Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:32 PM UTC

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #605

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…

When you say you are no longer highly 'pro science' would you say that you would rather people take advice from scientists or from people who have a background of "Ultimate Fighting Championship color commentator, comedian, actor, and former television presenter". Because that's the level we're at at the moment. The current climate we're in means that consensus science from 50+ years of research and medical practice…

Post by nradov » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

kuhewa wrote: post #614

nradov wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the comment by ummonk above is off topic because there is no credible claim of scientific fraud. Lots of people are blowhards with odd opinions. So what?

> Lots of people are blowhards with odd opinions. And the ones that are masquerading as having Nobel worthy research chops to get the audience to believe their gripes about the scientific establishment is on topic enough.

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:42 PM UTC

svnt wrote: post #469

Retric wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose someone decided to build another LHC, but to save money they would use exactly the same design, constriction crew, and code used to build the first one. Would you consider that a perfectly reasonable choice or would it seem risky? That said I am all for peer reviewing code, but that’s not where this ends up. People are going to reuse code they don’t bother to dig into because people are people. The obvious ne…

I’m going to be upfront and say I don’t understand your position You seem to be making a number of questionable assumptions: 1) That people would blindly reuse code to the harm of science, including on a multi-billion dollar project like an LHC. That’s not likely to ever happen. 2) That rejecting those who plagiarize others’ code in a peer-review process is somehow excessive or problematic. I can’t begin to understan…

Post by ensan » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:49 PM UTC

moonchrome wrote: post #650

ensan wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, there are frauds in any industry/profession. But in my experience (math, science, & engineering), it is actually far less prevalent than in other places. Forget the overzealous #sciencetwitter people. I have found that academia is one of the rare places where people the absolute top of their field who are often actually modest & aware of their ignorance about most things.

>I have found that academia is one of the rare places where people the absolute top of their field who are often actually modest & aware of their ignorance about most things. This view doesn't really align with designing public policy - while those people exist - they aren't the problem (or are insofar they aren't voicing their positions loud enough). Coming from a place of modesty and acknowledging limitations is no…

Post by maximus-decimus » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:56 PM UTC

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #578

maximus-decimus wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just throw out papers that don’t publish datasets and code There was an interesting research paper that claimed you could up your IQ with a computer game called dual n back and a lot of paper tried to replicate it, but my mind was blown when I realized none of them used the same code. None of them actually shared the code they used for their research and then they all claimed they were testing the same thing when…

Re running the authors code with their data will likely just repeat any methodological issues they had (either accidentally or fraudulently). In medical studies, one level is to reevaluate the data from the same set of patients to see if any bias or errors wasn't included, perhaps with a different or newer statistical idealogy. The best is for the study to be repeated with a fresh set of patient data to see if the un…