Quote Originally Posted by cmacq View Post
Actually in practice this is how modern science is taught in the academic setting, and it is all too common that this is how modern science is applied in the real world.
1. Create a theory base on inductive reasoning about an ill-defined topic.
2. Seek governmental or private funding for the project, either directly or indirectly, which will impose their additional agendas and goals into the mix.
3. Gather data in such a way that it will prove your premise, while discarding or obscuring data that does otherwise. Analyze the data is such a way that it proves your assumption. Using the analysis, structure an air-tight argument that appears to explain the data and supports your hypothesis. The hypothesis need not be in the least reliable, it only needs to be well devised and somewhat convincing.
4. Build a peer group that will support your theory. As a give researcher and their pet theories typically co-occur within rather localized settings, due to self-preservation and often misguided loyalty, this peer group consists of individuals, influential or not, within a given department or company. Of the individual that proposed the theory, their extended relationships and the resources they control, will dictate the size, diversity, and loyalty of the supporting peer group.
5. Write a series of papers proposing the theory and present it in a number of public and scientific forums to include journals. Unless there is a competing theory negative peer review on the substance will typically be minimal at best.
6. The researcher that becomes indentified with the theory uses it to promote their the positive progression of their career.


CmacQ

How sadly true that is...