A top international science journal funded by the federal government recently acknowledged that thousands of its published research papers may contain misleading language.
More than 2,600 of the papers from “Science,” the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and one of the world’s top academic journals, were examined in depth by another research journal, “Scientometrics.” It found in a study that from 1997 to 2021, the use of “hedging” words have fallen by about 40%.
The study’s co-author and Nanjing University linguist Ying Wei said this revelation ought to be concerning because “essentially, the nature of academic knowledge is indeterminate.”
In academic writing, “hedging” means using cautious language (i.e., “could” or “appear to”) to avoid sounding overconfident and giving readers a misleading conclusion.
In 1997, there were about 115.8 hedging examples per 10,000 words. But by 2021, there were only 67.42 for the same amount.
You can watch this play out in real time in any Anthony Fauci interview. Or you could observe the cabal of UN “scientists” who insist the debate is over concerning Climate Change. And, you can even experience it with licensed dieticians when they insist that gluten is bad for you, red meat is bad for you, milk is bad for you.
Essentially, the moral is the story is that the grant system is, of course, politicized like every other institution. As a result, the focus is not on objective results. It is centered around future grants and patronizing the party paying for the research.
The grant money is to make sure the results are what the person who gave out the grant wants. nothing more. a veneer of “Science” to conceal the grift.
I’m 69 years old now,never have i seen the amount of bull crap fed to us.
I will leave that there.
I have 12 years on you, and it’s the worst I’ve seen too.
Ditto Nemo.
The review process is broken but it can only be addressed after fixing the Journal…process or ‘art form’ or whatever you want to call it. Point is, pretty much every study article is over-written. No, we do not need the same re-mixed introduction section taking up space and glazing my eyes. Just make it a few bullet points and literally a link to the relevant Wiki article(s). Bullet points in the results section too with figures that are easy to understand ie stop jamming too much information into one picture. Discussion should be the only section with prose and paragraphs. And stop prioritizing long complicated papers that tell ‘stories’ that whose chapters should really be standalones.
Wiki….really??
Explains more than words can express. Do you write for them as well??
To replace bulky meandering introductions? Absolutely.
“Peer review” is a farce. It is PAL review. The only way to “fix” this is to go to an adversarial method….something like the “tenth man”. Otherwise, it is nothing more than group think.
Tenth Manning it is a great idea.
Hedging, it ain’t just for shrubbery.
The best examples of the possibility-probability–certainty metamorphosis are television nature documentaries. Old David Attenborough is churning out ‘Repent! Repent’ shows at a breakneck pace.
Science is pretty much done with the fun stuff.. They are all mercenaries now.. Lets just say the life enhancing aspect of it is gone.. They produce what their paymasters want.. That’s profit and control..
We the lab rats in order to create a more prefect terrarium, sort of thing.. Everything sucks by design.. It would be nice to blame the government but we really should be looking out our windows at our neighbors.. A 90% + chance that they are idiots..
Hedging ain’t scientific anyway, unless your pushing something.
Numbers is numbers.
The “study” is paywalled at the moment, so you can’t read the data they used.
additional points of data that would be useful are:
In the same time frame, the word count of papers has (increased/decreased/stayed the same)
How many papers per year?
How many papers who didn’t hedge on conclusions, or used a weak hedge, had data supporting the conclusions of the paper?
What branches of science were studied?
How many climate papers were included?
add more if you like
If you don’t know the math, it don’t matter, because if you don’t know the math you are a sucker for every single con out there…just look at Watto et al.
Kate, disputing the Big Bang is akin to saying 2+2=5.
We have our math, models and observations. That’s it.
Just because some folk will make fake models does not mean all models are fake, heck you use models every day, in fact, you have a model for dog behavior that you have built up over the years.
The big bang, HA HA.
Science is a whore.