Misconduct of scientists? Are we surprised?

[AlAyeti]

Why aren't the educated elite put to the same test in the public square and places of higher council, as the garden-variety religion promoting agenda-ist? A sham artist is a sham artist. It's all about money or power or both.

Interesting little story running on Yahoo!

Many Scientists Admit to Misconduct

By Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer
Thu Jun 9, 1:00 AM ET

Few scientists fabricate results from scratch or flatly plagiarize the work of others, but a surprising number engage in troubling degrees of fact-bending or deceit, according to the first large-scale survey of scientific misbehavior.

More than 5 percent of scientists answering a confidential questionnaire admitted to having tossed out data because the information contradicted their previous research or said they had circumvented some human research protections.

And more than 15 percent admitted they had changed a study's design or results to satisfy a sponsor, or ignored observations because they had a "gut feeling" they were inaccurate.

None of those failings qualifies as outright scientific misconduct under the strict definition used by federal regulators. But they could take at least as large a toll on science as the rare, high-profile cases of clear-cut falsification, said Brian Martinson, an investigator with the HealthPartners Research Foundation in Minneapolis, who led the study appearing in today's issue of the journal Nature.

Here's the url for your convenience:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/washpost/200506 ... misconduct

/ / /

Too bad that some deceptions like Haeckels recapitulation "theory" made up out of the thin air in his head, still find its way into school books, still printed as fact today. And, the peppered moth. Two different varieties of moth touted by the educated as one.

Both are in todays high school text books. And the researchers of both knew what they did and why.

If students were taught about life in the womb, or sexuality in general, in a more honest and accurate presentation of scientific facts, many of today's greatest ills would be wiped away or minimized to a far greater extent.

Weiss' opening paragraph reads as an example of twisting words to alter their meanings.

"Fact-bending" or "deceit," is what any good mother would call lying and lying is what any good mother knows is fabricating something that is knowingly false into something that looks true.

[McCulloch]

But unlike divine revelation, there is a remedy.

Ideally, scientists have peer review and scientific results should be repeatable. It is regrettable that the modern press and their reading public are in way too much of a hurry. An amazing new discovery makes for selling more issues than the real work of science, which involves slowly building up evidence for and against each particular theory and hypothesis. Science recognizes the flaws in individual researchers and over the long haul becomes self-correcting.

Divine revelation. I have been given a book from the almighty and a magic pair of glasses to interpret them with. Jesus appeared to me on the road to Damascus. These tablets were inscribed by the very finger of god up on that mountain there. There is only one god and I am his prophet. God wants you to drink this kool-aid. This book was verbally inspired by god. John Frum is coming back. How do you validate any of it?

[AlAyeti]

McCulloch,

Fair questions and a good place for healthy skepticism on Biblical things. Scientists gain, maintain and retain much power, influence, prestige and money and safe affordable housing by what they do and say.

Scientists are just people with an agenda.

Peer review boards are virtually impossible in scientific circles more so than in the religious, because in the case of the New Testament, the guide book is finished. Scientists don't even have to agree with each other. They just have to be working on a newer theory. Whether or not they are lying about the theory.

In the Bible it is written, "Test all things and hold on firmly to the truth," (very empirical view). But that doesn't exist in the world of the easy escape by new "theory." Otherwise abortion would be murder one, and homosexuality would "still" be a mental illness. I've never seen a human being impregnated by another human being give birth to anything but a little human being. Empirical. And homosexuality I will leave alone, because I believe my proctologist is honest.

I am a skeptic. I don't believe anyone or anything on face value. I have sat for a long time and watched a redwood tree. And it never turned itself into a deck around a house.

I once believed in chaos to order, because some scientists said it was true and I was taught in school that it was a fact. Other scientists doubted it. I did my own study. The redwood tree is only not going to be a redwood tree unless someone acts to change it or absolute forces act to change it into soil. Again.

Scientists, especially ones with no moral authority, should be watched with every tick of the clock. But they are not.

But alas, what the Bible predicted would come true is happening. Again.

[McCulloch]

in the case of the New Testament, the guide book is finished.

So here is the thing that I still have not figured out. Long ago, god apparently talked directly to some people. Later he revealed truth to them and got them to write it down. Later even more folks wrote down this revealed wisdom. And then finally the apostles took the last kick at the can. Some claim that god stopped inspiring holy books before the christian new testament was written. Others claim that god continued to reveal other books (Koran, Mormon etc). So how does one know when the cut-off was? Who decided to exclude the Sheppard of Hermes but to include John's Revelation.
Test all things. So if I find contradictions and inconsistencies in the christian new testament I should chuck it. Same with Mormon, Koran, Science and Health, Papal Bulls, Dead Sea scrolls and Watchtower tracts. If god was finished talking to humans when the current christian bible was put together, why can't you christians agree on what it means?

[AlAyeti]

McCulloch,

Human nature bubba.

Just like egotist scientists.

I am a Christian because I can see the Bible's veracity proved by what is going on all around me. The Bible is not supposed to be a religion.

Christians have been arguing with each since and "from" the pages of the Bible. The New Testament admits to historical skeptics with very good arguments talking and challenging Jesus. And they are quoted directly. You see none of this in the Koran or Joseph Smith's works or any other religionist hero. The Bible is anti-adherant. It is an wierd book if indeed inspired by some human mind.

Brahma and Krishna or whatever, did not predict what is happening out the front door circa 2005.

Mohammad and Joe Smith and Charles Taze Russell, all borrowed heavily from what was already written but just changed things to secure their authority. False prophets one and all. Didn't the Bible include these warnings?

The New Testament challenges its own followers. It is not written to outsiders. It chastises us, not you.

Everything is gruelingly heading to its conclusions.

Israel is a fact. Trouble in Israel is a fact. Men marrying men is a fact. Unborn human persons called not human persons is a fact. (Somehow.)

I applaud skeptics almost all of the way to what they decide and how they decide it.

[McCulloch]

I am a Christian because I can see the Bible's veracity proved by what is going on all around me.

This is where you lose me. No one is debating you that bad things are happening in the world. No one is debating you that things which are listed as being sinful in the bible are happening. The link from that to the bible's veracity is where I lose you.

The Bible is not supposed to be a religion.

That's why Paul spends so much time explaining to Timothy about church management, why Jesus spoke of his church to Peter and why Acts is full of early church history. I suppose the seven churches written to by John the Revelator were not part of a religion.

Brahma and Krishna or whatever, did not predict what is happening out the front door circa 2005.

But then again neither did the christian new testament.

Mohammad and Joe Smith and Charles Taze Russell, all borrowed heavily from what was already written but just changed things to secure their authority.

Paul, Luke, Matthew, Mark also borrowed heavily from what was previously written.

False prophets one and all. Didn't the Bible include these warnings?

Everything is gruelingly heading to its conclusions.
Israel is a fact. Trouble in Israel is a fact. Men marrying men is a fact. Unborn human persons called not human persons is a fact. (Somehow.)

Israel, trouble in Israel, men marrying men, abortion. All predicted specifically in the bible? I must have missed that chapter.

[ST88]

AlAyeti,
Are you saying that 5% of the world's scientists admitting to fudging data to fit pre-existing theories should disqualify science as a valid discipline?

What percentage should we assign to Christian philosophy fudging the facts about physics, biology, human psychology, etc. in order to fit doctrine?

[jerickson314]

I don't see the point in discrediting science. It is a perfectly valid discipline that lends plenty of support to Christianity. Just because some scientific conclusions aren't so great (evolution, perhaps?) doesn't mean that we should throw out the baby with the bath water.

[Lycan]

More than 5 percent of scientists answering a confidential questionnaire admitted to having tossed out data because the information contradicted their previous research or said they had circumvented some human research protections.

And more than 15 percent admitted they had changed a study's design or results to satisfy a sponsor, or ignored observations because they had a "gut feeling" they were inaccurate.

5% of scientists answering? So that could be 5% of 20, 50, 200, etc.? That is in no way an insuation that the majority of scientist have falsified or "bent" results or testing procedures. Nor does it invalidate current findings of the scientific community.

[Tigerlilly]

There is no evidence for the majority of scientists doing this, and peer review finds most of the problems with anything important. Many of these officals might very well come from the field of Medicine, where market forces are very important.

Psychology is also counted as a science (just like medicine). It doesn't say from what fields this arises. It makes a huge difference.