The business of science [Archive] - SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

Skybird

09-20-22, 06:03 AM

Be precise, Rockstar - that video - which argues well, btw - is aboiut ABUSE of science, and fake science, corrupoted science.

The reasons behind this are manyfold, mostly are about getting or not putting at risk funds for universities, profit interests by the food and pharmaceutical industry, academical egos craving for fame, and careers demanded to publicate material at any cost.

This is a big problem indeed, in all academic branches, and I have complained about it on several occasions. A famous paper by now has become the text from the March 2022 edition from the BMJ that I posted three times now before, "The illusion of evidence-based medicine". It explains the problem very well.

Science itself, if run responsibly and rationally, NEVER announces last penultimate truths. It cannot do that, because it is an ever ongoing process, what it does is to ever check what one assumes to know, check and recheck it for validity, and see if one can improve the underlying models and assumptions to form better models for prediction. That way it should enable us to form decisions forming consequences in our future on ever better-founded basis of arguments and "evidence". But the evidence can change over time, even without the intention of fraud and cheating, like an ongoing criminal examination part for part reveals the truth about a crime - the examiners do not know it all in advance, but reveal it step by step. The difference is in science there is no crime that sets an ending point to reasearch: when the crime is explained and evidence proves who is guilty of what crime. Science does not explain by an ultimat truth the universe and how it works, but it explains it's "How" temporarily by theories that, if put together well, represent the best information that so far we could have gotten. The process is neverending, has no ultimate final theory, or world formula that explains "it all". They claim to chase that in physics, I doubt they will succeed with that ambition. Scientific theories always are temporary, and if the theory lasts long due to lacking counter-evidence, and has strong influence on how other research is being run, it condensates into a "metatheory" called a paradigm. That just happens, it cannot be helped, but maybe we would be better off without such paradigms, but I doubt our way of thinking can escape this side-symptom. We better focus on being aware of that this happens, and so preserve the intellectual capacity to recheck and alter even paradigms from time to time.

Why the pharmaceutical industry has interests in faking evidence and influencing medical and scientific curriculae at universities, I was about many times before, and I think its self-explanatory. But when doing that, they do not science there - they ABUSE science. Thex cheat. Like a knife can be used to cut vegetables or to help a surgeon during a medical procedure, it can aso be used to stab somebody in the back or slit his throat while he sleeps. Thus it makes no sense to call a knife an evil instrument of murder and warn everybody of using knives. For many constructive purposes it is the best tool we could imagine. Its the inetion that counts. Its the same with science. Not scientific methodology is the problem, because by test and retest it is under ideal conditions kind of self-correcting, but the intentions behind implementing science and for what purposes - these can be problematic. A tool like a knife doe snot belong into the ahnds of a murde,r and science doe snot belong into the hands of fraudsters and cheaters.

So, dont be so quick to start kissing the arse of pseudo-scientific agendas, fake science and corrupted science hijacked by corporations for profit interests and attention craving academic egos.