Scientists increasingly put politics over uncertainty in their research papers
The modern scientific method
The death of uncertainty in science: According to a paper published this week in the peer-review journal Science, scientists in recent years are increasingly abandoning uncertainty in their research papers and are instead more willing to make claims of absolute certainty without hesitation or even proof.
If this trend holds across the scientific literature, it suggests a worrisome rise of unreliable, exaggerated claims, some observers say. Hedging and avoiding overconfidence “are vital to communicating what one’s data can actually say and what it merely implies,” says Melissa Wheeler, a social psychologist at the Swinburne University of Technology who was not involved in the study. “If academic writing becomes more about the rhetoric … it will become more difficult for readers to decipher what is groundbreaking and truly novel.”
The new analysis, one of the largest of its kind, examined more than 2600 research articles published from 1997 to 2021 in Science, which the team chose because it publishes articles from multiple disciplines. (Science’s news team is independent from the editorial side.) The team searched the papers for about 50 terms such as “could,” “appear to,” “approximately,” and “seem.” The frequency of these hedging words dropped from 115.8 instances per 10,000 words in 1997 to 67.42 per 10,000 words in 2021.
Those numbers represent a 40% decline, a trend that has been clear for decades, first becoming obvious in the climate field. Since mid-1990s that field’s most powerful scientists have used their power to squelch debate and destroy careers while demanding all researchers express no uncertainty when discussing the possibility that human activity might be causing global warming. Leftist politics was put first — superseding truthful research and unreserved skepticism — in order to use that unjustified certainty to pressure lawmakers to pass restrictive environmental laws while increasing funding to these same dishonest scientists.
This certainty — combined with this leftist political agenda — has been steadily leaking into other fields, until today one can find it in some degree in almost all science papers. The scientific method demands above all an utter commitment to search for the truth, no matter what. If you are certain you cannot be skeptical, and will thus routinely come to bad conclusions as you allow your biases to rule.
The result has been a steady decline in good scientific research, replaced by political influence-peddling, lobbying, and the steep rise of many powerful scientists using positions of authority to push their political agendas, often making claims on all sorts of issues, based not on real research but on what they “felt” needed to be done. The dishonest actions of health officials like Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx during the COVID panic are prime examples of this. As Birx herself proudly admitted in her own book about COVID:
Deborah Birx
“No sooner we had we convinced the Trump administration to implement our version of a two-week shutdown than I was trying to figure out how to extend it,” she writes, despite not having the data to back up her intention. “Fifteen Days to Slow the Spread was a start,” she writes, “but I knew it would be just that. I didn’t have the numbers in front of me yet to make the case for extending it longer, but I had two weeks to get them.”
The dishonesty by Birx and Fauci during COVID is simply one minor (though terribly harmful) example of this corruption of science.
It is therefore gratifying that Science might finally be recognizing this trend. Whether its editors will demand that scientists rewrite their work to recognize its uncertainty however is another thing entirely. There is no indication from the article at the link that any positive action is planned. In fact, one editor at Science, Executive Editor Valda Vinson, even suggested this trend might reflect positive change.
She suggests authors may be hedging less because editors have increasingly asked authors to supply additional supporting information. The Scientometrics findings may also reflect a move by the editors away from older conventions of scientific writing that encouraged hedging and passive voice, she says. That style has given way to a more modern, informal tone marked by less hedging. [emphasis mine]
The highlighted phrase indicates Vinson’s intellectual dishonesty. If anything, the writing in scientific papers has over the years become more obtuse and jargon-filled, not “more modern” or “informal.”
In the end, the article’s conclusion illustrates how blind Science and its editors remain when considering the influence of leftwing politics on research.
The new study doesn’t show what caused the observed decline of hedging language. The pressure to publish that academics face to gain tenure, promotion, and professional recognition may play a role, but there could be other factors as well. The nature of the connection, [co-author Ling Wei] says, deserves further study. [emphasis mine]
That one of the paper’s authors cannot mention the possibility that politics is partly behind this trend illustrates once again the blindness and dishonesty in the modern politicized scientific community. If Wei and her co-authors admitted that the political agenda of the left is a factor, they would then have to act to eliminate it from research. None of these people want to do this, however, since they — like Fauci and Birx — want to impose their leftist politics on us all.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Maybe there is some hope….
“A Florida university has fired a professor after an investigation concluded he “demonstrated extreme negligence” in the data management of racial bias studies that could cause “unalterable” damage to the school’s reputation.
In a scathing five-page termination letter penned by Florida State University’s (FUS) Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, James Clark informed criminologist Eric Stewart that decades of his research “once thought to be at the forefront” of the profession were shown to contain “numerous erroneous and “false narratives.”
“My specific concerns are related to the details of your behavior and the extreme negligence and incompetence that you demonstrated in the performance of your duties,” Clark wrote.
“As outlined in the Notice of Intent to Terminate letter, you demonstrated extreme negligence in basic data management, resulting in an unprecedented number of articles retracted, numerous other articles now in question, with the presence of no backup of the data for the publications in question,” he added.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-university-fires-professor-over-dubious-racial-bias-studies-damage-to-school-may-be-catastrophic/ar-AA1eBz3m?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=63dd86175c494350b27f14e38ee544e5&ei=7
CERTAINTY?
I WILL STRONGLY BE SUPPORTING THE KAMMY HARRIS CANDIDACY FOR PRESIDENT CAMPAIGN
“Congressman Andy Biggs (AZ) told reporters that Devon Archer confirmed Joe Biden is the ‘Big Guy’ referenced in various texts and emails.”
“In 2017, James Gilliar, a business associate involved in the CEFC joint venture, broke down a payment structure in an email to Tony Bobulinski and Hunter Biden: “10 held by H for the big guy? Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky also referred to Joe Biden as “the big guy” in the FBI’s FD-1023 form.”
Coming it is.
William Briggs’s essay:
“Over-Certainty Is One Of The Main Causes Of Bad Science: Brain Volume & IQ Example”
https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/47818/
__________________
From Robert’s first link:
So, instead of making an observation of some phenomenon then doing research to explain what was observed, scientists should be making observations that support a conclusion? This also is worded in such a way as to suggest that scientists should not pursue observations or pursue research that contradicts the conclusion.
Science has long been the search for the truth. To find truth, every statement must be examined for veracity. Each research paper must also be examined for veracity. This means that skepticism is paramount in discovering the truth. If there is no skepticism, then a lie or unintentional falsehood (biased conclusion) can be supported and accepted without the actual truth being discovered.
Politics and funding sources are classic factors in creating biases in science and other fields. If biases are allowed to work their ways into science, then it is only fortuitous, by chance, when the bias happens to also be the truth.
From the truth that science discovers, we make models in order to predict the future. What will the weather be next week? We have a model for that, but it is not certain, and even though it is reported as certain, when next week comes, the weather is not exactly as the reported prediction. Error bars should have been presented with the prediction.
When we are about to launch a rocket to orbit, we model how to get it into the correct orbit. During the launch, we say that its trajectory is nominal, that it is going as fast as the model predicted, in the direction predicted, and where predicted, within acceptable tolerances. After the launch, we say that it is in its nominal orbit, that it is where we wanted it to be but within acceptable tolerances.
There are uncertainties to our models, and we must acknowledge those uncertainties. With launches, we do. With weather, we don’t. With climate change, we don’t even acknowledge that the models have failed to predict the current climate from a starting point three decades ago. Who needs tolerances on a model that we don’t care that it is wrong?
Great care must be taken when performing science in order to make sure that false or misleading conclusions are not made. This takes a lot of work and vigilance, and it is what peer review is supposed to catch, but somehow modern peer review has been failing to catch this, and bogus papers are published, sometimes to be retracted later. It is a bit like accepting Aristotle’s conclusion that lighter objects fall slower than heavier ones.
It is very easy to ignore or damage raw data or to use processed data as though it were raw data. NASA and NOAA did this when they mysteriously altered the historical global average temperatures without informing the scientists to whom they were distributing the processed data. The alterations all seemed to be in the direction that supported the desired political conclusion, which looks to the world as though there were a bias in the alterations. The actions they took are the very definition of fudged data.
If we let our scientists so very publicly fudge their data, then what stops them from the much less public humiliation of writing their papers in confirmation of their preexisting biases?
It looks to me as though there are too many scientists for the number of observed phenomena that need to be explained.
No, that may not be it. A more root cause of the problem may be the “publish or perish” philosophy. Scientists must keep publishing in order to remain employed, and if they cannot find a new phenomenon to study, then they have to publish something — anything — that looks like it is new.
There may also be a cause of the problem with science due to the other scientists, who desire to support each other, so they let bad science be published just so that their colleagues may keep their jobs. I have already mentioned that politics and benefactors who have something to prove are part of the problem.
In conclusion, it looks like we have not been vigilant enough with our scientists, allowing them to present biases as fact and as truth.
This would not be as much of a problem it science were only academic exercises, but our fearful leaders make dramatic policy based upon these biases. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year fighting a changing climate without any knowledge as to whether our fight is doing any good or whether it is necessary in the first place. Our lockdowns, shutdowns, and smackdowns were put in place even though there was overwhelming evidence and centuries of successful medical science showing us that we were doing the exact opposite of what should have been done. The models at the beginning showed that a two-week shelter in place, along with social distancing, hand washing, and travel bans, would result in only 60 thousand Wuhan flu deaths in the U.S., but we ended up with a million dead attributed to the flu alone, and we had additional excess deaths that can only be attributed to the extended lockdowns, shutdowns, and other ill reactions to the Wuhan flu.
It looks for all the world as though science is now broken.
______________________
Bill Whittle has a discussion with two friends on a similar topic: “Transgender Activists Get Trolled, Seek Psychiatric Care”
https://rumble.com/v33nm4c-transgender-activists-get-trolled-seek-psychiatric-care.html (12 minutes)
Note the paper mentioned at the end of the discussion, which shows a bias in its own title: “Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy: Interpreting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire about Transgender Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science Student Experiences.”
Yes, the woke crowd insists upon diversity, inclusiveness, and equity, but if you identify as a diversity that they don’t include, then you are an inequitable, malicious, White Supremacist.
It is a scientific paper, so it must be true!
Certainty = conclusions … especially conclusions that have the correct narrative.
Conclusion = recognition and fame
Recognition and fame = more funding and more dollars
Uncertainty = status quo and no confirmation of the correct or any narrative.
No confirmation = no recognition or fame
No confirmation or recognition = nothing to pin new funding or dollars on
This is the problem with “science” today; the pursuit of recognition, fame and funding/dollars and not the pursuit of the truth.
Chris, it’s the profit motive … which our society assumes academics and other “non-profit” operatives are immune to … when it is NOT exclusive to those who publicly state their intent to profit.
EACH OF US is affected by it … hence the need to make honesty and respect primary virtues. Those have been eroded by condescension, self-righteousness, and expedience … and perverts the profit motive to drive deception.
Honestly I’m torn. I don’t like weasel-words in my papers. Disingenuously semicommittal is about as nasty as clearly dishonest (but clear!).
I might even prefer the latter. At least we can put a handle on “Wrong”.
Follow up: KAMALA HARRIS FOR PRESIDENT IN 2024? (sigma3ioc.com)
If you are on your summer vacation and have not been keeping up with the news, particularly what is going on in Washington D.C., the other day there was Congressional testimony given by Devon Archer, former very tight partner of Hunter Biden. And this was not a sworn testimony, but I recently became aware that any testimony before Congress must be truthful under penalty of law.
And if you have not been paying attention this interview with former Democrat Congressman, Jeff Vandrew of New Jersey pretty much to my thinking summarizes what was discovered in Mr. Archers’ testimony.
https://youtu.be/UBsvUHLlE_Y 6:29 min.
Congressman Vandrew’s conclusion? This testimony which was very specifically about the current president and “The Brand” which apparently was his political office and an ability to deliver certain policies in government that served certain customers purposes, has now “risen to the level of treason”.
And then we have this interpretation of the Devon Archer testimony by the esteemed down the middle Harvard law professor and Constitutional expert, Jonathan Turley:
“And you have these allegations that money was transferred through a really amazing labyrinth of accounts to hide these transfers to the Biden family. But the lies about saying ‘I had no knowledge, no involvement with these foreign dealings’ become more serious when one asks ‘why was he lying?’ Why did the president lie during the presidential campaign? Why did he lie as president to say he had no knowledge of the dealings when he is now repeatedly connected to these dinners and events? We even have an audio tape of him telling his son he’s in the clear on these dealings. I mean, at some point the American people will gradually resent being played for chumps.”
If you remember Paul Manafort who ran D.J. Trumps campaign for just a short time was speedily given a massive prison sentence for being an unregistered foreign agent under the FARA requirements which he started being thrown into solitary confinement. Which is exactly what Hunter Biden, and his partner was also apparently involved in. They too apparently were unregistered foreign agents.
“Paul Manafort was sentenced to 73 months’ imprisonment, including the statutory maximum 60 months for the conspiracy to violate FARA (Manafort is due to serve an additional 17 months stemming from his conviction in the Eastern District of Virginia”.
“As part of a 12-count indictment of Paul Manafort, prosecutors included charges that the longtime Republican operative misled the government about the nature of his work for the Ukrainian government under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, or FARA.”
Manafort knew too much and was prosecuted for FARA violations for working for the Ukraine government, just exactly like Hunter Biden was working. Only more better.
And president Trump was impeached by the Democrat party machine for making a phone call to the then current president of Ukraine and asking about the “arrangements” made by the Bidens in removing the then current Ukraine prosecutor, Vicktor Shokin. Who was criminally investigating the Ukraine company Burisma that Hunter Biden and his partner were both board members of and being paid $83,000 each per month for their services. And these payments are apparently in addition to the more than $17 million documented dollars that have flowed into the Biden “organization”. How high will that total go? How many million$ in how many LLC’s? Stand by.
Then president Trumps phone call apparently was a bit too much and was cutting a bit too close to the bone for the Democrat party machine and the evidence and unraveling of what we are witness to through testimony just the other day. It is reasonable to assume the Democrat leadership all knew what was what regarding the Bidens activities and they had to take strategic political action. And that action was the impeachment of Trump.
See: Strategy Over Morality to properly understand. STRATEGY OVER MORALITY (sigma3ioc.com)
Are you, Democrat, Republican, Independant American beginning to understand how all of this politically ties together? And are you seeing how the participation of the primarily radical media in not reporting any of it for the most part indicates just how much they knew the Democrat party machine truth was in danger of being revealed?
This is our system, this is our process. The people in time will have revealed to them to some great degree the truth related to what their politically empowered by the people politicians are and have been up to. And then they will pass judgement at the ballot box. This is by design.
And so soon the Kamala Harris for president candidacy campaign will begin. Get your campaign donations ready.
Are you paying attention yet America? JGL 8/1/23
Read it all @ SIGM3iOC.com
Bookmark articles where people like Fauci and Birx brag how they lied to and did end runs around Trump. The day is coming when they will blame the damage of what they did on Trump.
“[co-author Ling Wei]”
Chinese people who come America report to Chinese Communist Party handlers here who require them to steal intellectual property and technology as well as undermine America. If they don’t then the CCP back in China puts the screws to their family and friends there.
To maintain control, lies must be maintained to obscure the truth.
If you know the truth, the truth will set you free!
In the dark ages, people were told not to sail too far from land or they will fall off the edge of the earth. This was to control trade.
Today we are told carbon causes a greenhouse which will overheat the earth. (40 years of satellite observation has never detected a greenhouse event anywhere on earth, it does not exist and yet the fantasy is maintained)
Our entire existence is being turned upside down for the fear of a nonexistent bogeyman. The sky is not falling.
The emperor has no clothes, and he knows it, and he’s daring anybody to say something so he can have them severely punished.
Such is our science community, who are in a no-win situation. Follow the science, do the work with follow up experimentation and confirmation, then be fired and blacklisted for exposing the truth that the science community needs to be kept hidden so they can continue their funding.
William Casey, CIA Director 1981-1987
https://conspiracyanalyst.org/2015/01/13/cia-flashback-well-know-our-disinformation-program-is-complete-when-everything-the-american-public-believes-is-false/
You can fool some of the people all the time…
Or fool all the people some of the time… through proper indoctrination techniques they believe they can fool enough people to “enslave themselves”. (you will own nothing and be happy, you won’t even own your own body) Enslaved to the whims of the administration state whose sole existence is to manipulate and control others and get the rewards. Power corrupts, if there are no consequences, why stop until there is nothing more? And even then you will do what you must to satisfy that voice in your head that drives you to do unspeakable things.
You see, it’s not that power corrupts… It’s that power attracts the corruptible. When the “failsafes” that protects our civilization fails, all is lost. good people will continue to do good, unfortunately they are tricked into doing the wrong thing. We call this “good intentions” which is the road to perdition.
For example, it’s been announced the new flu shot will have MNRA bio weapon mixed with it. They call it a vaccine because they own the language and therefore control the science. Everyone trusts the science. It’s part of the educational conditioning, a programming that cannot be broken. (Just like trusting a priest while he’s molesting you)
They’re looking for people to test the new vaccine on even though they’re going to distribute it without any tests this fall.
Why? Because they can… Everyone trust without validation. What could happen? Unknown, but cannot be reversed.
https://tlavagabond.substack.com/p/turbo-cancer-doctor-reports-23-of
The pharmaceuticals have a saying; “A patient cured is a customer lost”… now there’s dozens of snake oil varieties to help you with your long Covid. The money from Fauci national health institute just cut off funding to the Wuhan lab last month… So they can fund research and medications for long Covid. (It only treats the symptoms.)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/first-long-covid-treatment-clinical-trial-nih/
Meanwhile, national health is looking bleak. Here is a link with some statistics and graphs (Overwhelming evidence) indicating that the higher percentage of vaccination, the higher percentage of excessive deaths.
https://astutenews.com/2023/07/across-the-west-people-are-dying-in-greater-numbers-nobody-wants-to-learn-why/
Conclusion? Science is no longer for discovery and exposing the truth, it serves the master and world domination. If you expose it on YouTube you will be banned. Truth is a fantasy blown by the wind in this brave New World, you can’t believe your eyes, nothing you read, everything is up for question. Welcome to the new dark age.