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Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific[W:116]

LowDown

LowDown

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An article recently published in a journal from Britain's Royal Society, titled "The Natural Selection of Bad Science," explains that rewards for scientists have polluted the scientific process.

Commenting on the article, Patrick Michaels writes: "The things that scientists crave – like tenure and research funding – incentivize frequent publishing of massive numbers of academic papers," Michaels wrote. "To publish that much, you need a tremendous amount of financial support. And when it comes to scientific work that could have regulatory implications, almost all of the money comes from Washington."

Michaels uses the example of climate science throughout his article, which is being heavily funded and incentivized to find dire predictions.

So, instead of being rewarded for research that supports a prior hypothesis, no matter how sloppy it is, those involved in climate studies get published a lot not by testing (which can't be done in the prospective sense) but by producing dire, horrific results," Michaels wrote. "Because these often appear in prominent journals — which love to feature articles that generate big news stories — the greater the horror, the more likely is promotion, citation and more money."

He also cites Stanford University researcher Daniele Fanelli, who found that positive results in research have been increasing for decades, which can't possibly be true. It's just not possible that we are able to propose a hypothesis and prove it true at such a high rate. But people who give money to scientists are funding the hypothesis, not the results. Negative findings are a waste of their money, so scientists are increasingly ensuring they prove their hypotheses true.
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So most of this research is crap. It's not true. It's hard to tell which work is real and which is fraudulent. In order to do so one must get down in the weeds and learn the science, and one must be confident enough to be guided by what one finds, but most people are unwilling or unable to do so. Simply trusting the scientists, however, isn't a good idea.

Strip away all the nonsense in climate science, and what does one find? In my opinion, one finds that 1) there is too much uncertainty to make predictions about future climate that can guide public policy. and 2) there are no public policies that have been proposed or are feasible that would actually affect the climate in predictable or significant ways.

Science is becoming increasingly unscientific | Washington Examiner
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

It's hard to take a critique of science seriously from someone who thinks climate change is a hoax.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

What scares me is the consequences of flying off into one of these theories half cocked. We could do significantly more damage than the original 'problem'.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

RabidAlpaca said:
It's hard to take a critique of science seriously from someone who thinks climate change is a hoax.
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Who thinks climate change is a hoax?
There are many here who are skeptics, but they are mostly skeptical of the predicted amplified warming.
So, Yes doubling the CO2 level will warm the planet about 1.1 C.
There are more feedbacks in the climate system then we know about, but the aggregate of the feedbacks
looks like a slight positive, yielding and ECS of about 2C, if we ever succeed in actually doubling the CO2 level.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

RabidAlpaca said:
It's hard to take a critique of science seriously from someone who thinks climate change is a hoax.
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There you have a nice example of circular reasoning.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

RabidAlpaca said:
It's hard to take a critique of science seriously from someone who thinks climate change is a hoax.
Click to expand...

Pat Michaels? He works for the industry-funded 'think tank' - the Cato Institute. It's his job to misrepresent and create doubt about climate science and smear climate scientists. He did the same type of thing for the tobacco industry. What a dishonest hypocrite.
 
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Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

LowDown said:
An article recently published in a journal from Britain's Royal Society, titled "The Natural Selection of Bad Science," explains that rewards for scientists have polluted the scientific process.



So most of this research is crap. It's not true. It's hard to tell which work is real and which is fraudulent. In order to do so one must get down in the weeds and learn the science, and one must be confident enough to be guided by what one finds, but most people are unwilling or unable to do so. Simply trusting the scientists, however, isn't a good idea.

Strip away all the nonsense in climate science, and what does one find? In my opinion, one finds that 1) there is too much uncertainty to make predictions about future climate that can guide public policy. and 2) there are no public policies that have been proposed or are feasible that would actually affect the climate in predictable or significant ways.

Science is becoming increasingly unscientific | Washington Examiner
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no it isnt
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

Note that, as the OP seems to state, that Michaels did NOT write in a journal from the Royal Society, but he merely wrote an editorial for Investors Business Daily about the paper.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

longview said:
Who thinks climate change is a hoax?
There are many here who are skeptics, but they are mostly skeptical of the predicted amplified warming.
So, Yes doubling the CO2 level will warm the planet about 1.1 C.
There are more feedbacks in the climate system then we know about, but the aggregate of the feedbacks
looks like a slight positive, yielding and ECS of about 2C, if we ever succeed in actually doubling the CO2 level.
Click to expand...

Trump for one, Lowdown and many other posters on this thread for another. Look, I agree that the degree of warming can totally be debated and it should. What can't be debated is that the earth is warming at an accelerated rate and that we play some role in it. Many people choose to bury their heads in the sand because it's uncomfortable for their ideologies.

This is one of the few issues we should all be able to agree on, left, right, independent, whatever, because it effects every one of us. We're highly evolved apes floating on a rock in the darkness of space and there's a problem with our lifeboat.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

Quaestio said:
Pat Michaels? He works for the industry-funded 'think tank' - the Cato Institute. It's his job to misrepresent and create doubt about climate science and smear climate scientists. He did the same type of thing for the tobacco industry. What a dishonest hypocrite.
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Talk about dishonest representation. He's quoting from a paper in a Royal Academy of Science journal, so your ad hominem argument falls flat.

Science itself is being called into question, and this is being done by the scientists themselves.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

RabidAlpaca said:
Trump for one, Lowdown and many other posters on this thread for another. Look, I agree that the degree of warming can totally be debated and it should. What can't be debated is that the earth is warming at an accelerated rate and that we play some role in it. Many people choose to bury their heads in the sand because it's uncomfortable for their ideologies.

This is one of the few issues we should all be able to agree on, left, right, independent, whatever, because it effects every one of us. We're highly evolved apes floating on a rock in the darkness of space and there's a problem with our lifeboat.
Click to expand...
If you look at the skeptic arguments, it is not that human activity does not play a role, but rather the climates sensitivity to the added CO2.
The IPCC implies that catastrophic warming will occur, not because of the Physics,
but rather because of speculated amplified feedbacks, which they themselves state as a belief.
There is no doubt that feedbacks, both positive and negative exists in our climate system,
The observed data seems to indicate a minor positive feedback giving an ECS of about 2 C.
I think long before we come close to doubling the CO2 level, Man made carbon neutral fuels will
become the naturally lower cost alternative. (The Price will be lower without subsidies helping, or Taxes hurting fossil oil).
A gallon of Gasoline takes about 55 Kwh of power to make from atmospheric water and CO2,
this works out to Fossil oil having a price ceiling of between $90 and $100 a barrel.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

Naturally, scientists who agree with Jack Hays are still trustworthy, unbiased, and brilliant.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

Deuce said:
Naturally, scientists who agree with Jack Hays are still trustworthy, unbiased, and brilliant.
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Jack has not posted in this thread yet!
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

LowDown said:
An article recently published in a journal from Britain's Royal Society, titled "The Natural Selection of Bad Science," explains that rewards for scientists have polluted the scientific process.



So most of this research is crap. It's not true. It's hard to tell which work is real and which is fraudulent. In order to do so one must get down in the weeds and learn the science, and one must be confident enough to be guided by what one finds, but most people are unwilling or unable to do so. Simply trusting the scientists, however, isn't a good idea.

Strip away all the nonsense in climate science, and what does one find? In my opinion, one finds that 1) there is too much uncertainty to make predictions about future climate that can guide public policy. and 2) there are no public policies that have been proposed or are feasible that would actually affect the climate in predictable or significant ways.

Science is becoming increasingly unscientific | Washington Examiner
Click to expand...

The huge amount of money in science today that is predicated on a given theory being true leaves scientists in the position of defending the theory to protect their livelihood rather than protecting a theory because it is true.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

jmotivator said:
The huge amount of money in science today that is predicated on a given theory being true leaves scientists in the position of defending the theory to protect their livelihood rather than protecting a theory because it is true.
Click to expand...

That explains gravity, particle physics, evolution and the germ
Theory of disease.

Seems like the system works pretty well.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

longview said:
Jack has not posted in this thread yet!
Click to expand...

It's amazing how badly the AGW true believers are failing in this thread. They are providing nothing but logical fallacy and bizarre attacks on people who are not in this thread, and not the subject of the thread.

For the sake of argument, if the thrust of the journal article is true, and science is being corrupted by money, then skepticism is the logical position.

The AGW side is partly driven by the argument that all skeptics are funded by money from the oil companies... and yet a paper that says that science is corrupted by money gets their panties in a wad. Go figure. The same influence that they readily accept and accuse the skeptics of can never impact the work of their most hallowed priests! :roll:
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

Threegoofs said:
That explains gravity, particle physics, evolution and the germ
Theory of disease.

Seems like the system works pretty well.
Click to expand...

That's funny because all of those stated scientific discoveries superseded previous scientific theory and came about because someone was skeptical of the standing theory. Your argument is so absurdly stupid and self defeating. Maybe you need more coffee this morning.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

longview said:
Jack has not posted in this thread yet!
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It references a very recent conversation I had with him.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

jmotivator said:
That's funny because all of those stated scientific discoveries superseded previous scientific theory and came about because someone was skeptical of the standing theory. Your argument is so absurdly stupid and self defeating. Maybe you need more coffee this morning.
Click to expand...

Therefore all science is wrong
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

jmotivator said:
That's funny because all of those stated scientific discoveries superseded previous scientific theory and came about because someone was skeptical of the standing theory. Your argument is so absurdly stupid and self defeating. Maybe you need more coffee this morning.
Click to expand...

No- those are the established theories, much like climate change.

The money to fund research that denies the basic tenets of those fields isn't there because it's recognized that that type of research is a waste of time and money.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

longview said:
Jack has not posted in this thread yet!
Click to expand...

Yet we could all write the post he would be expected to write (err....cut and paste) in this thread , since he cut/pastes the same argument over and over.
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

Deuce said:
It references a very recent conversation I had with him.
Click to expand...
Just not in this thread!
 
Re: Science Is Becoming Increasingly Unscientific

Deuce said:
Therefore all science is wrong
Click to expand...

Ah yes, the absurd black and white of Deuceworld. I am not arguing that all science is wrong, I am just not arguing that your favorite politically driven science is supremely fallible.
 
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