Bloomberg columnist explains why gun control research is worthless. "These glaring methodological flaws are not specific to gun control research; they are typical of how the academic publishing industry responds to demands from political partisans for scientific evidence that does not exist."

submitted by Chipit from bearingarms.com

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

There is something interesting going on around penalties. We could pass gun control laws that were recommendations, with no penalties for breaking them. We take it for granted that that would be silly; of course there have to be penalties. Serious penalties, such as long jail sentences.

The phrase "hired gun" has both a literal meaning and a metaphorical meaning. Metaphorically, we call a scientist a "hired gun" when he rigs his research to ensure the it reaches the conclusion that his funder is paying for. That is wrong. In a different world that might be penalties for doing that; serious penalties, with bad scientists going to jail. Curiously, we take it for granted that "science control" works on an honour system. No matter how dishonourable a scientists research conduct, he never gets punished for it.

More curious still, we take it for granted that the quality of scientific research remains high. Sure, there monetary rewards for being a hired gun, and no penalties for this form of corruption, yet we take it for granted that penalties are not necessary for people who create fake research. Simultaneously, we take it for granted that there are penalties for breaking the laws that got passed based on that fake research.

My guess is that scientists still have status, left over from the nineteenth century, when scientists were gentlemen amateurs.