Scientific Research Is Unreliable, Unreliable Scientists Report

And yet we are supposed to adhere to the constant appeals to authority in regard to global warming... What a mess.

The problems with science are mostly in the heavily-commercialized industry-linked sectors, namely biotechnology and experimental psychology. The point being that when discussing "science" as an institution, it is appropriate to be aware that it is heterogeneous with respect to many factors, including fundamental focus. That one field of science may have its problems does not automatically condemn every other field of science.

As for authority claims, the only lesson to be drawn here is what we already knew, which is to not take sensational claims based on very little research at face value. So, if you skim through a pop-psych article on CNN that goes, 'a study/experiment shows that...', be suspicious. But that's nothing surprising.

As for global warming, well, in that case you'd be dismissing not isolated studies or potentially-shoddy research but literally an entire field of scientific endeavour, so that you might as well dismiss the accumulated human knowledge of human anatomy, or even classical mechanics.

Excellent title!

As for the content itself, I am perfectly happy to blame it all on post-modernism. Especially as the article points out a lack of mathematical knowledge. Is there a single post-modernist capable of doing multiplication with multiple digits?

Also: remember that bibliography you have to write at the end of papers? Make it large, and then slap a few 1000+ page tomes on it. Do that, and now you can write whatever you want and claim "famous guy X said so". Noone is going to read your sources anyway. For extra hilarity, use a reference style which doesn't include page numbers, like APA.

A lot can't simply be taken seriously, a lot of respected 'scientists' in Dutchland have been exposed for using false data, often just made up. I believe (social&enviromental) scientific studies just as much as I trust quality newspapers and state-television. Not at all.

The problem is that your skill as a scientist (and therefore the amount of money you can get) is based on the number of articles you publish and the number of times they've been quoted. Self quoting counts.

Basically the pruning becomes that people will do their own tests of more popular articles or that only those doing pretty much the same thing (and thus knows a lot about the subject) will read the articles.

Another big problem is that people want to do something big and new rather than the boring-but-necessary work of checking other people's research, or they want to find positive results and ignore negative results - though there are more false positives than false negatives.

While I am certain there sensationalists and dubious researches, dismissing an entire field because of that is akin to saying that only poor people live in Monaco because you saw a few homeless people sleeping on the benches.

Originally Posted by Sarmatian

While I am certain there sensationalists and dubious researches, dismissing an entire field because of that is akin to saying that only poor people live in Monaco because you saw a few homeless people sleeping on the benches.

Also, the scientific method is the most rigorously tested method we have. The issue isn't the method, but making sure it's implemented properly. Competing methods, even if done to their utmost, are nowhere near as reliable.

Originally Posted by Pannonian

Also, the scientific method is the most rigorously tested method we have. The issue isn't the method, but making sure it's implemented properly. Competing methods, even if done to their utmost, are nowhere near as reliable.

Science, including the scientific method, is not about discovering truth. It is about slowly eliminating as many errors as possible.

This thread is a sign that science is working, not that it doesn't.

It's what happens when you apply capitalism to science and use simple CEO-worthy metrics to measure it when you're supposed to use your brain.
It's pretty much why I think all the ratings where US universities come out on top do not say much about what the students actually learn. That's not to say US universities aren't good, it's to say that someone who studies mathematics in Paris won't be worse than someone who studies mathematics in Harvard just because Harvard makes a whole lot more money with their research or gets quoted more often. Not to forget that these things become self-perpetuating as long as people think you can measure intelligence or ingenuity in numbers.

I'm pretty stupid for example but I get a good grade once in a while even though some internet test rated my IQ at 240.

240? IQ tests don't go any further than 160. They are useless anyway, I scored between 78 and 149 on different tests, quite a gap. People shouldn't take university and IQ tests all that seriously.

240? IQ tests don't go any further than 160. They are useless anyway, I scored between 78 and 149 on different tests, quite a gap. People shouldn't take university and IQ tests all that seriously.

Whoa whoa whoa, hold on there. Aren't you always quick to bring up the allegedly low IQs of Palestinians whenever the topic of Israel comes up?