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Comment by rpiguyshy | Hacker News Reader

this is the aspect of science that is not talked about in the media and among "science, fuck yeah" "big bang theory" bros. science is full of dogma, politics and downright dirtiness. people who do research are often showmen more than scientists, because the system selects for people who can sleazily promote their own research to win grants, or people who just hop onto whatever bandwagon is popular. and the worst part is that people who are blowing on the kindling of the next big breakthrough are not only discarded by the scientific establishment, they are ridiculed viciously. anyone who says we should "listen to science" needs to open a history book. dogma, dogma, dogma. its the most insidious parasite in the modern western world and has happily escaped completely the confines of its old religious home.

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> anyone who says we should "listen to science" needs to open a history book. dogma, dogma, dogma

You're describing humans.

What makes science novel is its mechanism for challenging and disproving blowhards without tipping into anarchy. That makes dogmatic incumbents' positions less stable while, remarkably, maintaining the integrity of the system as a whole.

Science doesn't (or shouldn't) claim to negate our worst instincts. Simply to uniquely check them through its method.

This is subtly one of my favorite comments in the history of Hacker News, and I've read a lot of good ones. We're at this weird historical moment where we are enjoying the many rewards of Enlightenment philosophy, but we've forgotten almost all of the stuff they wrote about the weaknesses of human nature. Everyone and their brother is throwing mud at the notions of reason and logic thanks to postmodernism, pointing out their hypocrisies and failures, ignoring the fact that that's the default. Of course human beings are contradictory and full of self-interested behavior and reasoning. They knew that in ancient Greece better than we do! The point is that we have demonstrated we can improve on the baseline condition, not that men have suddenly become angels. It's a false standard and enormously damaging.

What makes science great is the scientific method. Far too many people seem to forget it.

Coming up with a hypothesis and then finding some evidence isn’t science any more than alchemy is a form of science. Neither is cherry picking data and then retroactively creating a hypothesis (There was a big scandal surrounding this a few years ago). Even if you are right you need strong evidence of reproducibility for scientific claims to have any credibility. You need extremely strong reproducibility if you expect to make claims that may have implications for the health and safety of others.

You're describing 'science the method'. GP is describing 'science the community'.

Scientific method (mostly) works and bears fruit at longer timescales (40, 60, 100 years, or longer). In the meantime, over short to medium term, a handful of outcast scientists have to face ridicule, be sidelined, be shunned, be mocked, by pretty much the whole scientific community, a massive circle-jerk that exists for the purpose of citing each-other, giving each other awards, sucking up to, networking, and clinking champagne glasses with the handful of agencies doling out the pitiful amount of funding, most of which goes to waste. More often than not those outcasts can't go any longer and their work either disappears, or is usurped in the form of "You did this? ... I did this."

I'm not sure I would consider the implementation of the methods in today's fields of science to be "without tipping into anarchy", but credit is certainly due to the platonic ideal of the scientific methods themselves.

Science is a very carefully defined field that includes little or no controls on the behavior of its members, as long as the behaviors that are controlled appear to be adhered to. We've ended up with Retraction Watch, collusion between journal editors and paper publishers, and endemic #metoo issues throughout the field. I would never voluntarily enter a science field that depends on publishing papers for advancement today, because by definition these concerns are excluded from our current answers to 'what is required to science?'.

As to the scientific methods they often practice in service of those fields, yes, and it's admirable how well those have persisted. We also have a massive reproducibility crisis across all human psych and social fields, so while the theoretical methods do earn credit for not being "anarchy", their implementations clearly aren't being held to the standards that we're praising here today.

Perfectly put.

Many great examples, for psychology the Freudian Cabal vs Jung and other formulations, the bullying Bohr did to Heisenberg in the interpretation of quantum mechanics[0], and you'll read many accounts from Haidt and Pinker about the social sciences.

The consensus that materializes due to the various pressures at the time might not always be the best for advancement, and at worst it may take decades to overcome.

[0] https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/quantumdrama.htm

It feels to me that in some fields after WWII the movement towards logical/numeric theories vs ad hoc behavioral/historical ones lead to actual regressions.

Example from the 1940's through the 1970's it was believed that facial expressions were _learned_ behavior. The guys that proved that facial expressions are innate endured a lot of blowback and ridicule.

I think it is actually the other way around. These stories are often emphasised more in the media than they exist (the human element). It's also a popular meme to say sucess in science now has more to do with showmanship.

Somehow there is the expectation that someone can sit in their office write down some theory and the world automatically realises the brilliance. That's not how it works, you have to go out into the world present your work, explain it and defend it. You might call it showmanship, but it is an absolutely necessary part of science and always was.

There are many problems in science today, the resistance to just adopt new theories and the requirements to communicate your research are not part of them.

Democracy is the worst form of government besides all the others.

Science is the worst form of knowledge gathering besides all the others.

Kelvin is a good example of a dogmatic blowhard in science. We may have named a unit after him, but all these years later people still remember how much folks like him pushed miasma theory rather than the idea that all the shit in the Thames gave you dysentary.

The folks in power weren’t going to suddenly replace all of the streets of London with proper sewers. And teach everyone to stop shitting in the street. That’s just too _uncomfortable_ to think about. So at first nothing happens. But science allows for the result to be written down, someone else goes “ah fuck shit gives you dysentary” and now blowhards like Kelvin are dead and there’s enough weakness exposed in the power structure, your ideas get put into practice. Cause it’s a good idea, it’s obvious, and a lot of the people who used to have a stake are dead.

It’s highly far from perfect. But there are very few mechanisms that are able to affect change after folks are long dead and buried.

> because the system selects for people who can sleazily promote their own research to win grants

It's quite common in most fields for success to go to those who are able to sell themselves well.

You'd think people might've cottoned on by now that selling "yourself" (or, more likely, your product) is a skill, that it can be learnt, and it should be learnt.

If there's sleaze involved or dirty tricks that's not right, but if you've a good idea or product and you can't persuade someone to back you then I'm not sure why the complaint should be against those who can, especially with allegedly inferior ones.

The people using the dishonest tactics will tend to win out, same reason almost everyone in sports uses steroids. Being dishonest is just far, far too advantageous, which is why the "selling yourself" game is disgusting to many.

I highly doubt "almost everyone in sports" use steroids.

At the top level in all competitive sports almost everyone in on banned PEDs, they are simply too advantageous. Even the women take testosterone.

perhaps a little naive

Do you doubt that even one does? Because if one does, it gives them such a ludicrous advantage that the others can't even be competitive if they don't.

modafinil and amphetamines give programmers a ludicrous advantage, and yet, "almost all" programmers aren't doing them.

The evaluation of programmers isn't nearly as objective as the evaluation of athletes, and I'm not convinced modafinil and amphetamines have a statistically significant advantage (how much does programming ability even matter for getting ahead anywhere?), let alone a ludicrous one. On the other hand, the advantage from steroids is ludicrous on multiple factors including stamina, recovery, strength etc. The advantage from cheating and lying in the science game is also very high in my experience, although difficult to measure.

I don't agree. I've tried those and many other options and never found anything that provided a consistent advantage. The best physical advantage probably comes from good sleep and exercise.

The good news is that the retail direct investor revolution is changing this: people who are working in any technology field realized that they have a huge edge over general business analysts/hedge funds, and can often pick stocks better than just putting all money to IBM / Chevron / Goldman.

Combined with SPACS, ARK Invest, tech angel investors, sci-hub, Wikipedia, researchers with great ideas don't need to go to boring old conservative investors anymore.

Of course this may not help basic research, but the biotech infrastructure is getting much better.

^This comment right here. This is what it was like to live through 1999.

I had to upvote you, even if you make fun of me, it's so funny :)

Maybe you're right. But the stocks are very far from overvalued as long as the bond bubble doesn't pop (which depends on the FED policy).

https://endlessmetrics.substack.com/p/s-and-p-500-m2-money-s...

Also I remember listening to Ark's interview with Moderna's CEO last April when nobody knew about that company.

Haha. Fair enough. Thanks for being a good sport.

Your perspective could very well prove right, and mine wrong. Who's to say. Sometimes this time really is different. And us old guys will be the last to realize it.

This is an excellent example of a “weak man” argument.

And yet here we are with 73 million doses distributed (in the US alone) of the most rapidly-developed vaccine in history, thanks to the fact that the scientific process was able to overcome the ugliness inherent in human society —- because humans have figured out a way to let our need to answer fundamental questions become more powerful than any of the silly things you mention.

The same mechanism is still at work. The researchers who developed these modern mRNA vaccines will now become the defenders of the new status quo . All their reputation hinges on the vaccines being DECLARED safe for human use.

Are they safe long-term? Who knows, it's a huge business now. So it's not in the best interest of the aforementioned scientists to look too hard for it might tarnish their current reputation, influence and abilities to receive funding or make profits.

I get the impression anthropology is particularly bad.

cronyism is rampant in academia

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LOL. It's extraordinarily easy to criticize when you aren't holding anything up as a suggestion or point of comparison -- but it's also extraordinarily pointless. Sometimes our best alternative is still pretty far from perfect. That's just how life works, and if you let this type of situation cloud your decision making you're in for a rough time in more aspects of life than this one.

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