there is so much junk science these days and the problem is the incentives are wrongly set (quantity over quality)
Fraud, so much fraud
221–230 of 868 posts
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#222Intrinsic to the article is, arguably, a significant cause of fraud in this field: The article talks about fraud as if it's done by the 'other' - by someone else, other than the article's author (or their audience).
The solution starts when you say, 'we committed fraud - our field, our publication, the scientific enterprise. What are we going to do?'
Does the author really have no idea about these things? That they occur?
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#223These sorts of articles raise so many thoughts and emotions in me. I was trained as a computational biologist with a little lab work and ran gels from time to time. Personally, I hated gels- they're finicky, messy, ugly, and don't really tell you very much. But molecular biology as a field runs on gels- it's the priimary source of results for almost everything in molbio. I have seen more talks and papers that rested…
This is why institutions break down in the long run in any civilization. People like you, people of principle are drown out my agents acting exclusively in their own interest without ethics.
It happens everywhere.
The only solution to this is skin in the game. Without skin in the game the fraudsters fraud, the audience just naively goes along with it, and the institution collapses under the weight of lies.
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#224I've been saying this for years and have been punished for that. Even here. I've done Biology and CS for almost 20 years now, I've worked at four of the top ten research institutions in the world. The ratio of honest to bullshit academics is alarmingly low. Most of these people should be in jail. Not only do they commit academic fraud, many of them commit other types of crimes as well. When I was a PhD student, my 4…
I hope your daughter is ok?!
We are fine now. That was four years ago. Our embassy intervened and eventually she was released and we were able to fly back home.
I'm not 100% satisfied with how they handled the situation (they took a while to react to the issue) but in the end we were able to leave that place and I'm happy with that.
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nope. “Evil” still provides no explanation and no understanding of why and how things happen there. It’s the same thing as believing in miracles created by a god.
Callng someone "evil" isn't meant to have some explanatory power. It's merely a label saying that they are, well, evil.
The context here is from the root comment: “Are people who commit this type of science fraud just really evil humans?”. “Just really evil” implies that that there is no other explanation, and that the fraud is committed as a function of them being “really evil”.
I don’t actually know what people mean when they label someone as “evil”, other than “is doing/saying/thinking stuff I find very reprehensible”. Which doesn’t make sense when you insert it into the above statement: “Are people who commit this type of science fraud just humans who do stuff I find really reprehensible?” Well, I guess it sounds like they are.
It seems like people want to assign a character trait when they say “person X is evil”, but I don’t believe such a generic character trait exists (and what exactly it is supposed to mean if it existed). What’s worse, it obfuscates and prevents understanding the actual character traits and circumstances that lead to the respective behavior.
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
If humanity is to mature, we should be an open book when it comes to incentives and build a world purposefully with all incentives aligned to the outcomes we collectively agree upon. https://fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/ Charlie Munger's Misjudgment #1: Incentive-caused Bias https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-2yIO8cnvw https://fs.blog/bias-incentives-reinforcement/
>outcomes we collectively agree upon. lol, what are the chances? The average Joe is interested in Dem vs Rep or what the latest show on Netflix. The average researcher is worried about his livelihood, tenure etc.
We do achieve some things, though usually not by spending time pondering questions like,
> lol, what are the chances?
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#227I'm the furthest thing from a scientist unless you count 3,000 hours of PBS spacetime, but I love science and so science/academia fraud to me, feels kinda like the worst kinda fraud you can commit. Financial fraud can cause suicides and ruin in lives, sure, but I feel like academic fraud just sets the whole of humanity back? I also feel that through my life I've (maybe wrongly) placed a great deal of respect and trus…
Pick up an old engineering book at some point, something from mid 1800's or early 1900's and you'll quickly realize that the trust people put on science isn't what it should be. The scientific method works over a long period of time, but to blindly trust a peer review study that just came out, any study, is almost as much faith as religion, specially if you're not a high level researcher in the same field and have sp…
Science is eventually consistent. Scientists, individual papers, and the dogma at any given time may not be. It just takes a long time.
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this is really a societal/political issue: since we decided that economic capital is king and symbolic capital not that much… (This is really the story of the last four decades or so.)
There are some people who think everything is "a societal/political issue." But that one-dimensional view is boring. Life is more than politics.
Socio-economic issues aren't one-dimensional, in fact they're very complex. Most of our systems and beliefs are socially constructed.
Humans are, by our biology, social creatures. Modern humanity more than ever before. If you're not considering the social effects, then IMO you're not addressing anything of value.
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
This error really went viral during the pandemic and continues to this day. We're in for an Orwellian future if the public does not cultivate some skeptic impulse.
I'd say the public needs to develop some rational impulse, it already has plenty of skepitism to the point where people no longer trust science the methodology. Instead, they genuinely believe there is some alternative to finding the truth, and now simply believe the same old superstitions and bunk that people have prior to the scientific revolution. Speaking of Orwell, I don't think science comes into it. Rather, wh…
> I'd say the public needs to develop some rational impulse, it already has plenty of skepitism to the point where people no longer trust science the methodology.
Methodologies are inanimate - I may trust that a methodology is fine, but once Humans become involved I do not trust.
> Instead, they genuinely believe there is some alternative to finding the truth
There are several alternate means, the field of philosophy (that birthed science) has been working on such problems for ages, and has all sorts of utility, just sitting there waiting to be used by Humanity.
> and now simply believe the same old superstitions and bunk that people have prior to the scientific revolution.
Not possible for you to know, unless there are indeed forms of supernatural (beyond current scientific knowledge) forms of perception.
> Rather, when people stop believing in democracy, things will degenerate into authoritarianism.
Once again, not possible for you to know.
> It's generally pretty hard to use science the methodology to implement an authoritarian government
COVID demonstrated that to be incorrect.
> as the scientific method by definition will follow the evidence, not the will of a dictator.
Incorrect. Something defined to be true necessarily being true only works in metaphysics, such as linguistics.
And again, the scientific method is inanimate.
> However, something that looks like science but isn't could be used, especially if the public doesn't understand science and thus can't spot things that claim to be science but don't actually follow the scientific method.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how comprehensively and accurately do you believe you understand science?
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similar - when I was younger, I would never have suspected that a scientist was committing fraud. As I've gotten older, I understand that Charlie Munger's observation "“Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.” is applicable everywhere - including science. Academic scientists' careers are driven by publishing, citations and impact. Arguably some have figured how to game the system to advance their caree…
Lots of people doing research find this depressing to the point of quitting. Many of my peers left research as they couldn't stomach all this nonsense. In experimental fields, the current academic system rewards dishonesty so much that ugly things have become really common. In my relatively short career, I have been asked to manipulate results several times. I refused, but this took an immense toll, especially on two…
So do you believe the author of the OP could honestly omit from their article the things you (and many others here) talk about? Could they be naive?