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Fraud, so much fraud

science.org

661–670 of 868 posts

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#661
post #645
post #640

What I don't get is that people claim that the incentives are skewed because highly cited paper get you the top jobs. However, assume that a significant subset of the citation are citing because they require the fraudulent result, then this will increase the chance that it would be eventually exposed... and quickly. That is assume that person publishes results that: "factor X seems to lead to outcome Y". Many other s…

And yet, it's common. And it can pay off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Gino That guy has a channel on fraud. Also check out Data Colada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Colada This isn't theoretical, there's a lot of it going on.

I am more interested in how it occurs in the hard sciences.

How can a scientific result accumulate a huge amount of citations without its effect not being replicated in many different contexts.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My employer of 750k people made it very clear, upload proof of vaccination or be fired. That’s a fact.

That was GP's point. Being fired != being prevented from working. You are still free to get a job at a different employer that has different policies.

My point as a Brit was it seemed a bit heavy handed in the US. In the UK we didn't really have that and still got most people vaccinated.

It would have made more sense if the vaccines actually stopped catching it and transmission but they don't really, they mostly just seem to reduce the harm when you catch it. In terms of not spreading it to others you are better isolating than relying on the vaccines - I've had that as a practical issue with my late 80s mum who I visit. Although I've had 4 jabs I've still had it caught it twice since, and have avoided giving it to her by testing if I feel ill and staying away. Which is kind of to say some of the politicians views on it were heavy handed and a bit iffy scientifically.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Every few years you can vote left or right, If you're talking about the US, you can vote center-right (Democratic) or far right (Republican). There is no viable left wing party in the US.

From whose perspective and what are we considering right and left? The Democratic party is left of center on social issues, even compared to Europe.

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Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The writers of these episodes were really on another level considering it was a cartoon. Lisa's first word is still a personal favourite of mine, especially now as a father.

What's her first word?

More incentive to watch the 20min episode if you ever get the opportunity haha

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#665

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Well it’s a model just like a Mindstorms NXT (This guy https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.img.pri/8547... ) is a model of human bipedal walking. It’s very simplified and basic but that basic idea is there. A model doesn’t have to be useful to study the thing you’re modeling, you can also just be interested in the output because it’s simpler than using the original thing. Modeling a human brain with a neu…

It's model of a humanoid robot. It's not a model of a human.

A model of a model of X is also a model of X. It absolutely is a very simple model of human walking. You’re just using „model“ in a very narrow sense that excludes many things that are commonly called models.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#666
post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good one. In my experience, corruption is almost always disguised as neglect and incompetence. Corrupt people meticulously cover their tracks by coming up with excuses to show neglect; some of them only accept bribes that they can explain away as neglect where they have plausible deniability. It doesn't take much brainpower to do well, just malicious intent and knowing the upper limits. IMO, Hanlon's razor "…

> On the topic, I subscribe to Grey's law "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice" so I see idiots as malicious. In the very best case, idiots in positions of power are malicious for accepting the position and thus preventing someone more competent from getting it. It really doesn't matter what their intent is. Deep down, stupid people know that they're stupid but they let their emoti…

While that may be a kind view, practically it is rarely a useful one. At least for the person holding it.

Especially when power, violence, money, or sex are involved.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#667
post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far more educated. But certainly not smarter. And it's not at all clear if that education does anything other than magnify their intellectual predispositions. The smart people can make great strides, but the stupid will be stupid louder and harder. And the average may well just be... more average.

IQ levels has risen on average because of nutrients, not using lead and education. An increase in blood lead from 10 to 20 micrograms/dl was associated with a decrease of 2.6 IQ

IQ score rises (Flynn effect) are most likely spurious and do not reflect any increase in actual on-the-spot problem-solving ability.

IQ scores were never intended to be used to compare across cohorts. To do so is invalid.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#668
And in the behavioral and social “sciences,” the fraud is just off the charts. If psychologists wanted to prove that healing crystals worked — if that was the cause du jour — there’d be journals filled to the brim with “research” “proving” their efficacy.

I spent almost 10 years of my life as a founder of a mental health technology startup and the day we got acquired was a huge relief — I could finally get out of that industry — an industry that is much more about academic politics than actually solving anything. Seeing the maneuverings behind the scenes of the DSM-V, diagnostic codes, etc., was profound enough to destroy any idealism I might have felt towards that industry. (And yes, it’s an industry.)

Luckily in fields such as climate science or virology, there is never fraud. Good thing too since a lot of our governmental policies result from those fields. (And yes, that is sarcasm.)

“Science” feels very much like the Catholic Church — many people with good intentions, but there have been enough people participating in bad things that it poisons the entire institution and degrades whatever little faith people might have had remaining.

Follow the science indeed.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my favorite Simpsons gag is the episode where Lisa enlists a scientist (voiced by Stephen Jay Gould) to run tests to debunk some angel bones that were found at a construction site. In the middle of the episode, the scientist bicycles up to report, dramatically, that the tests "were inconclusive". In the end, it's revealed that the bones were a fraud concocted by some mall developers to promote their new mall.…

Reminds me of this quote: > "The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best -and therefore never scrutinize or question." -Stephen Jay Gould

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. “

– Mark Twain

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