https://youtu.be/lduU81aHGF0

This is the state of our education system today. Fraudulent, “Political correctness”, “Equality”, “Equality of outcome”, protected classes of humans, “Critical race theory”, “Global warming”, “Climate change”, the intellectualization of all of what should be objective science reality. In other words, self fulfilling mental masterbation.

This is what has been perpetrated on the public and the world by those faux intellectuals who know better how everyone should live. Liberals and Leftists all. Very, very dangerous, this is intellectual Fascism.

Andrew W, sound familiar?

More periodicals to publish papers in means they are all looking for more articles to publish.
Thus they are accepting far more junk just to fill up space and not doing their own due diligence to check for simple errors in the papers.

Plus I bet some publications have been started with the unscientific purpose of printing papers and articles just to push a political opinion. All so that Prof Crackpot and his friends can say they were published and thus so they can then reference those articles in their own papers and thus look far more professional and believable.

Almost every global warming paper printed in the last 15 years still references the same three, since disproved, articles. That hockey stick is still floating around.

No, and I was not asking for proof. I am asking what data Bob used to form his opinion.

30 minutes with Google provided the following articles:

Science publishing: The trouble with retractions

Scientific fraud is rife: it’s time to stand up for good science

Retraction Watch

Based on these it is safe to say that the number of retractions of scientific papers is rising faster than the rate of publication. The data on the reason for retraction is murkier, but it would appear the proportion of papers retracted due to misconduct is also on the rise.

This leads more questions: Is the rise of retractions an indication of more fraud? Or better fraud detection mechanisms?

Isn’t that like asking to prove a negative.

His email is at the bottom of the about section.

Do you have data to back up these claims?

There has been a decline in the state of science since the mid-twentieth century. The kind of fraud that allowed Diederik Stapel to publish numerous papers unchecked could not have happened fifty years ago. There was fraud, but nothing so extensive and long lasting.

Moreover, the level of ignorance of the press as well as the willingness of scientists and reporters to let their agendas run hog wild, regardless of the facts, has gotten way out of control, and is far worse than it was forty years ago. More importantly, too many people in these fields don’t seem to care anymore if fraud is exposed. Witness the willingness of the climate science field to close their eyes to the corruption exposed by the climategate emails.

Similarly, plagerism and made-up news stories were once extremely rare events in journalism. When they happened, they were big news, and resulted in the immediate end to the career of the journalist who did it. Today however, the entire field shrugs its shoulders and the guilty parties continue their careers as if nothing happened. And it happens now frequently, much more than in the past.

I saw the rat tumor article used in local consumer protection magazine here in Quebec, it was taken as “proof” that GM crops are a danger to us all. A simple Google search on the papers title immediately uncovered the issues with the paper. The web version of the article has now contains an update at the bottom of the page pointing to a couple articles that point out the issues with the study.

But, the title of your post states: ‘The sad state of modern science’. Is you point that the state of things today is somehow worse than in the past? Or merely that it could be improved upon?

Although this is indeed a sad state of affairs, I don’t expect it is worse than pre-modern times. In fact, I would expect the state to be improving, partly through public awareness made possible by venues such as this blog.

Mark Bach
International Community School
Kirkland WA