Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Is there something wrong with the scientific method?

GreyWolf · 03-14-2011, 08:04 PM

The article fails to adequately differentiate between the scientific method... hypothesize, test, accept/reject... and the peer review of scientific studies. There is nothing wrong with the scientific method, or the use of 95/5 as an objective measure for rejecting a null hypothesis (although Bayesian statistics generally is preferable for hypothesis testing in the medical area).

What is a big problem today is the media and societal constraints on the acceptability of scientific research. This leads to the above mentioned issue of selective reporting... a major issue with peer review. For professors at universities, there is generally still the "publish or perish" imperative. This means, at the researcher level, there is a strong bias towards finding publishable results. This bias is supposed to be eliminated through the peer review process. Unfortunately, even in the world of science journals, social media control rears its ugly head.

Two areas in particular highlight the impact of media control on scientific research. First would be the area of interpersonal violence. Everyone knows that men are more violent, abuse their spouses/partners more often, and are more likely to harm their children. Unfortunately, this is rarely born out by the statistics. Study after study shows women are more violent, hit first more often, and are more likely to use a weapon. The safest possible situation for children in terms of physical/sexual abuse is actually the 2 gay men combination. The least is actually a single mother, but only because her non-parental male partner is the most likely to abuse the children.

The second area is climate change. The scandalous behaviour vis-à-vis data manipulation at the CRU at the University of East Anglia is only symptomatic of the fact that any data or study NOT conforming to the now accepted concept of anthropomorphic global warming (AGW) simply cannot get published, in peer reviewed journals or the mainstream press.

Even if it does get published, it's like the front-page headline announcing you're a rapist/mass murderer followed by the page 14 retraction the next day. The accepted view is page 1. Anything else is page 14 or under oddities in the news.

03-14-2011, 08:04 PM	#12 (permalink)
GreyWolf Sober Location: Eastern Canada	The article fails to adequately differentiate between the scientific method... hypothesize, test, accept/reject... and the peer review of scientific studies. There is nothing wrong with the scientific method, or the use of 95/5 as an objective measure for rejecting a null hypothesis (although Bayesian statistics generally is preferable for hypothesis testing in the medical area). What is a big problem today is the media and societal constraints on the acceptability of scientific research. This leads to the above mentioned issue of selective reporting... a major issue with peer review. For professors at universities, there is generally still the "publish or perish" imperative. This means, at the researcher level, there is a strong bias towards finding publishable results. This bias is supposed to be eliminated through the peer review process. Unfortunately, even in the world of science journals, social media control rears its ugly head. Two areas in particular highlight the impact of media control on scientific research. First would be the area of interpersonal violence. Everyone knows that men are more violent, abuse their spouses/partners more often, and are more likely to harm their children. Unfortunately, this is rarely born out by the statistics. Study after study shows women are more violent, hit first more often, and are more likely to use a weapon. The safest possible situation for children in terms of physical/sexual abuse is actually the 2 gay men combination. The least is actually a single mother, but only because her non-parental male partner is the most likely to abuse the children. The second area is climate change. The scandalous behaviour vis-à-vis data manipulation at the CRU at the University of East Anglia is only symptomatic of the fact that any data or study NOT conforming to the now accepted concept of anthropomorphic global warming (AGW) simply cannot get published, in peer reviewed journals or the mainstream press. Even if it does get published, it's like the front-page headline announcing you're a rapist/mass murderer followed by the page 14 retraction the next day. The accepted view is page 1. Anything else is page 14 or under oddities in the news. __________________ *The secret to great marksmanship is deciding what the target was AFTER you've shot.*