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Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

royalsociety.org

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Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#521

Post by VieEnCode »

lettergram wrote: post #113
AussieWog93 wrote: post #87

Just throwing my 2c into the well, as someone who used to be highly "pro-science" but lost confidence in much of academia and the validity of scientific research in general after starting a PhD and seeing how the sausage is made. The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselv…

> 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…

Bret and Eric Weinstein are ... to put it politely, utter narcissistic charlatans themselves.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#522

Post by autoexec »

mmsimanga wrote: post #497
mlindner wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have corporations buying off scientists (if not to rig experiments/falsify results, then to bury unfavorable findings), journals willing to publish any garbage with little (if any) meaningful review, then media companies willing to turn that junk science into a click-bait friendly press release for a company or industry. What reason does a corporation have to pay for science that they know will not work? That's…

With current Covid pandemic. I could be wrong but it seems most studies are looking at effectiveness of vaccines and little to nothing on effectiveness of natural immunity. I say this as someone who was one of the first to get vaccinated. Not that I am saying the pharmaceutical companies sponsored the studies. So to answer your question sometimes it is what is not funded that is probably more telling.

There are studies on "natural immunity" and even how it compares with the vaccines. (here's an example: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...)

A lot of the antivax folks cling to the idea of natural immunity being better somehow, but who in their right mind would choose immunity from getting infected with a virus that can make you very very sick (or dead) and cause you to infect many others around you if they could otherwise get immunity from a free vaccine with none of those problems?

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#523

Post by c-cube »

colechristensen wrote: post #118
c-cube wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok then, why is it bad to prioritize healthcare workers, who put their lives on the line in the face of a new unknown disease? That was only for a very short while. I think the behavior of people rushing to buy toilet paper shows that, indeed, had the CDC promoted masks at that point, it would have prevented nurses and doctors from getting the most basic protection while exposing themselves to infection to an incompa…

It's not bad to prioritize healthcare workers, there are plenty of levers the CDC and governments have to do so. It is bad to prioritize healthcare workers by sculpting messages i.e. manipulating the population. A message for Feb 2020: "Masks will likely help curb infection for you and transmission for others, masks are most important for healthcare workers and the medically vulnerable, wearing them when you're aroun…

I agree on principle. But in practice it'd have led to a massive shortage and more dead nurses / doctors. Panic buying is a terrible thing.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#524

Post by Nitrolo »

WalterBright wrote: post #75

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.

I'm out of the loop here apparently, is margarine bad now? What's consequences does long term use have?

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#525

Post by anitil »

function_seven wrote: post #465
anitil wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oil drop experiment was a nice example of this same phenomenon - a slow correction over time - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment I remember seeing a plot of the values over time, but my google-fu is failing me.

I found this article that has a whisker plot. https://alexholcombe.medium.com/confirmation-bias-in-science... It that the one you remember?

Thanks! It must be that one

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#526

Post by csee »

jasone wrote: post #325
AussieWog93 wrote: post #87

Just throwing my 2c into the well, as someone who used to be highly "pro-science" but lost confidence in much of academia and the validity of scientific research in general after starting a PhD and seeing how the sausage is made. The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselv…

Perhaps you are imagining less imperfect, less egotistical, less insecure scientists in a past Golden Age of Science. I for one have stopped believing such an era ever existed, or will ever exist. But I continue to believe that the scientific process will continue to serve humanity well despite the terrible flaws of us humans attempting to apply it. Yes, I believe in the scientific process , that it will self-correct…

Why don't you think a golden age existed?

The landscape is different today, which attracts a different sort of character. Back when scientific pursuit was a passion, you mostly had the creative and innately curious types who were drawn to the field all working on the same problems.

Now you have a large swathe of careerists with a handful of curious types, which invariably means the curious types get drowned out in the discourse and ultimately chased away from scientific pursuit.

The incentives are different as well. Peer review and showcasing ideas/work for grant money are new things. All of your work has to go through a committee of your non-curious careerist B-tier colleagues. If they don't like what you're doing, you won't get published and you won't get a grant.

It's now become a Job with the objective of getting all your work approved by committees. So it's different today.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#527

Post by csee »

fragmede wrote: post #327
hammock wrote: 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?

Eg, a doctor at a jail tested Covid treatments on inmates to see if it helped. That's a ground-shaking loss of trust! Where that's one crazy doctor and an isolated case, it's hard for the disenfranchised not to generalize to the rest of the medical establishment. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arkansas-inmates-ivermectin-fed...

It's the noble lies more than any direct action that erodes trust the most.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#528

Post by sbdmmg »

lstodd wrote: post #298
ransom1538 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"To me, refusing to share the source code to a program that could be used to replicate your research seems like a big middle finger to science itself." It is done on purpose.

> It is done on purpose. The sad thing is that it isn't. It's just how the things are done. src: friends in HEP

It's just hard to do. But there are efforts in this direction e.g. https://analysispreservation.cern.ch/

src: I used to be in HEP

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#529

Post by [deleted] »

zjpiazza wrote: post #444
AussieWog93 wrote: post #87

Just throwing my 2c into the well, as someone who used to be highly "pro-science" but lost confidence in much of academia and the validity of scientific research in general after starting a PhD and seeing how the sausage is made. The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselv…

Wow man...totally nailed it on the head. And anytime you bring up questions around experimental design or anything, 99 percent of people are already yawning and not interested in anything you're saying at that point. Everything happening right now regarding the vaccines and COVID is alienating so many people and guaranteeing they will never listen to the government or any other "trusted" institution ever again.

[deleted]

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#530

Post by jxramos »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #9

The issue that plagues us is a lack of trust in long-standing societal authorities. We can't follow the entire scientific proof chain for every piece of information we encounter, because we don't have time. So we rely on authority to some extent, whether that be peer review, government, independent bodies, etc. We need to be able to trust that these bodies are telling us the truth and aren't seeking to mislead us. Be…

even if someone doesn't walk us through the entire chain of proof I'd settle for clearly delineated junctions and paper trails--basically full transparency with the ability to augment and shim any gaps people identify along the way. Nothing is implemented by default though but it would be great to have this public body of work where someone can spot check on the fly to see if things line up. It's a lot to ask for with no incentive to push such a thing through but maybe I'm not seeing a potential profit motive behind such a project.
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