Food for thought about data, interpreting research, and misinformation

...and? A $50K NSF grant hardly makes you an indentured servant to the man. I have applied for and received grants and there were no G-men outside my door. No one telling me what the results should be or else. No handler was assigned to me. I spent 11 years in higher education and published in several fields at several different institutions. I knew the PIs really well and worked day in and day out with them. I continue to have close friends that receive much higher levels of funding and again, no handlers, no g-men, nothing sinister.
Actually, the NSF program directors aren’t bureaucrats per se. There is a good old boys club type scenario where the director positions, which are rotated through by academics, select their friends for grants, and then when their time (IIRC they’re three year assignments), then the new incumbent will select grants from the same folks.

What research areas get what budgets may be P, and influenced more, and we don’t need to go there. You mentioned grants… so it’s the program directors/officers.

Maybe more of a scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours situation. There is a semblance of rigor, and technical merit, and loosely that’s the case. But it is still a “contact sport” based upon who you know and relationships you have.

Funny also that they frown on folks who take DoD money sometimes.
 
I'd like to make a comment based on a simple example of how perspective (bias) causes one to view something favorably or unfavorably....


The US Soccer Federation includes both a mens and womens team.
As we've heard in the last several years, the womens team has complained (and even filed suit in federal court) about "unfair" pay
- it is a FACT that the women have won several world championships since the 1990s
- it is a FACT that the men have won zero world championships since 1920s
- it is a FACT that the women current get approximately 50% of the total paid compensation from the US Soccer Federation
- it is a FACT that the women are paid MORE (on a "per game" basis) than the men
- it is a FACT, that the mens team generates the BULK of the Federation revenue (97.5%)

Now, this is a matter of perspective. The women want to be paid "more". Despite the fact that they actually are paid more "per game", they still want more. The only generate 2.5% of the total income, and they get paid 50% of the total salary, it's still not enough for them.

The world, as a whole, values mens sports over womens sports. No amount of "woke values" changes that fact. The mens soccer system is a multi-Billion dollar business; the women's a a tiny fraction of that. The US Soccer Federation is not in the business of doing things for free; they exist to make money. ANY professional sports team HAS to make money, or they cease to exist. So of the total earnings brought into the organization, 97.5% is brought in by the mens team, and 2.5% by the womens team. The mens team does not control who pays to come see them, or buy their merch. It's just how society works; it's free market. People spend their money where they choose; it's that simple.

Boiled down to a consumable form:
Men: generates 97.5% of the total income; gets paid 50%
Women: generates 2.5% of the total income; gets paid 50% (actually more, if viewed on a "per game" basis)
And yet, the women still want MORE pay ...

THAT is a matter of perspective bias, folks.
(y) What is really discouraging, is it does not end there. A really sad fact that causes more hard feelings + bias (people get tired of all the crying) and it becomes the "boy who cried wolf" syndrome. After a while no one believes or cares about any of the ones (valid or not) claiming anything from mistreatment / bias / harrasement / racism to unfair wages and on and on. Seems to be groups of folks who think the answer to anything is lawyer up (accuse someone, anyone of anything) if they do not get their way. (apparently no one taught them a fact of life) Life is Not Always Fair. People who learn that early in life seem to lead happier lives , rich or poor , famous , or unknown like most of us. I blame the media , all forms of it constantly jumping on and blasting any accusations on anyone all across the air waves and internet before they even check the facts in most cases. Some of them have even been caught making things up without a sliver of proof. Many people are fed up with this "he said , he did , she said , she did" type of world. People have enough already to deal with raising families , earning livings , leading their lives and dont need to be stirred up by all the "click baits" and media outlets constantly fighting each other for ratings no matter what social troubles they actaully encourage + cause between the general public. No accountabilty either when they are the cause of these troubles that often many innocents suffer by getting caught up in some of these cooked up media fueled messes.
 
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Actually, the NSF program directors aren’t bureaucrats per se. There is a good old boys club type scenario where the director positions, which are rotated through by academics, select their friends for grants, and then when their time (IIRC they’re three year assignments), then the new incumbent will select grants from the same folks.

What research areas get what budgets may be P, and influenced more, and we don’t need to go there. You mentioned grants… so it’s the program directors/officers.

Maybe more of a scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours situation. There is a semblance of rigor, and technical merit, and loosely that’s the case. But it is still a “contact sport” based upon who you know and relationships you have.

Funny also that they frown on folks who take DoD money sometimes.
While I've never personally received an NIH grant, I've certainly worked on projects funded by them and been privy to the grant writing process and so I've seen the politics of NIH funding as well.
 
Yes, it really is not complicated, that specific SOMEONE should not be trusted, but that's not what's happening. What's happening is when SOMEONE lies people decide to not trust ANYONE. A scientist lied = no scientist can be trusted. A government official lied = no government official can be trusted. It's illogical nonsense and dishonest because it's a ******** reason to simply discredit anyone who doesn't say what you want them to say and most people doing this know it's a BS reason as they hide behind fake claims of wanting "honesty".
I quoted your post about "government." I figured everyone would know when I said "someone" I was mainly talking about government since I had quoted you talking about government.

What's "illogical nonsense and dishonest" is to start talking about government but then pretend it's only about one scientist or one government official when there are agencies full of people. The head of an agency may do most of the talking, but they are representing an entire agency.

And then you go on an aggressive attack again. This time against people who have been presented with "science" full of hypocrisies, contradictions, now-admitted-to wrongful data, and which blatantly ignores long-held science. And lots of people have been punished for merely asking questions -- including punishing other scientists asking questions!

People get punished for merely asking questions, and here you are saying they have no reason to be distrustful and are only pretending to be distrustful because others aren't saying what they want them to say. To quote you, that's "BS."

We've seen scientists who question "The Science" get censored, banned, fired. They question the main narrative... Poof! They're gone. Yet here you are pretending it's only one person doing the lying and censoring. You said, "...to simply discredit anyone who doesn't say what you want them to say." That's a good statement, but you said it about the wrong people. There's a whole lot of people who have done a lot of "discrediting" of others because those others merely asked questions.

You also say the people who have been lied to don't actually want honest answers. That's an "illogical nonsense and dishonest" claim.
 
I quoted your post about "government." I figured everyone would know when I said "someone" I was mainly talking about government since I had quoted you talking about government.

What's "illogical nonsense and dishonest" is to start talking about government but then pretend it's only about one scientist or one government official when there are agencies full of people. The head of an agency may do most of the talking, but they are representing an entire agency.

And then you go on an aggressive attack again. This time against people who have been presented with "science" full of hypocrisies, contradictions, now-admitted-to wrongful data, and which blatantly ignores long-held science. And lots of people have been punished for merely asking questions -- including punishing other scientists asking questions!

People get punished for merely asking questions, and here you are saying they have no reason to be distrustful and are only pretending to be distrustful because others aren't saying what they want them to say. To quote you, that's "BS."

We've seen scientists who question "The Science" get censored, banned, fired. They question the main narrative... Poof! They're gone. Yet here you are pretending it's only one person doing the lying and censoring. You said, "...to simply discredit anyone who doesn't say what you want them to say." That's a good statement, but you said it about the wrong people. There's a whole lot of people who have done a lot of "discrediting" of others because those others merely asked questions.

You also say the people who have been lied to don't actually want honest answers. That's an "illogical nonsense and dishonest" claim.
So how do you or I or anyone determine what is truthful science if we start from the perspective that it is all untrustworthy? Consensus! Much like the word "theory" which is bastardized by the layman to mean something it does not in science (it does not mean a guess or imply the idea is questionable and it actually is one of the strongest lables we can place on a scientific idea), consensus gets a similar bad wrap as being mindless, lazy, with people just going with the flow. This too is not the meaning of consensus in science.

I have no reason to read a paper on matrix metalloproteinase activity in human dentin (we will call this idea 1) and disbelieve what it says, assuming it was designed well, unless I see subsequent papers that provide more compelling arguments stating something different. Now if I see just one paper contradicting the first paper and it's of equal quality (idea 2) then I'm sort of at an impasse. Who is correct? I really have no idea. If I then see two, three, ten papers all using different experimental designs looking at the problem from different angles and they all say the same thing as the second paper then I have more confidence in idea 2. Now a few papers come out saying idea 1 seems incorrect or the data could not be replicated. If the second idea now becomes the accepted science, the science still doesn't stop there. Idea 2 is developed further and now there are experiments being done based on idea 2 that would themselves not make sense if if idea 2 was wrong. Now there are scientists in industry designing new materials based on idea 2 and wouldn't work is idea 2 was wrong. Now we are a decade down the road, there have been 100 studies on MMPs in human dentin looking at everything from the biochemistry to the cells involved to clinical trials on the reasons why current products fail to the development of new products that no longer fail based on idea 2. There is now a consensus that idea 2 is more likely correct. THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. Scientists question the narrative all the time - THAT IS SCIENCE. Note - people aren't simply duplicating the same experiments and data - that's not the basis for consensus. People are actually trying to NOT duplicate the same data and instead are looking at it from a different POV trying to DISPROVE it. That group looked directly at enzyme activity and so we are going to look at DNA/RNA and see if idea 2 is still supported. A good experimental design will set out to try and DISPROVE idea 2 with the DNA/RNA data.

Are there politics with funding? You bet, no one wants to spend tons of money on something that is likely wrong but there is still money being spent looking at alternatives. Are some people just "hopping on the band wagon?", perhaps in the beginning of their careers or if their careers are struggling but the strength of the data is the strength of the data. I can tell you in my own personal experience we constantly tried to prove what we were doing was wrong. We constantly tried to disprove our data and conclusions. Once we reached a conclusion, we probably did more bench top work trying to disprove that conclusion than we did trying to prove it in the first place and we were VERY skeptical of finally putting a conclusion to paper. Reputation is everything in science. Not with the public in general but with your peers and funding sources and getting caught lying or fudging data is a death sentence. Hell, just being wrong despite your best efforts can end careers. Is this why some people do fudge the data? Probably, but they are almost always caught, either by a whistleblower or by the fact that 20 more papers came out discrediting their idea that looked pretty bulletproof or other groups cannot replicate the results.

Philosophically, science gets better with time BECAUSE it is often wrong. Not wrong because they're something nefarious going on but because science is hard work and discovering new things is not easy. Science is a process of moving towards truth, which it will never totally get to, with lots of stumbling in between. Too many outside science present this strength as a weakness. It is not about being right at a point in time - it's about being as right as you can be based on the data and sometimes you're zero percent right (wrong). Sometimes you can't be sure an idea is right until you know which ideas are wrong. BTW...it's not perfect, it has good and bad people, it has politics and weaknessess, but what's the alternative? Everyone randomly deciding what is or isn't true - science in general still works and it still the best choice for many decisions - that is my real point.
 
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There is a difference between scientific experiments happening behind closed doors and laboratories trying to prove/disprove a study or paper and the experiment that was started in 2020 and continues to this day.

I have a high degree of confidence that most people talking about not trusting science are talking about the latter not the former. And here lies the big disconnect IMO.
 
Add to this WNBA. Excellent way to demonstrate it. The end product (women's soccer and basketball) simply isn't filling the stands.
I agree.

My point is that, despite the fact that the Women's Soccer Team is very skilled and successful (winning world titles), the marketplace does not care. It dos not "value" the women's sports like they do men's. I don't care if you're really good at your craft, if you don't bring cash in the front door. Businesses exist to make money; period. Women's soccer may produce championships, but they don't produce revenue.

Honestly, and I realized I may get flamed here, a good business manager would look at the US Soccer Federation, and just spin-off the women's team into their own private entity. Think about it ... most companies do this all the time. Heck, when I worked at Ford, my facility got spun off once into Visteon, and then Visteon spun us off again into an LLC called Automotive Component Holdings. This is life in the business world, folks. Entites which make little or no proffit are spun off to get rid of the debt load. You shed what doesn't make money.

If the US Soccer Federation, would divest the women's team out of the organization:
- 50% of the salary is cut
- 50% of the support services are cut (support personnel such as coaches, managers, medical staff, trainers, office personnel, booking agents, equipment managers, etc ...)
- 50% of the travel is cut (less airfare, less hotels)
- 50% of the uniform expenses are cut
- 50% of the facility overhead is cut (less stadium costs, etc)
And what do you "lose" when you cut 50% of all these expenses? You only lose 2.5% of your revenue, and yet you cut a MASSIVE 50% reduction of your total operational budget.

WHO WOULDN'T CUT 50% OF THE OPERATIONAL COSTS FOR ONLY A 2.5% REVENUE LOSS ???? That is EASY math, folks. The efficiency of the monetary scale is staring us in the face, yet no one wants to say it. Make the women's league completely separate from the mens, and let them see how "fair" pay is really dole'd out.

Any CEO of a production or service company (GM, Coke, WalMart, IBM, etc) would make that move in a heartbeat. But that'll never happen because woke culture would decry the move.

And as said above, the WNBA is the same way. Most all women's sports lives off the revenue of the men's sports in a massive way. There's no "gender gap" in pay in women's sports. There is free-market enterprise afoot; nothing more and nothing less.
 
I agree.

My point is that, despite the fact that the Women's Soccer Team is very skilled and successful (winning world titles), the marketplace does not care. It dos not "value" the women's sports like they do men's. I don't care if you're really good at your craft, if you don't bring cash in the front door. Businesses exist to make money; period. Women's soccer may produce championships, but they don't produce revenue.

Honestly, and I realized I may get flamed here, a good business manager would look at the US Soccer Federation, and just spin-off the women's team into their own private entity. Think about it ... most companies do this all the time. Heck, when I worked at Ford, my facility got spun off once into Visteon, and then Visteon spun us off again into an LLC called Automotive Component Holdings. This is life in the business world, folks. Entites which make little or no proffit are spun off to get rid of the debt load. You shed what doesn't make money.

If the US Soccer Federation, would divest the women's team out of the organization:
- 50% of the salary is cut
- 50% of the support services are cut (support personnel such as coaches, managers, medical staff, trainers, office personnel, booking agents, equipment managers, etc ...)
- 50% of the travel is cut (less airfare, less hotels)
- 50% of the uniform expenses are cut
- 50% of the facility overhead is cut (less stadium costs, etc)
And what do you "lose" when you cut 50% of all these expenses? You only lose 2.5% of your revenue, and yet you cut a MASSIVE 50% reduction of your total operational budget.

WHO WOULDN'T CUT 50% OF THE OPERATIONAL COSTS FOR ONLY A 2.5% REVENUE LOSS ???? That is EASY math, folks. The efficiency of the monetary scale is staring us in the face, yet no one wants to say it. Make the women's league completely separate from the mens, and let them see how "fair" pay is really dole'd out.

Any CEO of a production or service company (GM, Coke, WalMart, IBM, etc) would make that move in a heartbeat. But that'll never happen because woke culture would decry the move.

And as said above, the WNBA is the same way. Most all women's sports lives off the revenue of the men's sports in a massive way. There's no "gender gap" in pay in women's sports. There is free-market enterprise afoot; nothing more and nothing less.
 
IMO the toughest hurdle is what I call "Not knowing what you don't know". It's not at all that difficult to find an alleged "scientific" explanation for X position, but because the topic so complex readers are unable to discern fact from fiction or worse discover omissions of context. Due to this complexity the debate Inevitably boils down to which source is "unbiased", "reliable", "source of funding". Most often the goal of the reader is to find something which supports their position where the source has "Dr" in their name.

An omission of context example is that CO2 is not a warming gas.
Well that's partly true. It's both a warming and a cooing gas. However, density has a large role in how gases behave and unlike a gas container pumped full of CO2 atmospheric density is not uniform (highest density at sea level which gradually reduces as you go up in altitude). Low density air moves less heat. This is why for example a thermos (virtually a vacuum) is used to keep liquids warm/cold.

Lastly I leave everyone with this.

 
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From a business standpoint, as @dnewton3 points out, the purpose is to maximize the wealth of the shareholders.

From a pure science standpoint, science is man's endless search for truth in nature, which does not necessarily involve wealth.
 
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