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Comment by frogpelt | Hacker News Reader

Where did this article mention climate change?

If you agree with every fact in the article, why would you look for a hidden agenda?

Your comment makes you seem a bit paranoid.

I also think the linked article was somewhat strange. Or maybe just linkbaity. The title can be paraphrased as "To an alarming degree, science is not self-correcting." However, the article actually describes the way science is supposed to work, which is self-correcting.

The main criticism in the article seems to be that, in much of current scientific practice, the self-correction doesn't happen immediately. Well, it would be helpful to know: (1) how does current state of self-correction compare to different times in the past, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago?, (2) what happens over the long term to papers that aren't refuted immediately but which later turn out to be obviously wrong? do they hang around and have a negative impact on progress of science? I'm sure there are more questions.

Another strangeness in the article: The article begins by touting a concern over a 1998 "priming" study. In the third paragraph, the article states that there have been nine (9!) subsequent studies that have failed to replicate the 1998 study's result. Is that not an example of the scientific self-correction working quite well? The article complains, "Either the original research is flawed (as the replicators claim) or the replications are (as many of the original researchers on priming contend). Either way, something is awry." Yes, something is awry. But it's hard to see how it's the scientific method/process itself, which seems to be doing exactly what it's supposed to: calling the 1998 paper into question. (Is the main concern here just that more bad or questionable science is being published than in the past? I'm sure that's true, but there are also many more studies being published in this era and it seems not surprising that overall quality would decline.)

Like some others at HN, I get concerned when I see pieces like this that the science-haters will latch on to and use to discredit the scientific method itself. The article itself _should not_ be taken that way, by anyone who understands science. But there are many who don't understand science, who are anti-science, etc.

> The article begins by touting a concern over a 1998 "priming" study. In the third paragraph, the article states that there have been nine (9!) subsequent studies that have failed to replicate the 1998 study's result. Is that not an example of the scientific self-correction working quite well?

Ideally, you'd like to see the original study being discredited before the point where 9 separate studies have exposed serious problems with it (and it's not clear that it's been discredited yet). Papers continue to pick up citations even after they've been formally retracted; that's also not a good example of self-correction working well even though the retraction process is supposed to be self-correction. Correction hasn't happened until people stop believing in problematic papers.

"The main criticism in the article seems to be that, in much of current scientific practice, the self-correction doesn't happen immediately."

Wrong. This is not the main criticism of the article. It is not a problem if self-correction doesn't happen immediately. It is, however, a problem if the rate of self-correction is not fast enough to compensate for the ratio of 'horrifyingly wrong' to 'generally correct' papers.

He's saying that he wonders if the point of the article is to give those that deny scientific studies in a non-scientific manner ammo.

Something they can point to to rebuke scientific studies because they don't believe the scientific study is valid.

I too didn't understand the point of this article. Nor how it showed that science is not self-correcting. To me it just talked about some issues with scientific research but didn't support it's headline at all. I've never heard anyone claim that science was self-correcting in the short term, these things take decades and sometimes even centuries to self-correct.

And honestly that's ok. Science is all about having the best answer we can have, not the right answer. It's impossible to know we are right beyond the shadow of a doubt. We need to scrutinize how we research and improve our methods as we figure out how to but that doesn't mean science has some major issue. That's jut how it works and how it has historically worked as far as I know.

With a title "To an alarming degree..." it immediately feels like a persuasive paper. Who thinks it's alarming? From the sound of it, everyone should (or does) think this is alarming.

But it may be a stretch to say this is someone trying to discredit global warming.

Science isn't broken. People claim what they see, sometimes they are wrong, sometimes they are right. But eventually we find out the truth.

It didn't mention climate change. I know from past experience that this line of argument -- indeed, any that casts doubt on scientific research -- is a favorite of the "climate skeptic" world. Moreover, I know that the Economist has a center-right political bias.

Maybe they're advocating for something specific here (it's honestly unclear), but given that the Economist almost never writes anything of substance about science, and given their political bias, it isn't at all paranoid to wonder if this article has a subtext. It's called "being an intelligent consumer of media".

Evidently you don't consume the Economist very often.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/09/ipcc-climate-...

To put it in the language you seem to prefer, Bill O'Reilly thinks the Economist leans left. I disagree with Mr. O'Reilly's employers and will not send them traffic, but support for this claim is easily googled.

ETA: The link above is more flip than I'd like. Try this:

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21587224-all-means-que...

I don't think that the Economist is a reactionary right-wing publication (at least, not the editorial board), but I do think there are people on its staff who are sympathetic to the climate change denialists.

That said, I think the piece is puzzling, not that I'm sure it's a right-wing hatchet job on science.

Economist is conservative (erm, right) by European standards. It just happens that it comes out as fairly left by American standards, given that we are so right of the continent.

I am a "liberal" and a huge fan of The Economist. I don't find this to be an accurate assessment. Someone else already linked to their climate change stance, and in my experience their economic stances are generally supported in the academic community.

They have a "Science and Technology" section in every single issue. Frankly, it contains some of the best, most scrupulously accurate science writing for a general audience that I've seen anywhere.

Also, just two weeks ago, they published a "leader" (primary article expressing the editorial position of the paper) that was very critical of climate change deniers.

[1] http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21587224-all-means-que...

Their lean is far more center than right, and their right-wing nature is more in the European liberal style (think the German FDP, not the CDU/CSU and definitely not the Republican party's views on environmentalism). Very pro-business, but not socially conservative or anti-environmentalism.

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