A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

The strictness varies by university. Ultimately the IRB is there to ensure safety of the participants and minimize the chance of negative consequences. A couple examples I've heard from around my university include...

A study was taking place outside. There was a chance of a bee sting occurring to the participant. The IRB required that the researcher have an epi-pen ready just in case along with any required training.

A paper used in a study had the wrong stamp on it (not the most recent IRB stamp). The document had not changed from the last time, but the rule was simple. Every document presented to the participant had to have the most recent stamp.

On a study in which it was expected that 1/2 of the participants would feel nauseous, they had to provide a place to sit, water, and small snacks.

And perhaps most importantly, you can quit any study you're participating in at any time, for any reason. Compensation is figured out ahead of time, and you're going to get lots of questions from IRB if you want to do anything to reduce the compensation for leaving part way through the experiment.

This is definitely true. I once saw a book with a title similar to "Statistics for Dummies" in a professors office. He had plenty of access to staticians at the university too. Unfortunately if a given field involves many people with ignorance of statistics, these problems may not be called out during the peer review process.

Imagine an identified versus anonymous survey about cocaine usage in America. People will likely answer honestly if it is anonymous.

If it is identified, most people would be fine with it being identified and would mark no usage. People who do use cocaine would be more likely to not participate or lie on the answer.

There's a lot more of this going on in a lot of fields, especially the biomedical and social sciences, but probably everywhere.

I think conservatives are correct to pick up on this general phenomenon. They know there's a lot of systemic problems with research and academics, and approach things from that perspective.

The problem, to me, is that they then overstep and use that to justify an equally pernicious position, which is to denounce or dismiss science in general, rather than to encourage fixes or constructive change. Of course, depending on the conservative, they're more likely denounce scientific research on certain topics and areas of research than others.

It's throwing baby out with bathwater, basically.

The scientific community then reacts poorly, in my opinion, by denying the kernel of truth there is to their concerns, and not addressing them.

You can see this playing out in some conservative blogs. They're aware of the replication crisis, discuss it, and point to things like the email leaks by climate scientists, which in my memory were scientifically sort of moot, but did reveal how much scientists are very much human with human flaws and motivations.

Maybe I'm wrong, though, and the typical response from the scientific community is best, though: maybe it's better to treat the problems with science separate from the conservative attacks, to tackle one problem at a time.

I guess I see two problems, one being problems with academics and science, the other being the involvement of politicians in science. I think the second thing only makes the first problem worse. It's not like the politicians aren't serving their own unholy masters.