http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1004/S00011.htmWhile the chief of the US National Institute of Mental Health this week stopped short of saying scientists are corrupt because of their ties to industry, as AP reported -- Vera Hassner Sharav does not give scientists a similar pass, partly because the testimonies she organized on unethical research on the mentally ill before the National Bioethics Advisory Committee in 1997 led to the shut down of 29 clinical trials at NIMH. Hassner Sharav is founder and president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a public interest watch dog group based in New York that aims to "unlock the walls of secrecy in biomedical research and to bring accountability to that endeavor". As a human rights champion, she has opposed experiments on children such as the EPA's CHEERS pesticide tests and pushed for a federal investigation into foster care children being used in AIDS drug experiments. She has appeared before various national advisory panels addressing her concerns about experiments on prisoners, about the use of antidepressants and the risk of suicide, among other issues. Hassner Sharav is also a former law librarian and has developed a database that tracks unethical research practices and the failure to disclose information on drug hazards.
Peer reviewed fig leafs
Peer reviewed fig leafs
Re: Peer reviewed fig leafs
this is all too commonplace and it is about time science had an independant monitoring body to answer to. I include banks but that is another topic for the political board.has developed a database that tracks unethical research practices and the failure to disclose information on drug hazards.
Re: Peer reviewed fig leafs
How would this body monitor science without using science? Faith? Intuition?Izzywizzy wrote:this is all too commonplace and it is about time science had an independant monitoring body to answer to. I include banks but that is another topic for the political board.has developed a database that tracks unethical research practices and the failure to disclose information on drug hazards.
Re: Peer reviewed fig leafs
Converge
from opening post
um its says how in the Opening postHow would this body monitor science without using science? Faith? Intuition?
from opening post
Are you suggesting the practice of science must not be ethical or humane & monitored?unethical research on
Re: Peer reviewed fig leafs
Oh you mean just for ethics violations, yes I misinterpreted what you meant. Well, scientists do have a body monitoring them; the legal systems in whatever country they are in. The same body that monitors everyone else. The U.N. would step in i cases of international problems. I'm not sure there would be a good way to form an international science-specific police group, since ethics and laws vary so much from place to place.Izzywizzy wrote:Convergeum its says how in the Opening postHow would this body monitor science without using science? Faith? Intuition?
from opening postAre you suggesting the practice of science must not be ethical or humane & monitored?unethical research on
I fully agree that science needs to be practiced ethically, and usually it is. I'm not sure if scientists are really the top priority that need policing though. I think there are bigger problems to deal with first; terrorists, gangs, corrupt military, corrupt politicians, corporations, etc. They generally have more power over others and are much more violent than an independent researcher.
-
Mike Strand
- Posts: 406
- Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2010 6:54 am
- Location: USA
Re: Peer reviewed fig leafs
Scientists are human beings and subject to the same limitations and ambitions as others. But on the positive side, they are also more subject to review by critical peers, because of the very nature of scientific inquiry.
But pseudo-science can conceivably occur -- deliberate faking of data or reasoning or calculations that the faker hopes will escape notice, and scientific work conducted in good faith by incompetent scientists, so is full of error.
A special form of pseudo-science would be presenting a body of plausible theories claimed to be scientific and touted as testable, but which in fact are not. It may not be clear to many folks, maybe not even to its proponents, that such theory, claimed to be scientific, isn't testable, and so the proponent is "putting one over". Thus the theory can be viewed as pseudo-science, not only in the strict sense of Popper, but also in view of the false impression it may give to members of the public. This is sort of a combination of fake science and incompetent science.
It's perfectly OK for a scientist to develop a speculative theory, not yet tested or not clearly testable, open to debate, as long as the scientist doesn't claim it's been tested through experiment and observations. Thus Einstein's conjecture that light would bend due to the sun's gravity was not verified by experiment until after he had proposed the consequence from his relativity theory. I think he also described how it could be tested, though.
I'm not prepared to give many specific examples, just trying to speculate on the possibilities.
But pseudo-science can conceivably occur -- deliberate faking of data or reasoning or calculations that the faker hopes will escape notice, and scientific work conducted in good faith by incompetent scientists, so is full of error.
A special form of pseudo-science would be presenting a body of plausible theories claimed to be scientific and touted as testable, but which in fact are not. It may not be clear to many folks, maybe not even to its proponents, that such theory, claimed to be scientific, isn't testable, and so the proponent is "putting one over". Thus the theory can be viewed as pseudo-science, not only in the strict sense of Popper, but also in view of the false impression it may give to members of the public. This is sort of a combination of fake science and incompetent science.
It's perfectly OK for a scientist to develop a speculative theory, not yet tested or not clearly testable, open to debate, as long as the scientist doesn't claim it's been tested through experiment and observations. Thus Einstein's conjecture that light would bend due to the sun's gravity was not verified by experiment until after he had proposed the consequence from his relativity theory. I think he also described how it could be tested, though.
I'm not prepared to give many specific examples, just trying to speculate on the possibilities.
Re: Peer reviewed fig leafs
Mike well observed
Popper said nothing is certain in science. Science can onlyu claim so much is certain. Science can`t prove love, yet we as humans know we have or do love.special form of pseudo-science would be presenting a body of plausible theories claimed to be scientific and touted as testable, but which in fact are not. It may not be clear to many folks, maybe not even to its proponents, that such theory, claimed to be scientific, isn't testable, and so the proponent is "putting one over". Thus the theory can be viewed as pseudo-science, not only in the strict sense of Popper, but also in view of the false impression it may give to members of the public. This is sort of a combination of fake science and incompetent science.
It's perfectly OK for a scientist to develop a speculative theory, not yet tested or not clearly testable, open to debate, as long as the scientist doesn't claim it's been tested through experiment and observations. Thus Einstein's conjecture that light would bend due to the sun's gravity was not verified by experiment until after he had proposed the consequence from his relativity theory.
-
chaz wyman
- Posts: 5304
- Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:31 pm
Re: Peer reviewed fig leafs
This is all about interests, and pressure to perform, fudging results and short cuts. When it is the same institutions (and by that I mean businesses) that are researching , testing and marketing the same product, such as a drug, you can be damn sure that objectivity suffers. No amount of professional responsibility and ethics is enough to reject a worthless drug when people's careers are on the line. If anyone thinks otherwise they are either naive or ignorant of real world science.
You can argue as much as you like about negative results being as useful as positive results, but when push comes to shove whe large sums of money are at stake and need to be recouped then a slight exaggeration here and there or some careless methods that will pass scrutiny are always at hand. Additionally there is a great tendency for self delusion to win over despair.
Next time you consider the role of CO2 in the matter of Global warming consider two things.
First, if you pay millions over years, year in year out to disclose the role of CO2 in GW, and you organise 100s of scientists in conferences to produce results, there is only one thing you are going to get; people staking their entire careers on the presumption that Co2 is a major cause of GW. This is called vested interests.
You might also like to consider Popper's warning that a theory that explains everything, explains nothing.
You can argue as much as you like about negative results being as useful as positive results, but when push comes to shove whe large sums of money are at stake and need to be recouped then a slight exaggeration here and there or some careless methods that will pass scrutiny are always at hand. Additionally there is a great tendency for self delusion to win over despair.
Next time you consider the role of CO2 in the matter of Global warming consider two things.
First, if you pay millions over years, year in year out to disclose the role of CO2 in GW, and you organise 100s of scientists in conferences to produce results, there is only one thing you are going to get; people staking their entire careers on the presumption that Co2 is a major cause of GW. This is called vested interests.
You might also like to consider Popper's warning that a theory that explains everything, explains nothing.