The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science
BartSimpson @ Thu May 10, 2018 9:31 am
Full title: The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science: Causes, Consequences, and the Road to Reform
Downloads of the report are available here:
https://www.nas.org/projects/irreproducibility_report
Synopsis:
$1:
A reproducibility crisis afflicts a wide range of scientific and social-scientific disciplines, from epidemiology to social psychology. Improper use of statistics, arbitrary research techniques, lack of accountability, political groupthink, and a scientific culture biased toward producing positive results together have produced a critical state of affairs. Many supposedly scientific results cannot be reproduced in subsequent investigations.
This study examines the different aspects of the reproducibility crisis of modern science. The report also includes a series of policy recommendations, scientific and political, for alleviating the reproducibility crisis.
This study examines the different aspects of the reproducibility crisis of modern science. The report also includes a series of policy recommendations, scientific and political, for alleviating the reproducibility crisis.
I'm posting this before reading the whole report (I have a two hour meeting to attend) but still wanted this out there. It was cited with reference to a matter of health care before one of my agencies committees that investigates abuses of human testing subjects.
DrCaleb @ Thu May 10, 2018 9:50 am
This has been a topic in Science for a while. Another major factor has been funding.
It's tough enough to get funding to do a study. Almost no one has funding to work through that study and peer review it.
Add to that the skeezy 'journals; that will publish anything for a dollar, and you get a whole lot of studies that add absolutely nothing to the sum of human knowledge.
DrCaleb @ Thu May 10, 2018 10:12 am
'Nature' has a special section on this: https://www.nature.com/collections/prbfkwmwvz/
N_Fiddledog @ Fri May 11, 2018 11:31 am
I notice this wasn't in the blurb from "Science" though.
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The 72-page report took the matter a step further in calling the issue a politicization of science.
“Not all irreproducible research is progressive advocacy; not all progressive advocacy is irreproducible; but the intersection between the two is very large. The intersection between the two is a map of much that is wrong with modern science,” the report states.
Co-authored by David Randall and Christopher Wesler, “The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science: Causes, Consequences, and the Road to Reform” focused on the irreproducibility of recent scientific studies.
“Not all irreproducible research is progressive advocacy; not all progressive advocacy is irreproducible; but the intersection between the two is very large. The intersection between the two is a map of much that is wrong with modern science,” the report states.
Co-authored by David Randall and Christopher Wesler, “The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science: Causes, Consequences, and the Road to Reform” focused on the irreproducibility of recent scientific studies.
https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/44834/
N_Fiddledog @ Fri May 11, 2018 11:39 am
Also...
$1:
The report hypothesized that there are a number of different reasons for irreproducibility that include such things as “flawed statistics, faulty data, deliberate exclusion of data, and political groupthink,” among other reasons. “Actual fraud on the part of researchers appears to be a growing problem,” the report also states.
“‘Stereotype threat’ as an explanation for poor academic performance? Didn’t reproduce. ‘Social priming,’ which argues that unnoticed stimuli can significantly change behavior? Didn’t reproduce that well … Tests of implicit bias as predictors of discriminatory behavior? The methodology turned out to be dubious, and the test of implicit bias may have been biased itself,” the report states.
The report also alludes multiple times to the notion that climate science is on shaky ground.
“Climate science has significant work to do to make its data and its statistical procedures properly reproducible,” Randall said.
Randall cited Judith Curry, a world-renowned climatologist, who has warned that the climate science field is heavily affected by groupthink, a collective way of thinking that has been known to stop individuals from questioning widely accepted theories.
Randall said he believes that climate change data needs to be reproducible because it is “more than usually intrusive into the lives of Americans.”
“‘Stereotype threat’ as an explanation for poor academic performance? Didn’t reproduce. ‘Social priming,’ which argues that unnoticed stimuli can significantly change behavior? Didn’t reproduce that well … Tests of implicit bias as predictors of discriminatory behavior? The methodology turned out to be dubious, and the test of implicit bias may have been biased itself,” the report states.
The report also alludes multiple times to the notion that climate science is on shaky ground.
“Climate science has significant work to do to make its data and its statistical procedures properly reproducible,” Randall said.
Randall cited Judith Curry, a world-renowned climatologist, who has warned that the climate science field is heavily affected by groupthink, a collective way of thinking that has been known to stop individuals from questioning widely accepted theories.
Randall said he believes that climate change data needs to be reproducible because it is “more than usually intrusive into the lives of Americans.”
BartSimpson @ Fri May 11, 2018 11:39 am
The advocates of both politicized climate science and Lysenkoism have some disturbing similarities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
N_Fiddledog @ Fri May 11, 2018 11:44 am
Kids should learn about Lysenko in school. That chapter of Soviet Russian history can speak to the way information is currently being delivered in the modern West. At the very least it's a useful caution.
BartSimpson @ Fri May 11, 2018 1:56 pm
N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:
Kids should learn about Lysenko in school. That chapter of Soviet Russian history can speak to the way information is currently being delivered in the modern West. At the very least it's a useful caution.
This is why kids don't learn about Lysenko in school.
Thanos @ Fri May 11, 2018 5:53 pm
They could also learn about Lysenko and his ilk just from watching the fascist version of it in live-action in front of them on FOX "News". Whadda ya mean, lead in the drinking water is toxic. Whadda you, some sort of commie spreading lies like that? 
N_Fiddledog @ Fri May 11, 2018 9:54 pm
Thanos Thanos:
They could also learn about Lysenko and his ilk just from watching the fascist version of it in live-action in front of them on FOX "News". Whadda ya mean, lead in the drinking water is toxic. Whadda you, some sort of commie spreading lies like that?
Thank You, Muddy waters, for that little obfuscation.
It was the geneticists who opposed the supposed Soviet super science of Lysenko who were labelled fascists.
By your nutty analogy Fox news would be the thousands of actual scientists who were imprisoned, exiled or executed during the Lysenko era for supporting mainstream findings like what was revealed here:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2009/09/25 ... hools.html
You would be the soviet authority defaming them as fascists.
DrCaleb @ Mon May 14, 2018 6:42 am
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
The advocates of both politicized climate science and Lysenkoism have some disturbing similarities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
No, they don't.
BartSimpson @ Mon May 14, 2018 8:46 am
Thanos Thanos:
They could also learn about Lysenko and his ilk just from watching the fascist version of it in live-action in front of them on FOX "News". Whadda ya mean, lead in the drinking water is toxic. Whadda you, some sort of commie spreading lies like that?
Oh, please.
The problem in Flint, Michigan existed long before Trump came along and the primary aspect of the problem isn't the water itself but the fact that acidic water releases the lead contained in the lead pipes in the older homes that predominate in Flint.
These old homes need to be repiped and the owners themselves are responsible for that and not the government.
BartSimpson @ Mon May 14, 2018 8:47 am
DrCaleb DrCaleb:
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
The advocates of both politicized climate science and Lysenkoism have some disturbing similarities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
No, they don't.
And there's a similarity right there.
![[B-o]](./images/smilies/drinkup.gif "Drink up")
DrCaleb @ Mon May 14, 2018 9:16 am
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
DrCaleb DrCaleb:
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
The advocates of both politicized climate science and Lysenkoism have some disturbing similarities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
No, they don't.
And there's a similarity right there.
There is no similarity. Climatology has had to become politicised because of the strong denier forces that have been brought to bear by the businesses who profit so long as they can pollute.
It has nothing to do with a Soviet era scientist who should have the nickname "Always Wrong".
BartSimpson @ Mon May 14, 2018 10:44 am
Politicized science in the name of the USSR or in the name of global socialism is still politicized science.
Sorry, my friend, but the fact that people are not immediately welcoming of the global warming alarmism that tries to pass itself off as unquestionable Holy Writ is not a denial of science, it is the very heart of it.
The fact that so many people have been educated on how actual science works tells them to be very skeptical when questions about global warming being 'settled science' results not in calm, rational scientific explanations but shrill accusations of "DENIER!!!", ongoing attempts to defraud (U East Anglia), and illogical manipulations of past data records with bullshit excuses to justify them.
Really, the AGW movement just about killed itself when they started calling for skeptics to be imprisoned for heresy.
In that moment AGW lost any pretenses about being based on science and instead it was inadvertently honest about being a political and religious movement.