The Wakefield case was not about scientific testing, it was about fraud. He claimed to have found things he had not found.
The cold fusion people in the late 1980s may not have intended fraud, but their results similarly could not be replicated and it appears that they claimed to have found more than they actually had found.
A scientific testing regime is ‘complicated’. Problems occur in astronomy on a regular basis, such as the ‘Wow! signal’. The Big Bang was confirmed after astronomers ruled out bird droppings as a cause of noise in their equipment - a common problem even today.
The problem is that when designing an experiment you make certain assumptions - and sometimes those assumptions are proven wrong. If your experiment finds something unexpected, you need to go back and look at the equipment, the assumptions, the possible alternatives… and sometimes you miss something that others will see in seeking to replicate your experiment. Like microwave ovens that disrupt the radio-telescope whenever they’re used - and that the scientists took 17 years to pin down. Occasionally the discrepancy means that you have actually discovered something interesting - and that’s how science advances.
Yes, and unfortunately he was not alone and there are other examples of researchers manipulating results to achieve a predetermined outcome or to support their own opinions. Here are some more famous ones…
There are other examples, including come locally which have also been caught out and discredited.
And unfortunately (again), such examples feed the minds of conspiracy theorists and those who don’t trust science as examples to support their case. Fortunately the number of such frauds is limited and often discovered some time after the manipulation of results has occurred. Like any population sample, there are some bad eggs but this doesn’t necessarily mean that all eggs are bad.
A friend of mine who is a renown professor, is concerned about the pressure and performance targets on academic staff which has been introduced at his university in recent years. This pressure to perform may inadvertently drive the wrong kinds to cross the line in order to meet their employer’s expectations. Gone are the days that academics were judged solely on their contribution to science and education. Today it is changing to how much money is brought into the institution and number of papers published. It is also likely that a positive research outcome can make for many papers and career success, while a negative result potentially one or a few, and not have the same level of success glamorisation.
I have to ask before getting serious: what does a renown professor do - study how people get famous?
This has been a concern for quite a while now - academics are being judged on their publication rates, which risks a mentality of doing simple studies and ignoring bigger (and presumably more difficult) questions. It also encourages plagiarism and fraud, although they have been around for centuries if not millennia.
While fraud is a problem for science, a bigger problem is overstating findings. If even half of the newspaper headlines that have been written on the subject were right, humans would by now be living entirely cancer-free. Those headlines of course are based upon press releases from researchers, who make bold claims up front and then add their caveats in the small print.
It is only slightly more complex than that. They are actually judged on their ability to get and attract funding. The more papers that are cited the higher the university’s international rankings will be. That begets more students, often willing to pay higher tuition. The more papers that attract corporate sponsored programs the more research gets done.
It is ‘follow the money’ not an insidious mindless requirement to publish. A faculty member can publish hundreds of papers but if they are neither regularly cited by others (a component of the ‘university rankers’) nor do they ever attract sponsorships, nor are they being followed for international prizes, the faculty member risks being let lose.
I guessed this would be the response. Mercola has helped me a lot with information and supplements. I am 72 and have tried some mainstream drugs that have not helped at all and used alternative treatments that have done the trick.
You do it your way and I will do it mine.
Good luck!
That is not a big surprise, in some situations Mercola may do you good. His material is a cocktail of sound advice, folklore and absurd quackery. The first hurdle is to know when he is right and when he is not. The second is to not commit the error of allowing his smooth style and the things he gets right to convince you about the rest.
On diverticulosis he says maintain a high fibre diet. This is standard advice and it works most of the time. There is good reason why it works. It is completely uncontroversial.
At the other end of the scale he warns about the harm from EMF, 5G and WiFi are doing all sorts of bad things to you. There is no good evidence for any of this and it has been studied at length.
Some of his articles about vaccination are straight out of the antivaccs handbook and dip into conspiracy theory. These ideas do not stand scrutiny. On gardasil his statistics are wacko - standard antivaccs nonsense.
I would describe his work as idiosyncratic rather than scientific. Unless you know your stuff it will be hard to know when to take his advice and when not. If you can’t trust him to validate what he says why are you reading? If you have to double check everything he says you can read better material.
As with many who give internet health advice he sells a line of pills, potions and supplements to get you better. Have you ever wondered why those who vigorously push ‘natural’ cures over synthetic and find all kinds of ways to criticise drugs and drug companies have their own line of pills?
Logical, but turning my computer off at night helps me sleep a lot better. Placebo effect? Dunno, but everything that helps is useful.
As far as pushing his pills, I buy some and some have not worked for me and others have been brilliant.
Firstly, your monitors emit bright light and this tends to disrupt our melatonin production - needed to get to sleep. This is why modern operating systems come with ‘night mode’, which reduces the amount of blue light emitted by your screen (computer, phone or tablet).
Secondly, using a computer often involves a high level of brain stimulation, and so adrenaline kicks in. This is not a drug you want sloshing about your body when you’re trying to sleep.
In short, there are reputable and trustworthy sources for the reasonable claims Mercola makes; by using his site you have no idea which claims are science-based and which are flights of fancy.
If you are on prescription medications you should talk to your doctor before taking any ‘supplement’, as these can interact in very bad ways.
As set out in the OP, for the purposes of this thread, the defining characteristic of unscientific research is:
Predetermined outcome: discredit existing vaccines to open markets for his own.
Predetermined outcome: delay action on climate change, to maximise profits for Lomborg’s financial backers.
Predetermined outcome: none. The good doctors had a hypothesis, which they tested and proved to a high level of confidence. One of them experimented on himself, which might have been an ethics violation, but isn’t unscientific (at least, not by the definition of this thread).
The example of Dr Marshall and Warren is relevant to this thread as firstly, at the time of the release of their paper they were discredited amongst their peers…as potentially being unscientific. While many years later their research was verified and they became well recognised for their work. Secondly, the peers, also highly respected research scientists could be seen today as being very unscientific as they prejudged the research of these doctors without sufficient evidence or jsutification…based on their own biased opinions.
This does show an example of unscientific biases which was overturned later. It also shows that those who now criticised the doctors at the time were wrong (and unscientific in today’s terms), but are still respected and possibly today would acknowledge their past mistakes and their own change in opinions (their own biases). We now don’t call these other researchers or scientists frauds or question their ethics by past mistakes or their change in opinions. They have still had the opportunity to contribute to their research fields.
Many scientists and other individuals are similar where their own views can change based on more evidence being provided in relation to a issue at hand. This is how science works and these changes encourage discussion, debate and innovations/new solutions to problems. Shutting individual thoughts will only lead to predetermined outcomes of those who control the discussion/debate.
Not always the case. The placebo affect can often make you feel like you’re getting better when in fact you’re not and may need further attention. Additionally it may leave your wallet a lot lighter…
I’m not saying this is the situation at hand, but unfortunately you can’t take one positive experience and use it to offset mountains of proof. That is exactly what unscientific conclusions are. A one off result that doesn’t line up with peer reviewed research and is not measurable or repeatable
There are instances where a particular opinion or outcome is argued on the basis of incomplete facts, misdirection or outright falsehoods. Often said data does not meet accepted standards of proof required by independent authority. Sometimes this is labelled as quackery or fraud. Rejection by the greater scientific community follows. The less scientifically inclined community is often left confused and vulnerable to suggestion.
There are other circumstances where alternate opinions are presented that challenge accepted scientific thinking. It is part of scientific progress. The challenge is how do we separate this thinking from the previous, whether it is the possibility of time travel, or early sailors challenging the notion that the earth is flat and you might sail over the edge if you go to far?
That Magellan circumnavigated the globe only needed to be done once to prove the earth was roundish, despite prior and substantive supporting evidence.
Time travel in a Dr Who sense might be deniable. To suggest that large distances between galaxies might be travelled in apparent minutes of time, similar to using the Tardis might be possible. Einstein proposed the possibility with his theories. NASA provided absolute evidence in one way with time differences between atomic clocks, one of which had been travelling through space.
It would seem simple enough?
Now where did I leave that police blue house paint?
It does seem that way. What we have here is a distraction.
Distraction is characteristic of Lomborg. Where one argument proves untenable, he’ll shift the focus of discussion:
Reality of climate change undeniable? Shift focus to costs of mitigation (while obfuscating costs of inaction).
Substantial agreement on reality of climate change? Shift focus to manufactured disagreement (the Merchants of Doubt gambit).
Another common characteristic is convoluted rationalisation. The more convoluted, the less rational - and the less true.
The tactics make for fascinating study.
Back on topic: Dr William McBride.
Predetermined outcome: proof of drug-induced birth defects.
One hit, Thalidomide (credit for research done by Professor Widukind Lenz).
One miss, Debendox (leading to Dr McBride being struck off the medical register).
Unfortunately when such information gets to mainstream media as facts, it is very difficult to retract the information later.
It also provides food for the conspiracy theorists who think that mobiles phones and their radiowaves cause harm. It provides fodder for their claims even if it is incorrect and has been discredited (think the Dr Wakefield Vaccination/Autism studies which some still believe to be true). Retracting and discrediting by a government of scientific institution only reinforces their conspiracies as these organisations are complicit to the ‘coverup’.
It depends on how logical or complicated we would like to make the discussion.
The simple answer is it is one of the few things that I know about building the Dr Who TV series time travelling machine, aka the Tardis. In a child like way, that has little scientific reasoning, if you wish to create a working Tardis it appears to be constructed from timber in the style of a UK Police Box and is a certain shade of blue. I have yet to work out how to make it bigger on the inside than it appears on the outside. However if I can recreate the outside in the true spirit of unscientific research, I expect I am onto a winner in claiming credit for my research into time travel.
/add a frivolous smile.
My understanding is that thalidomide was an interesting case, but feel free to correct what I say next. The drug was developed in post-Nazi Germany, and based upon Nazi science. A lot of the original test information had been ‘lost’ at the end of the war (presumably because of how the tests were conducted), and so when thalidomide was synthesised in the 1950s many assumptions were made about its safety. It was never properly tested on pregnant animals or women - possibly because of those assumptions about its precursor drugs.
Thalidomide remains an incredibly useful drug - but don’t take it while pregnant.
Just to add to this thread enormously, from McBride’s Wikipedia page (which mentions that he was reinstated as a doctor in 1998) I found a link to a very useful page.
The bad news? First person named is an Australian.
Cargo cult reasoning. Entirely sensible. It’s when you get to the Prince Philip Movement that you know you’ve over-stepped the bounds of polite religiosity.
What will they do when he dies? Perhaps they will continue on as the Rastamen did (who worshipped Haile Selassie) and continue to worship his spirit in the hereafter.
