Bad Science

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http://www.badscience.net/


TED Talk
http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_b ... ad_science

I find myself using the phrase "...what passes for Science..." more and more often over time, don't you?

The painful truth is that corporate interest, political interest, the obsession with research leading to 'commercially viable' widgets, and the profound failure of some(not all) researchers to identify and crucially, thwart their own bias has culminated in a great deal of "Bad Science".

Nutrition, pharmaceuticals, and the environmental sciences are particularly under siege by many forces, but many other disciplines are affected.

Even, in Cosmology, critics such as Lee Smolin have railed against these issues in his book "The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next".

Bias is exceedingly pernicious and resisting it is VERY difficult, even for those who try.

Sadly, some seem to lack the willingness to try.

Do you encounter this in Botany?

I am collaborating with a group of molecular systematists, who don't want to make reasonable changes in the Flora of North America (Will be the standard book of plants for the next 50 years), because it might hurt their chances of getting funding and will mean less publications.

But it is worse in areas with more profit - medicine. I no longer trust any doctor to prescribe drugs for mental health reasons. I check the research and if they force me, I call them out on the facts and tell them what they can do with their snake oil and placebos.

Global warming. There is still Wooly Mammoths dead and standing up under 20 feet of snow, and ice. Parts of central north america was once a sub tropical climate. People make alot of money on "clean environmentally friendly" fixes when the real solutions are not used. Those don't generate money. The earths climate changes no matter what we do. When people prove the climate is changing, the only thing they prove is its inevitability. People made a deceptive market for it, keep promoting more population growth, burning of fossil fuels, and burning rockets through the atmosphere into space. The list goes on. It's a joke the majority believe.

I'm sorry but this is a serious discussion about issues dealing with how science is done.

When people deny climate change, I often wait of then to start talking about how the moon landing was faked and how the UN is bringing about the number of the beast.

I know these stories fell more true, but the thing about good scientific inquiry, it does not require belief.

If you step off the roof of your house you are going to fall no matter how much you BELIEVE you are not.

Climate change is real, humans have caused it and anyone who says otherwise is either a moron, gullible, lying or has some deep seated emotional need to BELIEVE otherwise, but the belief won't stop it from happening.

Real science is expensive--nobody wants to pay for it--they just want results.

that is the truth, or they will only pay if it gives them what they want.

Yes. Climate change is real. It always does change regardless of what humans do. That is the real science of the thing.

Do humans effect the climate? Yes. They are a waste product. All of them. So are cows, and swamps.

Is science actually proving that our involvement is causing an unnatural change? No. It can't. the earth is constantly changing, and their is no scale model to prove it.

In the last 100 years the planet has been getting warmer. That happens sometimes anyways. It's the science of the thing.

Are humans turning the planet into an unnatural smog infested garbage dump? Obviously. That is logic.

Would a good size meteor, and a few large volcanic eruptions do more damage? Of course! In fact it has made many things extinct, the planet recovered, and it is constantly getting cooler from the molten rock it once was.

Are people using these fabricated scientific facts as a means to make money? Yes.

How do you know? That is a fun question. You will probably show me some pie chart from NASA or something.

Even if it is true, nothing is being done about it.

And yes, I am a moron.

Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig.

I hear southern Idaho is where they faked the moon landings, you should go check.

You can probably find Obama's Kenyan birth certificate then.

I question your logic, and you give me a belief that I am a conspiracy theorist.

Thank you for being soo much you, and reminding me that I am a moron.

You're the pig who cannot sing.

What people don't realize is that if you do experiments long and hard enough, interesting things pop out of the data that often lead to real advances in science. Instead, we have people trying to pester experts to come up with answers based on very sketchy data.

Bad science is as old as science

a, not so old, example from my deceised blog

Never claimed to sing.

I am just unwilling to put up with people who spout this kind of nonsense.

It is better to just tell them they are being stupid, and hopefully they will go away. I could spend all day refuting every falsehood you posted or I can just tell you to go away.

Go find the mythology/fairtale forum.

No you cannot prove anything. That does not make me a moron, or stupid.

Truth is like alot of people, you are too smart for your own good, and that does not make you smart.

Like alot of people, you take scientific theory, and use it as fact. Than you call poeople a moron, and stupid, because you believe it to be true, because you are soo smart that you figured it out for real all by yourself. Still you cannot prove anything.

You come up with these far fetched stories about how I think, and portray me as something you created all on your own, because you're soo smart. You probably have a test with a high score to prove it. Maybe more, I don't know for sure.

Truth is, you are a victim of your own clarity, and I can be a stupid moron to know this.

You are stuck in a loop of knowing.

Have a great day.

This is more your style

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/

The climate is always changing. Right now we are enjoying or at least experiencing a moderate interglacial interlude.

We are about 20,000 years out of the last great ice age and heading for next great ice age. Enjoy the warmth while you have it.