Political “Science”
by Tony Perkins
June 5, 2009
In this secular age where “science” trumps all else, it is borderline blasphemy to question the inerrancy of scientists. However, since I received this revelation of scientific misconduct from FRC’s resident scientist, Dr. David Prentice, I assume I have standing to bring it to your attention:
One in seven scientists says that they are aware of colleagues having seriously breached acceptable conduct by inventing results. And around 46 per cent say that they have observed fellow scientists engage in “questionable practices”, such as presenting data selectively or changing the conclusions of a study in response to pressure from a funding source.
Apparently a number of scientists, who increasingly are helping drive controversial public policies, don’t walk on water after all. Just because a “scientist” said it is so, doesn’t necessarily mean it is so.
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Comments
That’s an interesting data point, but what does it mean? They could all be aware of the same same person! This data point is scientific misconduct, because it doesn’t give you anything solid enough to hang your hat on. If you read on, the data suggests that only 1 in 50 scientists have faked results, and presumably not all the time.
It’s also unfair to suggest that science has a concept of “inerrancy” and even “blashphemy”. Those are religious concepts. Scientists are highly skeptical of the data, and try to disprove each other. In any event, if you’re going to base your decisions on something, it’s probably better to do it based on observed data as opposed to revealed “truth”.
For an attempt to judge the entire scientific dicipline, those statistics could use a bit more science behind them. Jason points out the flaws.
In any case, there are self-checking mechanisms in place: If the research is sufficiently important, another scientist elsewhere will at some point attempt to verify it independantly.
I think the FRC is just attacking science in general because many of it’s own policies are exposed as deeply flawed as soon as the light of statistical evaluation is shone on them.
For that matter, why do I keep seeing the FRC campaign against climate change countermeasures? It’s a social policy organisation. Climatology is far beyond the field of it’s expertise.
By: April Lorier | June 6, 2009 at 1:44 pm
And this surprises you? Science has a lot of monetary pressure behind it. And when the almighty dollar being dangled, there will be corruption! The Bible is pretty clear about the LOVE of money being the root of all evil, isn’t it?