10 thoughts on “A Sharp Rise In Retractions”

  2. HUH?!
    .
    .
    …the number of published papers had increased by just 44 percent.
    .
    .
    I can’t find the quote now, but didn’t we have the WH / DNC saying we’d increased Scientific Spending 3 Fold, or 4 Fold, in the last decade? I may have hallucinated that, from being overheated by global warming no doubt. But it seems to me it was a Sunday Morning Talking Point a year or more ago.

    If [faulty] memory serves, spending had only doubled. Then again, even with increases in costs, doubling spending should get more than a 44% increase in output. And I do understand that science isn’t french fries. You can’t just get a bigger order for more money.

    But are we funding things that are too far out of possibility for our money?

    Also, I have wondered just how they are supposed to recreate the experiment, when worldwide climate is being studied.

  3. The really frustrating thing is the widely beliefs that spending money on science is equivalent to getting high quality science and that there’s no need for or even possibility of getting accountability in science, particularly, “blue sky” science. For some people, scientific efforts with long term goals can’t possibly be evaluated in the short term.

    My response to such people is “Write me the check then”. I’ll make sure your money goes to science, honest.

  4. I recently watched the TEDTalks episode called ‘Jill Tarter’s Call to Join the SETI Search’. When Jill made her plea to the people that they should become more involved in the search for intelligent life; she flashed a slide of Obama and Michelle sitting side by side. As the crowd started cheering and clapping she said something to the effect of, “Especially now that we are this moment of “Change” tm when science will finally be returned to it’s rightful place!” I Lol’d so hard. Because it was recorded in 2008 when Obama was sitting behind his fake presidential seal and everyone was just soooooo sure this president was going to be the, “Most [something] of [everything]!” Sawwey, unless your little pet project helps scratch the back of a prominent donor then he don’t give a flying f*ck.

  5. Josh,
    the thing I don’t get is WHY they thought he was going to be so great? There was no reason to see him as something new. It’s almost as if they were hypnotized, or drugged or under the influence of the galactic overlords.

    And just for the record, when did science get removed from it’s ‘rightful’ place? When did it happen?

    And might I add, you are a better man than am I, if you can watch those TEDTalks Shows. I tried several times and it ALWAYS seems like it’s just the uber libs patting each other on their backs over how smart, truly smart and cool they are.

    It’s just a HS clique, but with a LOT of power, and our money.

  6. The scientific method works pretty well. The problem is so much supposed “science” that doesn’t follow it.

    – Don’t put too much faith in a study that hasn’t been independently replicated.

    – Don’t put too much faith in studies that present models, but lack experimental validation. Or worse, disagree with solid experiment.

    – Don’t put any faith in studies that can’t be reviewed in detail and validated.

    1. CLAIMS of corruption?!

      Seriously? Were you on Mars or Pluto when the story broke on the e-mails from the climate change mongers?

      This sounds like corruption to me.

      Throwing out data, weighing in some data as more important than other data because it proved the point, not keeping the original data, but just the ‘massaged’ data and then when it hit the fan, the AGW crowd throwing up a wall of memos and press conferences saying it didn’t mean AGW wasn’t really happening, and trying to make it go away by ignoring the questions, only to continue on with warm mongering.

      I used to work at a nuclear power plant, in start up testing. Suppose it got out that this was done with safety and shut down testing data? Keep some, throw out parts, massage it all and throw out the original data.

      How close to THAT plant would YOU want to live or work?

      I’m not saying it gets done like that at nuclear sites BTW. The NRC would catch it.

      But NO study or testing should be done that way. It’s unethical. And when a HUGE number of people gather together to say that unethical practices are OK in this instance or for this, that and some good reason, or they that say it doesn’t matter, and the people saying those things have a vested interest in that area of business or activity, AND it’s their bread and butter to keep it going…that’s the very definition of corruption IMHO.

      It’s like a bank robber investigating his own gang, after there’s a safe cracking!

  8. When you see government sanctioned scientists espouse hypothesises that are unfalsifiable and then claim that they are “scientific”, you’ll end up with more distrust of these institutions. Go figure.

  9. It’s interesting that they never use the term “peer review” in this article (they mention it once, saying that “others review the research skeptically”). But all of the journals mentioned are peer reviewed. It doesn’t seem like they’re all that skeptical, does it?

Comments are closed.