The cult of science - Page 10 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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By late
#15070588
Sivad wrote:
Well we know that more than half a century ago a bunch of idealogues of the liberal fascisti bent began a "long march through the institutions" so we know that a lot of the key positions in the federal funding agencies like the National Science Foundation, NASA, NOAA, EPA, etc are occupied by these people and their proteges. From those positions they have the power to not only determine the direction of scientific research but to pick winners and losers among the individual researchers as well.

There's a whole lot of incestuous friggin going on in the riggins of science.



After WW2, most anyone could get a research grant. Not coincidentally, it was also a period of intense progress in science.

IOW, he's full of it.

Nixon created boards to see who got money. Nixon wasn't a liberal... Science was getting more expensive, and Nixon had cut some science budgets, so something had to give.

They did try to pick winners. But they weren't very good at it.

Politics played a role, and since we're talking about Republicans...

So what is he whining about? It's because Sivad wants "a whole lot of incestuous friggin going on in the riggins of science."

Of course.

Screwing science is something Trump does all the time.
By Sivad
#15071804
I may confirm what has been written in other places: research in some areas of climate science has been and is full of machination, conspiracies, and collusion, as any reader can interpret from the CRU-files. They depict a realistic, I would say even harmless, picture of what the real research in the area of the climate of the past millennium has been in the last years. The scientific debate has been in many instances hijacked to advance other agendas. I [do not] think anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. On the contrary, it is a question which we have to be very well aware of. But I am also aware that in this thick atmosphere—and I am not speaking of greenhouse gases now—editors, reviewers and authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations, even based on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly blackmailed. In this atmosphere, PhD students are often tempted to tweak their data so as to fit the "politically correct picture". Some, or many issues, about climate change are still not well known. Policy makers should be aware of the attempts to hide these uncertainties under a unified picture. I had the "pleasure" to experience all this in my area of research.

- Eduardo Zorita paleoclimatologist. As of 2010, he is a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Coastal Research, GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany, where he has worked since 1996. Zorita was a contributing author to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, and is review editor of the journal Climate Research.

Ph.D in solid state physics at the University of Zaragoza in 1988, postdoctoral appointment at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Associate Researcher at the Laboratoire de Océanographie Dynamique et de Climatologie (LOCEAN), Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University, Paris, 1994–95.







“Even when constrained to climate scientists, it is ill advised to report a consensus as though it is an aggregation of independent judgments. Humans are an ultrasocial species, and dissent is far costlier than assent to a perceived majority. Global warming has become an ideological, and thus moral, issue. This is alarming because moral rebuke and ostracism are extremely powerful deterrents for humans.(3-5) Causes for concern include (1) A scientist who contests the prevailing narrative on human-caused warming, or merely produces smaller estimates, will likely end up on a McCarthyite blacklist of “deniers”.(6, 7) (2) Self-described mainstream climate scientists refer the public to such lists, implicitly endorsing the smearing of their colleagues.(8) This is disturbing, and unheard of in other sciences. (3) A venerable climate scientist was recently savaged by his colleagues for choosing to advise a nonleftist policy foundation.(9)

This is a noxious climate for serious science. We should ask whether it has deterred young scientists from the field. Who wants to end up on a blacklist? It is also advisable to explore whether climate science selects for environmentalists—scientists who believe that “nature” is sacred, or that ecological stasis is inherently desirable, may struggle to maintain an appropriate scientific posture. If the field is deterring bright minds or selecting for a particular creed, it would install a self-reinforcing and unreliable consensus for decades. In any event, groupthink is always a threat to the epistemic utility of a consensus, and in climate science, dissent is likely to impose extraordinary costs. Consensus studies will be more rigorous if they account for these facts."

Jose Duarte, PhD, Social Psychology, Arizona State University
By late
#15071815
late wrote:
So what is he whining about? It's because Sivad wants "a whole lot of incestuous friggin going on in the riggins of science."

Of course.



Consensus was reached over 20 years ago.

Now anyone with a room temp IQ can see that most glaciers are melting, that vulnerable cities like Miami and Venice are in trouble, that the cost of weather disasters is steadily rising.

What's going on is that Koch money is buying people to lie. It's an old propaganda trick, the tobacco companies used it to delay the inevitable for a generation.

The problem is we are going to pay one hell of a price for our stupidity.
By Sivad
#15072057
late wrote:Consensus was reached over 20 years ago.



more like a reach around. that's definitely been going on for 20 years...
By late
#15072062
Sivad wrote:
more like a reach around. that's definitely been going on for 20 years...



That's propaganda.

You never get everybody in science. Einstein was amazing, but after he spurned statistics, he was left behind.

That's doubly so when you have lunatic oil guys like the Kochs buying scientists, and making them part of their propaganda machine.
By Sivad
#15072067
late wrote:That's propaganda.


No, the propaganda is the consensus line. That shit has been debunkumented from here to Newton's sack.

You never get everybody in science.


from the mouths of babbittts...
#15072069
late wrote:The problem is we are going to pay one hell of a price for our stupidity.


Someone might, but we won't. Our great-granchildren's great-grandchildren will have long since died before the planet becomes uninhabitable.
By late
#15072070
Sivad wrote:

No, the propaganda is the consensus line. That shit has been debunkumented from here to Newton's sack.




Anyone sane paying attention can see the change now.

Big Oil propaganda is what it is. Hope you are getting paid, and not just crazy.

FYI, I studied the history of science and the phil of sci in college.
By Sivad
#15072113
Rancid wrote:@Sivad, what are your thoughts on Rupert Sheldrake?


I don't know, I guess I'm open to the paranormal stuff but I just really don't believe in it. I think he makes some good points but I haven't done like a de3p dive into his oeuvre so I can't really say.
User avatar
By Varannal
#15072887
late wrote:That's propaganda.

You never get everybody in science. Einstein was amazing, but after he spurned statistics, he was left behind.

That's doubly so when you have lunatic oil guys like the Kochs buying scientists, and making them part of their propaganda machine.

Useful information for thought. I am writing essay about cult of science. One of the questions that I study is science and their future. In addition to scientific data, it would be useful for me to gather the opinions of car enthusiasts and professionals in this field. I need some help with essay writing and I also started working with some essay resource. What can you say? Your help is very much needed. I would be very grateful for any information and your opinion.
User avatar
By Rancid
#15073268
I see two big problems with how science is practiced today.

1. Our inability to reproduce many scientific results.
2. People do not seem to challenge assumptions enough when looking at the results of some experimentation.

I can think of two examples where the problem of #2 is apparent.

First example:
Gender pay gap. The gap is something like 15%, and many people automatically assume 100% of the gap is due to discrimination against women. This is an assumption that many people make, especially politicians. However, many economists/researchers have look at the data more closely and figured out that most of that gap is explainable by things that are not discrimination. A big one being women just pick jobs/careers that pay less. At a minimum, no one should be assuming 100% of that gap is discrimination; however, too many of us do assume that.

Second example:
There seems to be an assumption that the ideal ratio between men and women in the work force is 50/50. No one has ever actually been able to explain why this is the idea ratio other than "it just feels good" or "well, the general population is 50/50." Those aren't good enough reasons, you need actual data and evidence that say's society is better off when this is the case, which I never see people bring this up. Further, why are we assuming that just as many women want to work in a given field as men? When we marry ourselves to assumptions we close off our ability to see the bigger picture, we close off our ability to be objective.

This failure to challenge/question assumptions is rampant, even in areas that are more benign and not politically charged like the two examples above. With respect to the above examples, I really don't care, people can do what they want, and people can push for 50/50 ratios if it makes them feel better, so I won't get in the way, but I think it's silly to assume this is the ideal ratio. It's very unscientific to do so.

I guess that's another problem, when people pass off an assumption as fact, people start to attack people that are simply challenging the assumption. Again, very unscientific.

For this reason, I understand @Sivad's general sentiment, and would say, he's not a wack job. We should be encouraging challenges to assumptions.

This brings me to a question:
Is it ok to just assume an assumption is right? I would argue it can be ok for practical reasons. I know, this sort of contradicts everything I said above. :lol:
By late
#15073271
Rancid wrote:
I see two big problems with how science is practiced today.

1. Our inability to reproduce many scientific results.

2. People do not seem to challenge assumptions enough when looking at the results of some experimentation.



I don't think you realise how much science goes on. Yes, corruption has seeped into the scientific world, but most of science is fine.

I think you are conflating science and politics there. For example, women moving into the workplace have displaced men. Not arguing for or against anything there, just saying there's more going on than a casual look will reveal.

Another thing I would note is that when we get women European levels of support for their needs, you'd have a much better case to make.
User avatar
By Rancid
#15073273
late wrote:Yes, corruption has seeped into the scientific world


I never said point 1 and 2 are due to corruption.

late wrote:I think you are conflating science and politics there.


I'm not, I mentioned my examples were politically charged. Even in non-politically charged research, you still have the problems of 1 and 2.
By late
#15073275
Rancid wrote:
1) I never said point 1 and 2 are due to corruption.



2) I'm not, I mentioned my examples were politically charged. Even in non-politically charged research, you still have the problems of 1 and 2.



1) No, I did.

2) You have a point, but what I was getting at is that there is a body of research, and it's not all like that.
User avatar
By Rancid
#15073276
late wrote:1) No, I did.


I don't think corruption is a big component. Certainly it's a component though.. I think most of it has to do with documentation of the experiment methodology. Lots of important details get missed when writing a paper or experiment instructions. This happens all the time at my job. A lot of it is unintentional. I'm guilty of it too when I design experiments, sometimes it's hard to document every little thing you did as part of your experiment. Some of these missed details can turn out to be big in terms of replication.

late wrote:2) You have a point, but what I was getting at is that there is a body of research, and it's not all like that.


of course.
By Sivad
#15081130
Epidemiologists, who study the spread of infectious diseases, rely on data collected about diseases combined with statistical analysis to create predictive models of different outcomes to figure out how best to deal with outbreaks. A model developed by researchers at Imperial College London and published March 17 suggested that without any mitigation measures in place, the coronavirus could kill 2.2 million people in the U.S.

The report, which warned that an uncontrolled spread of the disease could cause as many as 510,000 deaths in Britain, triggered a sudden shift in the government’s comparatively relaxed response to the virus.

American officials said the report, which projected up to 2.2 million deaths in the United States from such a spread, also influenced the White House to strengthen its measures to isolate members of the public.

Imperial College has advised the government on its response to previous epidemics, including SARS, avian flu and swine flu. With ties to the World Health Organization and a team of 50 scientists, led by a prominent epidemiologist, Neil Ferguson, Imperial is treated as a sort of gold standard, its mathematical models feeding directly into government policies.

...

The model hasn't been peer reviewed and the code isn't public:




I’m conscious that lots of people would like to see and run the pandemic simulation code we are using to model control measures against COVID-19. To explain the background - I wrote the code (thousands of lines of undocumented C) 13+ years ago to model flu pandemics... - Neil Ferguson

:lol: :knife: :lol:
User avatar
By Rancid
#15081134
Sivad wrote:Epidemiologists, who study the spread of infectious diseases, rely on data collected about diseases combined with statistical analysis to create predictive models of different outcomes to figure out how best to deal with outbreaks. A model developed by researchers at Imperial College London and published March 17 suggested that without any mitigation measures in place, the coronavirus could kill 2.2 million people in the U.S.

The report, which warned that an uncontrolled spread of the disease could cause as many as 510,000 deaths in Britain, triggered a sudden shift in the government’s comparatively relaxed response to the virus.

American officials said the report, which projected up to 2.2 million deaths in the United States from such a spread, also influenced the White House to strengthen its measures to isolate members of the public.

Imperial College has advised the government on its response to previous epidemics, including SARS, avian flu and swine flu. With ties to the World Health Organization and a team of 50 scientists, led by a prominent epidemiologist, Neil Ferguson, Imperial is treated as a sort of gold standard, its mathematical models feeding directly into government policies.

...

The model hasn't been peer reviewed and the code isn't public:




I’m conscious that lots of people would like to see and run the pandemic simulation code we are using to model control measures against COVID-19. To explain the background - I wrote the code (thousands of lines of undocumented C) 13+ years ago to model flu pandemics... - Neil Ferguson

:lol: :knife: :lol:



Sounds like that dude's models needs some serous validation, and it's odd to see governments making decisions on unvalidated models. :eek: He had 13+ years to do that shit, and apparently didn't. :hmm: This is a real problem with science and experts, for sure.

At least in his follow on tweets he say's he's working with people to have it refactored and posted on to github so others can use it. It's probbly too late with respect to this virus.
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