The Sound Of Settled Science

13 In 1974 immunologist William Summerlin created a sensation when he claimed to have transplanted tissue from black to white mice. In reality, he used a black felt-tip pen to darken patches of fur on white mice.

14 Some researchers still use “painting the mice” to describe scientific fraud.

"Painting the mice" - I like that one. With the amount of junk science these days that phrase is one that should be used more often.

The scientist elite with their reason and humanism are lying sacks of crap. Who knew?

Thanks for setting us back, guys.

Setting us back? Surely you jest.

"Setting us back? Surely you jest.

Posted by: Allan S at May 22, 2012 ".

Name's Osumashi, not Surely. You got an issue? Expound instead of a drive-by!

Whatever it takes to keep the funding flowing and the R&D Gravy Train on the mainline track.

An honest scientist . . . kinda like a politician or a lawyer who tells the truth.

..not when they are using the same data and applying the same methods
Numbers will be a lot higher......

I'm not jesting, Allan S, and don't call me Shirley.

Some interesting things about the PlosOne paper. First, it's a meta-study. Which means that they didn't do any original research of their own. It's merely a compilatin of other studies, and we have no way of knowing what the quality of these other studies may be.

However, a clear indication of some trouble is this bit:
"In surveys asking about the behaviour of colleagues, fabrication, falsification and modification had been observed, on average, by over 14% of respondents, and other questionable practices by up to 72%. Over the years, the rate of admissions declined significantly in self-reports, but not in non-self-reports."

In short, while deception in science is at roughly continuing levels, the tendency to self-report errors or deception is going down. It's not that fraud in science is more prevalent, just scientists are less responsible in admitting mistakes.

Second, the vast majority of these cases appear in the biomedical sciences. Again, this is not surprising. Biomedical is the most difficult area in which to undertake or justify independent verification of results. It's also not helped by the ocean of cash being poured in by both goverment and industry for a new "pill that cures everything".

Third, fraud or flawed methodology is much more difficult in physics or chemistry. These disciplines are far too tightly tied to mathematics, and they tend to blow up very quickly. There's only one significant fraud in physics in the past 20 or so years. That was Pons and Fleischmann with Cold Fusion. And it was blown up within six months with the recognition that they didn't know how to do calorimetry. Quite simply, their apparatus could not have measured what they claimed it measured. It's not so much that P and F were commmitting deliberate fraud. They were a couple of theoreticians who didn't really know what they were doing and how to do it in a lab.

Fourth, the most spectacular failures in science usually happen with epidemiology. These are studies purely based on statistical analysis of some data set or sets. It is epidemiology that lies at the heart of every fake health scare foisted on the public over the past 40 years starting roughly with cyclamates. There is indeed something seriously wrong with epidemiological method as it's been practiced for more than a quarter century.

Don't forget the circularity in using the theory of evolution to interpret fossils in order to prove the theory of evolution.

The more I see of science the more I see nothing adds up until we see the bill at the end. But than math is hard.

@cgh.

Very much agree with your comment, especially the parts about epidemiology and biomedical studies. Thanks for commenting.

fiddle,

The scientific theory of evolution explains observations pretty well, and it is also, in itself, evolving over time (like most scientific theories).

Can you name another scientific theory which is an alternative to evolution?

The scientific theory of evolution explains observations pretty well...

Especially when those observations are interpreted using the theory of evolution.

The solution is not to use circular reasoning, like the AGW crowd.

Very good comment cgh. I respect fellow scientists but hate it when people treat them like rock stars.

"Don't forget the circularity in using the theory of evolution to interpret fossils in order to prove the theory of evolution."

Satan! It was Satan that put those bones in the ground!

Biblical illiteracy will get you only ignorance. Like they say, ignorance is bliss...

Thank you, LAS and Johan. There's a key difference which the PlosOne article doesn't bring out. P&F were essentially fooling themselves. They really thought they had made a breakthrough, and understanding all too well the significance of it,rushed forward to announce their findings before their paper had been published and reviewed. They fell into the trap of celebrity science.

This is quite a bit different from what happens in biomedical science and epidemiology. The MMR vaccine scare was a deliberate fraud; the perpetrator knew what he was doing was wrong. And he was so advised. He went ahead anyway.

The Sellafield inherited radiation scare in 1990 was a similar case of deliberate poor methodology, as was the EPA metastudy on second hand cigarette smoke. Again, all of these were deliberate constructs from cherry-picked data sets.

The principal authors of some climate science research know what they are doing is wrong. Their internal emails show this. And this is why their theories are failing. The basic physics makes no sense.

This is very different from what happened in things like the P&F case, and it's an important distinction. As you pointed out, Johan, what keeps evolution in the mainstream of science is that the theory is continuously modified as new evidence becomes available. Unlike climate science, it is a theory that is falsifiable. And it remains in mainstream science because it is driven by observation, not on a preconceived theory. What fiddle claims to be circular logic is nothing more than findings thus far consistent with the theory.

Unlike climate science, it is a theory that is falsifiable.

No it is not. There are no instances of one living species turning into another species.

What fiddle claims to be circular logic is nothing more than findings thus far consistent with the theory.

Of course, findings are defined by the theory, therefore consistent with the theory. Just like AGW.

No, fiddle, findings are findings. What part of "observation driven" don't you understand?

Living species don't "turn into other species". They develop new characteristics over time and changes in ecological niches. Species which can't compete die out. Stop interpreting Darwinian evolution as Lamarckianism.

What part of "observation driven" don't you understand?

'Observations' are always 'interpreted'. This is no different than the interpretations of the AGW crowd.

They develop new characteristics over time and changes in ecological niches.

And the birds remain birds and the crickets remain crickets...no macro evolution. No proof, other than interpretation, there ever has been.