I Used to Believe in Scientific Research

As a scientist myself I was wedded to the idea that science is the gateway to truth. But it is becoming increasingly clear that science in the US is unreliable.

Eisenhower was right. The federal research grant was going to be the death of real research, he said, and he turned out to be more right than even he guessed. Those investigators who are the most successful at getting research grants are more likely than ever to be turning out crap. On down the line, to marginal investigators, it gets worse. The allure of federal grant dollars poisons everything.

In no area of science do investigators think more than 50% of what is published in peer reviewed journals is reliable. In some areas it's much worse.

Which brings us to a case in point, which is an article published in Lancet. The authors claim to have discovered the cause of many, many modern ailments:

Exposure to tiny doses of hormone-disrupting chemicals is responsible for at least $340 billion (310 billion euros) in health-related costs each year in the United States, according to a report published Tuesday.

So-called endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are found in thousands of everyday products, ranging from plastic and metal food containers, to detergents, flame retardants, toys and cosmetics.

Neurological damage and behavioural problems, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism and loss of IQ, accounted for at least four-fifths of these impacts, researchers said in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, a medical journal.

The invisible but dangerous chemicals also boosted obesity, diabetes, some cancers, male infertility and a painful condition known as endometriosis, the abnormal growth of tissue outside the uterus.

The economic impact of the chemicals leaves a huge, two percent dent in the US’ gross domestic product (GDP) each year.

“Our research adds to the growing evidence on the tremendous economic as well as human health costs of endocrine-disrupting chemicals,” said lead investigator Leonardo Trasande, an associate professor at NYU Langone in New York City.

“This has the potential to develop into a much larger health and economic issue if no policy action is taken,” he told AFP.

The body’s endocrine tissues produce essential hormones that help regulate energy levels, reproduction, growth, development, as well as our response to stress and injury.

Mimicking naturally occurring hormones such as oestrogen and androgen, EDCs lock on to receptors within a human cell and block the body’s own hormones from binding with it.

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Up to the point that they made a claim about the cause of autism I thought this might be interesting. But with that claim I suspect that we are dealing here with mountebanks and charlatans. This stuff is tailor made to collect expert witness fees from plaintiffs attorneys, to garner more grant money through sensational claims. In my opinion it's crap until proven otherwise.

Another clue is the fact that they are using computer models to do epidemiological work. Let me say that again: Computer models to do epidemiology.

LowDown said:

As a scientist myself I was wedded to the idea that science is the gateway to truth. But it is becoming increasingly clear that science in the US is unreliable.

Eisenhower was right. The federal research grant was going to be the death of real research, he said, and he turned out to be more right than even he guessed. Those investigators who are the most successful at getting research grants are more likely than ever to be turning out crap. On down the line, to marginal investigators, it gets worse. The allure of federal grant dollars poisons everything.

In no area of science do investigators think more than 50% of what is published in peer reviewed journals is reliable. In some areas it's much worse.

Which brings us to a case in point, which is an article published in Lancet. The authors claim to have discovered the cause of many, many modern ailments:



Up to the point that they made a claim about the cause of autism I thought this might be interesting. But with that claim I suspect that we are dealing here with mountebanks and charlatans. This stuff is tailor made to collect expert witness fees from plaintiffs attorneys, to garner more grant money through sensational claims. In my opinion it's crap until proven otherwise.

Another clue is the fact that they are using computer models to do epidemiological work. Let me say that again: Computer models to do epidemiology.

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Ah - your OP was interesting until I got to the bolded part. Why? Because very next sentence you claim that investigators in NO area of science think that more than 50% of what is published in peer reviewed journals is reliable...and what's your evidence? A cherry-picked article from The Lancet. The biggest argument against your claim is the fact that without government funding for scientific research, such research must suck at the teat of corporations in order to receive funding...which requires the profit motive. What's wrong with that? Easy. If the research being conducted doesn't hold a promise of a quick profit for the corporations, then the scientists involved will find it difficult if not impossible to find anyone to properly fund their research:

In other words, some legislators wonder why the government should pay for so much university research. Waters offers some good reasons. She points out that the other likely source of research funding—industry—prefers to direct its money to projects that affect the bottom line. “Industry is focused on applied research that will result in the development of products with immediate commercial application,” she says. “But fundamental or basic research is needed in order to create the knowledge base that leads to more applied research. For example, in the area of medicine, specific treatments for many diseases cannot be developed until we know much more about the basic cellular and molecular changes involved in the development of the disease. Social science research has also played an extremely important role in addressing national security challenges. In a similar vein, scholarship in the humanities is critical to creating a broadly educated workforce and our ability to engage with other areas of the world.”

The AAAS has the data to support Waters’ concern about corporate research: 80 cents of every dollar that industry spends on R&D goes to development, and only 20 cents goes to basic and applied research, a ratio that is the polar opposite of that found in civilian science agencies.

Another argument for federal funding is the economic and cultural phenomenon known as Google, which was founded by two Stanford PhD students who were supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Fellowship. In 2013, in what could be called the trickle-up effect of federal funding, Google spent more than $8 billion on its own research projects, which include electric cars and balloon-distributed Wi-Fi. Another argument: the internet itself, without which there would be no Google, was developed with funds from the Department of Defense’s DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and the NSF, and it was based on research conducted at MIT, UCLA, and other academic laboratories.

Glen Contrarian said:

Ah - your OP was interesting until I got to the bolded part. Why? Because very next sentence you claim that investigators in NO area of science think that more than 50% of what is published in peer reviewed journals is reliable...and what's your evidence? A cherry-picked article from The Lancet. The biggest argument against your claim is the fact that without government funding for scientific research, such research must suck at the teat of corporations in order to receive funding...which requires the profit motive. What's wrong with that? Easy. If the research being conducted doesn't hold a promise of a quick profit for the corporations, then the scientists involved will find it difficult if not impossible to find anyone to properly fund their research:

In other words, some legislators wonder why the government should pay for so much university research. Waters offers some good reasons. She points out that the other likely source of research funding—industry—prefers to direct its money to projects that affect the bottom line. “Industry is focused on applied research that will result in the development of products with immediate commercial application,” she says. “But fundamental or basic research is needed in order to create the knowledge base that leads to more applied research. For example, in the area of medicine, specific treatments for many diseases cannot be developed until we know much more about the basic cellular and molecular changes involved in the development of the disease. Social science research has also played an extremely important role in addressing national security challenges. In a similar vein, scholarship in the humanities is critical to creating a broadly educated workforce and our ability to engage with other areas of the world.”

The AAAS has the data to support Waters’ concern about corporate research: 80 cents of every dollar that industry spends on R&D goes to development, and only 20 cents goes to basic and applied research, a ratio that is the polar opposite of that found in civilian science agencies.

Another argument for federal funding is the economic and cultural phenomenon known as Google, which was founded by two Stanford PhD students who were supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Fellowship. In 2013, in what could be called the trickle-up effect of federal funding, Google spent more than $8 billion on its own research projects, which include electric cars and balloon-distributed Wi-Fi. Another argument: the internet itself, without which there would be no Google, was developed with funds from the Department of Defense’s DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and the NSF, and it was based on research conducted at MIT, UCLA, and other academic laboratories.

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There are some fallacies in your reply. One is the idea that if scientists can't get money from the government they will have to get it from corporations. This is false. For example, many scientists fund good research themselves. And there are other sources. Another is the idea that corporations don't fund basic research. This is false, too. If they see promise in it they will do it, especially if no one else will. If one examines the way in which new products are developed one finds that a ton of basic research is being done to solve problems that come up during development. The basic metallurgy of high temperature resistant alloys had to be figured out from scratch during the development of the A-12. That plane would never have been built if Lockheed had to wait for the universities to do the basic research. (There is evidence that this whole idea that progress is made in such a step wise fashion from basic research done at the university to applied research is completely wrong much of the time, but that's another subject.) Another is the implication that because some good things have been funded by the government that government funding is the only way to get good things.

No doubt if the government stopped funding research there would be less research. But, in my opinion, the quality of the research that is done would be an order of magnitude higher. I suspect that on balance the advance of science would not be retarded if federal funding of research were dropped.

Those who worship the central state will never believe they can do wrong.

Federal funding of science is necessity. The scales, but temporally and financially, are out of reach for most private business to find, and despite allegations to, scientists cannot fund all this research themselves.

Basic research is NOT funded well by private enterprise. Perhaps a scattering of examples are given, but those are cherry picked from the vast field of scientific research. You think that private business had funded research into laser trapping and cooling of atoms? And yet the applications from that research have found good engineering after the base was done.

I like the example of the A-12 as if that were somehow an example of private enterprise doing base research. But first off...that A-12 is a government vehicle...who do you think commissioned it? And it is completely laughable to believe that Lockheed would exist as it does now, with its ability to do base research, without the vast amount of government grants it receives. It gets almost all its money from government. It's all federally funded.

Universities are a fantastic place in which basic research can be accomplished and train our future scientists and engineers at the same time. The very same scientists and engineers who will end up in Lockheed, Ball, Raytheon, etc. Universities are one of the last bastions for true, pure science, and the result of which can be used in further research by private corporation and government alike for engineering.

I don't know, I don't think that getting upset over one article that you have no proof that the claims are wrong on is enough evidence to scrap federal funding. On some level, we will fund a portion of junk science, but you have to since you never know what comes out of it. Sometimes the crazies strike upon something big, it's why you have to run the experiments in the first place. But we also produce a lot of knowledge, we make a lot of gains in basic pure science, both government and private enterprise benefits from it. Without federal funding of science....we wouldn't have much in the way of science. Bell Labs is dead, it's not coming back, the financial and time scales necessary for basic research are beyond most company's abilities. And those that do have the ability are those who research labs that are majorly funded through government contract.

Is there some reason the government contract and government research grant are so dynamically different that one is great and shows that private enterprise can do base research whereas the other one degrades our overall science?