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+--- Thread: Why research fraud is getting worse + Trust in sci & vaccines still declining. Why? (/thread-15023.html)
Why research fraud is getting worse + Trust in sci & vaccines still declining. Why? - C C - Nov 28, 2023
Why research fraud is getting worse
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/11/why-research-fraud-is-getting-worse/
Until we disincentivize number-fudging, academic scientists will continue to cheat.
EXCERPT: In the past, universities were reluctant to hold their faculty accountable for misconduct because research brought in millions of taxpayer dollars. Schools still want the money, of course, but the fear of exposure on the Internet or consequences in U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings has left them with little choice but to intervene. That explains what happened at Harvard, Stanford, and CUNY most recently. It also applies to the other elite universities, including Duke and Cornell, that have hosted misconduct over the past few years.
The best illustration of how the system works was seen in early October, when University of Pennsylvania researcher Katalin Karikó was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine despite a strained relationship with her employer. According to the Wall Street Journal, Karikó’s prize offered a glimpse into “the clubby, hothouse world of academia and science, where winning financial funding is a constant burden, securing publication is a frustrating challenge, and those with unconventional or ambitious approaches can struggle to gain support and acceptance.” It’s a flawed system—and one that occasionally presents researchers with incentives to fudge the numbers—but it is highly resistant to change. (MORE - missing details)
Trust in science and vaccines continues to decline. Why?
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/trust-in-science-and-vaccines-continues-to-decline-why/
Recent evidence shows that public trust in science and vaccines has declined markedly since the pandemic. Why is this, and is there anything we can do about it?
EXCERPT: Be that as it may, just answering misinformation with good information and talking to the public “like adults” will never be sufficient. I like to cite Brandolini’s law, which states that the energy required to refute misinformation is an order of magnitude greater than the energy required to create it, and then observe that Brandolini was an optimist. My observation has been that it often takes at least two or three orders of magnitude to refute misinformation compared to what it takes to create it. We will always be at a huge disadvantage as long as we take only the approach of debunking. That’s why I’m a big fan now of “prebunking,” which involves recognizing the common narratives and conspiracy theories behind antiscience misinformation and preemptively teaching about them and trying to provide critical thinking skills that allow one to recognize new forms of old misinformation when one sees them. (MORE - missing details)