Impressively detailed study here, John. This topic is incredibly important for those of us who hold the scientific method in high regard. In the social sciences, the situation may be even worse, see Alvaro de Menard's piece, which I advise as a complimentary essay to your own.
One additional thought. You speak of disincentivizing the behavior -- the "stick". What about the "carrot"? There are reasons why self-described scientists are behaving in this way, deceiving themselves, their community, and the public. Inquiring and addressing these motivations would be important steps to take. This is far bigger than the scientific community, IMO. In the fields in which I have specific knowledge -- the arts -- motivations are so upside-down, that collaboration and teaching have become impossibly difficult.
If we do not address the role and attainment of social status in our culture, the hiring and tenuring mechanisms in academia, the wholesale replacement of the meaning of success across fields of expertise, and indeed, the roles of expertise and excellence in contemporary Western society, I fear the kind of changes we seek will not come to pass anytime soon.
Thank you for weighing in Armen! And thanks for the link! I look forward to reading that article soon. You make a critical insight that this problem is not limited to science. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I tend to focus in pretty tightly sometimes, and it helps to get a broader perspective. We should definitely investigate this some more, and specifically with an end to discovering root causes, dismantling bad incentives and replacing them with better ones, and specific steps we can take - as individuals or collectives - to straighten some of these crooked paths.
I'll tell ya, there were so many things that I wanted to talk about in this essay that I decided against getting into, because I knew the article was going to be too long even if I just stuck to the central story. "What should we do about this?" is one of those things. I mean, making some basic conclusions is unavoidable. And the most unavoidable basic conclusions are, "These people should be punished!" and, "We can't trust the science!" But there is so much more to be said about it. For example, you discuss some of the root causes of the problem in your comment, such as tenure. And I barely mentioned the intense pressure scientists are under to publish in the essay. Somebody smart said, "Show me the incentives and I'll tell you the outcome." But it's hard to find a viable solution! Personally, I don't have enough faith in modern governments to consider any legislative approach to be viable, because, that'll never happen. The bad incentives and races to the bottom go right through the government systems too, no doubt.
I love the Meditations on Moloch essay I mentioned in a footnote, because it describes the problem so thoroughly and so adequately. But there is not much there in the way of solutions! (He does talk about some saner incentive structures from time to time.) I feel the same way about Daniel Schmachtenberger [1]. He's got such an amazingly insightful analysis of this kind of problem-space. He talks a lot about a solution - what he calls a "third attractor" - but he never gets around to spelling it out. I've scoured his work, and I've only found hints of it. He seems to have gone pretty quiet recently, and I'm hoping this is exactly what he is working on now.
If you'd like to collaborate on bringing this conversation further forward, I'm game.
Thanks for sharing the de Menard essay. I enjoyed it very much. It took me a while to get through, partly because it had so many interesting references.
I'm interested by your mention of the arts. De Menard discusses poor statistical practices in the social sciences, and I look at data manipulation in the biological sciences. It seems unlikely that these specific kinds of problems would carry over to the arts. But it seems entirely likely that the wider problems, or the root causes, affect the arts as much has the hard and soft sciences. I would love to get more insight into the problems in the arts that you mention here, and how they manifest. Would you be interested in writing more about it? I would be happy to publish it here if you like.
John, I would love to collaborate with you, and I am very excited at the prospect of doing so! I got through most of Scott Alexander's Moloch piece, and found it fascinating. I'll take my comments about that offline.
> "Show me the incentives and I'll tell you the outcome."
Spot on! And this speaks to the root of so many disagreements. If one's ontological outlook rejects the perspective of man as primarily a constitutive part of natural processes, for example, then agreement on incentives with those that don't hold that perspective are probably hard to come by. To speak to effective incentives, we would do well to reject gimlet-eyed understandings of what it is to be human. For example, the ideology of my native country understood man as capable of existing beyond his humanity, overcoming it. Incentives failed dramatically, and the nation followed suit. As a youth, I was convinced that the fall of the Soviet Union was due not to military overreach or central economic planning, but due to fundamentally misconceiving human nature. How did Marx think that peoples of disparate and distinct cultures would unite in revolution, on the sole basis of their shared proletariat class, if he didn't reject the awesome power of concentric circles of loyalty? This "communion with the other" is an insane expectation if one views humans as advanced primates. Today, I encounter an abundance of people who seem to reject concentric circles of loyalty out of hand. "We're better than that." I see this as simply elevating hope (of the powers of humanity's artifice to overcome its own humanity) over evidence. As an anthropologist put it recently, what is amazing is not how much corruption exists within the halls of power, but rather, how little.
Similarly, as I see it, if one treats humans as primarily economic agents -- homo economicus -- incentives for improving the work and reputation of science are bound to be either ineffectual, or partly effectual with objectionable side effects.
I am amazed at the example set by America's founding fathers, in accepting humans in all our humanity, and of trying to systematically balance out human traits and proclivities in their institutional designs, rather than dream of a system in which those traits are absent due to man's "better nature." This is the path for which I hold most hope.
> I'm interested by your mention of the arts.
In the arts, I see a similar confusion with role identification. What does it mean to be a scientist? What does it mean to be an artist? When I read between the lines today, or else speak with a student, the answer is always something like, "a person whose job it is to do science/play music/etc." Umm, wrong. And the wrongness of it can be found in something quite old-fashioned -- oaths (read: moral duty). In Athens, I met a girl from Kos who told me that there are constant pilgrimages to her island, because it's where Hippocrates was from. Physicians who take the Hippocratic oath seriously visit the island year-round to make their sacred promises. These folks are not confused about the role of medicine -- it is not to feed their families, but to improve (and never harm) the health of others, and to teach the practice to those wishing to learn.
So I ask: can such values be re-introduced to those professions we ourselves value so highly? Or, perhaps, is the absence of such values within these professions just a reflection of how lowly we the people have come to regard them?
I agree. Thanks for your insights Armen! I can't answer your question on the spot, because, for one, this needs a lot of exploration. For two, my instinctive first response (which I've mentioned once or twice in these comments) really needs some explanation.
I'm going to write up a piece on my instinctive first response when I have time. (I have one other thing to write that definitely takes priority.)
Great article John! On top of everything discussed here another major issue that significantly contributes to the current crisis in science (leaving aside whether the underlying premises/ethics etc are valid or not) is the failure to use the appropriate statistical methods (this would include not just tests but also randomization, blinding etc) as well as to consult a statistician when designing experiments, leading to erroneous results. Unfortunately, part of the issue is that some labs don't have the resources to run adequately controlled experiments with enough samples, replicates etc. Although many journals now do require more in this vein it is likely to take a while for this to sink in.
Thanks Paul! Yes, bad statistics is commonplace. A common problem is multiple hypothesis testing, where researchers test a couple dozen factors for p-values in the same experiment, and select the meaningful ones. As if each null hypothesis was being tested in a separate experiment. I guess this is a form of p-hacking, which Alvaro de Menard discusses at length in this article that Armen linked to in the comments:
One suggestion de Menard has is to accept papers "for publication based on the preregistered design only, not results." I doubt any scientific journal would embrace this policy, as suddenly their publication has one or two out of every three papers published showing a negative result. Unless all journals did this at the same time, the journals that did would suddenly become less competitive in terms of readership.
I've long thought that biologists should be required to take more statistics. This is probably true, but probably wouldn't do much to solve the problem, because it seems that half the time, the researchers understand that the statistics are bad already. To do the statistics well would be a big competitive disadvantage for getting published.
Right, and having a line-item in your grant proposal for a statistician's time is probably going to make your grant proposal less competitive as well.
Oh yeah, I didn't read the whole thread there. In biological sciences some grant funding bodies are having the applications reviewed by a biostatistician but I don't know if a poor score from them would be enough to reject the application or change the applicants methods. Another option would be for the journals to hire a statistician to review every submission and reject all those without appropriate methods. I doubt that would happen but if a journal did that it would definitely increase their credibility a lot.
Thanks so much for your comment, Paul. I've been thinking a lot about what you've said, and I've realized that I haven't really been fair about the possibilities and impacts of people working to change things from within the system. I don't think these problems can be completely addressed internally, but everything that can be done, kinda must be done, and is important work. It would sure be nice to see sound statistics a central tenet in science again. Namaste!
Call me sad and cynical, but I long ago came to the conclusion that "science" is every bit as corrupt as politics, finance, religion, medicine, the law, education and the rest of academia. Of course, I realize - and celebrate - that there are many people of honor and integrity like you in all fields of endeavor; but, as we all know, it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bushel. For me, a layman with no scientific training, the peer review system is untrustworthy and of little or no value.
On the plus side, there is a naturopathic physician in the UK, Dr Sarah Myhill, who claims to have success in not only preventing but reversing dementia using B vitamins, fish oils and a low-carb diet:
Call me naive, but I trust her because her livelihood does not depend on tenure, toeing a line of narradigm, or on research grants. Her life would be far easier if she did follow the herd; but she doesn't.
I don't think it's sad or cynical Tirion. I think it's just a realistic assessment. I really tried to stay on point in this essay, but in the conclusion I state, "This case study showcases one example of the level of corruption and decay that modern science has fallen to." Key phrase "one example". A really simple way to expand this criticism of science is to point out that flat out manipulating data is not the only way that we can get a scientific paper published whose conclusions are not warranted. Here are two examples that you might find familiar: Want to scientifically show that a certain medication is not safe for humans? Design and conduct an experiment where the human subjects are given a massive overdose of the drug. Want to show that a certain medication is not effective? Design and conduct a study where we wait until the patients are almost dead before giving them the medication. These papers *will* make it through peer review if the results support the scientific dogma of the day. And there are so many other angles of approach we could take.
As I mentioned to Armen, there are so many places I didn't go in this essay, because it was already getting way too long. One thing I really wanted to get into is alternatives to allopathy for treating Alzheimer's, and the scientific research backing those alternatives. You mention some really important ones. Low carb diet is the king of all cures. B vitamins and fish oil are super important. Gentle exercise that involves mind-body coordination is a great way to keep your mind in shape. And you've got to stay social. And eat those dark green leafy vegetables. I really wanted to take a close look into this, because I'm pretty confident there is scientific research backing every one of these. Maybe a followup post. But it will have to wait, because I need to write about Yeshua next.
Many thanks for your full, thoughtful and prompt reply, John. Regrettably, I have also heard it said that papers will make it through peer review not only if the results support the scientific dogma of the day but also if the right amount of cash changes hands, or if a research grant or other incentive is promised. Kinda makes the whole process worthless. Whenever I see "experts" quoted or invoked my cowshed odor detectors activate and my eyes roll :)
That's crazy, and it's crazy that it's so plausible.
And of course, big pharma hires academic scientists and get them as coauthors on research that is entirely produced by the pharma company, with no contributions from the academic. because their name and academic associations add a certain respectability to the papers.
A reader sent me a link to this article by a scientist who complains about leaving stuff out of his paper - sticking to "certain preapproved narratives" - so he could get published in Nature.
"To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve."
After I had finalized this essay, but before publishing, this story came out:
https://retractionwatch.com/2023/08/31/stanford-president-retracts-two-science-papers-following-investigation/
Marc Tessier-Lavigne just retracted two papers from Science. We looked at both of these papers in this essay.
Impressively detailed study here, John. This topic is incredibly important for those of us who hold the scientific method in high regard. In the social sciences, the situation may be even worse, see Alvaro de Menard's piece, which I advise as a complimentary essay to your own.
https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/09/11/whats-wrong-with-social-science-and-how-to-fix-it/
One additional thought. You speak of disincentivizing the behavior -- the "stick". What about the "carrot"? There are reasons why self-described scientists are behaving in this way, deceiving themselves, their community, and the public. Inquiring and addressing these motivations would be important steps to take. This is far bigger than the scientific community, IMO. In the fields in which I have specific knowledge -- the arts -- motivations are so upside-down, that collaboration and teaching have become impossibly difficult.
If we do not address the role and attainment of social status in our culture, the hiring and tenuring mechanisms in academia, the wholesale replacement of the meaning of success across fields of expertise, and indeed, the roles of expertise and excellence in contemporary Western society, I fear the kind of changes we seek will not come to pass anytime soon.
Thank you for weighing in Armen! And thanks for the link! I look forward to reading that article soon. You make a critical insight that this problem is not limited to science. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I tend to focus in pretty tightly sometimes, and it helps to get a broader perspective. We should definitely investigate this some more, and specifically with an end to discovering root causes, dismantling bad incentives and replacing them with better ones, and specific steps we can take - as individuals or collectives - to straighten some of these crooked paths.
I'll tell ya, there were so many things that I wanted to talk about in this essay that I decided against getting into, because I knew the article was going to be too long even if I just stuck to the central story. "What should we do about this?" is one of those things. I mean, making some basic conclusions is unavoidable. And the most unavoidable basic conclusions are, "These people should be punished!" and, "We can't trust the science!" But there is so much more to be said about it. For example, you discuss some of the root causes of the problem in your comment, such as tenure. And I barely mentioned the intense pressure scientists are under to publish in the essay. Somebody smart said, "Show me the incentives and I'll tell you the outcome." But it's hard to find a viable solution! Personally, I don't have enough faith in modern governments to consider any legislative approach to be viable, because, that'll never happen. The bad incentives and races to the bottom go right through the government systems too, no doubt.
I love the Meditations on Moloch essay I mentioned in a footnote, because it describes the problem so thoroughly and so adequately. But there is not much there in the way of solutions! (He does talk about some saner incentive structures from time to time.) I feel the same way about Daniel Schmachtenberger [1]. He's got such an amazingly insightful analysis of this kind of problem-space. He talks a lot about a solution - what he calls a "third attractor" - but he never gets around to spelling it out. I've scoured his work, and I've only found hints of it. He seems to have gone pretty quiet recently, and I'm hoping this is exactly what he is working on now.
If you'd like to collaborate on bringing this conversation further forward, I'm game.
[1] https://civilizationemerging.com/
Thanks for sharing the de Menard essay. I enjoyed it very much. It took me a while to get through, partly because it had so many interesting references.
I'm interested by your mention of the arts. De Menard discusses poor statistical practices in the social sciences, and I look at data manipulation in the biological sciences. It seems unlikely that these specific kinds of problems would carry over to the arts. But it seems entirely likely that the wider problems, or the root causes, affect the arts as much has the hard and soft sciences. I would love to get more insight into the problems in the arts that you mention here, and how they manifest. Would you be interested in writing more about it? I would be happy to publish it here if you like.
John, I would love to collaborate with you, and I am very excited at the prospect of doing so! I got through most of Scott Alexander's Moloch piece, and found it fascinating. I'll take my comments about that offline.
> "Show me the incentives and I'll tell you the outcome."
Spot on! And this speaks to the root of so many disagreements. If one's ontological outlook rejects the perspective of man as primarily a constitutive part of natural processes, for example, then agreement on incentives with those that don't hold that perspective are probably hard to come by. To speak to effective incentives, we would do well to reject gimlet-eyed understandings of what it is to be human. For example, the ideology of my native country understood man as capable of existing beyond his humanity, overcoming it. Incentives failed dramatically, and the nation followed suit. As a youth, I was convinced that the fall of the Soviet Union was due not to military overreach or central economic planning, but due to fundamentally misconceiving human nature. How did Marx think that peoples of disparate and distinct cultures would unite in revolution, on the sole basis of their shared proletariat class, if he didn't reject the awesome power of concentric circles of loyalty? This "communion with the other" is an insane expectation if one views humans as advanced primates. Today, I encounter an abundance of people who seem to reject concentric circles of loyalty out of hand. "We're better than that." I see this as simply elevating hope (of the powers of humanity's artifice to overcome its own humanity) over evidence. As an anthropologist put it recently, what is amazing is not how much corruption exists within the halls of power, but rather, how little.
Similarly, as I see it, if one treats humans as primarily economic agents -- homo economicus -- incentives for improving the work and reputation of science are bound to be either ineffectual, or partly effectual with objectionable side effects.
I am amazed at the example set by America's founding fathers, in accepting humans in all our humanity, and of trying to systematically balance out human traits and proclivities in their institutional designs, rather than dream of a system in which those traits are absent due to man's "better nature." This is the path for which I hold most hope.
> I'm interested by your mention of the arts.
In the arts, I see a similar confusion with role identification. What does it mean to be a scientist? What does it mean to be an artist? When I read between the lines today, or else speak with a student, the answer is always something like, "a person whose job it is to do science/play music/etc." Umm, wrong. And the wrongness of it can be found in something quite old-fashioned -- oaths (read: moral duty). In Athens, I met a girl from Kos who told me that there are constant pilgrimages to her island, because it's where Hippocrates was from. Physicians who take the Hippocratic oath seriously visit the island year-round to make their sacred promises. These folks are not confused about the role of medicine -- it is not to feed their families, but to improve (and never harm) the health of others, and to teach the practice to those wishing to learn.
So I ask: can such values be re-introduced to those professions we ourselves value so highly? Or, perhaps, is the absence of such values within these professions just a reflection of how lowly we the people have come to regard them?
I agree. Thanks for your insights Armen! I can't answer your question on the spot, because, for one, this needs a lot of exploration. For two, my instinctive first response (which I've mentioned once or twice in these comments) really needs some explanation.
I'm going to write up a piece on my instinctive first response when I have time. (I have one other thing to write that definitely takes priority.)
How would you answer your own questions?
I’ve been thinking about this, Johnny, and I’ll send you something over email this evening.
Great article John! On top of everything discussed here another major issue that significantly contributes to the current crisis in science (leaving aside whether the underlying premises/ethics etc are valid or not) is the failure to use the appropriate statistical methods (this would include not just tests but also randomization, blinding etc) as well as to consult a statistician when designing experiments, leading to erroneous results. Unfortunately, part of the issue is that some labs don't have the resources to run adequately controlled experiments with enough samples, replicates etc. Although many journals now do require more in this vein it is likely to take a while for this to sink in.
Thanks Paul! Yes, bad statistics is commonplace. A common problem is multiple hypothesis testing, where researchers test a couple dozen factors for p-values in the same experiment, and select the meaningful ones. As if each null hypothesis was being tested in a separate experiment. I guess this is a form of p-hacking, which Alvaro de Menard discusses at length in this article that Armen linked to in the comments:
https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/09/11/whats-wrong-with-social-science-and-how-to-fix-it/
One suggestion de Menard has is to accept papers "for publication based on the preregistered design only, not results." I doubt any scientific journal would embrace this policy, as suddenly their publication has one or two out of every three papers published showing a negative result. Unless all journals did this at the same time, the journals that did would suddenly become less competitive in terms of readership.
I've long thought that biologists should be required to take more statistics. This is probably true, but probably wouldn't do much to solve the problem, because it seems that half the time, the researchers understand that the statistics are bad already. To do the statistics well would be a big competitive disadvantage for getting published.
Right, and having a line-item in your grant proposal for a statistician's time is probably going to make your grant proposal less competitive as well.
No easy answers!
Oh yeah, I didn't read the whole thread there. In biological sciences some grant funding bodies are having the applications reviewed by a biostatistician but I don't know if a poor score from them would be enough to reject the application or change the applicants methods. Another option would be for the journals to hire a statistician to review every submission and reject all those without appropriate methods. I doubt that would happen but if a journal did that it would definitely increase their credibility a lot.
Thanks so much for your comment, Paul. I've been thinking a lot about what you've said, and I've realized that I haven't really been fair about the possibilities and impacts of people working to change things from within the system. I don't think these problems can be completely addressed internally, but everything that can be done, kinda must be done, and is important work. It would sure be nice to see sound statistics a central tenet in science again. Namaste!
Call me sad and cynical, but I long ago came to the conclusion that "science" is every bit as corrupt as politics, finance, religion, medicine, the law, education and the rest of academia. Of course, I realize - and celebrate - that there are many people of honor and integrity like you in all fields of endeavor; but, as we all know, it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bushel. For me, a layman with no scientific training, the peer review system is untrustworthy and of little or no value.
On the plus side, there is a naturopathic physician in the UK, Dr Sarah Myhill, who claims to have success in not only preventing but reversing dementia using B vitamins, fish oils and a low-carb diet:
https://drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Dementia_-_a_symptom_with_many_causes_from_Alzheimers_to_poisonings
Call me naive, but I trust her because her livelihood does not depend on tenure, toeing a line of narradigm, or on research grants. Her life would be far easier if she did follow the herd; but she doesn't.
I don't think it's sad or cynical Tirion. I think it's just a realistic assessment. I really tried to stay on point in this essay, but in the conclusion I state, "This case study showcases one example of the level of corruption and decay that modern science has fallen to." Key phrase "one example". A really simple way to expand this criticism of science is to point out that flat out manipulating data is not the only way that we can get a scientific paper published whose conclusions are not warranted. Here are two examples that you might find familiar: Want to scientifically show that a certain medication is not safe for humans? Design and conduct an experiment where the human subjects are given a massive overdose of the drug. Want to show that a certain medication is not effective? Design and conduct a study where we wait until the patients are almost dead before giving them the medication. These papers *will* make it through peer review if the results support the scientific dogma of the day. And there are so many other angles of approach we could take.
As I mentioned to Armen, there are so many places I didn't go in this essay, because it was already getting way too long. One thing I really wanted to get into is alternatives to allopathy for treating Alzheimer's, and the scientific research backing those alternatives. You mention some really important ones. Low carb diet is the king of all cures. B vitamins and fish oil are super important. Gentle exercise that involves mind-body coordination is a great way to keep your mind in shape. And you've got to stay social. And eat those dark green leafy vegetables. I really wanted to take a close look into this, because I'm pretty confident there is scientific research backing every one of these. Maybe a followup post. But it will have to wait, because I need to write about Yeshua next.
Thanks for your input Tirion!
Many thanks for your full, thoughtful and prompt reply, John. Regrettably, I have also heard it said that papers will make it through peer review not only if the results support the scientific dogma of the day but also if the right amount of cash changes hands, or if a research grant or other incentive is promised. Kinda makes the whole process worthless. Whenever I see "experts" quoted or invoked my cowshed odor detectors activate and my eyes roll :)
That's crazy, and it's crazy that it's so plausible.
And of course, big pharma hires academic scientists and get them as coauthors on research that is entirely produced by the pharma company, with no contributions from the academic. because their name and academic associations add a certain respectability to the papers.
I'm honored and thrilled that Retraction Watch has included this essay in their weekly roundup:
https://retractionwatch.com/2023/09/09/weekend-reads-chatgpt-in-papers-a-russia-based-paper-mill-getting-scooped-becomes-an-opportunity/
❤🙏
A reader sent me a link to this article by a scientist who complains about leaving stuff out of his paper - sticking to "certain preapproved narratives" - so he could get published in Nature.
https://www.thefp.com/p/i-overhyped-climate-change-to-get-published
"To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve."
Definitely worth a read!
Thanks for the excellent write up and copious amount of sources, it's much appreciated.