"Yet, as your friendly neighborhood skeptic might point out: this is how science, in the long run, self-corrects.”
Science does self-correct, but it didn’t correct itself in that case because the 2002 paper wasn’t science. It was fraud. That episode is more proof—as is the history of the last five years—of why suppressing unpopular dissent is so dangerous and so not-science: When The Science™ can’t be questioned, truth loses and lies win. When reality, honesty, and integrity form the foundation of inquiry (or of any human endeavor), then the long arc of science will bend toward truth. But not otherwise. “When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.”
As for the pressure to publish that researchers face, I divide the blame equally between the researchers’ mindless grubbing at the public trough and the government’s eagerness to keep the trough filled. The government’s motives are clear enough: to self-perpetuate and to be able to point to the work of “experts” and “researchers” that support its agenda. Even laymen know that 99.9% of scientists agree with who’s funding them. As for what scientists get by selling out, I’m less clear. I don’t understand the range-of-the-minute thinking it takes to abandon honesty anyway, but especially not in science. Macchiarini murdered people because…? Because he wanted to be famous? Get more grants? And when his lies were inevitably exposed, then what? He’s a sociopath and a hack and if he’s not doing life in prison then Sweden needs to have a national conversation about how it values human life.
To an outsider it looks like the major driver is a profound lack of integrity among scientists, who have allowed themselves to devolve into technicians, not scientists in any honorable sense. Nothing open to human choice is inevitable, though, including discarding real science by chasing grant money. In fact, you’d think that any institution would want to be able to point to its integrity as the feature distinguishing it from the rest of the field. The main reason nothing changes is because no one cares enough to change himself.
I agree with a lot of this— the thoughts on the unnamable virus closely match some of my thoughts and partially inspired this piece. At one point, I wrote a long essay on why many of the lockdown protocols seemed misguided, though at the time, I lacked a good platform to share it. Protocols like the 6-foot distancing rule and widespread mask mandates stand out as examples where bureaucratic guesswork took precedence over rigorous scientific evaluation. These mandates were not driven primarily by scientific inquiry but by policy-makers retroactively seeking evidence to justify decisions they'd already made. These same voices dominated public discourse and held institutional power. They did not use it well, which has put us in a terrible position for trusting these public institutions. This may be worth revisiting in the future. But sometimes these topics just seem too radioactive to touch publicly.
One distinction worth emphasizing is between the scientific method and the aggregation of scientific literature. When I speak about "science," I'm refer to both the method and our collective, evolving body of knowledge. Certainly, many contributions in science turn out to be incorrect—even if pursued in good faith (though clearly, some, like Macchiarini's, were not). Biology, in particular, is a challenging field precisely because researchers are grappling with living systems, which introduce unique complexity. Nevertheless, over time, scientific fields do self-correct by gradually filtering out findings that are not reproducible or whether its from fraud or mistakes.
In the long run, truth prevails. Why? Because accurately predicting the future is inherently powerful, and predictions must be fundamentally grounded in truth or they simply don’t hold up. Thus, whoever pursues knowledge truthfully gains a lasting competitive advantage. But in the short term, unfortunately, we're left with the challenges and frustrations you’ve described.
I agree: In the long run, evil is impotent. Truth will prevail, given enough time, because reality is. It doesn't bend to politics, whims, wishes, temper tantrums, or a gun.
I think of publications as a false peaks. They are an important achievement when hiking up a mountain, but the real peak is beyond the false peak in front of you.
It would be much better if science was focused on the long-term impact and credit was given for contributing to that impact. Then it is a disincentive to commit fraud.
There is an interesting dichotomy here. Once a discovery is made and it is taken into industry, industry's focus is on robust validation of the discovery finding. Otherwise a lot of investment is spent on a therapy that you could have predicted would not work in the preclinical phase. As you point out it all about where your incentives are.
Truth will always prevail - Bernie Madoff
"Yet, as your friendly neighborhood skeptic might point out: this is how science, in the long run, self-corrects.”
Science does self-correct, but it didn’t correct itself in that case because the 2002 paper wasn’t science. It was fraud. That episode is more proof—as is the history of the last five years—of why suppressing unpopular dissent is so dangerous and so not-science: When The Science™ can’t be questioned, truth loses and lies win. When reality, honesty, and integrity form the foundation of inquiry (or of any human endeavor), then the long arc of science will bend toward truth. But not otherwise. “When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.”
As for the pressure to publish that researchers face, I divide the blame equally between the researchers’ mindless grubbing at the public trough and the government’s eagerness to keep the trough filled. The government’s motives are clear enough: to self-perpetuate and to be able to point to the work of “experts” and “researchers” that support its agenda. Even laymen know that 99.9% of scientists agree with who’s funding them. As for what scientists get by selling out, I’m less clear. I don’t understand the range-of-the-minute thinking it takes to abandon honesty anyway, but especially not in science. Macchiarini murdered people because…? Because he wanted to be famous? Get more grants? And when his lies were inevitably exposed, then what? He’s a sociopath and a hack and if he’s not doing life in prison then Sweden needs to have a national conversation about how it values human life.
To an outsider it looks like the major driver is a profound lack of integrity among scientists, who have allowed themselves to devolve into technicians, not scientists in any honorable sense. Nothing open to human choice is inevitable, though, including discarding real science by chasing grant money. In fact, you’d think that any institution would want to be able to point to its integrity as the feature distinguishing it from the rest of the field. The main reason nothing changes is because no one cares enough to change himself.
I agree with a lot of this— the thoughts on the unnamable virus closely match some of my thoughts and partially inspired this piece. At one point, I wrote a long essay on why many of the lockdown protocols seemed misguided, though at the time, I lacked a good platform to share it. Protocols like the 6-foot distancing rule and widespread mask mandates stand out as examples where bureaucratic guesswork took precedence over rigorous scientific evaluation. These mandates were not driven primarily by scientific inquiry but by policy-makers retroactively seeking evidence to justify decisions they'd already made. These same voices dominated public discourse and held institutional power. They did not use it well, which has put us in a terrible position for trusting these public institutions. This may be worth revisiting in the future. But sometimes these topics just seem too radioactive to touch publicly.
One distinction worth emphasizing is between the scientific method and the aggregation of scientific literature. When I speak about "science," I'm refer to both the method and our collective, evolving body of knowledge. Certainly, many contributions in science turn out to be incorrect—even if pursued in good faith (though clearly, some, like Macchiarini's, were not). Biology, in particular, is a challenging field precisely because researchers are grappling with living systems, which introduce unique complexity. Nevertheless, over time, scientific fields do self-correct by gradually filtering out findings that are not reproducible or whether its from fraud or mistakes.
In the long run, truth prevails. Why? Because accurately predicting the future is inherently powerful, and predictions must be fundamentally grounded in truth or they simply don’t hold up. Thus, whoever pursues knowledge truthfully gains a lasting competitive advantage. But in the short term, unfortunately, we're left with the challenges and frustrations you’ve described.
I agree: In the long run, evil is impotent. Truth will prevail, given enough time, because reality is. It doesn't bend to politics, whims, wishes, temper tantrums, or a gun.
I think of publications as a false peaks. They are an important achievement when hiking up a mountain, but the real peak is beyond the false peak in front of you.
It would be much better if science was focused on the long-term impact and credit was given for contributing to that impact. Then it is a disincentive to commit fraud.
There is an interesting dichotomy here. Once a discovery is made and it is taken into industry, industry's focus is on robust validation of the discovery finding. Otherwise a lot of investment is spent on a therapy that you could have predicted would not work in the preclinical phase. As you point out it all about where your incentives are.