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Fraud, so much fraud

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Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#521

Post by throwawaymaths »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #431
throwawaymaths wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately many less bright people seem to interpret this as "never trust science" Unfortunately many "smart" people insist on telling "dumb" people how to think instead of having the introspection and humility to examine where we've gone wrong and spending a lot of time and effort on fixing it. No, easier to gaslight the idiots

A lot of people are working to fix the K-12+ educational system which is the root cause of many stupid people, but beyond that, it's objectively hard to fix stupid. Most people, stupid or otherwise, wouldn't take a critical thinking course, for example. Many would have no time for it, to say little of motivation. Fewer are proud of being stupid and will shun anything they consider "intellectual".

This is a bad take. Because even the craziest of crazies (the flat earthers) are actually doing the scientific method by running experiments to test their crazy conjectures. What makes them crazy is that they have a poor sense of discernment about when it's worth it to trust authorities and when it's not; they're not dumb, and education is not really failing them (in the sense that they "aren't being taught what science is"). They are arguably better scientists than "trust the science" folks because at least they are getting out there and moving atoms to test shit.

On the other hand intellectuals have poor discernment too, they overly trust the literature and the interpretation of working scientists. These two phenomena are two sides of the same coin, and the flat earthers/antivaxx etc crazies are directly downstream of the "trust the science" bad behaviour, especially since the education system has taught them what good science is and they are rightly perceiving that good science is not being done.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#522

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

atmavatar wrote: post #387
dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As they say: the scum rises to the top, true for academia, politics etc, any organization really. Quote: "The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing" My own nuanced take on it: Incompetent people are quick to grab authority and power. On the other hand principled, competent people are reluctant to take on positions of authority and power even when offered. For these people positions…

Those you'd want to lead recognize leadership is a responsibility often times marked by personal sacrifice. Those you'd never want to lead mostly regard leadership as a privilege used for personal gain.

> Those you'd want to lead recognize leadership is a responsibility often times marked by personal sacrifice.

True. It's not a coincidence that they say: it's very lonely* up there.

There are some ways around this, but they are not easy, and perhaps even impossible.

(*=ironically and paradoxically,the cruelest dictator is also a very lonely person)

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#523

Post by lazyeye »

testfoobar wrote: post #106
dekhn wrote: post #62

These 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…

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…

How much do these same incentives apply to climate science, where huge amounts of money are now in play?

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#524

Post by AlbertCory »

NemoNobody wrote: post #259
AlbertCory wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some people who think everything is "a societal/political issue." But that one-dimensional view is boring. Life is more than politics.

Life may be more than politics but all of life is inherently political.

No it isn't. Myopia on your part (and destructive myopia, too).

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#525

Post by AlbertCory »

consteval wrote: post #228
AlbertCory wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

... and if ALL you can see is social effects, then you're reducing the rich complexity of human nature to a gray goo.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#526

Post by jiggawatts »

worik wrote: post #470
djfobbz wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also science: There are more new cases of cancer in the United States now than there have ever been before.

> There are more new cases of cancer in the United States now than there have ever been before. Sigh That is because antibiotics, essentially The mechanism by which antibiotics cause cancer is they stop you dying from bacterial infection, once a huge (biggest?) killer. You still have to die of something....

There’s also improved testing: previously old people would die of “unknown natural causes”, now they’re diagnosed as having cancer.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#527

Post by wredue »

stickfigure wrote: post #515
binoct wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neural networks are not a model of the working of the human brain. They are based on an extremely simplified approximation of how neurons connect and function (which while conceptually similar is a terrible predictive model for biological neurons) and are connected together in ways that have absolutely zero resemblance to how complex nervous systems look in real animals. The burden of proof here is absolutely on show…

Neural networks are much closer to modeling a brain than other approaches to AI, ie symbolic reasoning. There will always be differences (it's machine, not meat), but it's fair to say the approach is at least "brain like". Your position sounds like a No True Scotsman fallacy.

AI fanatics claiming to know SHIT THE TOP TIER NEURAL SCIENCE HAS NO FIRM IDEA OF.

We know there are neurons and that electric signals hit between them. That’s it. Literally everything else about your claim is bogus nonsense.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#528

Post by infamouscow »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #248
infamouscow wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would be out of jobs. You're being downvoted because you're correct—HN is an eco chamber for zealous regurgitation of opinions of the academy and media—institutions that have decayed. It's been happening slowly for awhile, but now things are starting to come apart at the seams.

It is really annoying because a common response is "We know academia is bad. But this is the best we have and it is hard to improve" when that is false on two counts. 1. If you had said the same thing before 2016 or covid, people would not agree that academia is rife with fraud or worthy of skepticism. 2. The same people saying the system dismiss how can it be improved are the same ones that would suffer from disrupt…

When I hear someone say, 'We know academia is flawed, but it's the best we have, and it's hard to improve,' I can't help but feel a deep, seething frustration.

It's profoundly insulting and grotesque—on par with excusing the inexcusable.

Accepting this degree of mediocrity is as repulsive as tolerating the most heinous acts imaginable. I've confronted people directly with this, to their face, because to me, it's inconceivable how anyone can be okay with such a vile acceptance of the status quo.

If society was even slightly capable of rational action . . . (legally, I cannot complete this sentence).

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#529

Post by jvanderbot »

momoschili wrote: post #397
jvanderbot wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's to say that other highly celebrated and highly referenced texts from that time were not based on bad science or were outright frauds? Your memory of them? Picking the winners as examples is not good sampling.

The originator explicitly said that 'any engineering book' would contain these references, thus it would seem that this was at least a widespread belief among physicists and engineers at the time. Do you have any example? Again, you and the original poster seem to have this understanding that scientists and engineers from the mid 1800s to early 1900s are not to be trusted. I think that this assertion should be backed…

We've gotten into the territory of just repeating ourselves, so I don't want to do that.

I will say that

> Again, you and the original poster seem to have this understanding that scientists and engineers from the mid 1800s to early 1900s are not to be trusted.

Is not correct as far as I believe. Instead, we're saying that there's no reason to believe any study until it has stood the test of time. The longer it remains impactful the better.

I am building from this statement:

> 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 spent a good amount of time reading their methodology yourself.

Saying that textbooks from Maxwell's era had misunderstandings and bad information is not saying they are inept, it's saying that that is how it works, it always has and always will be that way. That's it, really. The fact that good science came from it is to be expected, and the fact that bad science existed is also not to be suprising.

I think you interpreted the statement about the 1900s textbooks being wrong as a slander against the entire era, which is not how I read it, and certainly not what I meant to imply by any of my comments.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#530

Post by AlbertCory »

hello_computer wrote: post #122
AlbertCory wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, sometimes someone becomes a bad example. That doesn't make them a "scapegoat", the favored defense of people like that. A scapegoat is something that takes on all the sins of a lot of others who skate free. If Masliah is the only one who ever suffers, then he IS a scapegoat, but if this article serves to uncover a lot of other bad actors, then he's not. And if his example serves to warn a lot of other…

The language of the article is as low as it is loaded. This is just Derek Lowe covering for the fact that “ Science ” magazine and the like have let this scoundrel (and many more like him) carry on, without hindrance, for an entire career; pointing the finger anywhere and everywhere but at the journals themselves. None of this is an isolated incident. It is widespread! There is a new scapegoat every month.

> there is a new scapegoat every month.

Correction: there is a new scoundrel every month. It would be nice to expose them all instantaneously, but unfortunately that's not possible.

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