David Bailey
Member
Yes, and I don't think it can work exactly like that - remember that I am not a fan of large scale conspiracy theories. Start by thinking about the analogy with the AIDS issue - which has the advantage of being quite crisp at the level I presented it. There is no question that most AIDS researchers do not realise that nobody ever came forward with a proof that HIV causes AIDS. I GOOGLED "original paper showing HIV causes AIDS" as I wrote this just to check! They do what they do in a cocoon of fellow travellers that believe the same things. The same thing must apply in CC, but it really is easier to think about the analogous case - just to clear your head of politics.I think you miss the import of LoneShaman's theory (which is of course not original to him, and is wildly popular with many climate deniers). He's saying that the whole idea of global warming is a hoax intended to serve nefarious political purposes. In other words, every aspect of the science which underlies the idea of global warming is false; is faked.
One way I began to understand the problem with corrupted science was in connection with yet another science scandal:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/file_on_4/7104070.stm
Cancer researchers did large amounts of work on cell lines that were not of the right type*. When I first heard this, I thought as you probably do, that surely they would notice if they used the wrong type of cells because their results would make no sense.
In fact they didn't notice (at least that is the generous interpretation), and many were extremely reluctant to retract their papers that were based on that mistake even when they knew the truth, and indeed the whole scandal went on for another 3 years before the BBC exposed it again!
Think about what that really means about modern scientific research - and indeed human psychology. Most of us are terrifyingly easily inclined to go along with the herd.
You need to grok some of this before you can understand why Alex have his book the title "WHY SCIENCE IS WRONG About Almost Everything ". I think if he had only added the the qualifier "Modern", his title would have been the literal truth! Remember that Rupert Sheldrake wrote a book "The Science Delusion" - basically for the same reason.
David
Edit: Searching my GOOGLE results a little further, the best I could come up with was this:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp038194
This is not a scientific paper, and neither are either of the two references at the bottom of the article.
* When a cell line becomes contaminated with another type of cell, the contaminant cell either grows more slowly than the correct cells and so dies out, or it grows more quickly and quickly takes over the culture.
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