What Science Can Tell Us About Bad Science

Posted on by metroupe

Scientists and scientific claims are too often regarded as unquestionable.  Yet, few things are manipulated as often as scientific data points.  I feel like I am more aware of scientists making confident claims in nonscientific areas (like politics, morality, etc).  Is it happening more often? I don’t know, it could just be me. But I do know that scientific failures are under more scrutiny that in the past.  Because of all this,  I am fascinated when scientific researchers point out what is behind the curtain in Oz. Here is yet more information confirming what we would rather not believe: scientists are frequently wrong and sometimes intentionally so. 

“By one estimate, from 2001 to 2010, the annual rate of retractions by academic journals increased by a factor of 11 (adjusting for increases in published literature, and excluding articles by repeat offenders)…”

“Retractions are born of many mothers,” write Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus, the co-founders of the blog Retraction Watch, which has logged thousands of retractions in the past five years. A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reviewed 2,047 retractions of biomedical and life-sciences articles and found that just 21.3 percent stemmed from straightforward error, while 67.4 percent resulted from misconduct, including fraud or suspected fraud (43.4 percent) and plagiarism (9.8 percent) .

“Surveys of scientists have tried to gauge the extent of undiscovered misconduct. According to a 2009 meta-analysis of these surveys, about 2 percent of scientists admitted to having fabricated, falsified, or modified data or results at least once, and as many as a third confessed “a variety of other questionable research practices including ‘dropping data points based on a gut feeling,’ and ‘changing the design, methodology or results of a study in response to pressures from a funding source’ ” [4].As for why these practices are so prevalent, many scientists blame increased competition for academic jobs and research funding, combined with a “publish or perish” culture.” (Emphasis added)

Yikes, this is scary. This kind of attention has the potential to be good for science in the long run. Hopefully it will bring some much needed humility.  It should definitely put to death the false notion of objectivity. Science is always a handmaiden to the allegiances of the scientist.  

Source: What Science Can Tell Us About Bad Science – The Atlantic

Medicare’s Biggest Problem is Basic Math

Posted on by metroupe

adding machine

Medicare has problems. A lot of problems. Some are hard to figure out. This one involves 3rd grade math.

Even if politicians weren’t siphoning money out of the barrel and then demanding more under the pretense of helping the elderly, we are still on our way to running out of money.

If you want to be scared about the intelligence of our leaders and our future, instead of watching a horror movie, read this article.

“…Medicare’s real problem is not fraud and abuse but basic math. For example, according to the left-of-center Urban Institute, a married couple with two average earners turning 65 in 2020 will have paid roughly $154,000 in Medicare payroll taxes over their lifetimes. That certainly seems like a lot of money. But, given average life expectancy, that same couple can expect to receive $479,000 in benefits (net of any Medicare premiums they pay). It’s hard to see a program that loses $325,000 per couple as “working.”

Source: Medicare’s Costs and Benefits | Cato Institute

 

Photo courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives, some rights reserved.

Fraud: Were There Any REAL Women On The Ashley Madison Site?

Posted on by metroupe

 

A fascinating look at the Ashley Madison situation from Peter Jones and the folks at Truth Exchange.  This little known detail is instructive about patterns of sin, the lies involved with temptation, and the guarantee of disappointment.  Of all the 39 million users of Ashley Madison, less than 3% were women, and that is using the generous estimates.   This sounds a lot like those crazy spam emails from desperate “women” around the world that are in my junk folder. The same thing just cleaned up a little, with a much higher price tag.

“Noel Biderman, the entrepreneur behind the company, claimed he was not looking for someone other than his wife. Hypocritically, while he and his wife made millions on cheaters, he claimed he was a devoted husband and father. She said she would be devastated if he were unfaithful. Not surprisingly, when the site was recently hacked, among the millions outed was Biderman himself, with emails proving he had used the site for multiple affairs with other women. The dissimulation continued, since evil has a way of multiplying its effects.

“Biderman stepped down from leadership, with the statement, “This allows us to continue to provide support to our members…We are steadfast in our commitment to our customer base.” You have to wonder what “commitment” means when the facts now show that of the 39 million “customer base,” only 12,000 of them, .03%, were real women. [Now a new claim of 87,600 women on the site is still only 2.2%]. It was all faked, meaning that virtually most of the millions of clients looking for “love” were men, with virtually no hope of actual “discreet encounters” with adulterous women.”

Source: Down the Decadent “Ashley Madison” Avenue | truthXchange

The Evidence and The Conclusions. Anthropologist Found to Be Falsifying Evidence for 30 Years

Posted on by metroupe

Evidence & Conclusions

I recently saw this article about Professor Reiner Protsch. He taught at a German university for the last 30 years.  And it turns out that his status as an expert in dating various anthropological finds is not only suspect, he has been shown to be a complete fraud. Indeed many of his “facts” were manufactured.

According to Thomas Terberger, the archaeologist who discovered the hoax, “Anthropology is going to have to completely revise its picture of modern man between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago.”

Wow.

It seems that in spite of “peer review” the scientific community is really vulnerable to people manufacturing “evidence” to fill in the gaps for conclusions they have already made.  This is true even when their experts don’t even know how to run a carbon dating machine.  And it can go on for decades. The key is that the lies have to fit in with what the scientific community wants to believe. If your lies are inside the box they probably won’t be questioned. In fact it was only when a huge amount of money was at stake that someone started doing some fact checking.  Others have been challenging the “sacred cow” of peer review as being unreliable.

After I stopped laughing (because I have met more than my share of arrogant, table-pounding scientists), I realized that this is actually a sad situation for everyone.  It is horrible when the truth is handled this way.   It should lead the rest of us to  be skeptical of what we are told, even by the “experts.”  And while peer review is important, and the concept is admirable, we can’t even assume that 30 years of peer review in the “hard sciences” is fool proof.  Many well intended scientists like to speak as if their pronouncements are beyond questioning, that they are the only source of pure knowledge.  I would like to think that this will chasten the scientific community into a place of greater humility, but I am not holding my breath.

This is the conversation that came to mind when I read the article:

Skeptic: Do you believe in evolution?
Evolutionist: Not really. It is a fact. I believe in evolution the same way I believe in gravity.  Anyone that even questions evolution is clearly a blind religious zealot with no regard for the facts.
Skeptic: Why do you say it is a “fact?”
Evolutionist: Besides the obvious reality that the vast majority of scientists believe it, there is all the evidence. It is incontrovertible. Let me give you some examples….
Skeptic: So since you believe in evolution because of the evidence, if the evidence changed, or it was found to be incorrect or falsified, then obviously you would change your position that evolution is a fact.
Evolutionist: Well… not exactly. I might change what I believe about how evolution happened, but not THAT it happened.  It is undeniable that all living creatures descended from common ancestors.
Skeptic: Why do you say that it is “undeniable that all living creatures descended from common ancestors” by evolution?
Evolutionist: Because of the evidence.
Skeptic: So if you learned that the much of evidence that lead you to believe that “all living creatures descended from common ancestors” turned out to be totally incorrect, or worse an intentional lie, you would still believe it anyway? You wouldn’t be willing to rethink your conclusion? You would just rearrange some of the details? Is there any finding that would urge you to rethink your position?
Evolutionist: Why do you hate science?