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Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

blogs.bmj.com

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Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#391

Post by kaba0 »

lmm wrote: post #374
tshaddox wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the alternative to following the science? Following people who are not scientists and who are explicitly making things up? This sounds a lot like "most plane crashes are due to pilot error, so maybe we should give non-pilots control of the planes."

Have a higher evidentiary threshold when it comes to results that contradict common-sense, or that suggest changing your current behaviour? Of course sometimes counterintuitive results turn out to be real, but most the time the "follow the science" people are getting prematurely excited.

I think the reverse direction is much worse, like anti-vaxx, and the general anti-intellectualism of the common.

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#392

Post by mavhc »

xvector wrote: post #387
Quekid5 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is an institution not a group of people as well? People with consciences, moralities and other human emotions? Yes, but the point being made is that in the case of organizations the whole doesn't necessarily have the properties of its constituent parts. > If not, what's the difference to any other organisation such as, in an absolute extreme form, an army or a "terror"group apart from the agenda. Not sure what you…

> the whole doesn't necessarily have the properties of its constituent parts. This is because the "constituent parts" - members of the organization - are often just terrible human beings that hide behind the concept of an institution to shield themselves from the cognitive dissonance caused by their own unethical actions. If an institution does something unethical it can always be traced to its employees. As an examp…

The institution gives them money, thus they defend the institution.

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#393

Post by injidup »

fock wrote: post #377
injidup wrote: post #20

I recently had the privilege of trying to do the right thing when I identified fraudulent research carried out by an institution in Austria. The initial response of the institution was positive but when I pressed for further details on how such things could happen suddenly nobody anymore would take my call. The research was paid for by a private company to pimp a nonsense product. The research was never published in…

I have encountered a similar thing, with a university professor somehow supporting the finding that esoteric stickers are having an effect on patients, because they block EMF: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2018.0019... – this is bullshit (up to the measurement equipment supplied by the German EHS-community). I think at least the university should reprimand this people, how did you get in contact…

Those threatening to sue were the founders of the company Powerinsole. They made contact via their lawyers. From the university I just had an ugly phone call with a senior administrator who suggested that if I ever contacted her again the police would be called.

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#394

Post by injidup »

rob_c wrote: post #297
injidup wrote: post #20

I recently had the privilege of trying to do the right thing when I identified fraudulent research carried out by an institution in Austria. The initial response of the institution was positive but when I pressed for further details on how such things could happen suddenly nobody anymore would take my call. The research was paid for by a private company to pimp a nonsense product. The research was never published in…

I get you wouldn't want to name the institute, but that is shocking.

It's all on the public record anyway so.

https://shop.powerinsole.com/en/blogs/news/doppelblindstudie...

https://uni-salzburg.elsevierpure.com/de/projects/der-einflu...

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#396

Post by lmm »

kaba0 wrote: post #366
lmm wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you weigh the bad actors and financial incentives of climate change proponents against the bad actors and financial incentives on the fossil fuel side, do you think the scale tips in favour of more honesty for the fossil fuel side or climate change side? There's no honesty anywhere - or rather, the honest people get squeezed out of the field. Which is why the issue ends up so polarised. > There's no doubt groupt…

So you don’t believe that the effects of climate change are serious?

I don't know. I believe the most likely outcome is effects that are serious, but significantly less serious than the mainstream consensus claims. I believe the error bars are much wider than anyone admits. I believe the narrow range of countermeasures that it's politically acceptable to move towards implementing are not particularly reasonable and will not be effective.

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#397

Post by user-the-name »

bserge wrote: post #165
MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a personal philosophy on most health oriented fads: if someone is actively trying to sell something, it's snake oil. Too many people are looking for everlasting life that they're okay with being swindled in the pursuit of it. Naive enough to believe that people are honest when promoting products they're were paid to promote.

You can pair it with: if it works, it's controlled. Meaning you can't get it without prescription and have to go through the tortures of a health "care" system.

If it works, it has an effect on the body. If it has an effect on the body, you can in nearly every case induce too much of that effect. Also, it probably does not have one single effect, but a cluster of them, some good, some bad.

In summary, if it works, it can also kill you. That is why most medicines that work are also controlled.

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#398

Post by rbanffy »

aww_dang wrote: post #390
l33tbro wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep dreaming. Who's going to advocate for that on your behalf? A politician? An private or public institution complicit n this behaviour?

Agreed. Instead of looking for institutional solutions, we can demonstrate the need for critical thinking and skepticism as individuals. This is a can-do solution we can start with now. The above poster's plea of, "there ought to be a law" removes the agency of the individual. There are also serious problems with appointing fact checkers as impartial arbiters of objective truths. It is an untenable scheme. A naked ap…

> we can demonstrate the need for critical thinking

Good luck with that. Humans are not always rational and don't always act on their best interests, much less on the whole species' best interests.

If we leave saving our species to individuals, I wish the cockroaches better luck. I, personally, would bet on ants and bees, as they seem to be much better organized than us.

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#399

Post by BlackFly »

sjwalter wrote: post #203

What I want to know is how does this issue impact the notion that we all seem to buy into that we should "follow the science". Scientists themselves have a hard time "following the science". Add to it the observation that when an issue is getting lots of attention outside of academia, then there are usually some really strong incentives (profit, prestige) associated with doing the science and applying it (e.g., epide…

> we should "follow the science".

This is a clear misrepresentation of what science is and is not. Specifically, science is not normative.

Science will teach you how to build the bomb. It will never be able to tell you whether you should detonate it.

When people disagree about whether to detonate the bomb or not, one side may be able act like the predictable consequences automatically determine the ethical norms that should guide the decision while ignoring the implications of the unpredictable consequences. This side may attack the other side as "ignoring the science" in order to ignore the more difficult normative debate. A counter reaction to the initial unfair sleight of hand is sometimes to act like one should completely ignore the scientists anyways, and then maybe the accusation is more justified but still ultimately meaningless: norms are simply not grounded in facts. People also aren't necessarily consistent with their own norms. They might agree on some premises then when presented with conclusions that follow, just find the result so repugnant that they search for a way out. That's when we search for chinks in the science, because admitting to our own natural moral hypocrisy is just too painful. But we can always just change our basic norms and reach a different resulting decision and we know this in our gut, so searching for the facts to support a predetermined conclusion doesn't seem so different.

Re: Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

#400

Post by rbanffy »

l33tbro wrote: post #386
rbanffy wrote: post #372

I believe we are getting to the point where we need to create a broad category of crimes for misleading the public. Form lying as a trusted public figure (elected politician, government employee) all the way to publishing or submitting fraudulent research for publication. Countless lives were lost in the past year because people believed fraudulent studies about COVID treatments. Worse than that, government officials…

Keep dreaming. Who's going to advocate for that on your behalf? A politician? An private or public institution complicit n this behaviour?

> A politician? An private or public institution complicit n this behaviour?

Elected politicians are representatives of their people. If people are voting on politicians complicit with institutions, private or public, engaged in this behavior, then it's an example of this issue.

Trump has shown us how frighteningly little of American democracy is kept together by anything more than decorum. If politicians remain popular while being shameless, there isn't much your democracy can do to protect itself.

I can say that the same (rapid institutional degradation) is happening in Brazil, the country I grew up in. In 2016 an elected president was removed from power based on a campaign of disinformation that started before the election (but failed to prevent her re-election) that ended in accusations of unlawful accounting maneuvers that, in the end (well after the impeachment), were considered legal by a court. The disinformation campaign continues and was responsible for the election of a cartoon fascist that is still supported by a third of the population. Newspapers report 3 to 5 lies every day. Last one is recommending a chemical castration drug as a COVID treatment.

We need institutions that more robustly defend ourselves from disinformation campaigns.

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