• Who Does Science?
    6 replies, posted
Leave it to my conservative mother to poke at the holes in my own understanding. She decided the other day after I mentioned something Neil Degrasse Tyson said about scientific studies, to claim that a lot of studies are funded by organizations with a vested interest in finding a certain outcome, and might throw a paper out that contradicted that. She also said something about opinion making its way into scientific research because someone observing something in a microscope would only be writing down their interpretation of what they saw. Now I called this out for the bullshit it was, but I also realize I don't know a whole lot about the scientific community either. I'm well aware, and comforted in knowing, that through peer-review, whatever one might claim in a scientific paper must stand up to global scrutiny, so I know bullshit can't makes its way into science on the official level. But it leaves me wondering... Apart from the government-funded stuff, who exactly DOES science? Universities? And what power do the people with the money have over the research? Is it a common problem for studies to be withheld that contradict what the people funding the research want to be true? I know science works, and none of these notions would hold up in a religion vs science debate (what private organization would seriously profit from withholding scientific evidence for a religion?) but it would help me to know exactly how the system worked, if only to keep anti-science idiots in their place.
Many universities conduct research, as well as accredited laboratories, psychologists, biologists, other -ologists. Money comes from a variety of places, depending on what you are studying. At a university, the university itself does a lot of funding based on what research in proposed. Also, those who would benefit from the research would fund them, like pharmaceutical companies and such. The funders don't necessarily have much power over the researchers because funding must be provided before the research can find a result that would dissatisfy someone providing the funding. About withholding findings, I'm not sure. It could definitely happen because the researchers could be under contract by the funders, prohibiting from sharing their findings with anyone else. But at the same time, much research is funded looking to find what an answer to something is for sake of having that knowledge to build off of, not to reaffirm a set belief. In psychology, there is something called "confirmation bias", that is, many people will only pay attention to facts and figures that support what they want to believe. Anything contradicting might be written off as a mistake in the research of some other variable gone awry. However, testing would continue to be done until either the initial hypothesis is reached, or the contradiction is found enough times that it must be regarded as being the true outcome. Sorry if that just looks like a bunch of rambling, but this is my general understanding of your questions.
It's a massive industry, done in so many ways, but funding can often come from the government, charity grants or a business. This funding will often go to dedicated scientific institutes, which could be businesses, parts of businesses, government centers or universities, which will often be provided as contracts - "we'll fund your research on x". The scientists perform tests, following the scientific method - observation, hypothesis, test, evaluate, repeat tests until you can form a set procedure with a repeatable result, get a conclusion then you publish a paper which is then peer reviewed - to help eliminate bias, as your peers can test it themselves to ensure that it's true. Then it'll go into a mainstream journal. It depends on the country, but as far as I am aware, it is possible for the research funders to stop the scientists from publishing results if they don't like them, and they could cut funding halfway through if they dislike the project, but if it's provable, repeatable and all evidence supports it, it might become a theory. The main issue that you'll probably have with your mum, OP is that she'll try claiming that a theory is "just a theory", as in laymans terms, a theory is merely someones thoughts and reasoning for something. In science, a theory is pretty much the highest form of a concept - you can't be 100% sure, but you can be so damn close that it might as well be true for now. Theories aren't shaky like you'll find discreditors claiming, they are solid, and are supported. Also, findings can be published wrongly sometimes, like the MMR scandal, where the arsehole Andrew Wakefield was found to be falsifying results, got them published in the Lancet and then caused a massive media scare which has led to the deaths of innocent children due to bad parents refusing to give vacceines to their kids. These incidences are far and few, though, due to the peer reviews. Oh, and I've probably got mistakes in this, or am missing something.
No, that sounds pretty on-point, thank you :-) Like I said, totally trust the system, but knowing a bit more about it makes it less about trusting and more about knowing, obviously, and in a world of so many dedicated anti-science nuts, you can never be too read-up. [editline]17th April 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Terminutter;35610181]It's a massive industry, done in so many ways, but funding can often come from the government, charity grants or a business. This funding will often go to dedicated scientific institutes, which could be businesses, parts of businesses, government centers or universities, which will often be provided as contracts - "we'll fund your research on x". The scientists perform tests, following the scientific method - observation, hypothesis, test, evaluate, repeat tests until you can form a set procedure with a repeatable result, get a conclusion then you publish a paper which is then peer reviewed - to help eliminate bias, as your peers can test it themselves to ensure that it's true. Then it'll go into a mainstream journal. It depends on the country, but as far as I am aware, it is possible for the research funders to stop the scientists from publishing results if they don't like them, and they could cut funding halfway through if they dislike the project, but if it's provable, repeatable and all evidence supports it, it might become a theory. The main issue that you'll probably have with your mum, OP is that she'll try claiming that a theory is "just a theory", as in laymans terms, a theory is merely someones thoughts and reasoning for something. In science, a theory is pretty much the highest form of a concept - you can't be 100% sure, but you can be so damn close that it might as well be true for now. Theories aren't shaky like you'll find discreditors claiming, they are solid, and are supported. Also, findings can be published wrongly sometimes, like the MMR scandal, where the arsehole Andrew Wakefield was found to be falsifying results, got them published in the Lancet and then caused a massive media scare which has led to the deaths of innocent children due to bad parents refusing to give vacceines to their kids. These incidences are far and few, though, due to the peer reviews. Oh, and I've probably got mistakes in this, or am missing something.[/QUOTE] Excellent to know :-) Oh yeah, I'm more than aware of how theories work in science. Evolution deniers make a career out of that "just a theory" bullshit. My mother wouldn't get away with that while I'm listening. Also, the example of the vaccine scandal is pretty perfect. My mother was deeply affected by this, as my younger brother has severe autism, and for a while she was afraid of vaccines because she thought they had caused it. That would resonate pretty strongly with her in particular.
[QUOTE=Terminutter;35610181]It's a massive industry, done in so many ways, but funding can often come from the government, charity grants or a business. This funding will often go to dedicated scientific institutes, which could be businesses, parts of businesses, government centers or universities, which will often be provided as contracts - "we'll fund your research on x". The scientists perform tests, following the scientific method - observation, hypothesis, test, evaluate, repeat tests until you can form a set procedure with a repeatable result, get a conclusion then you publish a paper which is then peer reviewed - to help eliminate bias, as your peers can test it themselves to ensure that it's true. Then it'll go into a mainstream journal. It depends on the country, but as far as I am aware, it is possible for the research funders to stop the scientists from publishing results if they don't like them, and they could cut funding halfway through if they dislike the project, but if it's provable, repeatable and all evidence supports it, it might become a theory. The main issue that you'll probably have with your mum, OP is that she'll try claiming that a theory is "just a theory", as in laymans terms, a theory is merely someones thoughts and reasoning for something. In science, a theory is pretty much the highest form of a concept - you can't be 100% sure, but you can be so damn close that it might as well be true for now. Theories aren't shaky like you'll find discreditors claiming, they are solid, and are supported. Also, findings can be published wrongly sometimes, like the MMR scandal, where the arsehole Andrew Wakefield was found to be falsifying results, got them published in the Lancet and then caused a massive media scare which has led to the deaths of innocent children due to bad parents refusing to give vacceines to their kids. These incidences are far and few, though, due to the peer reviews. Oh, and I've probably got mistakes in this, or am missing something.[/QUOTE] As this guy says, I think your mother has the wrong understanding of what exactly a theory is - it's not just something someone guesses, but it's not her fault - the word "theory" is thrown around a lot, much too casually Anyway, I've never really thought about how much the people funding the research can control the results. It's a very interesting question. Who owns the rights to any research that is done? I'm pretty sure it's the people who fund it, but I could be wrong
Wikipedia has a whole page dedicated to the funding, might be useful. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_of_science[/url] [quote]A 2005 study in the journal Nature surveyed 3247 US researchers who were all publicly funded (by the National Institutes of Health). Out of the scientists questioned, 15.5% admitted to altering design, methodology or results of their studies due to pressure of an external funding source. In a contemporary study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, a similar proportion of the 107 medical research institutions questioned were willing to allow pharmaceutical companies sponsoring research to alter manuscripts according to their interests before they were submitted for publication.[/quote]
Bill Nye?
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