Being right is over-rated. Wrong: its the new right.

[busterdog]

I heard this guy interviewed on John Batchelor's program. The essential thesis is that most science is just wrong or faked. Peer review doesn't pick up fraud and isn't designed to do so. Most articles in major journals are just wrong. He even says that 90% of medicine is wrong. Not sure how one would make that calculation. But, it sure is fun watching convention get slapped around.

I guess I need to say something theological or evolutionary so to make the delight taken in petty thread-moving criticism a bit more challenging.

Evolutionary science is a cabal of experts who are mostly wrong and retreat before their betters, yet always declaring victory and complete faithfulness to the failed Darwinian model. Medical science is a bit different in that it can be tested and refuted. Evolutionary theories really can't be tested the same way at all.

Let's see if a critic can manage something better than, "Freedman is also an expert."

Author & Journalist David Freedman (David H. Freedman)

[FONT=Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif]WRONG In the News[/FONT]
​

Discover Magazine: The Streetlight Effect
The measurement problems that undermine many, if not most, scientific findings

Newsweek: The Case Against Experts

Time: Experts and Studies: Not Always Trustworthy

The New York Post: Why Experts Are Usually Wrong
Fast Company: The Gene Bubble
Why genetic research isn't producing nearly the payoff that scientists told us to expect

Babble.com: 6 Types of Parenting Advice You Shouldn’t Trust

From the NYPOst article:

Every day, expert advice assaults us from newspapers, websites and televisions. But judging by the state of the world and our lives, it doesn’t seem to be doing us much good.
Blame the media (of course), but know that’s only a small part of the problem. Experts — that is, actual scientists, not just Dr. Phil — are often wrong, more often than we might think.
Scientists themselves have examined the reliability of their own findings, and have come to some sobering conclusions. Take medical research, which has been especially well-scrutinized. About two-thirds of the findings published in top medical journals end up being refuted within a few years.

AFP/Getty Images





As much as 90% of medical knowledge has been gauged to be substantially or completely wrong. We spend about $95 billion annually on medical research in the US, but average life span here has barely increased since 1978 — and most of the improvement was due to the drop in smoking rates. The picture of expert trustworthiness is no better or even worse in most other fields. One examination of published economics findings concluded that the wrongness rate is essentially 100%. In that light, is it surprising that we weren’t as well-protected as we thought from investment and banking system disasters?
Why all the wrong? Usually because of a hunger for easy answers that you can’t get from chaotic, complicated systems. But that doesn’t stop Oprah — who must feed a daily show — or even scientists, whose careers are tied to making a splash in prestigious research journals.
These journals want the same sorts of exciting, useful findings that we all appreciate. And what do you know? Scientists manage to get these exciting findings, even when they’re wrong or exaggerated. It’s not as hard as you might think to get a desired but wrong result in a scientific study, thanks to how tricky it is to gather good data and properly analyze it, leaving plenty of room for ambiguity and error, honest or otherwise. If you badly want to prove an experimental drug works, you can choose your patients very carefully, and find excuses for tossing out the data that looks bad. If you want to prove that dietary fat is good for you, or that fat is bad for you, you can just keep poring over different patient data until you find a connection that by luck seems to support your theory — which is why studies constantly seem to come to different findings on the same questions.


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinio...ly_wrong_LsjnnoKdgoOoH5QJHmT5QO#ixzz0yJu2YxIp​

 

[crawfish]

This is exactly the reason I haven't abandoned my chicken-fried steak and gravy diet for something more healthy. If nobody is going to agree on what I should do, I might as well be happy.

In the end, the only real way to judge any science is by the practical application. If it leads us into directions that are successfully applied, then it's likely good science (even if it has flaws).

 

[busterdog]

This is exactly the reason I haven't abandoned my chicken-fried steak and gravy diet for something more healthy. If nobody is going to agree on what I should do, I might as well be happy.

In the end, the only real way to judge any science is by the practical application. If it leads us into directions that are successfully applied, then it's likely good science (even if it has flaws).

There is a very definite half-full/half-empty thing going on with this book.

Where chicken fried steak is concerned, the glass of medical naysaying would definitely be half empty.

The simpler message may be better: think for yourself. Don't believe everything you are told. Learn to make informed decisions about what experts tell you.

 

[crawfish]

The simpler message may be better: think for yourself. Don't believe everything you are told. Learn to make informed decisions about what experts tell you.

I'll give your suggestion some thought.

I put pretty much every expert to the test. That includes the experts in theology, of course.

 

[busterdog]

I'll give your suggestion some thought.

I put pretty much every expert to the test. That includes the experts in theology, of course.

Sssshhhhhh! Don't screw it up!

Nothing like presumptively untestable conclusions to make for a real racket!

 

[shernren]

Be careful, busterdog. Socialist evolutionists are going to invade your house tonight and turn your world upside down. You will have no idea that they ever came. But tomorrow morning, your cereal will be poisoned, your milk will be sour, your wife and children will have been replaced with robots, your computer will be programmed to brainwash you into believing that Obama is the Messiah, and your car's brake lines will be cut.

Evidence? Why should you ask me for evidence? After all, you don't need any evidence to believe that evolution is nothing but lies! And what I'm saying to you is a thousand times more important than evolution.

=========

See, busterdog, in the real world, when people want to prove that medical science is wrong, they actually have to argue their case. I actually do agree with you that too much medicine today is paid for by the big pharmas for me to believe any of it. (I believe in a balanced diet: one must have lots of healthy food, and lots of unhealthy food.)

But can you identify the similar financial interests funding evolutionary biology? What do the hardworking geneticists at my uni gain for showing that the genomes of marsupials conform with known evolutionary processes? What does Alan Feduccia gain from insisting that birds evolved, not from dinosaurs, but from earlier reptiles? Who paid Theodosius Dobzhansky to say that, nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution?

With evidence I'd gladly believe any conspiracy theory, even ones as boring and derivative as yours. But you don't seem to place such a high value on evidence and constructive reasoning. Which, really, isn't my problem so much as it is yours: remember to line your driveway with calthrops before you brush your teeth, okay?

 

[busterdog]

Be careful, busterdog. Socialist evolutionists are going to invade your house tonight and turn your world upside down. You will have no idea that they ever came. But tomorrow morning, your cereal will be poisoned, your milk will be sour, your wife and children will have been replaced with robots, your computer will be programmed to brainwash you into believing that Obama is the Messiah, and your car's brake lines will be cut.

Evidence? Why should you ask me for evidence? After all, you don't need any evidence to believe that evolution is nothing but lies! And what I'm saying to you is a thousand times more important than evolution.

=========

See, busterdog, in the real world, when people want to prove that medical science is wrong, they actually have to argue their case. I actually do agree with you that too much medicine today is paid for by the big pharmas for me to believe any of it. (I believe in a balanced diet: one must have lots of healthy food, and lots of unhealthy food.)

But can you identify the similar financial interests funding evolutionary biology? What do the hardworking geneticists at my uni gain for showing that the genomes of marsupials conform with known evolutionary processes? What does Alan Feduccia gain from insisting that birds evolved, not from dinosaurs, but from earlier reptiles? Who paid Theodosius Dobzhansky to say that, nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution?

With evidence I'd gladly believe any conspiracy theory, even ones as boring and derivative as yours. But you don't seem to place such a high value on evidence and constructive reasoning. Which, really, isn't my problem so much as it is yours: remember to line your driveway with calthrops before you brush your teeth, okay?

For Shernren only:

At this level it's not so much a matter of knowing what external power imposes itself on science, as of what effects of power circulate among scientific statements, what constitutes, as it were, their internal regime of power, and how and why at certain moments that regime undergoes a global modification.
​

This idea echoes Thomas Kuhn's ideas about paradigm shifts in a science, and even reverberates back to Dryden's statements about every age's "universal genius." Dryden stated that in every generation there is a general inclination of thought that affects all disciplines. Kuhn proliferated the idea that major revolutions in science are due to major paradigm shifts.
The discussion then moves to structuralism, where Foucault makes some major statements about the structure of history. Foucault is ardent in asserting, "I don't see who could be more of an anti-structuralist than myself." He claims that structures, formed by the rulers of society, have led to the devaluation of the "event" in their rage to order the general tide of history. Structuralist historians ignore abberant events that do not fit into "those beautiful structures that are so orderly, intelligible and transparent to analysis." Foucault says that the study of history has been based on a model of language that focuses on meaning. He reccommends a different way of evaluating eccentric historical events, rather than writing them off as simply trivial as structuralist historians have attempted:

Here I believe one's point of reference should not be to the great model of language (langue) and signs, but to that of war and battle. The history which bears and determines us has the form of a war rather than that of a language: relations of power, not relations of meaning.
​

Foucault believes that the seemingly chaotic occurences of history are conflicts of power. He states that there is an "intrinsic intelligibility of conflicts" that can enlighten us to the reasons behind actions.
Every action and every historical event is seen by Foucault as an exercise in the exchange of power. He has spent a large bulk of his career analyzing the ebb and flow of power in different situations and with relevance to different aspects of human life. Structure organizes and broadens the web of power. The overall volume of power rises with each individual involved in the play. The society is a huge web, and much of the power tends to be concentrated toward the higher eschelons. Foucault sees the exchange of power in very active terms: "isn't power simply a form of warlike domination?" It is difficult to sort out just who is fighting the war, since Foucault seems to lean toward the "war of all against all" notion. Power flows simultaneously in different directions and different volumes according to the various forms of "power relations" in the "network" of power exchange.
Foucault's ideas gravitate toward the ultra-highly complex and similarly politicized, leaving one to wonder what the real-world impact of his notions might be. The interviewers apparently shared this inquiry, and asked how all of Foucault's analysis of power relations could be used in life, and, specifically, what is the role of the intellectual? Foucault responds with a discussion of the the intellectual, who he says has gravitated from a "universal" intellectual to a "specific" intellectual. Foucault sees scientists and scholars who remain cloistered in their field as specific intellectuals, and cites the writers of old as the universal intellectuals:

The intellectual par excellence used to be the writer: as a universal consciousness, a free subject, he was counterposed to the service of the State or Capital – technicians, magistrates, teachers.
​

Even writers have been coopted in modern society by the structure of the "regime," the group that rules the society, including government and business. The society now looks to the university for its knowledge because of the intersection of multiple fields of study. This has incorporated even written expression into the structure of society and led to the devaluation of the "writer of genius" and the elevation of the "absolute savant." The absolute savant, "along with a handful of others, has at his disposal, whether in the service of the State or against it, powers which can either benefit or irrevocably destroy life." Writers who are sanctioned by a powerful structure now affect reality rather than simply tromping around in idealogical terrain. It woud seem that an intellectual could not be effective without the support of some structure, but Foucault makes an argument for individual efficacy.
The structure is successful because it creates truth, and it is in this recognition that individuals can succeed:

The important thing here, I believe, is that truth isn't outside power, or lacking in power … truth isn't the reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude, nor the privilege of those who have succeeded in liberating themselves. Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it includes regular effects of power.
​

Each society creates a "regime of truth" according to its beliefs, values, and mores. Foucault identifies the creation of truth in contemporary western society with five traits: the centering of truth on scientific discourse, accountability of truth to economic and political forces, the "diffusion and consumption" of truth via societal apparatuses, the control of the distribution of truth by "political and economic apparatuses," and the fact that it is "the issue of a whole political debate and social confrontation." Individuals would do well to recognize that ultimate truth, "Truth," is the construct of the political and economic forces that command the majority of the power within the societal web. There is no truly universal truth at all; therefore, the intellectual cannot convey universal truth. The intellectual must specialize, specify, so that he/she can be connected to one of the truth-generating apparatuses of the society. As Foucault explains it:

'Truth' is to be understood as a system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, distribution, circulation and operation of statements.
'Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it. A 'regime' of truth.
​

Because of this, Foucault sees "the political problems of intellectuals not in terms of 'science' and 'ideology,' but in terms of 'truth' and 'power.'" The question of how to deal with and determine truth is at the base of political and social strife.

 

[shernren]

So which social concentration of power forced my paracetamol tablet to take away my headache last night?

 

[busterdog]

So which social concentration of power forced my paracetamol tablet to take away my headache last night?

Couldn't tell you. I only read about two sentences of Michelle Foucault and after seeing the same impenetrable verbiage from 30 years ago, I figure that would be perfect.