Follow the Science - But Where is It? - The Science Credibility Problem
Two and a half millennia ago, Plato advised that,
Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous
Plato's basic principle hasn't changed but our knowledge creation industries have. In Plato's world there were a handful of philosophers contemplating the universe - today there are millions of scientific philosophers, each trumpeting, in their research papers, the new knowledge they have created.
Given the millions of proclaimed scientific breakthroughs each year, one might assume that all the world's problems have already been solved, and that the public should be worshiping at the feet of scientists, but not so. An ever growing proportion of the population are as skeptical of science as they are of marketing and politics.
As someone who spent more than 30 years in the academic system, and quite a few years evaluating university research claims and performance, I can report that there is legitimate justification for skepticism. They say the future isn't what it used to be, but then neither is the science.
Britannica defines science as:
"...any system of knowledge that is concerned with the physical world and its phenomena, and that entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation."
The key elements are unbiased observations and systematic experimentation - and these are the elements which are now regularly in contention.
Only a tiny proportion of created science knowledge goes on to advance society and quality of life. Much of it is inconsequential background noise. Some of it is used as a tool or lever for political or commercial gain. A not insignificant proportion of reported science is either unintentionally flawed or deliberately fraudulent.
Decades ago, flaws and fraudulent activity in science were readily identifiable because the volume of science outcomes being reported annually was small. There were time and resources enough for critical evaluation and, more importantly, to reproduce/validate/invalidate outcomes.
One might assume, with so many researchers today, there would be greater capacity to reproduce/validate/invalidate claimed scientific advances. Not so. In the modern world it is difficult for researchers to attract competitive government funding to reproduce research generated elsewhere. Validating other people's research simply isn't exciting in a competitive funding process, where the emphasis is on winning by breakthroughs, and not by re-litigating.
So, despite the peer review of publications that takes place in journals, scientific research largely operates as a trust-based, open-loop system with minimal checks - and for the most part without independent validation of claims through duplication of experiments.
According to the NSF, in 2012 there were around 28,100 journals publishing in the order of 1,800,000 papers each year. That is a lot of claimed new knowledge. The obvious question is who even reads it - besides the journal peer reviewers and the authors - much less uses it for any worthwhile purpose? It turns out that around 90% of papers are never cited at all. And, hardly any of the cited work is ever independently reproduced, validated or invalidated.
I well recall an instance of one of my PhD candidates telling me that he was unable to reproduce results he had found in a published paper in a reputable journal. I suggested he contact the authors and ask them. The authors told him they were in a hurry to publish in order to satisfy university performance criteria - and they had just fabricated the results. Their experimental set-up hadn't worked at all, much less produced any real data. At least they were prepared to admit it when confronted. How many others don't, and are never discovered? With 1,800,000 publications a year, one would assume at least thousands if not tens of thousands.
The public's skepticism and dwindling respect for the science may therefore be well justified. The simple reality is that, in a vast global network of universities and research institutions, producing millions of research papers each year, a significant number of scientists have aims which, as Plato described, be not virtuous. And the mechanisms to deal with lack of virtue are limited, to say the least.
There are 8 key reasons why the public should be skeptical of what is claimed to be the science in the modern world:
__________________________________________________________
1. Modern research is an academic career pathway.
Good research should be a vocation not a career vehicle. In genuine research, successful outcomes are low and risks are high. This is not a development environment, where risks are low and success is high. However, the road to an academic/research career is paved with lots of claimed new discoveries, through lots of publications and grants.
Instead of publishing a dozen worthwhile research papers over a career, a modern researcher might publish a dozen each year. In other words, an implied claim of a successful research breakthrough every few days. Of course this is all nonsense, and everyone in the university/research system knows that it is all nonsense, but nobody wants to point out the obvious - especially when hundreds of billions of research dollars across the globe are allocated on the publication principle.
Modern research papers have therefore become little more than technical progress reports written because... well ...because universities and government funding agencies tell us they need to be written, even though it appears that few of them are ever read, cited or validated.
In today's academic environment, a university whose researchers only published a significant research paper every 5-10 years would appear as a failure in most global university ranking systems. Moving up the rankings means ramping up publications, grants, doctoral completions, etc.
Is this really a healthy environment conducive to producing legitimate and meaningful scientific outcomes that benefit society? Or is it an environment attuned to creating - as Shakespeare wrote - sound and fury, signifying nothing?
2. Publishing has become a forum for infomercials rather than balanced research reporting.
It is difficult to identify the proportion of the 1,800,000 papers published each year where the authors report that their research failed to prove a hypothesis or, indeed, proved that reality was the exact opposite of what they had hypothesized - or, that their work was a complete failure in achieving any of its objectives. These are legitimate outcomes and would be worthwhile papers to read - far more so than the infomercials commonly produced by university publishing machines.
One would have thought if research was genuine, and risks were high, publications would predominantly show negative outcomes and conclusions, but no. The bulk of research papers report that everything went to plan, and that the hypothesis of the research almost always proves to be correct.
Either scientists are just publishing infomercials, or they are largely undertaking research where the outcomes of a hypothesis are already known or predetermined - in other words, development rather than actual research.
3. Quantity and scope of published research makes rigorous peer review near impossible.
Journal publication numbers are edging into the millions, and there are thousands of scientific disciplines/fields/sub-fields of research around the world. Each can be a highly specialized area that requires years of study in order to get a handle on nuances. A highly specialized research journal can cover many sub-fields of expertise.
In order to provide a rigorous review of a research paper there needs to be a match between peer reviewer and author expertise, and a detailed understanding of the environment in which the research was conducted. In reality, a reviewer is expected to conduct a review without having ever deposed the researcher in an interview; without having ever seen the laboratory and processes where the work was conducted, and without having an opportunity to reproduce the work.
A peer reviewer in one sub-field of research may be unaware of the nuances in another closely related sub-field. So how can a rigorous review of the details of any submitted research paper take place? In a world where research papers number in the millions each year clearly it cannot. Peer reviewers make a best guess as to the validity and integrity of a paper. This leaves a significant margin for unintentional flaws and intentional fraud to slip through the cracks.
The result is that someone who sort of knows something about a research field/sub-field reviews a paper, without any knowledge of whether experiments were actually performed at all, or whether the results/data were even real, or were just fabricated. Once research receives the check mark of approval from peer reviewers in a reputable journal it is generally accepted as legitimate.
4. Scientists have become partisan politicians.
Democratic governments have a structured pathway for research to make its way into the political decision making process. Researchers publish their findings, and the knowledge works its way through established government scientific/medical committees, and up to the government decision making process. Ideally, researcher input and discussion should end with the research publication.
A good government weighs up distilled scientific inputs from chief scientific or medical officers and representative bodies, and balances it against economic, social, political, geopolitical and defense issues. The significance of scientific findings may be outweighed by other higher considerations - and the correct political decision may be to completely ignore the science. That does not, of itself, negate the validity of the political decision making process - as long as the other factors are indeed more important.
Decades ago, scientists respected this process. Not today. Scientists have become evangelists who feel they have a moral right to subvert political decision making, and speak out whenever politics doesn't agree with their own views. In other words, scientists use science as a political lever to sway decisions. Ironic that those who ask others to respect the science and the scientists are not themselves prepared to respect the political process and the politicians.
And so it is that whenever scientists don't like a political decision, rather than letting published research speak for itself, we find them on television talk shows and internet podcasts, spewing out contradictory opinions and blaming politicians for incorrect decisions.
There is, however, a price to be paid for such belligerence. When scientists do this they become politicians themselves, and alienate a large proportion of the population in the process.
Even more damaging to the credibility of the science is when evangelical scientists go down the Vaudeville route to promote their views in the media, and end up debating crackpots and giving them oxygen. In the public eye the scientist and the crackpot end up being viewed at the same level.
Who is going to follow the science when the scientists are in reality politicians themselves, and even the science is seen as being politically motivated?
Recommended by LinkedIn
5. Politicians are involved in skewing scientific research.
He who pays the piper calls the tune, so for the centuries that governments have funded scientific research through grants they have insisted on having an input into directions. This occurs through research priorities or special political initiatives. As long as these are confined to broadly accepted national priorities, such as medical matters, or economic or technological outcomes there is no issue. However, in recent decades, governments have used scientific research funding as a lever to advance subliminal or partisan social/economic objectives, and they do this with research funding priorities.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A government dog-whistle to researchers inevitably causes researchers to respond in kind.
If a government says its priority is the study of global warming then research grant applications suddenly start appearing with large smatterings of the words global warming throughout. If government priority is avoiding a global ice age then the same grants appear with the words global ice age spread throughout. The research that's actually being undertaken probably changes little or not at all - just the tags that government places upon the research for statistical reporting. A government can claim it has spent billions on research avoiding a global ice age or global warming event when, in reality, the actual research at the coal face has just rolled on as it would have done in any event.
This would be comical if it were not for the fact that eventually the public wises up to the fact that nothing ever seems to come out of the multi-billion dollar initiatives. Why follow the science when there are seemingly no tangible outcomes?
6. University marketing interfering with knowledge.
Science and research outcomes are important marketing tools for universities - they build brand value and attract benefactorial funding. However, the unwanted collateral result is a cheapening of science, research and universities.
Most research outcomes simply aren't of sufficient interest to the general public to get into mainstream media, so university marketing departments spruce up even mundane research outcomes to make the daily news. The public gets an endless stream of spiced up, cutesy headline stories such as, "...Researchers find that cabbage reduces risk of cancer."
And then there are the innumerable "...Within 5 years..." media releases that end up as filler material in mainstream news media. The 5 year window is assumed to be near enough to be worthy of public attention, but also far enough away for the public to subsequently forget that the bulk of proclamations never come to fruition. A personal favorite from the 1990s:
"...Surgeons obsolete within 5 years, says eminent researcher."
If university marketing bumf was rare it could be overlooked, but when the public is bombarded every day and realizes that little or nothing ever comes from it after 5 years - or even 10 years or 20 years - then they rightly question the science itself.
7. Commercial funding may skew knowledge and findings.
Commercial funding of research is a positive influence when it provides a funding vehicle for applied research, and pathways for universities to transition pure research into development. Generally, commercial organizations have no interest in fabricated work and false outcomes because they are after real results that actually work and can be commercialized.
However, in some areas, such as medicine and pharmaceuticals, research that lowers the threshold for applying therapeutic products can make a difference of tens of billions of dollars to corporate bottom lines. Similarly for research that touts the benefits of pre-emptive (just-in-case) medical intervention - imaging or pathology - or research that can green-light adoption of vaccines. The sums of money in these areas are so vast that they are (and have always been) a significant threat to scientific integrity.
Medical/pharmaceutical research also needs to be published and, as with other areas of research, the publication focus is on successful outcomes. Unfortunately, successful outcomes tend to be ones that are seen as interventionalist - that is, the application of some therapeutic - rather than a do nothing approach. A do nothing research outcome might not only eliminate vast future earnings but also negate current earnings from an existing therapeutic process that has actually proven to be ineffective.
So, here we have an unfortunate convergence, where it is in the researcher's best interests, the publishing journal's best interests, the university's best interests, and the commercializing company's best interests to declare an interventionalist outcome over a non-interventionalist outcome. Everybody potentially wins except science reality.
8. Data/evidence is rarely incontrovertible and cliques decide which data is deemed to be correct.
They say we should accept scientific data/evidence just like we should follow the science. The problem is that there is always a lot of data/evidence, and much of it is contradictory. Somebody has to decide which data/evidence to accept and which to ignore. In other words, in some fields of science there is a range of differing learned opinions, rather than an absolute set of undeniable facts.
There might be 100 trials of a pharmaceutical product - 99 of them may show a product is efficacious and the remaining one that it is ineffective. The ultimate reality may be that the single study proves correct and the other 99 incorrect.
Scientific research should therefore never be a popularity contest about what proportion of scientists support a particular view. Science should not be an election. Unfortunately, in reality, and particularly in contentious areas, it usually is. Mainstream media loves to sell the public on the ideas that "...the vast majority of scientists believe," as though this, of itself, has any bearing on the validity of the science.
For centuries, scientists have formed cliques, each with firmly held opinions on various issues. Some cliques in science are far more powerful than other cliques - they have direct access to government decision making processes, especially in relation to funding and policy. Some cliques dominate research publication referee panels.
Where there are contentious issues, the cliques with the most power tend to dominate the nature of the research that is undertaken, through control of funding and research directions. They control the research findings that get published through referee panels. They control what gets fed to various government decision making bodies and the media - and the public.
Nobody actually elects scientific cliques - they just emerge naturally through naked ambition and ego - as they have done for centuries.
It may well be that the powerful cliques are powerful because they are more likely to be correct in a strictly scientific sense. It may also be that they are more powerful purely because they were first entrants into a research field; have seized control, and don't like their ideas being challenged by other players with new or different ideas. This should be an issue of concern to all scientists.
The public believes what it is hearing is the science, but what it is actually getting is a subjective viewpoint of the dominant scientific clique in the field, often with the suppression of differing opinions that don't get the same public voice. In uncontentious areas this is probably the closest we can get to a current understanding of physical reality, but it is not the science. It is just opinion dressed up as the science.
____________________________________________________________
So, given these 8 key problems, how can we judge the validity of the science, and should we follow the science?
There is only one tried and tested way of assessing the validity of science, and that is time. The longer we wait before making a decision on the science, the greater the opportunity for validation/invalidation of claims, and the greater the opportunity for new or opposing views to emerge and get tested. The truth will always out, and time will always tell.
The time required may be years or decades - it needs to be at least long enough to weed out political and commercial influences, flaws and frauds, and the impact of scientific cliques who present their research opinions as the science.
The bigger and bolder the claims being made by scientists, and the more impactful they are on life and society, the longer we need to wait until the disinfecting light of time ultimately exposes the real science.
Most issues that genuinely relate to the science are not urgent by definition - because science takes years to formulate knowledge - so we have plenty of time on our side to allow light to filter through. And we should always be skeptical of scientists who claim urgency as a legitimate reason for preventing the light of time to shine on knowledge.
As Plato told us,
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
And we know this to be the science because it's been tested for two and a half millennia.
Dr. Dario Toncich
______________________________________________________
Dr. Dario Toncich is author of
All available at Amazon.com