Interesting the authors were medical doctors!
Those guys had knowledge whereas most of our medical doctors today are just really good at memorising algorithms after somehow skating by through organic chemistry and stats for beginners.
@Andre
Peer review is not a substitute for replication, and at times stuff is replicated during peer review.
There are many problems with peer review that often make it practically valueless.
Founding biases are definitely there and they're a big problem, but I wouldn't say political/ideological ones are so important; maybe that's just because my field of research is not so politically exposed.
Plenty of funding biases often lead research towards proving points and ignoring other ones to promote certain industries and their practices, which could otherwise be deemed as dangerous or useless.
@pamby1 @ringo
@rastinza @Andre @ringo I think that depends on the subject you're debating. A term I think is annoying is "settled science". Even I, who can't argue the finer points of the covid vaccines or climate change know that "settled science" is bs. When you say "97% of scientists say that climate change in man's fault" people tend to then take that as fact & call it "settled science" while silencing the scientists who disagree with how the info collected is interpreted.
@rastinza @Andre @ringo Some scientist, unemotionally I might add, have even called the models used to collect the information faulty.
I like how this little article defines "settled science".
https://www.ecowho.com/defn/s/settled+science/2bd77
@pamby1
Never heard anyone talk about settled science.
Probably that's a thing that happens just in the US.
This said, scientific consensus is important in the scientific development; otherwise there would be no way to determine what to do.
While scientific knowledge does change over time, scientific consensus identifies theories that are useful to solve problems at hand and that work well at explaining observations.
I'm no expert about climate change models and the information they're based on.
I trust the scientific community to have studied the case deeply and thoroughly after all these years, and if the consensus is so strong I see no reason to believe climate change wasn't caused by men.
It is true that there might be problems somewhere in the research, and that is why it's important that people are trying to find them.
If publication about errors in data collection did not change the current stand on climate change, then evidence of these errors is not strong enough or methodological errors in these articles were probably made.
Anybody can publish an article, just saying that some scientists disagree is no way to discredit a theory.
Surely these papers have been read by other researchers in the field, if a proof of methodological errors was found this would probably have led to a large number of publications about it (because everyone wants to prove that the others are wrong while he came out with a better idea), this, however, didn't happen.
For all we know, modifying human behaviour that alters the biosphere is the best way to limit climate change.
Maybe some better solutions will be found in the future, but this one appears to be quite well grounded and supported by people working on the topic every day.
@Andre @ringo
"Never heard anyone talk about settled science. Probably that's a thing that happens just in the US."
Lol. I'm sure you're right- we are a "sad state of affairs" over here right now.🙁
I'm sure it's actually our media & a few activist "scientists" & politicians who are destroying credibility.
@Andre
Some think that science is something that is somehow superior to humans and that a "truth" exists and it is identifiable through science; thus the scientists who don't strive all the time for finding such truth are not good scientists.
The only problem is that science is just a way to refer to human scientific knowledge.
The scientific consensus is part of the human scientific knowledge, and it is the best way we found until now to distinguish good theories from bad ones.
We could discuss on the existence of an objective truth, but it doesn't really matter, since the scientific method does not try to discover that at all.
If an objective truth exists, the methodologies to attain it are others, such as religion and philosophy.
Simplifying: science, as it is commonly conceived, does not exist.
@pamby1 @ringo
"Some think that science is something that is somehow superior to humans and that a "truth" exists and it is identifiable through science; thus the scientists who don't strive all the time for finding such truth are not good scientists."
This is where we seem to be right now, or at least the "some" that you speak of have the loudest voices & are weaponizing science. Corrupt people in positions of power are demoralizing people & stripping them of freedom based on
@pamby1
While it is true that often politicians and media incorrectly depict scientific knowledge and misunderstand what is the current state of affairs, I do believe it is correct to adopt measures according to the currently accepted scientific knowledge.
In the case of climate change the wide consensus among scientists makes me believe that political choices should be taken in order to diminish the causes of climate change, which are attributed to certain human activities.
Regarding covid19 on the other side I really don't know what you're referring to, frankly I'm not too interested. As far as I know there is large consensus that covid19 is a virus and that it killed a lot of people; saying that this is false would be impossible without revolutionising the whole fields of biology and medicine.
@Andre @ringo
"As far as I know there is large consensus that covid19 is a virus and that it killed a lot of people;"
This is a broad statement that lacks context, imo.
And my major beef is with the way covid is currently being treated- as if the vaccines are "the be all end all". Not a lot of talk about cheaper preventative measures with drugs that already have a proven history, according to doctors who've had success treating their covid patients with them. They may be "wrong"
@pamby1
I'm not extremely informed on the matter, so take what I'm writing with a grain of salt.
Indeed covid treatment might have been done in a different way.
Vaccines were pushed over other alternatives, but after all a solution was needed and it made sense to focus on only one solution in order to find it quickly.
What has been done with covid vaccines is impressive, it was unimaginable that a vaccine could be developed so quickly.
Single doctors with a few patient with whom a particular treatment worked mean nothing.
A larger study is required to ascertain the goodness of one treatment, that is why there is pharmacovigilance in place.
It doesn't look to me as if alternative opinions and cures have been censored: these are readily available everywhere and anyone can read them.
You're here talking about them despite not being one of the doctors who was using those cures.
I'm definitely not saying that the covid emergency was handled in the best way possible.
But emergency handling has nothing to do with the scientific method.
@Andre @ringo
It sounds to me like you do not understand how science or medicine works, nor are you aware of the literal criminal nature to big Pharma, especially Pfizer.
So many of your statements are factually and logically incorrect that I am not going to dissect your words here (little time this morning) but you need to go learn about the deep history of junk and faked trials that plague big Pharma. And how doctors use drugs off label based on limited data, when needed.
@Andre
Yes, there are reports of falsified data in certain trials; not a lot but still worrying.
Big Pharma is definitely paying a lot of money to sponsor their own drugs as opposed to the ones from their competitors.
They do some pretty disgusting stuff, such as prohibiting countries to gift unused vaccine doses to other countries and rather have them wasted.
I'm not certain what you mean by using drugs off label.
I work in the development of new drugs; I'm not working for a big pharmaceutical company, but I do know a thing or two.
Even with these things you said, I don't see where my statements are factually or logically incorrect.
@pamby1 @ringo
@Andre
This is an accepted practice, which can in some cases create big problems.
It's better when this is done during an investigation so that effects are documented and the validity of such treatment is explained.
I don't know much about the practice itself, not how common it is nor which problems it created in the past.
@pamby1 @ringo
“Surely these papers have been read by other researchers in the field”
Have you heard of the replication crisis? How about the abysmal state of peer review? It’s not profitable to spend time reviewing peers’ work. New studies are where the money is.
One 2015 attempt to reproduce 100 psychology studies was able to replicate only 39 of them. A big international effort in 2018 to reproduce prominent studies found that 14 of the 28 replicated, and an attempt to replicate studies from top journals Nature and Science found that 13 of the 21 results looked at could be reproduced. … If scientists are pretty good at predicting whether a paper replicates, how can it be the case that they are as likely to cite a bad paper as a good one? Menard theorizes that many scientists don’t thoroughly check — or even read — papers once published, expecting that if they’re peer-reviewed, they’re fine. Bad papers are published by a peer-review process that is not adequate to catch them — and once they’re published, they are not penalized for being bad papers.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21504366/science-replication-crisis-peer-review-statistics
@thatguyoverthere @Andre @ringo @rastinza This is a good article to shove in the face of anyone who says "trust the science". "Experts" are never going to replace the necessity & value of people "doing their own research" when it comes to assessing their own risk & making personal decisions. I think we've learned the hard way through covid that public policy should NEVER, EVER AGAIN supercede individual rights.
Yeah a quick search yields quite a few of these kinds of articles. On the question of doing your own research the Vox article does include a quote that seems to support the idea which is surprising (not that I disagree, just that I am surprised it would be stated).
“Laypeople without a professional background in the social sciences are able to predict the replicability of social-science studies with above-chance accuracy,” the study concluded, “on the basis of nothing more than simple verbal study descriptions.”
This probably applies to other areas of study as well even though it is constrained to the social sciences.
@thatguyoverthere
The peer reviewing process currently has some big flaws.
This said, the peer reviewing process is just one step in the scientific knowledge development.
Reading a paper you first of all try to understand if it makes sense; that is: is the way they're describing their methodology appropriate?
If the methodology is not appropriate for the problem at hand, then you discard the article.
Then you use that knowledge, and that's the place where the consensus starts to grow.
If the things described in the paper work, you will keep using it and knowledge about it will spread, if it doesn't work then you will address the flaws.
Thus, even with a broken peer reviewing process, bad articles still get addressed (though a bit more down the line) and good ones get more accepted.
@Andre @pamby1 @ringo
I agree that peer review is not the only step, but the peer review process and the replication of results are both critical steps which have been lacking for quite some time. Here is a paper from 2005 on the issue (emphasis added):
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance. Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.
I think when it comes to climate change and whether or not it is man-made, the relationships between system components are intricate and hard to accurately model. This results in findings that may “be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias”. Yes the planet is warming, but I think there are potential explanations that are not explored thoroughly enough by the prevailing scientific zeitgeist. I think the time scales we tend to focus on ignore the larger historical climate record because if we want to prove anthropogenic climate change, we are going to bias our focus on post industrialization climate changes. This year has been an interesting one in climate change news. Floods and droughts seem to be hitting pretty hard in some parts of the world which people point to as evidence that man-made climate change is real, but there is no through line as far as I can tell, and a single event that occurred earlier in the year could actually explain it at least some what. The Tonga volcano eruption which resulted in thousands of tons of water being ejected into the stratosphere. According to the NYT the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere increased by at least 5%.
Because it occurred about 500 feet underwater, the eruption of superheated molten rock also caused seawater to flash explosively into steam. A plume of water vapor, volcanic gases and ash reached an altitude of 35 miles. That increased the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere, which ends at an altitude of 31 miles, by at least 5 percent.
I think most people would agree the climate is changing. I think there is a vocal majority that seems convinced it is definitely caused by human behavior, but there is also a sizable minority of dissenters which are often discounted or discredited which has a stifling effect on others I’m sure. Here is an article from 2016 from Forbes saying the 97% number is not accurate and may be held to so tightly for marketing purposes.
In a 2007 book chapter, Oreskes infers that the lack of expressed dissent “demonstrates that any remaining professional dissent is now exceedingly minor.” The chapter revealed that there were about 235 papers in the 2004 article, or 25%, that endorsed the position. An additional 50% were interpreted to have implicitly endorsed, primarily on the basis that they discussed evaluation of impacts. Authors addressing impacts might believe that the Earth is warming without believing it is anthropogenic. In the article, Oreskes said some authors she counted “might believe that current climate change is natural.” It is impossible to tell from this analysis how many actually believed it. On that basis, I find that this study does not support the 97% number. … Given these results, it is clear that support among scientists for human-caused climate change is below 97%. Most studies including specialties other than climatologists find support in the range of 80% to 90%. The 97% consensus of scientists, when used without limitation to climate scientists, is false. .. Despite the difficulty in defining a precise number and the opinion that the exact number is not important, 97% continues to be widely publicized and defended. One might ask why 97% is important. Perhaps it’s because 97% has marketing value. It sounds precise and says that only 3% disagree. By implication, that small number who disagree must be out of the mainstream: cranks, chronic naysayers, or shills of the fossil fuel industry. They are frequently described as a “tiny minority.” It’s not as easy to discount dissenters if the number is 10 or 15 percent.
@thatguyoverthere @Andre @ringo @rastinza
"I think most people would agree the climate is changing."
It really infuriates me how language is weaponized. Yes the climate is changing- it changes all the time. But if you say you believe in " climate change", you're aligning yourself with all kinds crazy claims & agendas. The same people who want "political solutions" & money, let's not forget about money, for "climate change" are the same ones who thought shutting down economies was the way to
@thatguyoverthere @Andre @ringo @rastinza
deal with covid. You know, how the cure is worse than the disease?!? I wouldn't trust these people's advice on the proper way to water my plants!!
Another example of language weaponization is "anti-racist". If someone asked me if I was "anti-racist" I would say "hell no"! If you don't understand how "anti-racist" is actually a racist, Marxist political agenda, you're gonna say "yeah I'm anti-racist".Then the anti-racists can claim all of this support.
@thatguyoverthere
Hey, sorry if I didn't reply yet.
I hadn't had time to read your messages yet nor the articles you linked.
I hope I'll have time to read everything tomorrow and then I'll get back to you.
@Andre @pamby1 @ringo
@thatguyoverthere
You can look at other fields of science and clearly see that in many cases no wide consensus is available.
Just have a glimpse into theoretical physics, put together in a room someone supporting quantum mechanics and someone else supporting relativity and see who's the one coming out alive.
@Andre @pamby1 @ringo
I do think we need to do better as stewards of this planet, but I don't think our impact on the climate is where most of the attention should be. I think protecting the world from man-made materials leaching all kinds of chemicals that can disrupt living systems is a much bigger concern. I think preventing global war is a bigger concern. I also think reducing global interdependence and building more resilient decentralized systems across all facets of human life is more important.
@thatguyoverthere @Andre @ringo @rastinza
Yes to ALL a' that in the last paragraph!⬆️⬆️⬆️
@rastinza @thatguyoverthere @Andre @pamby1 @ringo
It's the quantum mechanics guy that's coming out alive...am I right?
@thatguyoverthere @Andre @pamby1 @ringo @rastinza
Schroeder's box conundrum?
Schrödinger’s cat scientists
@thatguyoverthere @Andre @pamby1 @ringo @rastinza
🤣 I didn't look it up for spelling!
Is this you?
Dogsoldier2
He's talking about Schroedinger’s cat food?
What are the chances two people in one afternoon are all about Schroedinger.
@Katrina_Fights
Depends, better not say so before they enter or you'll also be in trouble.
Until the room is closed they're clearly both dead and alive ;)
@thatguyoverthere @Andre @pamby1 @ringo
"The scientific method is, in fact, based on consensus."
I disagree strongly on this.
"While a black swan observation does indicate that the theory that all swans are white might be wrong, the single observation is not enough to disprove an affirmed and working theory."
A single observation that contradicts many to the contrary requires confirmation, but a single confirmed observation can easily destroy a theory.
@Andre
I'll explain briefly: all theories have problems, and this is known from the beginning. Identifying one single problem with the theory doesn't take down the theory, it just identifies one point of weakness.
Moreover, the observations must of course be confirmed through repeated observations.
The existing theory doesn't get destroyed as soon as an opposing observation is done, because that would throw away a perfectly good and working theory.
The theory gets replaced when a new one gets formulated, and the new one can also account for that observation which couldn't previously be explained.
The new theory gets approved through consensus, since there is no objective measure of theory superiority.
@pamby1 @ringo
@pamby1
Depends on the scale and importance; generally new theories become accepted after being in use for a long while.
Thus: one guy might need this new theory for something in particular for which the old one doesn't work and starts using it.
If the theory works he will talk about it and eventually other people will start using it.
After some time everyone in the field will know the new theory, and commonly refer to it.
At this point this new theory will start being deemed accepted.
Let's say a theory has been accepted more or less when someone uses it and doesn't need to cite the source because it's obvious to everyone in the field what he's talking about.
@Andre @ringo
@rastinza @Andre @ringo I just mean that it's my impression that some scientists today are not open to new information & just about stroke out if someone's opinion deviates from what a
"consensus of scientists" says is fact. As if democracy, not the scientific method, determines facts.