Is Science Really Self-Correcting?

sculptor

sculptor

Valued Senior Member
I found this today:
from: https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2016/04/11/is-science-really-self-correcting/

We’re told that science is special. Not only is it based on evidence rather than dogma – so goes the argument – it contains a built-in mechanism that identifies and corrects errors. How marvelous.

But what if this is one of those blind faith mantras that has been repeated so frequently everyone believes it’s true irrespective of the actual facts? Eugenie Samuel Reich is the author of Plastic Fantastic: How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific World. In telling the story of a young physicist named Jan Hendrik Schön, her book demonstrates that there’s nothing systematic or straightforward about how the scientific record comes to be corrected.

Lots of people tried and failed to reproduce Schön’s work, in the process wasting months of their lives and significant portions of their own research budgets. Others attempted in vain to alert Nature (the elite journal that published seven of Schön’s papers during 2000 and 2001), that his work suffered from “profound” technical problems. They were advised to take their concerns elsewhere. Allegations of fraud were even made internally at the lab at which he worked, but weren’t pursued vigorously.

In the end, Schön’s widespread fraud was only identified after two external scientists, Paul McEuen and Lydia Sohn, took it upon themselves to examine his work closely and noticed that he’d recycled the same fake data in multiple papers that claimed to discuss distinct discoveries.
...
The Schön story illustrates that you can get dozens of papers published in the most prestigious journals imaginable, attract worldwide headlines, be awarded multiple science prizes, and be lavishly praised by Nobel Laureates without a single other soul witnessing firsthand the revolutionary results you claim you’ve discovered.

That’s quite a system.

Anyone interested in further reading on this topic is invited to check out the following list. The last paper observes that scientific fraud is usually exposed due to “inside information by whistleblowers and not through the procedures by which science is supposed to identify fraudulent research.”

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Long ago, I got into an argument with a "clovis first" professor who really had not kept up with the science.
He said: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof!"
I said: "Except when they are yours."

Almost daily, I read really crazy stuff fabricated to refute someone else's work.
One recent one is "cranial elasticity" for morphological differences.

Will you look twice and engage in a little skeptical research the next time someone cites Nature?
 
sculptor said:
Even if it takes 2 or 3 generations.
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Potentially, yes -- do you have an example of that? In the case you cited, the total elapsed time between publication and retraction was about two years. That strikes me as being remarkably efficient.
 
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Russ_Watters said:
Potentially, yes -- do you have an example of that?
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The claim that V Gordon Childe's agricultural revolution preceeded monument building by thousands of years.(unless we accept early farming now covered by rising seas .)
And then came Klaus Schmidt's gobekli tepe
and
The clovis first single origin hypotheses(walking to the new world) (from the 1920-30s)which is slowly dissolving as new discoveries' dates are acknowledged.

Do you know of like circumstances in your field of study?
 
sculptor said:
Will you look twice and engage in a little skeptical research the next time someone cites Nature?
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Nature, what about Wikipedia or any of way too many other "science" sources that often get cited on this Forum?

I have a feeling that by even broaching the subject on this Forum - it will be considered "Blasphemy" by some Members...
 
sculptor said:
The claim that V Gordon Childe's agricultural revolution preceeded monument building by thousands of years.(unless we accept early farming now covered by rising seas .)
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Huh? I googled that real quick and couldn't find any references to a problem there. Could you elaborate please.
And then came Klaus Schmidt's gobekli tepe
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And that.
The clovis first single origin hypotheses(walking to the new world) (from the 1920-30s)which is slowly dissolving as new discoveries' dates are acknowledged.
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"Hypothesis". So, all three of these examples are in anthropology, which by its nature is thin and speculative. Hypotheses aren't testable, per se, they are only verifiable by new discoveries of buried evidence. Yes, it can take a long time to verify or falsify a hypothesis in anthropology. That's an inherent difficulty with anthropology that doesn't apply to the physical sciences and is a well known/understood/accepted limitation that doesn't negate its usefulness as a discipline. So, your thin details aside, I think you are barking up the wrong tree.

And should I take these examples as acknowledgment that your first example was a poor one?
Do you know of like circumstances in your field of study?
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I'm an engineer, not a scientist.
 
FYI Gobeklitepe is monumental architecture dated to 12,000 years ago.
while the neolithic revolution/ (switch to sedentary agricultural life) is estimated to have happened circa 10,000 years ago.

If we use Childe's reasoning, then agriculture should precede Gobeklitepe by 2000-4000 years
For which, there is no archaeological evidence.
We know that sea levels rose rapidly then. So, perhaps such evidence could be found under water on the glacial cycle coastal plains?
 
sculptor said:
FYI Gobeklitepe is monumental architecture dated to 12,000 years ago.
while the neolithic revolution/ (switch to sedentary agricultural life) is estimated to have happened circa 10,000 years ago.

If we use Childe's reasoning, then agriculture should precede Gobeklitepe by 2000-4000 years
For which, there is no archaeological evidence.
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Ok....so what? Are you saying you disagree with the scientific consensus? Are you a phd anthropologist? I'm not either. I don't think we can evaluate if "science" has produced a mistake there.

Frankly, if this is all you have, you are demonstrating very effectively just how few/thin long-standing accuracy issues are!
 
Science and the scientific method is certainly self correcting in the main: That has been proven time and time again down through the ages. It isn't perfect though...what is?
Still, this subject will be like an orgasm to those extreme religious folk and other would be pretenders that like to deride the subject with such cop outs as "pop science" and "it's only a theory" nonsense. ;)
 
paddoboy said:
Science and the scientific method is certainly self correcting in the main: That has been proven time and time again down through the ages. It isn't perfect though...what is?
Still, this subject will be like an orgasm to those extreme religious folk and other would be pretenders that like to deride the subject with such cop outs as "pop science" and "it's only a theory" nonsense. ;)
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IF we would not question science it would not be any different then a religious organisation . All that prediction coming for the future of hundred year away , were the present generation would not exist or be dead.
 
timojin said:
IF we would not question science it would not be any different then a religious organisation . All that prediction coming for the future of hundred year away , were the present generation would not exist or be dead.
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Science bases those predictions on current data and knowledge along with some speculation based on current data and knowledge: They do not dream up some myth or pull other ideas out of their arse.
 
And of course despite all the whooha and criticism directed at science, there would not be too many who would chose to live in a world without all aspects of science,I bet my short n curlies! :rolleyes:
Just imagine, no medicine, no phone, no computers, no TV, no radio, no cars buses, trains or ferries.... :)
No knowledge of the Moon, Sun and stars.
Those inclined would be worshiping the Sun, the Moon, Volcanoes, rivers etc, in between swinging from branch to branch....Ahh the joy of it all! :D
 
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