Science On Trial...Again

 

A pair of Facebook posts which, pasted together, are worthy of re-printing here.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01430-z?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=21cdb74e59-briefing-dy-20210528&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-21cdb74e59-44635989

So telling the truth and calling out researchers who fake their data Is to be considered, “...aggravated moral harassment, attempted blackmail and attempted extortion.”?

This will be a very important court decision. If scientists doing what scientists are supposed to do, which is to question and examine the data, research, and conclusions of their fellow scientists is considered to be criminal, then science itself is criminal. A conservative dream. Let us hope it doesn’t come true.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01436-7?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=21cdb74e59-briefing-dy-20210528&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-21cdb74e59-44635989

This is a problem we’ve come to expect in the social sciences, a.k.a. the soft sciences, a.k.a. the kind of sort of semi sciency stuff.

It is very disturbing to see it in what is generally referred to (with considerable justification) the hard sciences.  

It reflect a serious problem in science, that is, papers that “prove” or affirm a concept are preferred by journals. Journals don’t like to publish papers that disprove or call research into question.

In the light of the immediately preceding post in which scientist known for doing her job effectively and calling erroneous research into question is being criminally charged for doing so, We can see that there is a genuine war on science and, disturbingly, scientists aren’t all on the same side.