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Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

royalsociety.org

221–230 of 970 posts

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#221
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think unfortunately we also need to protect science from idiots making very bad conclusions based on not understanding a paper... That's how we end up with 'bacon cures cancer' headlines in the daily fail...

The dailymail writes “bacon cures cancer” because that headline gets clicks and shares, so it makes them money. I’m not sure that has anything to do with “science”.

This brings up an interesting point I was thinking about but didn't feel like typing until now.

I think the problem could be "science communication", not bad communication or anything like that, but the existence of it in general. There's a casual interest in scientific stuff in the public, there's an entertainment market for it, and so now we have a scenario where people that publish research have to weigh this impact when publishing, including it's benefits. But most people interested are only casually interested (and most vendors of the entertainment have incentives not necessarily aligned with presenting fact, but that's not my point, only a secondary problem). I think it's possible that it might be better if, when someone was interested in something, they had to dig it up online. If we get rid of the whole "science communication" thing, truthful or not you get rid of all these problems.

I know it's impossible to do that, but it's interesting to consider that the problem isn't bad communication, but this drive to communicate everything all the time skewing the incentives and public perception.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most research is flawed or useless, but published anyway because it's expedient for the authors to do so. For the record I now know a professor at one of the premier institutions in the world, who is a total fraud. Their research was fraudulent in grad school. Their lab mates tried to raise concerns and nothing happened. That person graduated, with everyone on the committee knowing the issues. Then they got a premi…

> I just throw out papers that don’t publish datasets and code There was an interesting research paper that claimed you could up your IQ with a computer game called dual n back and a lot of paper tried to replicate it, but my mind was blown when I realized none of them used the same code. None of them actually shared the code they used for their research and then they all claimed they were testing the same thing when…

Exactly, it'd be like omitting the "methodology" section of the paper. There's no way to verify or prove wrong a paper if you don't know how they reached their conclusions.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#223
post #54
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The issue that plagues us is a lack of trust in long-standing societal authorities. What caused that trust to be lost? Is it something they did?

Absolutely. At least here in the United States there’s a full on collapse of trust in institutions and supposed expertise and for extremely good reasons. Over and over again those with authority have squandered it. An opioid epidemic devastated so many communities after doctors, health care executives, and McKinsey and Company said the new class of drugs were non-addicting. Our manufacturing sector evaporated after e…

There has also been a huge emphasis on institutional misdeeds, driven by the outrage economy.

Nobody takes note of the hundreds of life improving drugs developed in the same time period as opioid epidemic. Nobody takes note when cops arrest the right guy and saved the day. Nobody takes note when a country doesn't militarily threaten or invade the US.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#224
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s that the average person cannot make decisions about complex subjects . This is not a new development: the boundaries of scientific knowledge - across all fields - have required a large amount of specialization for a while now. The barrier to entry is a PhD, and even then you’re only an expert in a small part of your field. If you suddenly decide to jump in without context and make judgements about topics you…

I don't know, I think we trust people to make decisions about complex subjects all the time when it comes to their personal lives. I think the problem is this, in a reasonable society we would say: here are the relevant facts, here's the supporting data, make up your own mind. In reality what our society now does is says "_you must accept conclusion X, and if you don't you're an idiot_" with absolutely no real justif…

> In reality what our society now does is says "_you must accept conclusion X, and if you don't you're an idiot_" with absolutely no real justification.

I don’t agree with the “no real justification” part. But even if we set that aside, context matters! We are almost 2 years into a global pandemic with multiple vaccines widely deployed and extremely well-tested, yet a significant minority is still denying the vaccine’s efficacy.

To be quite frank, after witnessing how the world has reacted to this pandemic, I am now much less surprised by the ignorance depicted in zombie movies and shows :)

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#225
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people accept that science in past generations was, to a certain degree, corrupted by the prevailing prejudices and societal/cultural/political/ideological beliefs of the time. But, if we acknowledge that was true then – why shouldn't we expect the same to be true now? The prevailing prejudices and ideologies may have changed, but has anything changed about the actual practice of science to make it more immune t…

I think the vast rate at which things are improving every decade is really dramatic. Compare now to ten years ago, before me too. Things are hugely different. I fully expect that if you give it a long time, things will be markedly better. In a hundred years for example.

That won't just happen. We have to make it happen.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#226
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of this was told to me in confidence (via their lab-mates, etc) I’m not going to betray their trust.

Your first comment was effectively "Everyone knows this person is a fraud and no one is willing to stand up and put a stop to it". Your second comment was effectively "Well I don't know they are a fraud and I'm not going to be the one who upsets people by trying to put a stop to it". I don't say this as a criticism of you. I say this a defense of the people you are criticizing. Stopping people like this takes a lot o…

The people in charge were given evidence, face much less risk, and it's their job to put a stop to it. They deserve the criticism.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let people draw their own conclusions and don’t censor or otherwise penalize them for questioning one interpretation of data vs another. Encourage people to do their own research and investigate who is funding the sources used for that research. There is no need for conspiracy theories when financial incentives exist.

But people should be helped to draw their own conclusions with annotations where every time some crazy idea is repeated it is automatically flagged with "This idea has repeatedly been debunked by 37 national societies of medicine and 19 meta analyses of 2,000 peer-reviewed studies with a quality deemed high or superb," etc.

Here’s one better: show people how to reproduce the same results given the same set of controls. Reproducibility should be the standard, not committees of debunkers.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wasn't social media that eroded the trust in research and science, it was the introduction of politics. It's not like the medical system was a highly trusted and respected institution that politicians somehow undermined in the last few months. The lost of trust in the medical system has been literally over 150 years in the making. If you read some books on the history of the rise of homeopathy in the United State…

I'm curious - what is the story of homeopathy in the United States? I know it is oddly popular in Germany.

https://www.amazon.com/History-American-Homeopathy-Academic-...

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#229
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s that the average person cannot make decisions about complex subjects . This is not a new development: the boundaries of scientific knowledge - across all fields - have required a large amount of specialization for a while now. The barrier to entry is a PhD, and even then you’re only an expert in a small part of your field. If you suddenly decide to jump in without context and make judgements about topics you…

Medical experts have had a worse-off time than, say, physicists or chemists though? And strains of economics experts are understandably not trusted depending on one's income class, but putting economics on par with physics, chemistry and biology is complicated in itself. The most troublesome parts of expert mistrust was one scientific group going after anothe, as with scientists of one specialty turning into epidemio…

Yep, that’s a whole other can of worms! As if having a PhD in field X makes one an expert in all other fields..

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#230

I remember when the government and scientific consensus informed me that margarine was good for me. For decades. Who knows what damage that has done to my internals.

The best diet is the one eaten for 1000s of years by your ancestors

Because they all lived long healthy lives I'm sure /s
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