Science Research Is Flawed, Needs Freeing From Stagnation

[From article]
Science is broken.
That's the thesis of a must-read article in First Things magazine, in which William A. Wilson accumulates evidence that a lot of published research is false. But that's not even the worst part.
Advocates of the existing scientific research paradigm usually smugly declare that while some published conclusions are surely false, the scientific method has "self-correcting mechanisms" that ensure that, eventually, the truth will prevail. Unfortunately for all of us, Wilson makes a convincing argument that those self-correcting mechanisms are broken.
[. . .]
In 2011, the pharmaceutical company Bayer looked at 67 blockbuster drug discovery research findings published in prestigious journals, and found that three-fourths of them weren't right. Another study of cancer research found that only 11 percent of preclinical cancer research could be reproduced. Even in physics, supposedly the hardest and most reliable of all sciences, Wilson points out that "two of the most vaunted physics results of the past few years — the announced discovery of both cosmic inflation and gravitational waves at the BICEP2 experiment in Antarctica, and the supposed discovery of superluminal neutrinos at the Swiss-Italian border — have now been retracted, with far less fanfare than when they were first published."
[. . .]
In a 2011 survey of 2,000 research psychologists, over half admitted to selectively reporting those experiments that gave the result they were after. The survey also concluded that around 10 percent of research psychologists have engaged in outright falsification of data, and more than half have engaged in "less brazen but still fraudulent behavior such as reporting that a result was statistically significant when it was not, or deciding between two different data analysis techniques after looking at the results of each and choosing the more favorable."
[. . .]
Less famous is a similar hoodwinking of the very prestigious British Medical Journal, to which a paper with eight major errors was submitted. Not a single one of the 221 scientists who reviewed the paper caught all the errors in it, and only 30 percent of reviewers recommended that the paper be rejected.
[. . .]
This gets into the question of the sociology of science. It's a familiar bromide that "science advances one funeral at a time." The greatest scientific pioneers were mavericks and weirdos. Most valuable scientific work is done by youngsters. Older scientists are more likely to be invested, both emotionally and from a career and prestige perspective, in the regnant paradigm, even though the spirit of science is the challenge of regnant paradigms.
[. . .]
Why, then, is our scientific process so structured as to reward the old and the prestigious? Government funding bodies and peer review bodies are inevitably staffed by the most hallowed (read: out of touch) practitioners in the field. The tenure process ensures that in order to further their careers, the youngest scientists in a given department must kowtow to their elders' theories or run a significant professional risk. Peer review isn't any good at keeping flawed studies out of major papers, but it can be deadly efficient at silencing heretical views.
All of this suggests that the current system isn't just showing cracks, but is actually broken, and in need of major reform. There is very good reason to believe that much scientific research published today is false, there is no good way to sort the wheat from the chaff, and, most importantly, that the way the system is designed ensures that this will continue being the case.
[. . .]
This is a big problem, one that can't be solved with a column. But the first step is admitting you have a problem.
Science, at heart an enterprise for mavericks, has become an enterprise for careerists. It's time to flip the career track for science on its head. Instead of waiting until someone's best years are behind her to award her academic freedom and prestige, abolish the PhD and grant fellowships to the best 22-year-olds, giving them the biggest budgets and the most freedoms for the first five or 10 years of their careers. Then, with only few exceptions, shift them away from research to teaching or some other harmless activity. Only then can we begin to fix Big Science.

http://theweek.com/articles/618141/big-science-broken

Big Science is broken
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
April 18, 2016

Harvard University Psychology Professors Question Study Questioning Psychology Studies

Why does the system of correcting each other not apply to the science, "religion?" of global warming?

[From article]
Psychology professor Daniel Gilbert and University professor Gary King criticized a 2015 study claiming that more than half of all psychology studies cannot be replicated, finding that the study itself contains replication flaws.
More than 250 authors contributed to the original “Science” magazine study, which was named by the magazine as one of the top 10 most important scientific breakthroughs of 2015 and garnered significant media attention, King said.
“I do think the original article had such incredibly far reach, having been published in the world’s premier scientific journal, and having leveled a charge against the entire field that really shook everyone up, so I think it really did quite a lot of damage to the reputation of psychology,” Gilbert said.

[. . .]
“The beauty of science is that we keep correcting each other and that helps us move forward.” Gilbert said. “So we’re glad that they published the article, and we’re glad that we were able to publish the critique and engage in a productive conversation with our critics.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/3/11/psych-study-criticisms/

Professors Criticize Landmark Study Undermining Psychology Research
By MIA C. KARR,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
March 11, 2016

Anti Israel Useful Idiots Oppose Arts and Sciences

The same group vilifies academics, isolating Israeli scholars also for political purposes. They attack freedom of inquiry not only in the arts but also the sciences. BDS is a despicable totalitarian organization. They are not a force for good, for peace or for freedom.

[From article]
The way to counter the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) effort against Israel, opined the MK in a Jerusalem Post report, is "to go on the offensive, and bring the battle to BDS." The key, according to Oren, is "explaining the other guy [BDS]: Where they're getting funding, their means of operation, their goals."
[. . .]
Proponents of the cultural boycott want to prevent international audiences from experiencing Israeli art and want to cut the flow of world art going into Israel. To see this solely as an Israeli problem, however, is to be looking into the wrong end of the binoculars.
The cultural boycott eviscerates the role of artists to create change and build bridges, and it undermines the ideal that it is the individual, not a politically motivated third party, who should decide what he or she wishes to experience. It is a direct assault on one of the free world's most valued treasures: freedom of artistic expression.
[. . .]
BDS proponents claim that their goal is promoting human rights and Palestinian self-determination, but their rhetoric points more clearly to political ideology and their modus operandi to thought control. The strategy and tactics of the cultural BDS movement, including censorship, blacklists, intimidation, and discrimination, is repugnant to people across the political spectrum. Conspicuously absent in BDS messaging is a call for peace and coexistence.
Censorship of artistic expression is essential for totalitarian regimes to thrive. If you control content and consumption, you control thought.
[. . .]
when festivals refuse to exhibit Israeli films unless they are critical of that nation's treatment of the Palestinian people (as in the case of the Israeli film by Roy Zafrani, The Other Dreamers, which is about disabled children pursuing their dream), you are controlling content based on politics
[. . .]
Cultural boycott proponents routinely seek to intimidate artists, audiences, and venues. When an international artist announces an Israeli trip or tour, cultural BDS proponents often launch a multimedia campaign intended to derail the performance. They strive to impugn the artist's reputation by implying that he or she is giving a stamp of approval to false claims of Israeli colonialism, apartheid, oppression, and ethnic cleansing.
[. . .]
Artists who happen to be Israeli face recurring discrimination based on nationality regardless of the content of their work. This cannot be acceptable to open, liberal societies around the globe that raise their voices and institute laws against discrimination based on race, religion, gender, and sexual preferences.
When Israeli artists book international events, BDS proponents will pressure venues to cancel, interrupt performances, charge the stage, and physically intimidate participants. Audiences are forced to navigate a gauntlet of vitriolic chants. A clear statement by the vilified artists or venues saying that they do not wish to cancel the engagement is rarely accepted,
[. . .]
The cultural boycott against Israel politicizes art and eviscerates the role of artists as peace ambassadors and agents of change. The fight to counter its efforts is a battle to liberate art.
The proximate target of the boycott effort is Israel, but freedom of artistic expression, fundamental to our humanity, is its ultimate victim.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/an_iron_dome_against_the_cultural_boycott_of_israel.html

January 23, 2016
An Iron Dome against the cultural boycott of Israel
By Lana Melman

Study of Academic Psychology Research Finds More Than Half Unreliable

Psychologists testify in courts making predictions about the future based on personal opinions which cause people to lose their freedom. On Friday August 28, 2015 Rush Limbaugh discussed this story and noted that the same problem exists with other kinds of academic research. Universities like Harvard get $140 million a year in taxpayer funds to do research. How reliable are their published findings? They are permitted to be their own judges. Clueless politicians adore these academic priests and use what they say to make public policy. How strange is that?



[From article]
A major investigation into scores of claims made in psychology research journals has delivered a bleak verdict on the state of the science.
An international team of experts repeated 100 experiments published in top psychology journals and found that they could reproduce only 36% of original findings.
The study, which saw 270 scientists repeat experiments on five continents, was launched by psychologists in the US in response to rising concerns over the reliability of psychology research.
[. . .]
Brian Nosek, a professor at the University of Virgina: “Science is a process of uncertainty reduction, and no one study is almost ever a definitive result on its own.”
[. . .]
In the investigation, a whopping 75% of the social psychology experiments were not replicated, meaning that the originally reported findings vanished when other scientists repeated the experiments. Half of the cognitive psychology studies failed the same test. Details are published in the journal Science.

[. . .]



“Scepticism is a core part of science and we need to embrace it. If the evidence is tentative, you should be sceptical of your evidence. We should be our own worst critics,” [Nosek] told the Guardian.
[. . .]
In 2005, [John Ioannidis, professor of health research and policy at Stanford University] published a seminal study that explained why most published research findings are false.
Marcus Munafo, a co-author on the study and professor of psychology at Bristol University, said: “I think it’s a problem across the board, because wherever people have looked, they have found similar issues.” In 2013, he published a report with Ioannidis that found serious statistical weaknesses were common in neuroscience studies.




http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/27/study-delivers-bleak-verdict-on-validity-of-psychology-experiment-results


Study delivers bleak verdict on validity of psychology experiment results
Of 100 studies published in top-ranking journals in 2008, 75% of social psychology experiments and half of cognitive studies failed the replication test
Psychology experiments are failing the replication test – for good reason
There are many reasons why an experiment might fail to replicate, but more than this, the study has highlighted some issues with academic publishing and modern science.
Ian Sample Science editor
@iansample
Thursday 27 August 2015 14.00 EDT

Researchers Implant Baby Body Parts Into Rodents

[From article]
planting dead human baby organs into rodents, a practice that stands to gain greater scrutiny in light of undercover videos exposing what appears to be Planned Parenthood affiliates selling aborted baby parts to medical procurement companies like StemExpress.
In a fourth video released from the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), Planned Parenthood personnel can be seen sifting through aborted baby parts allegedly to show what parts can be salvaged and sold.
These mice or rats are created by removing a human organ such as a kidney from a dead human baby and implanting it into a mouse or rat for the purpose of medical research.
[. . .]
fetal kidneys were transplanted into rats that lacked immune systems in order to keep the organs from being rejected, according to Live Science. Researchers have also attempted transplanting fetal hearts.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/05/report-aborted-baby-parts-being-used-to-grow-human-organs-in-rodents/

REPORT: ABORTED BABY PARTS BEING USED TO GROW HUMAN ORGANS IN RODENTS
by MICHELLE MOONS
5 Aug 2015
San Diego, CA

Columbia Law School Professor Presents Propaganda As Scholarship

Columbia awarded a JD degree to Eric Holder co-author of the Obama-Holder doctrine, which makes inconvenient laws optional for selected elitists. Relaxed rectitude may be shared by Professor Harcourt. At Columbia Law School is The Sabin Center for Climate Change law. Got no reply when I asked if they thought the sun could be persuaded by law to behave and not to affect the weather on earth. Today's law schools have unusual standards.

[From article]

For the better part of two decades, Columbia University law professor Bernard Harcourt has been on a personal crusade against Broken Windows policing, criticizing both its theoretical underpinnings and its policy applications. A close look at Harcourt’s work, however, reveals not only the weaknesses of his arguments but also his lack of attention to other research findings that conflict with his own. His portrayal of Broken Windows policing, it turns out, is fundamentally inaccurate and incomplete.
[. . .]
Broken Windows policing (as performed by NYPD during the 1990s) involved a great deal of discretion on the part of officers. When it came to disorder, arrest was actually the exception—police were far more likely to handle minor offenses informally.
[. . .]

Harcourt must know that these were the results of the report. Even a casual look at the document shows that the NYPD’s Broken Windows policing involved a high amount of officer discretion. To conclude, as Harcourt does, that Kelling encouraged a high-arrest strategy clearly misrepresents Kelling’s arguments.
[. . .]
In a recent review in the prestigious Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Anthony Braga and colleagues statistically combined the results of the most rigorous academic studies and found that, overall, police efforts designed to manage disorder reduce serious problems in communities. They conclude that “the results of this systematic review and meta-analysis lend some credibility to the NYPD’s claim that disorder policing was influential in reducing crime in New York City over the course of the 1990s.” Harcourt is either unaware of this research or chooses not to acknowledge it.
[. . .]
Harcourt will likely continue his assault on Broken Windows. But an inspection of much of his writing reveals that his arguments are based heavily on intentional misrepresentation, questionable research, and omission of relevant information. The media outlets that continue to accommodate Harcourt’s promotion of this misleading agenda should take note.

http://www.city-journal.org/2015/eon0825ws.html

WILLIAM H. SOUSA
What Passes for Scholarship These Days
A response to Broken Windows critic Bernard Harcourt
August 25, 2015

Medical Researcher at Harvard University, Leaves Prestigious Position to Get Close To Nature

The Canadian woman landed the Harvard job after she completed a PhD in psychology at Western University.


No shortage of arrogant, narcissistic, ambitious, predatory young men and women who are eager to take her place.

[From article]
A 35-year-old woman who landed her dream job at Harvard University and was at the 'top of her academic game' left her Boston apartment to live in a small cabin near a remote Canadian island.
Bethany Butzer, who was studying the benefits of yoga for children and teens for Harvard, left her job at the university's medical school and went to a 130-square-foot cabin near Manitoulin Island.
Butzer spent the summer living at the log cabin near Willisville, Ontario, which was only accessible by boat, with her husband and she said she was 'actually amazed at how content I became'.
The Canadian woman landed the Harvard job after she completed a PhD in psychology at Western University, but she just wasn't happy with her work or home life, the National Post reported.
The remote cabin is only accessible by boat
She said: 'I felt that my professional success was flourishing but my personal health and well-being were foundering.
'It just didn't really feel satisfying.
'I just knew that I needed to spend some time outside in nature.
'I just took the leap.'
She came to the cabin in the woods with only two bags of clothes after selling nearly all of her possessions and Butzer picked blueberries, dodged bears and watched chipmunks play for hours after she arrived.
Butzer said: 'I would just stare at the trees, watch the sky, go fishing and read.'
She also did a good amount of yoga.
The experience was so positive for Butzer and her husband that they took another risk and moved to Prague in the Czech Republic last week where she will teach psychology at a college and he will work as an artist.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3209634/Bethany-Butze-leaves-Harvard-live-near-Manitoulin-Island-Canada.html

Woman ditches top Harvard job to live in a tiny 130-square-foot cabin only accessed by boat - and says she's never been happier
Bethany Butzer left job at Harvard and went to cabin near Manitoulin Island
Spent the summer living at log cabin near Willisville, Ontario, with husband
She was studying the benefits of yoga for children and teens for Harvard
Butzer picked blueberries, dodged bears and watched chipmunks at play
PhD grad said she was 'actually amazed at how content I became' at cabin
By EVAN BLEIER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 20:26 EST, 24 August 2015 | UPDATED: 21:47 EST, 24 August 2015

University of Massachusetts Rape Expert's Research Questioned

Political consultants extended the presidential campaign season to 4 years, 24/7, 365 days each year in order to increase not only their earnings, but also their control over what the candidates say and think. They dictate the policies and positions of the candidates. This should have been clear after the presidential elections of 2008 and 2012. Both times the Republican candidates should have won but for their campaign advisers.
Then there are consultants hired by local, state and federal governments, and even corporations to select leaders, and to create guidelines for programs and public policies.
Many of the consultants are academics, professors, researchers, etc. It is common knowledge that police, FBI agents, politicians, lawyers and doctors are corruptible. Lawyers and journalists are exposed as having intimate financial incentives from crime families or individual criminals. It is more difficult for ordinary civilians to believe that psychiatrists can be employed by the same criminal organizations. So the next question is why not academics? Why are they never employed by criminal organizations? Do any of the above mentioned professionals have access to the law enforcement apparatus? Police, FBI etc? So why not also to the criminal organizations as doctors, lawyers and journalists do?
Thus these "academic" studies, which are cited as the basis for public policy and for congressional committees to write laws, must be scrutinized. The objective of this specific law by the Education Department is to exercise control over student sex lives. The police already have extensive training and resources to prosecute crimes against women. Thwarting due process protections and thinking that college administrators with no experience or training in law no less criminal law will adjudicate criminal complaints in a rational manner raises the question what could go wrong? Here is an example.

[From article]
A college professor’s research on campus sexual assault that was used by the Obama administration to justify sweeping action on college sexual assault has been called into question in a pair of articles published by Reason magazine.
David Lisak, a retired psychology professor who taught at the University of Massachusetts Boston, has for years been regarded as one of the top academic experts on the matter of sexual assault on campus.
[. . .]



The biggest problem with Lisak’s work? While it’s a landmark study in the understanding of campus sexual assault, the data wasn’t actually about campus sexual assault at all. Lisak didn’t gather the data himself, but instead used data collected during four other studies conducted by masters and doctoral students at the school who passed out surveys to male passerby on the campus. The surveys themselves weren’t focused on the matter of sexual assault, and on top of that nothing was done to ensure those taking the survey were college students.
Not only that, but UMass-Boston, where these surveys were handed out, is a commuter school with no on-campus housing and a high proportion of non-traditional and part-time students. The average age of respondents to the surveys Lisak relied upon was 26 years old (one-fifth were over 30), with ages ranging from 18 to 71. According to one former student who helped collect the data, a high proportion of respondents were from working-class backgrounds and many were first-generation college students. The survey asked them about their general behavior, not how they acted on-campus or around other students.
In other words, Lisak’s supposedly systematic research into rape on campus was simply based a series of surveys given to men who happened to be passing around a single atypical college during a certain span of time.
“There is not a single statement in the paper about assaults taking place on or near a campus; there is not a single reference to the campus environment,” LeFauve writes.

 

LeFauve’s own research raised even more questions about Lisak’s methodology. Lisak claimed he conducted follow-up interviews with most of those he classified as serial predators, a claim LeFauve found suspicious because, when Lisak conducted his work in 2002, the data was several years old and much of it had been collected anonymously. When asked how he’d managed to interview these people, Lisak hung up on LeFauve without giving an answer. If Lisak is being at all deceitful about how he conducted his study, it would throw the reliability of the entire paper into doubt.
[. . .]
The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Lisak to see if he has a response to Reason’s criticism, and has not received a reply.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/28/major-study-on-campus-sex-assault-debunked/

Major Study On Campus Sex Assault Debunked

Blake Neff, Reporter
8:11 PM 07/28/2015

More Studies Of Persons Without Homes Planned, Housing Them Will Have To Wait Some More

Enthusiasm is good, how about some focus? Advocates suggest "bringing in experts and the public." What makes an expert? People employed at non profits who provide services to people without homes? Another says, “We need finely-tuned data.” which is collected frequently. Re-inventing the wheel is fun, but wastes time. Another wants to know "which types of homelessness are the most prevalent." Is diversity the issue? Still another asks, what "barriers prohibit the homeless from getting housing." Where are the experts? US Congressional and state legislative committees studied this issue, wrote legislation and provided funding. Every couple of years the Cambridge City Council (and many other city councils) assembles an army to write the ten year plan to end homelessness. University researchers study the issue and write articles and books about it. There are enough plans and studies wasting time, money and good will. Use the money and resources to put people into homes. Put fugitives into their proper places too. Stop stalling. Oh, is the open border contributing to the unending supply of homeless persons?

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20150701/NEWS/150709650

Cambridge takes holistic approach in helping the homeless
By Amy Saltzman
asaltzman (at) wickedlocal.com
Posted Jul. 1, 2015 at 7:57 AM
Updated at 12:16 PM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

Researchers at Harvard and Syracuse Universities Deceived Public About White House Climate Rules

Kathy Fallon Lambert, Senior Investigator
Science & Policy Integration Project Director
Harvard University

[From article]
E-mails obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency show that Harvard University, Syracuse University and two of their researchers appear to have falsely claimed a study supporting EPA’s upcoming global warming rules was conducted “independent(ly)” of the agency.
In early May, a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change purported to support a key EPA claim about its forthcoming global warming rules aimed at coal-fired power plants. The New York Times’ headline, “EPA Emissions Plan Will Save Thousands of Lives, Study Finds,” typified the media coverage.
Across the media, the authors were innocuously described as simply university-affiliated “researchers.” After all, the researchers had declared they had “no competing financial interests” in their study. Both universities had issued media releases heralding the study as the “first independent, peer-reviewed paper of its kind.”
[. . .]
Intrigued by Bounocore’s odd assertion of absolutely no involvement with EPA, I submitted a request to EPA under the Freedom of Information Act for email between the study authors and EPA staff. Although subsequent wrangling with agency staff gave me doubt that I would ever get anything, I received, much to my surprise, 99 pages of emails after mere weeks.
The emails reveal that study co-authors Driscoll, Buonocore, Schwartz and Harvard’s Kathy Lambert were definitely in contact with key EPA staff regarding this research.
[. . .]
As EPA values each life “saved” at about $10 million, the claim that the rules will save 6,600 lives per year puts the rules’ alleged benefits on the order of $66 billion per year, far in excess of industry projections of the rules’ costs.
These EPA claims, however, are controversial to say the least. A compelling alternate view is that no lives will be saved because, for one reason, EPA’s own extensive clinical research shows that particulate matter and ozone in outdoor air do not kill anyone.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/04/harvard-syracuse-researchers-caught-lying-to-boost-obama-climate-rules/

HARVARD, SYRACUSE RESEARCHERS CAUGHT LYING TO BOOST OBAMA CLIMATE RULES
by STEVE MILLOY

4 Jun 2015

Dangerous Drugs Need To be Studied. New Idea In Massachusetts

Deaths from dangerous drug overdoses is one more public safety issue for which politicians commission studies by consultants. It keeps the otherwise academic theoreticians employed and is a way to spend taxpayer funds without killing the jobs. 



[From article]
A task force created by Gov. Charlie Baker to tackle the state's heroin and prescription drug abuse crisis is getting to work.
The 17-member panel will hold a public meeting on Tuesday in Worcester, the first of four around the state.
Baker has called the overdose epidemic a public health emergency and one of the top priorities of his administration. He's asking the task force to report back to him by the end of May with strategies for dealing with addiction, treatment and recovery.
State officials say there were 978 opioid-related overdose deaths in Massachusetts last year, a 46 percent increase over the previous year.
Tuesday's session will be held at Quinsigamond Community College. The other meetings are scheduled for March 19 in Greenfield, March 26 in Plymouth and April 2 in Boston.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/03/panel_to_hold_1st_public_meeting_on_overdose_epidemic

Panel to hold 1st public meeting on overdose epidemic
Saturday, March 7, 2015
By: Associated Press
Boston Herald

Opposition To Paradigm Changes Is From Vested Scientific Interests

[From article]
Stephen Schneider, a highly regarded climate scientist explained the need to lie for justice to Discover magazine:
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people, we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. … Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.
[. . .]
Lomborg wrote the hugely-influential-and-therefore-despised book The Skeptical Environmentalist. An honest and by all accounts decent man and academic, Lomborg was a former hard-green environmentalist. In 1997, he set out, with the aid of some students, to disprove the work of Julian Simon, the environmental optimist. Unfortunately for Lomborg, it turned out the dragon he set out to slay was on the right side.
[. . .]
Galileo’s greatest and most-enduring enemies were not the orthodox clerics of the Church, but his fellow scientists. This was not a case of a superstitious, bureaucratic Church snuffing the light of reason. It was a case of petty and jealous men trying to use the Church to kneecap a whistleblower. If Galileo’s way of things won the day, a lot of people would have looked like fools and, possibly, lost their jobs. And, this had less to do with Copernicanism or heliocentricity than with the fact that Galileo represented the introduction of mathematics into the world of physics. Needless, to say, if you were a physicist who didn’t know jack about math and, all of a sudden, this guy was going to make math a requirement, you’d be bummed.
[. . .]
In 1597, Galileo wrote a letter to Kepler admitting that he believed Copernicus had it right, but he was afraid to admit it publicly for fear of being ridiculed by Aristotelian scientists — not persecuted by closed-minded clerics.
[. . .]
you cannot call the Galileo affair a battle between the Church and science when “science” — in its heart and ambition — was harsher on Galileo than the Church was.
[. . .]
more scientists probably have been stopped from pursuing research because “of defiance of conventional wisdom in America since World War II with its accompanying bureaucratization and politicization of science than existed in the whole of the world in Galileo’s day.”
[. . .]
Today, such institutions and associations are deeply invested in massive political and economic arrangements which require that Lomborg be wrong, if he is scientifically right.
Ultimately, the proper way to view the Galileo episode is not of a religious orthodoxy persecuting a martyr to scientific truth, but the forces of scientific orthodoxy using the state to punish a whistleblower.
[. . .]
The more-important word in the phrase “scientific community” is not scientific but community, because it is that word which reminds us that scientists are humans. And — surprise — humans are creatures of ego, jealously, and vindictiveness. Galileo himself was an egotist of the first order, which is one reason so many scientists despised him. But by shifting the blame for what happened to Galileo away from the scientific community and onto the Church, scientists — and in a sense the entire secular establishment — have absolved themselves of any culpability. This is not only unfair to the Church; it’s very, very dangerous for science, because it perpetuates a myth that the “sophisticated mind” is immune to inquisitorial zeal.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/205503/starry-enviro/jonah-goldberg

JANUARY 13, 2003 8:45 AM
Starry Enviro?
The cases of Björn Lomborg and Galileo.
By Jonah Goldberg

Eisenhower Warned About Federal Government Funding Academic Research

From President Eisenhower's farewell speech on January 17, 1961: "Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite." Seldom is that aspect of science discussed.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/11/21/history-science-medal-shapin/

Professor Wins History of Science Award
By CAROLINA I. PORTELA-BLANCO,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
November 21, 2014

Think Tanks Receiving Funds From Foreign Government Sponsors

Borge Brende, the foreign minister of Norway, in June at the Brookings Institution in Washington. 
Photo: CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times

Is this one more reason to be skeptical of "scientific studies" and academic "experts?"

[From article] The agreement signed last year by the Norway Ministry of Foreign Affairs was explicit: For $5 million, Norway’s partner in Washington would push top officials at the White House, at the Treasury Department and in Congress to double spending on a United States foreign aid program.
But the recipient of the cash was not one of the many Beltway lobbying firms that work every year on behalf of foreign governments.
It was the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit research organization, or think tank, one of many such groups in Washington that lawmakers, government officials and the news media have long relied on to provide independent policy analysis and scholarship.
[. . .]
“It is particularly egregious because with a law firm or lobbying firm, you expect them to be an advocate,” Mr. Sandler added. “Think tanks have this patina of academic neutrality and objectivity, and that is being compromised.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-powers-buy-influence-at-think-tanks.html?_r=0

Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks
By ERIC LIPTON, BROOKE WILLIAMS and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
SEPT. 6, 2014
New York Times

Academic Peer Review Fraud

[From article]
You’ve heard of prostitution rings, gambling rings and extortion rings. Now there’s a “peer review ring.”
The publication is the Journal of Vibration and Control (JVC). It publishes papers with names like “Hydraulic engine mounts: a survey” and “Reduction of wheel force variations with magnetorheological devices.”
[. . .]
After a 14-month investigation, JVC determined the ring involved “aliases” and fake e-mail addresses of reviewers — up to 130 of them — in an apparently successful effort to get friendly reviews of submissions and as many articles published as possible by Chen and his friends. “On at least one occasion, the author Peter Chen reviewed his own paper under one of the aliases he created,” according to the SAGE announcement.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/10/scholarly-journal-retracts-60-articles-smashes-peer-review-ring/


Scholarly journal retracts 60 articles, smashes ‘peer review ring’
By Fred Barbash
July 10 at 3:02 AM

New Study on Nutritious Foods

[From article]
The foods were scored by their content of potassium, fibre, protein, calcium, iron, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folate, zinc, and vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, and K.
Watercress achieved the top score of 100. Broccoli got 34.89, kale 49.07 and tomatoes 20.37
[. . .]
The six fruits and vegetables that didn't make the powerhouse list were raspberries, tangerines, cranberries, garlic, onions and blueberries.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2665863/Revealed-The-new-powerhouse-foods-study-finds-watercress-spinach-chicory-nutritious-foods.html

Revealed, the new 'powerhouse' foods: Watercress, spinach and chicory are the most nutritious vegetables you can eat
A new league table shows the nutrient density score of fruit and vegetables
Scores based on percentage of a person’s daily needs the food provides
Leafy greens topped the list, while grapefruit came out surprisingly low
By EMILY PAYNE
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 07:25 EST, 23 June 2014 | UPDATED: 08:28 EST, 23 June 2014

Venezuelan Tribes' Lives Contradict Dominant Paradigm, Book Review

Book Review
Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes—The Yanomamo and the Anthropologists, by Napoleon A. Chagnon

(Simon & Schuster, 544 pp., $32.50)

[From review]
Their language is unwritten and unrelated to any others spoken in South America, a testament to their long isolation. They didn’t even have a clear sense or delineation of individual words when Chagnon began working with them. He struggled to find symbols for sounds in the Yanomamo language that had no equivalent in English. Math was an issue, too. Chagnon was conducting a detailed study that included compiling extensive demographic data to understand how Yanomamo culture operated. But the Yanomamo have no numbers past two, and they don’t use calendars, so they have little idea how old they are, or how far in any unit of measure one village might be from another. Compiling a census of a single village was a time-consuming chore.
[. . .]
He determined that as many as 30 percent of all Yanomamo men died in violent confrontations, often over women. Abductions and raids were common, and Chagnon estimated that as many as 20 percent of women in some villages had been captured in attacks.
[. . .]
In a 1988 Science article, he estimated that 45 percent of living Yanomamo adult males had participated in the killing of at least one person. He then compared the reproductive success of these Yanomamo men to others who had never killed. The unokais—those who had participated in killings—produced three times as many children, on average, as the others. Chagnon suggested that this was because unokais, who earned a certain prestige in their society, were more successful at acquiring wives in the polygamous Yanomamo culture.
[. . .]
protestors attacked the eminent Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson when he rose to speak, knocking him down and dousing him with cold water. Critics, meanwhile, charged Chagnon with faking his data and branded him a racist.

http://www.city-journal.org/2014/bc0413sm.html

STEVEN MALANGA
Welcome to the Jungle
Napoleon Chagnon’s study of human nature in the Amazon—and the academy
13 April 2014

Academics Focus On Black Employment, Ignore Disabled Persons, Republicans, Conservatives

How many men have been on the cover of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues? What about persons with disabilities? How many NFL coaches, post game pundits, quarterbacks, and how many NBA guards, coaches, play by play announcers have disabilities? When talking about discrimination, and victimhood, why do the special interest lobbyists for women and "minorities" omit this group of persons who are as numerous as homosexuals and black people? How many Republicans, conservatives are in management positions in Hollywood, or for that matter tenured faculty at UCLA, Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Stanford, etc.?

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ucla-diversity-study-blasts-hollywood-679871

UCLA Diversity Study Blasts Hollywood as 'Woefully Out of Touch'
2:48 PM PST 2/12/2014 

by Jonathan Handel

Same Sex Marriage "Study?"

[From article]
Researchers at the Open University in the United Kingdom interviewed and surveyed over 5,000 people and found that men and women without children are more satisfied with their relationships; they are also more likely to feel valued by their partner. The participants included people of all ages, statuses, and sexual orientation.

What is the definition of happiness? How is it measured? Is this an effort to promote same sex marriage using the prestige of an university? Did they establish a rational standard for what happiness is? It is curious that philosophers are unable to define happiness in a way that is easily measured. Rush Limbaugh raised the question whether this study is an effort to promote and celebrate same sex marriage. Do the cultural warriors make use of an alleged academic study to be quoted in media? 

http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2014/01/14/study-couples-without-children-have-happier-marriages/

Study: Couples Without Children Have Happier Marriages
January 14, 2014 12:37 AM

Electromagnetic Radiation Research

http://www.projectcensored.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ElectromegnaticWeapons.pdf

US Electromagnetic Weapons and Human Rights
By Peter Phillips, Lew Brown and Bridget Thornton
A Study of the History of US Intelligence Community Human Rights Violations and Continuing Research in Electromagnetic Weapons