Government's funding framework breeds scientific conformity

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004290766_rams19.html
Bruce Ramsey / Times editorial columnist
Here is a list of beliefs in the biomedical and climate sciences that must not be questioned if you're applying for a government grant:
• That global warming is caused by humans;
• That AIDS is caused by a virus;
• That radiation, cigarette smoke and other toxins are dangerous in proportion to their strength, no matter how small the dose;
• That heart disease is caused by saturated fats;
• That cancer is caused by mutations.
snip

Or to put it another way, government scientists and engineers are rewarded for *finding* problems while industry scientists and engineers are rewarded for *solving* problems. Dale

Post 1

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 - 5:21pm

In order to solve a problem, one must first identify a problem.

Bob Kolker

Post 2

Friday, March 21, 2008 - 9:08am

Bob,

=========
In order to solve a problem, one must first identify a problem.
=========

Actually (more accurately): In order to solve a problem, one must first [correctly] identify [that] problem.

Take the lipid hypothesis promulgated by Ancel Keys: That heart disease is caused by saturated fats. This hypothesis requires 2 things:

(1) for saturated fat (SF) intake to raise blood lipid levels

(2) for SF-raised blood lipid levels to raise heart disease

Knock either of these down and you've struck out the lipid hypothesis. Here's a "knock-down" of the first ...

=========
Effect of a high saturated fat and no-starch diet on serum lipid subfractions in patients with documented atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Mayo Clin Proc. 2003 Nov;78(11):1331-6.

"OBJECTIVE: To determine whether a diet of high saturated fat and avoidance of starch (HSF-SA) results in weight loss without adverse effects on serum lipids in obese nondiabetic patients. ...

... CONCLUSION: An HSF-SA diet results in weight loss after 6 weeks without adverse effects on serum lipid levels verified by nuclear magnetic resonance, and further weight loss with a lipid-neutral effect may persist for up to 52 weeks.
=========

That's already enough to discredit the lipid hypothesis, but there's more. There's research showing that SF-raised blood lipid levels don't cause heart disease. Remember, SFs don't necessarily even raise blood lipid levels -- I'm now discrediting those times that they do.

[further references upon request]

So. there's a form of guild socialism going on in science, a form of social metaphysics. It stems from the philosophical bankruptcy of both modern professional scientists and the government money dispensers they rely upon.

Ed

Post 3

Friday, March 21, 2008 - 12:00pm

As the recent cluster-fuck in string theory shows, physicists are like bosons, they love to congregate together in a trendy field. It is unfortunate, but true.

Government money exacerbates the tendency toward clustering. The scientists go where the money is. Scientists should go where their talent and curiosity take them.

Bob Kolker

Post 4

Saturday, March 22, 2008 - 8:30am

http://tinyurl.com/35y38r

Page 403, “Innocents on the Ice,” John C. Behrendt, 1998.

<snip>

The inductive method has probably resulted in the greatest geological and geophysical discoveries, but it is no longer in fashion. Now the deductive method begins with a specific hypothesis or problem and then searches, not broadly, but narrowly, for evidence to support or reject the hypothesis. At the close of the twentieth century, the deductive method is necessary for writing scientific proposals to funding agencies for very expensive research programs with shrinking funds.

<snip>

http://www.ampolarsociety.org/officers_pres.html

Post 5

Saturday, March 22, 2008 - 9:53am

Maybe another example of this is that government scientists are working to show that Boeings are bad because they contribute to Global Warming while Boeing engineers are working to make airplane travel more fuel efficient, quieter, and more pleasurable.

Post 6

Saturday, March 22, 2008 - 5:43pm

Here's a breath of fresh air regarding heart disease ...

===========
C-reactive protein and the prediction of cardiovascular events among those at intermediate risk: moving an inflammatory hypothesis toward consensus.

Ridker PM.

Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, the Division of Preventive Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, the Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA. pridker@partners.org

Over 20 large-scale prospective studies show that the inflammatory biomarker high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) is an independent predictor of future cardiovascular events that additionally predicts risk of incident hypertension and diabetes. In many studies, the relative impact of hsCRP is at least as large as that individually of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, blood pressure, or smoking, and knowledge of hsCRP correctly reclassifies a substantial proportion of "intermediate-risk" individuals into clinically relevant higher- or lower-risk categories.

Other studies show the relative benefit of statins to be greater among those with increased hsCRP and that achieved hsCRP levels after statin therapy predict recurrent event rates as much as achieved levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Nonetheless, it remains controversial whether the time has come to modify traditional algorithms used for global risk detection.

As described here, 6 areas of controversy regarding hsCRP are resolvable with a consensus position that focuses in primary prevention on selective use among individuals with 5% to 20% 10-year risk as estimated by Adult Treatment Panel III, and focuses in secondary prevention on high-risk patients being treated with statin therapy. Forthcoming trial data could expand or contract this "screen selectively" policy, and investigators should be open to the possibility that second-generation inflammatory biomarkers may be developed that supplant hsCRP altogether.

In the meantime, however, this consensus position on hsCRP should be one to which both advocates and critics of the inflammatory hypothesis of atherosclerosis can adhere because it is one that can immediately improve patient care.
==================
Recap:
If you can immediately improve patient care by rejecting a long-cherished hypothesis -- such as the lipid hypothesis of heart disease -- in favor of a better one, then do it. Acting otherwise would be immoral.

;-)

Ed

Post 7

Monday, March 24, 2008 - 2:32pm

There was an interesting article recently on Lewrockwell.com by Donald Miller, MD, that addressed several contemporary myths and medical/scientific superstitions. These include the hypothesis that saturated fats cause heart disease, that HIV causes AIDS, and that elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 cause global warming.

Peter Duesberg wrote a great book, now out of print, entitled Inventing the AIDS virus. Dr. Duesberg refutes via numerous approaches the idea that HIV, a retrovirus, could destroy white blood cells, including B cells. (A retrovirus is defined as such because it cannot destroy cells; it can only inhabit and utilize them. This is why government-funded-and-groomed cancer researchers, dedicated to the fashionable and state-sanctioned proposition that viruses cause cancer, eagerly pour over the universe of retroviuses in search of an agent that causes the promiscious proliferation of cells that is cancer.) Duesberg not only refutes for all time the notion that HIV causes AIDS, he tells a fascinating story of "science" warped by political intrigue, corruption, and mass delusion.

The more authoritarian our society becomes, the greater the influence of wacky ideas that receive support and funding from the State center, ideas that "everyone knows to be true". This intellectual rot has long dominated the social sciences: philosophy, economics, psychology, and history. Today, we can all identify numerous areas in the physcial sciences damaged by this malignancy.

This malignancy grows in an authoritarian society because, A) It is promoted and funded by the State, which punishes dissenters; and B) People in authoritarian societies tend to defer to state-promoted "experts" in every field of inquiry, for many reasons, including the longing for "safety". Psychologists describe the subconscious emotional "dance" that obtains between two neurotic lovers: between the absuer and abused, the adicted and the enabler, the giver and the taker, the lonely and the detached. A similar "dance" enables state-sanctioned cheerleaders to sell falsehoods as received wisdom to the willfully ignorant masses that increasingly dominate an authoritarian society.

Post 8

Monday, March 24, 2008 - 3:23pm

You can find Dr. Duesberg at - www.duesberg.com

Post 9

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 - 8:37am

Mark,

As with your other “conspiracy theories”, there is no way to argue with you about Duesberg’s claims. You’ve accepted the minority view and vilified the majority view by claiming that anyone who holds the majority view is either corrupt or incompetent. So, of course any evidence or counterarguments coming from someone who “works for the man” will not be accepted by you.

So, rather than argue with you, I’m just going to follow your lead and state my opinion without discussing that of the opposition: Duesberg is wrong. You and I are not competent to judge who is right here, but my “experts” say he is wrong, and I believe my sources before I believe Duesberg or you.

Morris Cohen’s remark applies to Duesberg: “Not all who rave are divinely inspired.”

Thanks,

Glenn

Post 10

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 - 12:53pm

Glenn, I am not hostile to you, or to anyone who accepts uncritically claims made by various state-sanctioned "experts". For the great majority of those who defer to the claims of officially-blessed authority seem to feel unqualified to criticize, on the plausible grounds that the subject at issue is complex, understood only by those steeped in all its subtlety. This deference also reflects the profound respect that science commands in our culture, based on the impressive and rapid gains in scientific knowlege of the past 300 years. Finally, widespread deference to authority may reflect the epistemological nihilism that dominates our times--nihilism that promotes the idea that no one can know anything that is complex with certainty; that knowlege, including First Principles, is always subject to wholesale revison.

But I think this view is wrong, because one doesn't have to know everything about a subject to recognize massive contradictions in an hypothesis--contradictions identified and emphasized by smart experts who dissent from State-sanctioned dogma. In fact, respect for logical integration in knowlege, awareness that every important facet of an explanation must square with prior knowlege about basic principles, is a powerful tool of understanding. You don't have to be an expert in every aspect of the science in question to understand that because steel has a particular melting point, low temperature fires cannot produce molten steel; or that if today's rising C02 levels are proposed as the prime cause of global warming, even as the past ten years have produced flat to falling temperatures, then the hypothesis has a logical problem; or to realize the claim that a virus can infect an individual without producing symptoms for decades, if ever, while the specific process by which the virus is believed to cause the disease remains unexplained, amounts to a spurious non-explanation for that disease.

I was alerted 20 years ago to Duesberg's book by an article in the "American Spectator" by a well-known science writer, Tom Bethel. Since then, criticism of the official dogma concerning AIDS has surfaced on many fronts, including a lengthy article about eighteen months or two years ago in, as I think I recall, "Harper's" magazine.

I have the impression--perhaps false--that you have decided that it is safe and sensible to trust prominent experts in a system in which authentic compeition between competing ideas has been extensively restricted. So, I encourage you to get Duesberg's book, just for fun, and read it. The book is highly readable and fascinating. If Duesberg is crazy, you'll be easily capable of recognizing a crank ideologue. You'll have even greater confidence in recognizing and debunking falsehoods. On the other hand, if Duesberg is a brilliant dissenter, willing to identify contradictions that less independent types would prefer to ignore, I'm sure you'll recognize his sound reasoning.

(Edited by Mark Humphrey on 3/25, 1:01pm)

Post 11

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 - 11:11pm

I sanctioned Mark not because I have a dog in the fight -- I'm still on the fence about HIV -- but because I prefer his kind of analysis toward this kind of a problem.

Ed

Post 12

Wednesday, March 26, 2008 - 6:54am

Ed,
I respect your opinions, so I'm curious; what do you consider Mark's "kind of analysis" to be in this case?
Thanks,
Glenn

Post 13

Wednesday, March 26, 2008 - 11:10am

Thanks Ed.

If you're curious about the HIV-AIDS hypothesis, go the Lewrockwell.com and look up articles by Donald Miller, MD. He wrote one article in particular, about 2 years ago, in which he discusses the glaring logical problems built into this sacred cow. Miller only has 8 or 10 articles on LRC, so you'll be able to find it quickly. He is a professor at a medical school and a practicing physician.

Post 14

Wednesday, March 26, 2008 - 4:42pm

Glenn,

Here’s an excerpt from the Public Health journal which speaks toward a certain comprehensiveness in investigation that should supersede the authoritarian “executive summary” of an investigation …

=========
=========
The UK government is committed to health impact assessment (HIA) as a means of ensuring that health will be a key consideration in policy formulation and other public decision making. However there has been some debate about whether current HIA practice can reliably inform decision making. In particular consultation with stakeholders and literature reviewing, key tools used in HIA, are said to suffer from a number of conceptual and methodological problems, which can undermine the validity of the assessment.

In this paper, we argue that the philosophical nature of HIA, its purpose and its contribution to the promotion of public health is still being established. We outline our own HIA practice, which is based on a broad philosophy of 'fit for purpose' i.e. what is this HIA for and what is its spatial, temporal, social and political context. We suggest that it is important to guard against unrealistic expectations and illusions of total objectivity and precision in the HIA process. HIA 'screening' is capable of delivering benefits by making policies, programmes and projects, more health conscious.
=========
-- 'Fit for purpose' health impact assessment: a realistic way forward.
Milner SJ, Bailey C, Deans J.
Health Impact Assessment Research and Development Programme, School of Health, Community and Education, University of Northumbria, Coach Lane Campus East, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE7 7XA UK.
=========

The Brits here are wary of the pitfalls of using only expert analysis of expert investigations of something; but instead they offer a better approach toward a potential move to a further eradication of the avenues of subjectivity and relativity afforded by the mere existence of unique stakeholders in the matter.

Caveat:
I answered while tired, so my answer is not a good one (according to me). But is it a sufficient answer to your question (according to you), or would you rather that I get some rest and then elaborate later?

Ed

Post 15

Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 8:52am

Ed,
I'm not quite sure how your post #14 addresses my question, but I think the key to what you're saying lies in this excerpt:

In particular consultation with stakeholders and literature reviewing, key tools used in HIA, are said to suffer from a number of conceptual and methodological problems, which can undermine the validity of the assessment.

Well, I can't argue with that, but in most controversies, aren't both sides stakeholders? Duesberg has been making his case for more than 20 years. I would think that he has a stake in the debate. And if you agree with Mark, everyone on the other side of the debate has a stake; they want to be funded, so they're not going to rock the boat by supporting controversial theories. As far as literature reviewing is concerned, since Duesberg can't get funding to do research, I'm not sure what else he can do but review the literature and criticize it.
You summarized:

The Brits here are wary of the pitfalls of using only expert analysis of expert investigations of something; but instead they offer a better approach toward a potential move to a further eradication of the avenues of subjectivity and relativity afforded by the mere existence of unique stakeholders in the matter.

What's the alternative to an expert? If you're not using experts to analyze expert investigations, who are you using? This is the part I didn't understand; what is their "better approach"? Besides, Mark isn't opposed to experts; notice that he told us that Donald Miller, MD "is a professor at a medical school and a practicing physician". Mark's only opposed to "state-sanctioned 'experts'".
But, I'm leaving it at this. As I told Mark, I'm not going to pursue this. I don't debate with conspiracy theorists; life's too short.
Thanks for your response,
Glenn

Post 16

Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 10:07am

Glenn,

In matters of science, there will have to be some sort of an appeal to authority -- even if it's only the "trust" involved in believing what it is that an independent researcher said she had found upon investigation. There's just too much science knowable now for one person to know it all solely by means of personal investigation.

This wasn't true during the time of Roger Bacon and William of Ockham, where a single scientist could have personally validated every single scientific finding known to man at the time. There were probably less than 1000 scientific findings by the late 13th Century -- and one man could have personally validated them, if given sufficient time and funds.

Regarding the "problem" of stakeholders -- the solution is an objective method of evaluation of the objectively-derived scientific facts. The trouble is that scientists, when writing about findings, write as philosophers (not as scientists). This is unavoidable. There is a reason that, while there is such a thing as a philosophy of science -- there is no such thing (nor can there ever be such a thing) as a science of science.

Scientists go to a lot of trouble in order to reduce bias. They randomize, placebo-control, double-blind, and crossover their experimental interventions in order to obtain objectivity on the matter. Their findings -- arrived at by objective methods -- can also be evaluated by objective methods. The objective evaluation of their findings is not guaranteed, and so it's best that humans make rules about the evaluation of scientific findings (instead of leaving it up to the investigators to evaluate the merit of their own findings).

I am reminded of something that I wrote regarding this very thing -- where the scientists themselves fail to objectively evaluate their objectively-derived findings. It's because good scientists aren't necessarily good philosophers. A while back there was a study performed on an herb touted to boost human immunity (to viral infections). I wrote about the wrong evaluation of findings that the researchers performed. My illumination of their wrong evaluation can be found in the essay (and its subsequent thread) at the following link:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Thompson/The_Three_Central_Tenets_of_an_Objective_Philosophy_of_Science.shtml

Nobody can argue about the found facts -- the hard data that a scientist observed as a she manipulated an independent variable. But everybody gets to argue about the evaluation of the found facts -- because that's a task for philosophy (of science). This becomes especially important when the evaluation of found facts impacts public policy.

Thanks for your question and display of respect.

Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 3/27, 2:13pm)

Post 17

Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 1:46pm

The Objectivist publication Full Context (1988-2002) was a big supporter of Peter Duesberg. The editor, Karen Reedstrom (now Karen Minto), interviewed him in the February 1992 issue of her newsletter. In response to the interview, I wrote a critique of Duesberg's views, which was published in the February 1994 issue. I also had some private correspondence with science fiction novelist James P. Hogan, whom Karen had also interviewed and who was himself a defender of Duesberg. In a follow-up letter to her, I summarized my objection to Duesberg's theory that drug use is the cause of AIDS, as follows:

To put the drug theory in perspective, suppose that Duesberg had said that AIDS is caused by sodomy. And suppose that he had written a scholarly paper with all kinds of statistics claiming to back it up. What would you say? Wouldn't your common sense tell you that he has to be wrong, if only because sodomy was around long before AIDS came on the scene, and because many people have practiced sodomy without getting AIDS? Well, the same argument applies to drugs. The drug hypothesis is prima facie absurd.

Furthermore, we even have a scientific study refuting that hypothesis -- the San Francisco Men's Health Study reported in Nature. Yet you claim that the study used faked evidence -- but provide no evidence for your claim.

With all due respect, I think you are allowing your admirable sense of life to cloud your otherwise good judgment. Here is Peter Duesberg, a dedicated, independent researcher defying the entire statist medical establishment. Whose cause could be more worth defending! So, I can sympathize with your desire to support him. But real life isn't always so well defined as the heros and villains in an Ayn Rand novel. Not every independent thinker is a Howard Roark. A good many are irresponsible cranks. Take another look at Peter Duesberg, and ask yourself if his replies to you, to Dr. Kiviat, and to me reflect the psycho-epistemology of an Objectivist hero, or of a non-objective scientist with an intellectual blind spot.

This is not to say that Karen's newsletter was not a valuable publication. It certainly was, especially her many excellent interviews. Full Context began publication in 1988 as a monthly (ten months per year) newsletter for the Objectivist Club of Michigan, and became an independent magazine in 1990. In 1998 it became bimonthly. It ceased publication in 2002. Their stated editorial mission was "to be an open forum for the discussion of ideas from an Objectivist perspective." They were sympathetic to the positions of David Kelley and the Objectivist Center.

Among their many fascinating interviews, which in my opinion should be compiled into a book, are those of: Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, David Kelley, Ed Hudgins, Bob Bidinotto, Tibor Machan, George Walsh, Robert Poole, David Friedman, John Stossel, John Hospers, Chris Sciabarra, Larry Sechrest, Hans Sennholz, Lindsay Perigo, Joan Mitchell Blumenthal, Joan Kennedy Taylor, Linda Abrams, Anne Wortham (author of the Other Side of Racism), Marva Collins (subject of the TV movie, The Marva Collins Story), Roy Innis (National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality), Kirsti Minsaas (Norwegian literary scholar and lecturer for TAS), David Theroux (of the Independent Institute), David Boaz (of Cato) and many others.

It is unfortunate that Full Context is defunct and out of print, because their interviews would be of great interest to the Objectivist-Libertarian community. I have many of the newsletter's issues, but not all of them. Organizing Karen's interviews into a book is a project that I think merits serious consideration.

- Bill

Post 18

Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 1:57pm

Glenn, your "arguments" boil down to mud slinging about "conspiracy theorists". But the central point that Ed Thompson originally raised, and about which I elaborated by citing Duesberg's refutation of the HIV-causes-AIDS dogma, is logically distinct from your angst about "conspiracy theorizing". When the state commandeers science by subsidizing politically correct notions, and by punishing "dangerous dissent", the findings of state-sanctioned "scientists" sometimes run off the track of good reasoning.

The fact that an expert is funded by the state doesn't prove anything about the truth or falsehood of his ideas. A state funded expert may offer good ideas, or blatent absurdities. It ought to be obvious to anyone on this site that only evidence and logic can demonstrate that some idea is true or false.

Unfortunately, respect for objectivity in knowlege is on the decline. Most people do not trust reason; so they rely instead on various forms of authority, or their feelings, or revelation of some kind, etc. This is why anyone who challenges certain explanations widely considered as factual--especially explanations that involve a lot of controversy, because they relate to political/ethical values--invariably encounters angry denunciation, insults, smearing. This hostility from the defenders of Responsible Thinking doesn't spring from their dislike of poor reasoning, or their anger about alleged slipshod treatment of facts, or their disgust with alleged intellectual dishonesty on the part of the challenger. Even a carefully thought through challenge to a sacred cow, based on good evidence, receives zero interest from True Believers.

I'm not suggesting that we ought to dispense with intellectual expertise to understand complex matters. I'm merely pointing out that the proper definition of an expert is someone who is competent and devoted to the proper exercise of reason: one who upholds the sanctity of evidence, logic, facts. When one discoveres gaping problems with some idea, problems that careful study proves to be substantial as opposed to misconceived, then one ought to reject that idea as false. One ought to reject that idea, even when it is warmly embraced and promoted by "responsible" sources, by the commanding heights of our intelligentsia, by the most prestigious institutions and spokespeople in our society. One ought to reject falsehoods in philosophy, and economic theory, and psychology, and history, and in every other subject.

People are right to question how it could be possible that a widely promoted idea, endorsed by all the Leading Lights of society, could be blatantly false. As I tried to highlight in my previous posts to this thread, there are lots of reasons that can motivate people to fall into line: peer pressure, the desire to advance one's career interests, fear of sanctions, and I suppose for some, fear of the responsibility. Because most people are likely to recoil from any challenge to "facts" that "everyone knows to be true", it becomes necessary to point out that intellectual incentives get warped in an authoritarian system; that the greater the scope of authority, the greater the warping. As Tibor Machan explained in one of his articles here, when a culture embraces confusion about First Ideas, its leading exponents are more likely to misdirect than inform.

But the problem of warped incentives is logically distinct from the prior issue of evidence and logical coherency. The truth of an idea inhers in evidence and logic, not in the identity of its defenders.

Post 19

Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 2:28pm