Dr. Henry Bauer, Why We Shouldn’t Trust Science |362|

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Dr. Henry Bauer, Why We Shouldn’t Trust Science |362|
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Dr. Henry Bauer explains how market forces have led to the corruption of science.
362-henry-bauer-skeptiko.jpg

photo by: Skeptiko
Kyrie Irving, is an amazing basketball player, who made quite a stir earlier this year regarding the flat earth theory.

Ben Nichols, this is a shout out to you. He came to us [unclear 00:00:20], “The earth is flat.”

No, the earth is flat.

Oh here we go.

No the earth is flat.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s no way a bright, Duke University educated guy like Kyrie Irving should fall for something anyone can debunk with the United Airlines timetable and some common sense. But take a minute to understand how he formed his opinion.

Hopefully they’ll either back my belief or they’ll throw it in the water. I think it’s interesting for people to find out on their own.

You’ve seen pictures of the planet thought right? Like it’s a circle?

I’ve seen a lot of things that have been… and my educational system has said that was real and it turned out to be completely fake. I don’t mind, I don’t mind going against the grain in terms of my thoughts and what I believe.

And with that, you might begin to understand why today’s guest, Dr. Henry Bauer, might cut Kyrie some slack.

The popular view of science has not caught up with the present situation where people should be as skeptical about what official science says as they are about what the experts say about any other aspect of society.

Now, like I said, the Kyrie Irving flat earth thing caused quite a stir.

Did you know that the earth is flat?

Kyrie Irving is unfortunately helping to spread it, the conspiracy…

Here’s a meme that was played over and over again by the mainstream science media.

Middle school teacher, Nick Gurol, said that his students, thanks to Irving, staunchly believe that the world is flat. Gurol remarked, “And immediately I started to panic. How have I failed these kids so badly…?”

Yes, panic indeed. How else should a science teacher respond to students that don’t just, well, believe everything they’re told.

“It’s definitely hard for me because it feels like science isn’t real to them.” The educator said that he has tried to get the students to understand that the world is indeed round, to no avail. “The influence of Irving was just too strong.”

I did ask Henry about this:

Alex Tsakiris: Because that’s what I think happens, see, I think people have this growing sense that they’re being lied to, manipulated and bullshitted by science, right? And they don’t know quite how to articulate it. So something like ‘flat earth’ comes along and some guy sounds halfway like he knows what he’s talking about and people are like, “You know what, I’m open to hearing it.”

Henry Bauer: We have to be skeptical about what scientists say, because what scientists tell you is not necessarily the same as what science can tell you.

Stick around, my interview with Dr. Henry Bauer is up next on Skeptiko.
 
Having been called a flat earther more times than I can count for my agnosticism/skepticism regarding climate change claims and my heretical views on HIV/AIDS, I was amused when I actually met an honest-to-god flat earth proponent at a party a while back. I have to say, I didn't bother trying to have an actual discussion with her, just smiled and nodded...

earth.jpg
 
Having been called a flat earther more times than I can count for my agnosticism/skepticism regarding climate change claims and my heretical views on HIV/AIDS, I was amused when I actually met an honest-to-god flat earth proponent at a party a while back. I have to say, I didn't bother trying to have an actual discussion with her, just smiled and nodded...

earth.jpg
well played :)
 
"What do you make of this claim that science is corrupted? How bad it it?"

Yes, science is corrupted, it's pretty bad.... And if you look at the last link below you will see that the problem is not just faking results, the problem is also that they are suppressing the truth.

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/articl...ubject.html#articles_by_subject_bogus_science
Most published research findings are false:
http://www.economist.com/news/scien...w-institute-has-you-its-sights-metaphysicians

Bad Science Muckrakers Question the Big Science Status Quo: "... inherent biases and the flawed statistical analyses built into most 'hypothesis driven' research, resulting in publications that largely represent 'accurate measures of the prevailing bias.'"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfre...ckrakers-question-the-big-science-status-quo/

Linus Pauling: "Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud and that the major cancer research organizations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them." -Linus Pauling PhD (Two-time Nobel Prize winner)."
http://nationalpress.org/images/uploads/programs/CAN2009_Marshall.pdf

"The Lancet": The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness."
http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(15)60696-1.pdf

"Nature": "Ridding science of shoddy statistics will require scrutiny of every step, not merely the last one, say Jeffrey T. Leek and Roger D. Peng."
http://www.nature.com/news/statistics-p-values-are-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-1.17412

Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers: "The publishers Springer and IEEE are removing more than 120 papers from their subscription services after a French researcher discovered that the works were computer-generated nonsense."
http://www.nature.com/news/publishers-withdraw-more-than-120-gibberish-papers-1.14763

The New England Journal of Medicine: "In August 2015, the publisher Springer retracted 64 articles from 10 different subscription journals “after editorial checks spotted fake email addresses, and subsequent internal investigations uncovered fabricated peer review reports,” according to a statement on their website.1 The retractions came only months after BioMed Central, an open-access publisher also owned by Springer, retracted 43 articles for the same reason."
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1512330

realclearscience.com: "A study that surveyed all the published cosmological literature between the years 1996 and 2008 showed that the statistics of the results were too good to be true. In fact, the statistical spread of the results was not consistent with what would be expected mathematically, which means cosmologists were in agreement with each other – but to a worrying degree. This meant that either results were being tuned somehow to reflect the status-quo, or that there may be some selection effect where only those papers that agreed with the status-quo were being accepted by journals."
http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2016/01/11/why_cosmology_is_in_crisis_109504.html

University of Oxford: "Half the world's natural history specimens may have the wrong name."
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-11-17-half-worlds-natural-history-specimens-may-have-wrong-name

NYTimes.com: "Dr. Prasad and Dr. Cifu extrapolate from past reversals to conclude that about 40 percent of what we consider state-of-the-art health care is likely to turn out to be unhelpful or actually harmful."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/s...g-medical-reversal-laments-flip-flopping.html

Retraction Watch
http://retractionwatch.com/

I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here's How.
http://io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800

"Der Spiegel protested all of this discussion with the statement, that what they hear is that 'journalists want to earn money, whereas scientists are only seeking the truth.' This brought loud guffaws from all three [professors]. 'Scientists,' answered Dr. Fischer, 'want success; they want a wife, a hotel room, an invitation, or perhaps a car!'"
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/der-spiegel-discovers-the-truth-from-science/

The History of Important Scientific Discoveries Initially Rejected and Ridiculed.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-history-of-scientific-discoveries.html
 
Dr. Henry Bauer, Why We Shouldn’t Trust Science |362|
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Dr. Henry Bauer explains how market forces have led to the corruption of science.
362-henry-bauer-skeptiko.jpg

photo by: Skeptiko
Kyrie Irving, is an amazing basketball player, who made quite a stir earlier this year regarding the flat earth theory.

Ben Nichols, this is a shout out to you. He came to us [unclear 00:00:20], “The earth is flat.”

No, the earth is flat.

Oh here we go.

No the earth is flat.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s no way a bright, Duke University educated guy like Kyrie Irving should fall for something anyone can debunk with the United Airlines timetable and some common sense. But take a minute to understand how he formed his opinion.

Hopefully they’ll either back my belief or they’ll throw it in the water. I think it’s interesting for people to find out on their own.

You’ve seen pictures of the planet thought right? Like it’s a circle?

I’ve seen a lot of things that have been… and my educational system has said that was real and it turned out to be completely fake. I don’t mind, I don’t mind going against the grain in terms of my thoughts and what I believe.

And with that, you might begin to understand why today’s guest, Dr. Henry Bauer, might cut Kyrie some slack.

The popular view of science has not caught up with the present situation where people should be as skeptical about what official science says as they are about what the experts say about any other aspect of society.

Now, like I said, the Kyrie Irving flat earth thing caused quite a stir.

Did you know that the earth is flat?

Kyrie Irving is unfortunately helping to spread it, the conspiracy…

Here’s a meme that was played over and over again by the mainstream science media.

Middle school teacher, Nick Gurol, said that his students, thanks to Irving, staunchly believe that the world is flat. Gurol remarked, “And immediately I started to panic. How have I failed these kids so badly…?”

Yes, panic indeed. How else should a science teacher respond to students that don’t just, well, believe everything they’re told.

“It’s definitely hard for me because it feels like science isn’t real to them.” The educator said that he has tried to get the students to understand that the world is indeed round, to no avail. “The influence of Irving was just too strong.”

I did ask Henry about this:

Alex Tsakiris: Because that’s what I think happens, see, I think people have this growing sense that they’re being lied to, manipulated and bullshitted by science, right? And they don’t know quite how to articulate it. So something like ‘flat earth’ comes along and some guy sounds halfway like he knows what he’s talking about and people are like, “You know what, I’m open to hearing it.”

Henry Bauer: We have to be skeptical about what scientists say, because what scientists tell you is not necessarily the same as what science can tell you.

Stick around, my interview with Dr. Henry Bauer is up next on Skeptiko.

Damn, Alex, you have just stolen my interview - I was planning to interview Henry Bauer for Psience Quest! :eek:

Well, my congratulations for you for being faster than me. :)
 
Damn, Alex, you have just stolen my interview - I was planning to interview Henry Bauer for Psience Quest! :eek:

Well, my congratulations for you for being faster than me. :)

On a second thought - you have stolen nothing from me, Alex... Your interview is quite short an does not allow Bauer to express his views fully. Don't take it as a criticism - I just say that, if Bauer and Psience Quest communities would agree, I can make a much longer and much more detailed interview that will allow the interviewee to describe his position in its complexity.
 
On a second thought - you have stolen nothing from me, Alex... Your interview is quite short an does not allow Bauer to express his views fully. Don't take it as a criticism - I just say that, if Bauer and Psience Quest communities would agree, I can make a much longer and much more detailed interview that will allow the interviewee to describe his position in its complexity.
agreed... much needed. there's a lot to Henry position(s) :)
 
I think it is unfortunate that this community split, but given that we did, it is best to collaborate as much as possible.

I think the HIV/AIDS issue probably (i.e. assuming Bauer is correct) represents a terrifying example of what corrupt science can do, and is also a lesson in the way science can become muddled and corrupted at the same time. By way of illustration, here is a bit of one version of this story:

1) There was a desperate rush to find the cause of AIDS which was killing a lot of men back in the early 80's. The rush resulted in an incorrect association between the HIV virus and AIDS.

2) AIDS may have been caused by a method used by homosexual men to clean themselves out prior to sex. This used high pressure water, which caused their guts to leak bacteria and fungi - which overwhelmed their immune systems.

3) The HIV test generates false positives just after flu vaccinations, while a woman is pregnant, and possibly when used on blacks!

4) The symptoms of AIDS have shifted over the years (for example an unusual cancer was a common symptom back then), and now resemble the side effects of the drugs used to treat AIDS.

5) The epidemiology of AIDS is wrong. At the crudest level this can be seen in that a fatal disease with no symptoms for 10 years, that is passed on by sex, would have decimated humanity by now.

6) Heterosexual couples who continue with unprotected sex, very rarely pass the disease on to their partner!

7) The drug companies make a fortune out of treating HIV patients, whether this is a real disease or not!

Clearly you do need a long interview just to present his ideas properly, never mind explore his wider views about science.

David
 
I'm with David Bailey on this, specifically Mr. Bauer's take on HIV/AIDS. I'm a gay man who began researching this subject in depth back in the early 2000's and was stunned to find that there was incredibly good evidence against a retrovirus causing 'AIDS'. Believe me, 'HIV' is something that terrified me and I was like all the other gay men who was in having my regular 'HIV' antibody test done. I was never in a high risk group, I never had a lot of risky sex, I never did drugs, but the idea that one time having sex with the wrong man would kill me in 10 years was a pretty terrifying thing.

After all the research I did, I came to the conclusion that it 'HIV' was completely and utterly bogus. But the incredible thing is that the scientists who spoke up and wrote extensively about every convincing reason why a retrovirus couldn't possibly be a cause of a multitude of different diseases were skewered in every possible way. Dr. Peter Duesberg (who Alex should really interview) paid a steep price for publishing, in the scientific literature, why 'HIV' couldn't cause AIDS.

A group of Australian scientists (called The Perth Group) also have been called 'denialists' (and worse) for spending the better part of 25 years showing in extreme, rigorous detail every flaw of not only 'HIV' but of the very tests used to diagnose people. Most people don't realize that there is actually no test that can determine if you're supposedly infected with this putative retrovirus. The antibody tests react for a host of reasons that are well documented in the scientific literature.

The tests are arbitrary, they mean different things in different locations. Don't like your 'HIV' diagnosis? hop on a plane to a place in the world that has a higher, more stringent diagnostic criteria and you can loose your 'HIV'. It's that bad. What passes for 'HIV' diagnosis in Africa constitutes medical malpractice in the United States.

'HIV' is said to be rampant in Africa, but for some reason ignores affluent white heterosexuals in the United States.

What's most interesting is that the Perth Group showed that extreme oxidative stress was the hallmark of AIDS patients, and this accounted for the various illness they had. They published this back in the 1980s and early 90s. http://www.theperthgroup.com/SCIPAPERS/EPEOxstressHIVAIDS.pdf

But they were ignored and ridiculed as 'dianialists'. A few years later, Luc Montagnier, one of the researchers credited with finding 'HIV' published basically the same thing, and was essentially ignored. https://www.crcpress.com/Oxidative-...tagnier-Olivier-Pasquier/p/book/9780824798628

This is a deep subject, but once you go down into the rabbit hole looking into it like Henry Bauer has done, you come out the other end realizing that it's one of the biggest scientific misfires of all time.
 
Clearly you do need a long interview just to present his ideas properly, never mind explore his wider views about science.

David

Yeah, I agree on this. A short 45 minute interview is way too short to begin to fully grasp all aspects of this. I spent years studying it to fully understand the magnitude of this scientific mistake. 'HIV' like a religion in the broader gay community, you can't even question it publicly without being turned into a pariah. It's the craziest thing.
 
this interview doesn't mention the topic... except very briefly at the end. see Bauer's books.

That's correct, but there's another Skeptiko interview with Bauer that does deal specifically with HIV/AIDS (#273). I was really referring to that. It's only a bit longer at one hour and you'd really need a pretty lengthy show to be able to go in-depth. I'd love to see Alex do an interview with Dr. Peter Duesberg or a member of the Perth Group. In my mind they fit exactly into the premise of what Skeptiko is about, dealing with science and the kind of skepticism that is antithetical to finding the truth.
 
"they don’t seem to be able or willing to sort through the scientific data, like we just said, like with global warming, it’s really not that hard. The best measure we have of temperature is these satellites and that’s what everyone relied on, including Al Gore, who stood there in front of us, he said, “Hey, here’s the best measure we have, it’s these satellites, and they’re telling us that the temperature is rising,” right? And then 20 years later those same satellites told us, “Well, the temperature has leveled off and carbon has continued to rise.” "

Does someone have a link explaining what Alex is saying here? It bothers me that the climate issue has become so politicized and whether you accept it or not seems to depend more on if you are liberal or conservative that the evidence itself. I am inclined to think the data shows quite conclusively that change is taking place, albeit though not necessarily in the curve promoted in the media. However, I'd like to think I have an open mind.
 
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"they don’t seem to be able or willing to sort through the scientific data, like we just said, like with global warming, it’s really not that hard. The best measure we have of temperature is these satellites and that’s what everyone relied on, including Al Gore, who stood there in front of us, he said, “Hey, here’s the best measure we have, it’s these satellites, and they’re telling us that the temperature is rising,” right? And then 20 years later those same satellites told us, “Well, the temperature has leveled off and carbon has continued to rise.” "

Does someone have a link explaining what Alex is saying here? It bothers me that the climate issue has become so politicized and whether you accept it or not seems to depend more on if you are liberal or conservative that the evidence itself. I am inclined to think the data shows quite conclusively that change is taking place, albeit though not necessarily in the curve promoted in the media. However, I'd like to think I have an open mind.
you can read Henry's book for more on this. there are also many threads on the Skeptiko-forum.

in very simple terms you can look at the 15 year pause in global warming and ask: how this can be explained within the carbon=warming model? similarly/alternatively you can ask why temperatures have increased in the last 3 years? i.e. if you accept they increased over the last 3 then why did they not for 15 years? again, this stuff is so, so simple that you can't really be expected to believe that there is a scientific fraud of these proportions going on, but that's what Henry is claiming.

also, for those highly invested in global warming it might be best to look at Herny's take on the HIV/AIDS connection... again, the #s scream out re the corruption of science.
 
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/articl...-by-subject.html#articles_by_subject_politics

"To The Horror Of Global Warming Alarmists, Global Cooling Is Here" by Peter Ferrara: "The CO2 greenhouse effect is weak and marginal compared to natural causes of global temperature changes." Natural causes such as ocean currents and solar cycles are a better explanation for the climate data than CO2 produced by human activity.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterf...obal-warming-alarmists-global-cooling-is-here

"The Global Warming Fraud, Explained" by John Hinderaker: "The climate alarmists assert that various positive feedbacks, principally an increase in the main greenhouse gas, water vapor, will amplify that scientifically-defensible one degree increase into something like six degrees. EVERY SINGLE THING you have ever read about the supposedly baleful effects of CO2 is based on that unproven assumption. Actually, the net feedbacks–clouds are the great unknown–may be negative rather than positive."
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/12/the-global-warming-fraud-explained.php

"Climate Change in 12 Minutes - The Skeptic's Case" by Stefan Molyneux
 
Really great interview thanks. I reblogged it on FB hoping the "normals" would listen, but I'm worried the cold open about Flat Earth will scare them away. If they're defensive about science being challenged they might puff up and listen a bit to try and dismiss it, but give them any reason to debunk without listening to the whole thing and they'll hop at the chance every time. Ah well, it was great and needed to be said by someone who has been in the trenches and watched science as it transitioned to it's new financial/political masters and lose the integrity it had when it was an awe-filled celebration of wonder, exploration, and exultation of the mysteries of the universe. Well done both.
 
Kyrie Irving lied about flat earth by the way he admitted it 2-3 weeks after he made the claim
 
I think Judith Curry's blog is a really valuable resource on climate. I find her very sensible (she falls in the "lukewarmer" camp, which makes her a "denier" to many). She also does "week in review" lists of links to what's happening in science and policy, and the blog's denizens are a varied bunch, so following their debates gives you a good idea of the issues and points of disagreement.

The politicization of the climate issue drives me nuts. It's lonely being a liberal climate-scare skeptic... ;) (See also Dr. Bauer's post, "A politically liberal global-warming skeptic?")
 
The politicization of the climate issue drives me nuts. It's lonely being a liberal climate-scare skeptic... ;) (See also Dr. Bauer's post, "A politically liberal global-warming skeptic?")

It is also frustrating to see how this scare is focussing on one environmental issue. Other issues like deforestation, over population, food waste - things that are obvious dangers to the environment - get pushed aside by the focus on CO2. Ultimately, I think the 'science' behind this scare will unravel, and it will to enormous damage to the Green movement as a whole.

I find this data from the Magellan spacecraft really interesting, and I have never found a warmist explanation for it. There are two graphs of the data available here (not a NASA site, and possibly they like to bury this data, but I assume it is accurate):

http://www.datasync.com/~rsf1/vel/1918vpt.htm

The atmosphere there is mostly CO2 and the temperature at the surface is famously hot enough to melt lead. However, from the graphs it is easy to see that the temperature at the height where the pressure is 1 atmosphere, is about 66 C (be careful the graphs themselves use degrees Kelvin). Given that Venus gets almost 4 times as much energy from the sun, there doesn't seem to be much sign of a greenhouse gas effect!

The atmospheric pressure at the surface of Venus is 92 atmospheres!

I'd be really interested if you have ever seen a 'warmist' explanation for this!

David
 
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