Dishonesty is still dishonesty. Availing yourself of a statistician to "magic" in numbers that support your conclusion is dishonest - because they can just as easily "magic" in missing data that refute your hypothesis. I don't think many (or most, like Gay) of these "researchers" are personally adept at "the statistician's magic" and just assume these practices are reasonable and acceptable. And THAT is the significant problem. It leads to results that are contradicted by reality, whether it is the manmade global warming hypothesis or conclusions based on racial demographics. It is straight up cheating - and it leads to awful public policy.
I'm reminded of CS Lewis's quote about tyranny, specifically "for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."
This is all fallout from the Best-and-Brightest phenomenon - the presumption by certain people that they know what's correct and what's best for everyone. This shifts research from a search for truth to 'validating' the preferred narratives.
That's why they do it. And I'd bet that by now the motivation is so ingrained that they don't even realize they're doing it.
I believe you keep an Eric Hoffer quote handy to describe the phenomenon of "movements" becoming "rackets". Once government grants are involved, it quickly migrates through the "business" stage.
That in and of itself is a problem. The federal government has no constitutional authority to provide anyone grants of or for anything other than copyrights and patents.
Given my background in science including a National Science Foundation Fellowship, the lack of replication scares the heck out of me. Research can be directed down the rabbit hole for years by bad studies. However, part of the problem is that failure works against you in the scientific community. Your studies won't get published and if they're not published then you don't get funding and if you don't get funding then you don't get tenure. We have forgotten that negative results which disconfirm theories are just as valuable as positive results.
Back in the day when I was doing mission analysis, my boss asked me to try and configure an aircraft for Mars using our compact reactor design. In theory, a reactor-powered air-breathing engine could keep an unmanned vehicle aloft for years.
I spent three days trying to make it work, but in the end I told him it simply didn't add up. He was perfectly content with the answer.
I wonder how our Ivy Best-and-Brightest would have reacted.
His job may not have been dependent upon getting that reactor to work. However, when trying to get tenure in academia then your job is dependent upon things working the way you want them to. I've seen the same thing in business where the people on the ground know that something won't work but are overruled by upper management who tell them to make it work. For example, upper management at a former employer decided that it took too much time for bank tellers to count coins. And so they decided to drop it or price it so high as to be ridiculous. After all, that kind of business was small potatoes at least to upper management. Well, guess what! We lost a lot of business because a lot of groups were doing business with us because of the coin counting and their members decided to dump us as well. Stupidity is rampant.
Oh, of course. It was a throwaway idea. But, I think the intellectual climate was a bit different back then as well, and my boss was a veteran of the LM program, where things actually working in the real world was paramount.
You are right. When things have to work then you have to be willing to let reality have the final word. The business world is full of examples where reality was ignored until it was too late. Unfortunately, I have worked at places like that.
I think the corollary can be seen in the government's approach to energy policy. None of it adds up, not even close, from an analytical perspective, but there seems to be a "make it so, I don't care how" attitude in setting that policy.
It reminds me of the story of King Canute who shamed his obsequious advisors when pointing out that even he could not stop the tide. Government, unfortunately, is too shielded from reality.
It's Sowell's "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."
Yes, I've seen this happen in retail many times. Someone from corporate sends down an idea that they deem brilliant, but won't work at the store level, and tell us to make it work. Occasionally they course correct, but not until the damage is done.
Even then, I've seen them try their bad decision again in a different way, and the result was usually the same. It's maddening
Even as far back as Newton, most science was steered by its benefactors. The notion of science as the "free play of free intellects" is a pretty founding myth but no more true than the Biblical Exodus story. The reason for this is practical: Scientific knowledge advances more quickly when it is directed toward solving tangible problems. Especially those problems related to technological innovation. Americans used to understand this.
At some point we have to build an airplane, turn on a light, or save a life. Technology is what links science to human experience making it real for people who do not understand the underlying principles. A jet aircraft, a light switch, or a polio vaccine are tangible cause-and-effect machines that turn phenomena described by science into technological outcomes.
The catch is that the underlying scientific phenomena must be real or the technologies will not work. Grifters like Claudine Gay damage that connection which, in turn, damages ordinary people's "faith" in the value of science.
Claudine Gay and her ilk may not be malevolent aliens attempting to weaken mankind's future technology but if they were, how would their behavior be different?
And thank you as well for putting out great work! I always look forward to reading what you write!
As for science and research, I've been a skeptic long before the pandemic. Too many times scientists have put out studies showing this or that is bad for you (red wine, meat, etc), only to change their minds a few years later saying those things are good, or at least not as bad as they thought. I know science is never settled and things change. That's why they continue to do studies and research. But I also know there are different factors that can skew results like lifestyle or dietary habits, and genes as well. Humans are similar and different in many ways so I go by the philosophy, do what works for you and change course when you need to.
Dishonesty is still dishonesty. Availing yourself of a statistician to "magic" in numbers that support your conclusion is dishonest - because they can just as easily "magic" in missing data that refute your hypothesis. I don't think many (or most, like Gay) of these "researchers" are personally adept at "the statistician's magic" and just assume these practices are reasonable and acceptable. And THAT is the significant problem. It leads to results that are contradicted by reality, whether it is the manmade global warming hypothesis or conclusions based on racial demographics. It is straight up cheating - and it leads to awful public policy.
I'm reminded of CS Lewis's quote about tyranny, specifically "for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."
This is all fallout from the Best-and-Brightest phenomenon - the presumption by certain people that they know what's correct and what's best for everyone. This shifts research from a search for truth to 'validating' the preferred narratives.
That's why they do it. And I'd bet that by now the motivation is so ingrained that they don't even realize they're doing it.
I believe you keep an Eric Hoffer quote handy to describe the phenomenon of "movements" becoming "rackets". Once government grants are involved, it quickly migrates through the "business" stage.
Yep. Cause, movement, business, racket.
That in and of itself is a problem. The federal government has no constitutional authority to provide anyone grants of or for anything other than copyrights and patents.
Given my background in science including a National Science Foundation Fellowship, the lack of replication scares the heck out of me. Research can be directed down the rabbit hole for years by bad studies. However, part of the problem is that failure works against you in the scientific community. Your studies won't get published and if they're not published then you don't get funding and if you don't get funding then you don't get tenure. We have forgotten that negative results which disconfirm theories are just as valuable as positive results.
Back in the day when I was doing mission analysis, my boss asked me to try and configure an aircraft for Mars using our compact reactor design. In theory, a reactor-powered air-breathing engine could keep an unmanned vehicle aloft for years.
I spent three days trying to make it work, but in the end I told him it simply didn't add up. He was perfectly content with the answer.
I wonder how our Ivy Best-and-Brightest would have reacted.
His job may not have been dependent upon getting that reactor to work. However, when trying to get tenure in academia then your job is dependent upon things working the way you want them to. I've seen the same thing in business where the people on the ground know that something won't work but are overruled by upper management who tell them to make it work. For example, upper management at a former employer decided that it took too much time for bank tellers to count coins. And so they decided to drop it or price it so high as to be ridiculous. After all, that kind of business was small potatoes at least to upper management. Well, guess what! We lost a lot of business because a lot of groups were doing business with us because of the coin counting and their members decided to dump us as well. Stupidity is rampant.
Oh, of course. It was a throwaway idea. But, I think the intellectual climate was a bit different back then as well, and my boss was a veteran of the LM program, where things actually working in the real world was paramount.
You are right. When things have to work then you have to be willing to let reality have the final word. The business world is full of examples where reality was ignored until it was too late. Unfortunately, I have worked at places like that.
I think the corollary can be seen in the government's approach to energy policy. None of it adds up, not even close, from an analytical perspective, but there seems to be a "make it so, I don't care how" attitude in setting that policy.
It reminds me of the story of King Canute who shamed his obsequious advisors when pointing out that even he could not stop the tide. Government, unfortunately, is too shielded from reality.
It's Sowell's "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."
Yes, I've seen this happen in retail many times. Someone from corporate sends down an idea that they deem brilliant, but won't work at the store level, and tell us to make it work. Occasionally they course correct, but not until the damage is done.
Even then, I've seen them try their bad decision again in a different way, and the result was usually the same. It's maddening
Even as far back as Newton, most science was steered by its benefactors. The notion of science as the "free play of free intellects" is a pretty founding myth but no more true than the Biblical Exodus story. The reason for this is practical: Scientific knowledge advances more quickly when it is directed toward solving tangible problems. Especially those problems related to technological innovation. Americans used to understand this.
At some point we have to build an airplane, turn on a light, or save a life. Technology is what links science to human experience making it real for people who do not understand the underlying principles. A jet aircraft, a light switch, or a polio vaccine are tangible cause-and-effect machines that turn phenomena described by science into technological outcomes.
The catch is that the underlying scientific phenomena must be real or the technologies will not work. Grifters like Claudine Gay damage that connection which, in turn, damages ordinary people's "faith" in the value of science.
Claudine Gay and her ilk may not be malevolent aliens attempting to weaken mankind's future technology but if they were, how would their behavior be different?
And thank you as well for putting out great work! I always look forward to reading what you write!
As for science and research, I've been a skeptic long before the pandemic. Too many times scientists have put out studies showing this or that is bad for you (red wine, meat, etc), only to change their minds a few years later saying those things are good, or at least not as bad as they thought. I know science is never settled and things change. That's why they continue to do studies and research. But I also know there are different factors that can skew results like lifestyle or dietary habits, and genes as well. Humans are similar and different in many ways so I go by the philosophy, do what works for you and change course when you need to.
Thanks for another great read Peter!
Claudine Gay still makes $900,000 a year at Harvard. Here she is with her twin brother.
https://nickelodeon.fandom.com/wiki/Chuckie_Finster?file=Chuckie+Finster+Oil+Painted.png
Yep. Either she has some dirt or they circled the wagons around her.