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| Fake science? Just sayin'... |
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| TimFox:
A similar axiom amongst my archaeological buddies: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." |
| raptor1956:
It not just the quackery evident in many of the non-peer reviewed papers or even science itself that's under attack -- it's all areas of expertise that are being inundated with half truths and outright lies. How many of you have seen thumbnails for videos about an amazing new piece of military hardware, often aircraft, that are clearly just photoshop designs with zero real world reality. This particular subset of bullshit has increased substantially in just the last couple years and is now at a point where these fake news site outnumber real sites 10:1. The average Joe, lacking any real understanding of the engineering involved but wowed by the photoshop image can be lead to believe it's true even though it is not. That this is so widespread and covering virtually every topic points to a number of possible causes: 1. Stupid people can now 'publish' nonsense on the internet -- there have always been stupid people but now they have multiple platforms to spread the stupid. Dunning Frickin Kruger. 2. Various special interests seek to undermine one idea or another because there is profit in doing so, such interests create think tanks to spread there lies and then those think tanks, or others related to them, hire astroturfers to troll comment sections to attack genuine discussions and copy/paste from their carefully prepared selection of misinformation. And oh yeah, outright, bald-faced lying is their stock and trade. 3. Nation state trolls, mostly from Russia but other players are in the game to, promote nonsense as fact and attack fact as lies to undermine a nation by getting millions to doubt all authority. While the principal authority they wish to undermine is political, the process of undermining ALL authority allows them to attack the political authority but escape detection by coming at it from the side -- all sides. 4. For fun ... there are many trolls that do what they do because it entertains them. Many of them are at the sociopathic end of the personality spectrum. 5. ADDITION TO PREVIOUS LIST: Scammers and others that make money pushing nonsense. There are many forms of this, but the common element is that they can earn a large amount of money pushing lies. When there are hundreds of explanations for something the scientific one is just one of many and for the "do your own research" crowd, the scientific explanation just can't be trusted and they point to made up fake content to offer their proof of that. Brian |
| Wallace Gasiewicz:
I assume that the 'science' referred to includes the myriad of studies involving statistical analysis. Most people including well trained professionals have very little training in stats. It is very hard to determine if any study is valid without knowledge of stats. I have personally seen "studies" that were accepted as correct that were entirely misleading in their accepted conclusion. One study cost a company millions in further "studies" and was entirely misleading. Remember, at the heart of it all, statistical analysis is the analysis of "Chance" Engineering studies are based in some laws and standards that are not available in other realms. For example: When evaluating a resistance meter, there are very good "standards" to use. This is not so cut and dried in health care or other pursuits. |
| nctnico:
--- Quote from: Wallace Gasiewicz on May 22, 2022, 10:30:25 am ---I assume that the 'science' referred to includes the myriad of studies involving statistical analysis. Most people including well trained professionals have very little training in stats. --- End quote --- Agreed. To add an extra data point: during an internship I worked at a university hospital. The man overseeing my work had statistics as a hobby. He checked all the statistical analysis done by the researchers (with a much higher educational level) and he found errors frequently. |
| raptor1956:
--- Quote from: Wallace Gasiewicz on May 22, 2022, 10:30:25 am ---I assume that the 'science' referred to includes the myriad of studies involving statistical analysis. Most people including well trained professionals have very little training in stats. It is very hard to determine if any study is valid without knowledge of stats. I have personally seen "studies" that were accepted as correct that were entirely misleading in their accepted conclusion. One study cost a company millions in further "studies" and was entirely misleading. Remember, at the heart of it all, statistical analysis is the analysis of "Chance" Engineering studies are based in some laws and standards that are not available in other realms. For example: When evaluating a resistance meter, there are very good "standards" to use. This is not so cut and dried in health care or other pursuits. --- End quote --- When I said 'science' I was referring to the plethora of channels that purport to prove one scientific theory or another is a lie or fake. Flat Earth is a common one but so to is the Young Earth Creationist types that claim evolution is a lie and that the Earth is about 6000 years old. The more recent and dangerous attack on science is the Covid-19 virus and the various vaccines. Then there's the long list of boggy men like: 'The Deep State', and Pizzagate, and, well the list goes on and on and on. Some of these wild ideas are the product of political assaults on 'the other guy' that has now escalated to claiming one side is a collection of pedofiles that harvest 'adrineachrome' from children -- the whole idea behind this is a rip off of the late 90's family movie "Monsters Inc". The millions of people are working themselves into a lather over complete bullshit is a consequence of being inundated with this stuff and no longer being able to tell right from wrong. A society that descends to that level is not long for democracy. Brian |
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