Scientific Bullsh*t — How 'Science' Is Used To Deceive The Public

submitted by Drewski from anewkindofhuman.com

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[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Wow, speaking of propaganda. Let's dissect this amazing work of misleading fiction.

Did you know that there was a shocking study published in the Public Library of Science Journal, that found“up to 72%” of scientists admitted their colleagues were engaged in “questionable research practices,” and that just over 14% of them were engaged in outright “falsification”?[1]

What the study actually says: "A pooled weighted average of 1.97% (N = 7, 95%CI: 0.86–4.45) of scientists admitted to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once –a serious form of misconduct by any standard– and up to 33.7% admitted other questionable research practices" Boy that 2% sure sounds scary now that you have the real summary.

If that’s not bad enough, between 1977 and 1990 the FDA found scientific flaws in 10–20% of all the studies they audited.[2]

What the summary (that's over 30 years out of date) actually says: "Finally, routine data audits conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration between 1977 and 1990 found deficiencies and flaws in 10–20 % of studies, and led to 2 % of clinical investigators being judged guilty of serious scientific misconduct."

Deficiencies are not necessarily flaws and, as noted, only 2% of investigators were found responsible of misconduct. It's also in line with the self-admitted rates of scientific fraud.

But it gets even worse; scientists at the Thousand Oaks biotech firm Amgen, set out to double-check the results of 53 peer reviewed landmark published studies in their fields of cancer research and blood biology. What they found was shocking; only 6 of the 53 studies could be proven valid. That means almost 90% were flawed, yet passed off to the public as fact. [3]

... For oncology research in clinical trials. Self-admitted in the linked article, the worst of all fields for clinical success, which it then outlines as a combination of deficient cell-line mouse models and reliance on standard criteria that had - at the time - been inadequate. Notice how the author keeps lying by omission? These are not "passed off as fact" these are FUCKING TREATMENTS THAT DIDN'T SUCCEED IN CLINICAL TESTING YOU MUPPET

This becomes especially concerning when we consider how “science” seems to have replaced organized religion as the new authority that should blindly be obeyed in many ways. People speak of it as if it is infallible, and anyone who questions the high priests of science are generally attacked, degraded, and dismissed as modern day heretics.

Projection of the highest order. It's like he skimmed over to find the most damning misleading statistics from each source without seeking any deeper grasp of anything, then projects that onto other people for his own misbehavior. Fucking hilarious.

But science, just like any religion, is not a god that only speaks unadulterated Truth. It is far from being infallible and is constantly in need of being updated, upgraded, challenged, revised, and changed, for the simple fact that science is subject to the narrow confines of mankind’s tiny flawed human perception; which is forever growing and expanding — and easily skewed by things like prejudice, pride, and corruption.

That's the beauty of it. It does keep being challenged. Hence the articles the author misquotes. In fact, UNLIKE religion, it constantly seeks to challenge itself to FIND the truth. As opposed to simply declaring you've arbitrarily arrived at it because "muh God(s) said so".

[–]Drewski[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This is a good response, appreciate you taking the time to break down some of the claims in the article. I do think he's correct though about the cult of 'scientism', and people's appeal to science as an unquestionable authority when in fact scientists are fallible people like the rest of us. The media and parts of the scientific community also repress dissenting views, and represent certain theories as fact even when there are opposing views from other scientists.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There is an extremely narrow valid criticism of people abandoning critical thinking for "I fucking love science". However, for practical purposes, nobody can be an expert on everything. In fact to the contrary, a little knowledge leads to tons of entirely erroneous conclusions. Trusting the consensus on an issue is the most appropriate way to approach things someone doesn't know about, because it's far more likely that consensus is going to be more correct than someone entirely uneducated and unfamiliar who did a couple of hours of reading.

The media and parts of the scientific community also repress dissenting views, and represent certain theories as fact even when there are opposing views from other scientists.

I would tweak this a bit. The media is solely interested in what gets them views, and will dredge up any and every nutcase or ideologue they can find to accomplish that. "Ancient Aliens" guy is a perfect example of this kind of thing. What you're upset about, and what scientists are often upset about, are talking heads misrepresenting what the consensus actually is in order to push agendas. What you see on the news is wholly different from what you see written in literature reviews, and that's quite on purpose. An uneducated public doesn't care about the nuances and waffling inherent to the humility you see in actual publications, and the people who write them are panned for exactly that same reason.

I'd also point out most peoples experience of "scientific communities" are self-appointed associations, think tanks, and other organizations who also push an agenda. In actual publications, again, they're competing against one another to be the first one to be able to get famous calling bullshit on somebody else. Read the actual science, or the literature reviews written by scientists, not what some comfortable armchair fuckwit head of the board thinks ought to be said.