The Corruption of Science

Most of you are probably aware of the replication crises (aka, reproducibility crises). It is the problem that many studies--including some of the fundamental studies--in the medical and social sciences cannot be replicated.

The journal Nature highlighted the scope of the issue in 2016 with a poll of 1,500 scientists. 70% of respondents reported that they had failed to reproduce the results of at least one of their peer’s studies. 87% of chemists, 69% of physicists and engineers, 77% of biologists, 64% of environmental and earth scientists, 67% of medical researchers, and 62% of all other respondents reported this issue. 50% had failed to reproduce one of their own experiments.

To put this succinctly, the majority of research in those fields is useless. Some examples of bad science regarding diet:

• "Errors Trigger Retraction Of Study On Mediterranean Diet's Heart Benefits"--National Institutes of Health. Reminiscent of the controversy surrounding Ancel Keys' research purporting to show a connection between high blood cholesterol and heart disease, this paper was withdrawn because of poor statistical analysis.
  
• "Records Found in Dusty Basement Undermine Decades of Dietary Advice"--Scientific American.
  

    Analyzing the reams of old records, Ramsden and his team found, in line with the “diet-heart hypothesis,” that substituting vegetable oils lowered total blood cholesterol levels, by an average of 14 percent.

    But that lowered cholesterol did not help people live longer. Instead, the lower cholesterol fell, the higher the risk of dying: 22 percent higher for every 30-point fall. Nor did the corn-oil group have less atherosclerosis or fewer heart attacks.

    But it is not just medicine and the social sciences facing a scientific crises. Years ago, I reviewed a book by physicist Lee Smolin entitled The Trouble With Physics. In it, he criticized the lack of progress in particle and theoretical physics, with a particular emphasis on how string theory completely dominated the field to the extent that brilliant young researchers with new ideas were frozen out of the field. You either adhered to the orthodoxy of string theory or you simply could not find work as a physicist. 

    Smolin's book was published in 2006, but if Sabine Hossenfelder is correct in her video below, the problem continues. But she also provides an explanation of why it exists and continues. She relates that following her publication of a comment in Nature Physics in 2017 questioning the validity of much of theoretical high energy physics and cosmology (linked in the description to her video). She subsequently received an email from another physicist critical of her comment. But not because he thought she was wrong--in fact, he acknowledges she is essentially correct--but because it put jobs at risk. As he put it in his email, "if people buy this ... cr*p and it helps them to get grants, who cares?" because it was just coming from public funds anyway. He also warned her that this was just how the system worked and her stirring the pot would not change anything. He also acknowledged that the system drove the best and brightest out of academia and left only leaving "obedient idiots". In short, this correspondent--purportedly one of the lead researchers in his particular field--knew that much of what was being produced was bogus, but didn't care as long as the gravy train continued.

    The point I want to make here is that the waste and corruption we saw with USAID is actually rampant throughout the whole system of government grants and funding. We, as taxpayers, want results whether it is international aid that advances our nation's interests or scientists that uncover new scientific truths and advance fields. But the people receiving these grants only see the public as sheep to be fleeced. 

VIDEO: "I was asked to keep this confidential"
Sabine Hossenfelde (10 min.)