I’ve been alluding to this for a while now: Less Research Is Needed
On my first day in (laboratory) research, I was told that if there is a genuine and important phenomenon to be detected, it will become evident after taking no more than six readings from the instrument. If after ten readings, my supervisor warned, your data have not reached statistical significance, you should [a] ask a different question; [b] design a radically different study; or [c] change the assumptions on which your hypothesis was based.
In health services research, we often seem to take the opposite view. We hold our assumptions to be self-evident. We consider our methodological hierarchy and quality criteria unassailable. And we define the research priorities of tomorrow by extrapolating uncritically from those of yesteryear. Furthermore, this intellectual rigidity is formalized and ossified by research networks, funding bodies, publishers and the increasingly technocratic system of academic peer review.
[…]
Whereas in the past, any observer could tell that an experiment had not ‘worked’, the knowledge generated by today’s multi-variable mega-studies remains opaque until months or years of analysis have rendered the findings – apparently at least – accessible and meaningful. This kind of research typically requires input from many vested interests: industry, policymakers, academic groupings and patient interest groups, all of whom have different reasons to invest hope in the outcome of the study. As Nic Brown has argued, debates around such complex and expensive research seem increasingly to be framed not by régimes of truth (what people know or claim to know) but by ‘régimes of hope’ (speculative predictions about what the world will be like once the desired knowledge is finally obtained). Lack of hard evidence to support the original hypothesis gets reframed as evidence that investment efforts need to be redoubled.[2] And so, instead of concluding that less research is needed, we collude with other interest groups to argue that tomorrow’s research investments should be pitched into precisely the same patch of long grass as yesterday’s.
Required reading. (Update – good stuff in the comments, too).
This could almost fall under the “there are too many reporters” banner. There are too many researchers whose careers depend on doing research. I’m reminded of the experiments I did in first year chemistry. Because I knew what the desired results were, I just tweaked the numbers until I achieved them. (Lazy I know.) When you have already decided on the outcome, and when research does not support your original hypothesis or the results are ambiguous, it’s natural to assume that it’s the fault of the research and “more research is needed”. That’s why so many contradictory stories end up in the media (coffee is good/bad for you). The promise of this or that cure–always on some future horizon after “more research” starts to sound rather lame. Every field seems subject to adapting the research to the desired conclusion–the most obvious one being climate change.
Well that puts the global warming Scheme & Scam into perspective.
Most academic (University) research is make-believe, make-work projects and you’d better get the pre-ordained result.
Unfortunately there is a lot of merit to your post:
“Most academic (University) research is make-believe, make-work projects and you’d better get the pre-ordained result.”
This is not just a waste of resources, a supply of junk science but does not expand our pool of Knowledge.
Sometime in the early “30’s Germany abandoned basic research and concentrated on engineering….the result was the advanced German War Machine….but by the early 40’s the process faltered there was no new science to be engineered.
Fortunately for the Allies, this delayed the German nuclear programme and made it head off on futile tangeants.
Meanwhile the Allies had the benefit of Germany’s refuggee scientists and recruited Scandanavia’s by clandestined means…Nels Bhor came out in the belly of a De Haviland Mosquito fighter bomber.
It is difficult to see any economic etc merit to string theory but then who could have forseen the effect of Einstein’s general theory of relativity….Perhaps the advanced physics will take us to the stars.
Nuclear energy has generally been a benefit…power, medicine, and an extended period of peace with no major war…like all weapon systems, nuclear bombs were used….once…been there, done that….
Funding drives research. In our system the money often comes from the private sector which, on the one hand may have a vested interest in getting certain results, and on the other has to have correct results so that their products or projects succeed.
Government money doesn’t necessarily get more accurate results. The Soviet Union funded its scientists never got ahead of the U.S.
In Canada politics certainly gets mixed into science as well. No one can afford to do independent research and committees approve projects before they start.
It would be impossible to have a career in health care research if your ideas were politically incorrect.
Left unmentioned is the fact that much money is spent needlessly on research “proving” the intuitively obvious. As one undergraduate professor of mine once opined: “Take the hypothesus that, left out in the open with no umbrella, most people will have sense enough to come in out of the rain. Now one can spend millions of dollars on a multi continent, multi-year longitudinal study of all cultures in the world in order to ‘prove’ the hypothesus, or one may make asumptions based on one’s own life experience. And guess what? Either way the answer will be the same–only one way will be a helluva lot quicker and cheaper.” lol.
A classic example of this is marijuana research. Year after year “more research” is ordered to delay the result we already know,that it should be legalized.
But, like any other substance used by tens of millions of people, there are adverse effects on some,so we continue with the circus,pissing away billions on the war on drugs.
And,of course,AGW/Climate Change,with it’s precious “peer reviewed” research has to be THE finest example of the article’s point.
Yeah well, some hypotheses have a long track record despite evidence.
Like the CO2 scheme/scam….or the Avro Arrow….
How many still think that white elephant is the answer to today’s procurement needs?
Despite it’s speed…an interceptor for Canada needs more than a 600 mi mission radius.
Not sure it’s the science that is so wrong. Here’s what I think is the key phrase:
“The authors conclude that not only is more research needed into the genomic loci putatively linked to coronary artery disease, but that – precisely because the model they developed was so weak – further sets of variables should be added to it.”
“…precisely because the model they developed was so weak”!!!!
Nobody does real science anymore. That would require work. “Scientists” just plug data into a model and expect it to come up with the answers. When I was in the business I couldn’t believe the huge number of f***wits running around trying to create models without real world data to support the models. And they were being paid millions to do so by puffed-up political rent-seekers. Upside down Mann is just one of the more egregious examples.
Trouble is that these guys use numbers the way medieval clergy used Latin and muslim brotherhood use Arabic. The ignorant public cannot understand the language being used, so they can’t see the BS, which is obvious – so obvious it leaps out at someone who does. Instead Joe Public just goes along with the lies and obfuscation of these snake oil salesmen.
And the real crime is that these frauds train their students to do the same thing – by the thousands.
um sasquatchee
U should not delve into areas out side of yer thinkin frame……
the arrow had many plusses, and a few negatives, butt like many things new technology and ideas came on stream as the arrow was being developed that MAY have went a long way to answering some of the questions
one of those “new techs” was the A-12 by the USAA
Oh man as a researcher this article is like having all my feelings and experiences crystallized into words.
today’s multi-variable mega-studies
I was an…’associate’…in one of these projects…oh dear God…what a mistake. What a clusterf*ck. No fun for anyone; so much work and all you get is this big sack of data that tells you nothing, because you were looking for a pattern that’s been confounded by a million problems in methodology, human error, etc
Here’s your required reading and what should be required reading for ALL MY COLLEAGUES: Strong Inference.
http://256.com/gray/docs/strong_inference.html
Having researched the research I have come to the following conclusions:
He who pays the piper calls the tune. In other words the results will always reflect the views of the organization paying for the ‘research’.
Like everything else government interference skews the results.
Those who think the Arrow was a great aircraft are idiots. The reason the Brits cancelled their order was because the dang thing was obsolete before it made it off the drawing board. Then there were the infernal delays. Then there was the fact that the RCAF decided the thing was a piece of crap and didn’t want it any more. Then there was the fact that Canada especially the west was being bled dry paying for that unmitigated disaster. Then there was the fact that the Arrow’s performance was easily surpassed by the Delta Dart which was already flying while the Arrow was waiting for engines that would actually push it to its overly optimistic performance ratings. Putting it bluntly Canada came close to bankrupting itself based on corporate hucksterism the scale of which was not seen again until government driven hucksterism aka AGW became front and center.
“Lack of hard evidence to support the original hypothesis gets reframed as evidence that investment efforts need to be redoubled.[2] And so, instead of concluding that less research is needed, we collude with other interest groups to argue that tomorrow’s research investments should be pitched into precisely the same patch of long grass as yesterday’s.”
One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.
Joe: I think my knowledge of the history of the Arrow could use some new input. It seems I have only heard one side of the story. Sources, please?
an interceptor for Canada needs more than a 600 mi mission radius
Air to air refueling, maybe?
The F-35A has a combat radius of 584 nmi on internal fuel.
“Most academic (University) research is make-believe, make-work projects and you’d better get the pre-ordained result.”
Lets not go jumping on a tangent now. Theres plenty of value in university research, and there always will be. One *huge* problem is the media pretending like they’re know-it-alls and cherry picking data to support an argument, when there’s contrary data in the same research.
One key factor to the success of science is open information and repeatability. Many in the global climate change cult are allergic to such things.
The F-35A has a combat radius of 584 nmi on internal fuel.
Yep and that thar’s a problem….this ain’t Greece….
The Soviet solution to this same problem was developing fighter versions of it’s Tupolev Bombers….the heaviest fighters ever built but they sure had legs.
Actually research from the Arrow programme, area rule, inspired Convair to convert their Delta Dagger F102 into the much improved Delta Dart F106…..which with under wing tanks had a range of 1700 mi.
The Darts were only recently retired….their speed, weapon load and range…was adequate but inability to install look down/shoot down radar and weapons finally made them obsolete.
The cancellation of the Arrow is a myth maintained by the LIBRANOs to berate the Conservatives. Actually the LIBRANO’s, especially the de facto PM, C.D Howe, intended to kill it prior to the 1957 Conservative sweep….but delayed until after the election. The fault of the Conservatives was not cancelling the Arrow right off the hop.
Its a fact that most real discoveries come from Scientists in other fields.That or lab accidents. Why? Because as one poster alluded to when science is specialised to such a degree, becomes so moribund, that it cannot see out of its own box for orthodoxy.
“Theres plenty of value in university research, and there always will be.”
Not that I’ve noticed. Perhaps in Transgendered Studies. Name two.
Aye, Revnant. Major Douglas is an excellent example to cite. A Scottish engineer with no formal training in economics or even a university degree who ran rings around all the economists of his day and of our own. We’d have been spared a great deal if the economists had been less blind to his insights.
If you think the situation is dire in the natural sciences, try the social sciences. There all the financing comes from banksters, either directly or via the government. If they have any choice, they never suffer any research to be funded that risks giving a hint that there might be unintended consequences to their plans to steal the inheritance of the peoples of the Christian world, who built everything in this vale of tears worth preserving, drive them to extinction, and replace them with a motley rabble of savages content to live little better than animals while the banksters live like pharaohs with untold wealth and enormous harems.
If you think there is no God and all that matters is money, paying a scientist to let on to the plain people of Christendom what their masters have in store for them doesn’t make much business sense, does it?
Back in the mid-90s I briefly dated an immunology PhD student who was working on some kinda cancer research.
One night when I called him to see about plans for the weekend the conversation went a little like this:
Me: So… What’re you doing today?
Him: Working in the lab. I gotta rerun some tests to pretty up e results.
Me: Huh? Why?
Him: Well, we didn’t get the numbers we wanted on these tests, so I’m rerunning them to get better numbers.
I didn’t ask more about it because I figured it was probably some technical stuff I wouldn’t have a clue about, but still, that whole “I’m rerunning tests to make them give me the numbers we wanted to get” thing didn’t sit well with me, and it pops into my head every time I hear about some new study. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s more common than I used to think.
rita sums it up very nicely.Read her comment,and what it says.
If the research shows something different,then change it to fit your benifactor’s pocket book.
There is only ONE immutable truth. Being born causes you to die.
Well, let’s not toss the baby out with the bath water. There are serious problems with the funding of research that has lead to the rampant abuses and waste. However, there are lots,of voices in the wilderness. Dr. Thomas Seyfried at Boston College, for example, argues strongly and, to my mind, convincingly that cancer research has been coopted into the failed genetic mutation theory of cancer, as this suits big pharma and the oncology industry. So they and the researchers with career vested interests dominate funding panels, etc. to perpetuate the status quo. And status quo it is. Cancer treatment outcomes have not progressed in 30 years. The genetic mutation theory of cancer is a failed paradigm if there ever was one. Despite this manifest failure, anyone who argues that the evidence supports the metabolic theory of cancer is met with derision and dismissive responses rather than a genuine engagement on the evidence. The metabolic theory is having some success in treatment but progress in the United States is stifled because of resistance at internal review boards for experiment protocols for human studies that use ketogenic diets and select drugs targeting glucose and glutamine fermentation ( cancer cells cannot use fat or ketones for energy). The genetic theory has ludicrously implausible explanations for metastasis. The metabolic has a simple one–fusion of white blood cell macrophages with cancer cells. Under the genetic model of treatment, standard of care bombards cells releasing free glutamine (cancer fuel) and give steroids, which raise blood sugar to diabetic levels (loads of cancer fuel). Then radiation vastly increases the odds of cancer cell macrophage fusion. Research published this past month fromyale confirms cancer cell macrophage fusion is a source of metastasis (the electron microscope photos are cool). Other research has found cancer cells can be more easily identified through MRI identification of cells with higher glucose metabolism- the cancer cells. How do they do it? The person tested eats a candy bar–raising blood sugar to diabetic levels–and the cancer cells light up with activity. So not only is the cancer party getting nowhere, the whole bureaucracy is killing people. Those weekends to end breast cancer and such are making the problem worse because they perpetuate the funding channels that block progress.
Is this isolated? Hardly. Same sorry sad situation surrounding diabetes and heart disease. Even more basic research. Look how Gilbert Ling was cut out of funding for his paradigm-challenging work in cell structure and ion channels. Never mind he is being borne out by more recent engineering. The engineers know a lot more about gels and water phases and such designing drug delivery mechanisms so the genuine advances regarding cellular cytoplasm are coming from the engineers, as the biological science side has ossified into careerism and turf-protecting.
Ths same phenomenon occurs with government stimulus spending initiaives and corporate subsidization. Yes, increased capital can improve output if targeted correctly (plus a little luck), but the mere fact of spending money has no bearing on outcomes in general except with the increased cost to taxpayers.
What makes it worse is the metric used by government is the amount of money “invested” rather than outcomes. If the outcomes were generally netting large benefits relaive to the expenditures, we’d hear nothing but stories about the good use of public funds. Instead, all we hear are projections on future output, and then nothing.
In the same way, “research” and “science” are treated as invariably good when, in fact, there’s good research and bad research. We don’t hear about all the wasted resources on the bad, and instead we only focus on the good.
It’s called “surviver’s bias” wherein we judge the program only by its successes and ignore the losers.
It’s the losers that matter, however, especially if they outweigh the winners.
What the reasearch industry needs is its own Kickstarter program so that private, often anonymous individuals can invest their own money toward the most promising outcomes, and stop the flow when the results don’t pan out. It would force researchers to either produce or get out of the game. As it should be.
In the last 40 years or so there have been at least half dozen times where the newscast rang out with a cure, for mice, and now testing on humans could begin. Was always happy for the mice but never heard of the follow up. Considering that Cancer is a trillion dollar industry, world wide , I would suspect that any cure would be doomed to a cover up. No long term profit in a cure, but 3 expensive pills a day to hold the disease at bay for the rest of your life, now that’s a holy grail worth pursuing. Big Pharma will go a long way to avoid a cure. They pay for most of the research.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AazObF_pHSU
The over-regulation of research renders innovation and innovatory research (a.k.a. “research”) somewhere between unlikely and impossible. Your taxes and charitable contributions for medical research and for most university research are WASTED.
Ha! About the time you wrote that I read this:
And surely the mice trials will begin by 2019..
or has been said another way “Birth is a terminal disease.”
Would be nice but the telling part of the research is this:
“One hope of using T-cells, is that this possibility of escape is narrowed down, or even eliminated. Of course, these are still early days. This is only just beginning to go through the first clinical trials. It could take five or 10 years before we know whether or not they work.”
In other words, we would feel more secure if we had job security for another decade. You can count on the full ten years with more optimistic crumbs thrown in at the 9 year mark. What we really need is another DR. Salk but that was a different era. Today it’s strictly business and cancer is a commodity. As long as big Pharma controls the research there will not be a cure. A cure would destroy them and devastate untold numbers of Pharma shareholders world wide. There is a fortune to be made in every disease.