I am.
The video author mockingly tells us "so much for scientists as disinterested truth-tellers." I find this posture to be wrong-minded.
Scientist, true scientists, are concerned with the measuring and reporting of reality... everything else is 'external.'
Scientist can be wrong in their assessments, through error, or personal bias towards an outcome... at best. Intent to defraud is just a worst-case bias, but without tacit support, it withers on the vine. "Publishers" sell that tacit support because it is zero-risk for them... maybe that should change.
How much science refers to (and builds itself upon) prior publications... and where might that lead?
