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How Much Science Is Fake?

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Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#61

Post by mewpmewp2 »

cynicalpeace wrote: post #54
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First answer in Google says that cooked carrots and baked potatoes are processed. But I'm supposed to take your definition over what is available elsewhere? In addition frozen broccoli is processed. This is coming from Harvard Health Publishing and UCLA Health. Are they all insane?

Would you move on if I replace "not processed" with "minimally processed" and "processed" with "ultra processed"? You're not some harbinger of truth if we do that. In fact, it's pretty evil (idc if you're Harvard, UCLA, or a commenter on HN) to argue over whether or not you can distinguish between a cooked carrot or an Oreo. Which brings me back to my original point. That educated spaces need a study or even just a l…

> Would you move on if I replace "not processed" with "minimally processed" and "processed" with "ultra processed"?

I think it would still be better to not mention "processing", because it's not about the "processing", it's about what is there in the end foods that can cause issues. So I would say that excessive consumption of foods loaded with unhealthy fats, sugars and artificial preservatives, flavor enhancers are bad for you". It's bad to eat too many fats, sugars, calories in general and not enough fruits, vegetables which contain ingredients that your body needs to properly function. If you want to use a circular word you can also just use "unhealthy foods", not "processed foods".

> In fact, it's pretty evil (idc if you're Harvard, UCLA, or a commenter on HN) to argue over whether or not you can distinguish between a cooked carrot or an Oreo.

I'm not arguing about that. I'm arguing about what is healthy and what is not. Processing food inherently doesn't make it unhealthy.

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#62

Post by Dalewyn »

zehaeva wrote: post #60
Dalewyn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>so what level of 'evidence' is sufficient for you? Enough evidence such that no evidence to the contrary can stand. We agree that liquid water is wet because we can't find anything (yet) that says liquid water is not wet, it's simple as that and science is ultimately as simple as that. >Have you ever flown? Yup, I'm a frequent flyer actually and fly more or less every month or two for business (and pleasure once the…

>We agree that liquid water is wet because we can't find anything (yet) that says liquid water is not wet, it's simple as that and science is ultimately as simple as that. I find this a weird example of something that has "Enough evidence such that no evidence to the contrary can stand." "Water is wet" is a definition, not a scientific finding/description. "Water tends to adhere to, and penetrate, materials." That's…

The specific example isn't important.

The point is that our agreement is merely the result of there being no other conclusion as far as we are aware, and to expand our awareness we must be skeptical of our conclusions in perpetuity.

This is why trusting science is insane, because if you trust something you stop questioning it and if you stop questioning then you never know if it's true or false.

>Science, by Popper's definition, is something that can be falsified but has not yet been so. If no evidence could contradict our current findings then, by definition, our current findings are not falsifiable.

I'm going to ignore that you just defined "current findings" as not science, since I presume that wasn't what you intended.

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#63

Post by adolph »

efitz wrote: post #24
davisoneee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think describing it as 'fake' is rather antagonistic. You could just as easily say 'poor quality' or 'unjustified'. I would say that more accurately describes the situation. It could be... - unjustified and sloppy (not 'fake', but also not considered reliable evidence) - unjustified and malicious (this i would consider 'fake') - unjustified and gamed (again, 'fake') - ...or just unjustified and under-specified (and…

The problem is, that as soon as a paper is published in a peer reviewed journal, it can be used to justify public policy positions. Then a large number of people will points to the study, or even worse, to press characterizations of what a person thinks the study says, to support their preference on the public policy position. Immediately, anyone who has an alternate position on the public policy will be accused of b…

> The problem is, that as soon as a paper is published in a peer reviewed journal, it can be used to justify public policy positions.

That’s not a science problem. That’s a political problem. Making choices based on a single paper that may not be replicated is the problem.

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#64

Post by mewpmewp2 »

User23 wrote: post #59
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why the term is confusing, because there's a magical meaning behind that, which who knows what it exactly means. And you use this term to raise children - I absolutely was confused as a child about the meaning behind it. It felt like this magical term that I was unable to comprehend. Almost like circular reasoning - if something is processed it's bad for you. What does processed mean? That it's made bad fo…

It’s certainly got an element of know it when you see it. Nonetheless it’s pretty easy to figure out. One good piece of evidence to consider is whether or not process chemistry is involved in its making.

Is it - even as a child? When usually your education for the food you consume begins. I explicitly remember being confused about it.

I probably had quite a few inaccurate beliefs in general because of this type of terminology.

Another common thing that made me have inaccurate beliefs was the "E" labelling in Europe. And I remember being told that "oh look at how many 'E' (evil?)" substances are on this package.

But also Curcumin, Vitamin C, etc are considered E substances.

So just so many inaccurate ideas all around. And I don't think this inaccurate labelling has helped much if people are unhealthy.

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#65

Post by cameldrv »

mbreese wrote: post #6

I don’t think the issue is how much of “science” is fake. It’s how you define “science”. There have always been lower quality work and journals that are inherently given lower weight in the scientific community. Many of these lower quality papers just aren’t considered by working scientists. It’s a bit like email… once you start seeing a significant amount of spam, you just get used to ignoring it. This is a feature…

It's not just lower quality journals. Marc Tessier-Lavigne was removed as the President of Stanford for having faked data in 12 of his papers, some of which were published in Science. He's still a professor though and still publishing. There are a whole bunch of Alzheimers studies that have been shown to have been fabricated, and led to extremely expensive trials on Alzheimers drugs that didn't work.

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#66

Post by mewpmewp2 »

lapcat wrote: post #55

1) The paper defines "fake" in this first sentence: > ‘Fake’ science is either intentionally fabricated-where quantitative elements are invented-or intentionally falsified-where results are dishonestly engineered from real data. 2) The title "How much science is fake?" is clickbaity. The actual assertion of the paper: > a preliminary approximation is that 1 in 7 published papers have serious errors commensurate with…

Ironically if this paper intentionally uses an incorrect and misleading term "fake", to label and then claim that 1 in 7 are fake, would it make the paper itself "fake" according to their standards?

Because they find 1 in 7 with serious errors, but their definition of "fake" requires it to be intentional. Where's the evidence it's intentional for all of these 1 in 7?

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#67

Post by mewpmewp2 »

zellyn wrote: post #7
ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote: post #2

> In this preprint, I try to quantify how much science presently being published is fake (that is, fabricated or falsified). The working estimate is approximately 1 in 7. This should make a lot of people very angry and will be widely regarded as a bad move. Sounds incredibly legit, really motivates me to read the article https://osf.io/s4gce

As another comment pointed out, it's a Douglas Adams quote. Also, are we not hackers? If we can't sprinkle jokes into discussions of serious things without thinking that makes the whole discussion unserious, what have we become? Might as well go join HR or become a politician or something…

It's a quote that initially was in a hilarious context, but here it's seemingly out of place, and not really funny, almost feels forced in there randomly so it comes off pretentious.

Maybe if it was something like "Once upon a time humankind discovered the scientific method, the most accurate tool that they had so far. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. To help with that here we have spotted some inaccurate articles to appease the angry."

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#68

Post by efitz »

davisoneee wrote: post #30
efitz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, that as soon as a paper is published in a peer reviewed journal, it can be used to justify public policy positions. Then a large number of people will points to the study, or even worse, to press characterizations of what a person thinks the study says, to support their preference on the public policy position. Immediately, anyone who has an alternate position on the public policy will be accused of b…

You say you do a cost:benefit...but where do those costs come from? To me, that's just voluntarily doing your own ignorant, sloppy science I was mentioning above. If you only consider the blatantly obvious costs and benefits, you are completely ignorant of any 2nd or 3rd order...or even your own blind spots. You may radically under or overstate, or even calculate in the wrong direction. I think a better position is t…

I don’t analyze the papers, I analyze the policies.

Take the climate. Assuming the science is correct (storms worse, oceans rising, etc), let’s do a cost benefit analysis of the proposed policies.

The proposed policies in the US all dramatically increase the cost of energy (and therefore of everything), but only slightly slow the progression of warming, AND the bigger contributing countries in the developing world, esp China and India, will continue or increase their CO2 output.

We already know how to build dikes, and people who buy oceanfront property already know the risks, and over the last century we as a species have gotten really good as reducing deaths due to weather, so I don’t support the draconian carbon reduction proposals, and instead we can just deal with the side effects as they arise.

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#69

Post by cynicalpeace »

davisoneee wrote: post #37
cynicalpeace wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the current threshold, where you just need a single paper in a semi-prestigious journal to become "the science". This was my point.

From my perspective, I don't think I ever see "the science" being decided based on a single crap paper, so it seems a bit of a skeptical straw man. Perhaps that's different in your country, state, city, county, continent, island. Perhaps that's true for a particular policy _area_ that you are invested in. In general, I find arguments on scarequotes "science" often overblown and just reinforcing existing biases. How m…

The COVID era has given us many rich examples of lies dressed up in a single paper.

https://www.science.org/content/article/many-scientists-citi...

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#70

Post by cynicalpeace »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #61
cynicalpeace wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you move on if I replace "not processed" with "minimally processed" and "processed" with "ultra processed"? You're not some harbinger of truth if we do that. In fact, it's pretty evil (idc if you're Harvard, UCLA, or a commenter on HN) to argue over whether or not you can distinguish between a cooked carrot or an Oreo. Which brings me back to my original point. That educated spaces need a study or even just a l…

> Would you move on if I replace "not processed" with "minimally processed" and "processed" with "ultra processed"? I think it would still be better to not mention "processing", because it's not about the "processing", it's about what is there in the end foods that can cause issues. So I would say that excessive consumption of foods loaded with unhealthy fats, sugars and artificial preservatives, flavor enhancers are…

"not enough fruits, vegetables which contain ingredients that your body needs to properly function."

Is orange juice a fruit? There, take some of your own medicine lol.

In all seriousness, if you're not convinced ultra processed foods are bad for you as a rule, there's nothing I can do except throw a bunch of studies at you, which I've already argued is insane for such a basic and common sense concept

I know you probably will take great issue with "common sense", but most people I know, don't. That's why it's common lol

And presumably you've already seen lots of these studies so I don't even know why we're arguing something that makes sense and is also backed up by many studies (though a large proportion of these studies are likely to be garbage)

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