I think this is a good example where the process of science is exposed and people are intuitively uncomfortable with it. I think that there is a perception that when there is evidence for an idea, it means that we are fairly certain that the idea is true. This is false most of the time. Most ideas are false to start with, and 'evidence' tends to make them somewhat less likely to be false, but still much more likely to be false than true. It isn't until you get into the realm of performing good quality research where your ideas are more likely to be true than false. See table 4 in this paper:
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124#s7
This means that as evidence builds for a particular idea, and seems to all be pointing in the same direction, as we perform exploratory and then our initial confirmatory research, it may still end up being completely reversed whenever good quality studies are performed. Much of the time, that process is invisible to the lay-person - they are unaware of the frequency with which evidence supports false ideas. What they see instead is the final product - those ideas which have survived the more rigorous tests of whether they are true or false. But there are areas in which recommendations need to be made when all you have to go on is fair quality studies and the results from good quality research are not yet available. Dietary and nutrition recommendations is one of these areas. As that good quality research becomes available, some of those recommendations will be altered and a few overturned. What you call "flip-flopping" is what you see in any field of investigation as good progress is made in figuring out which recommendations are valid and which are not.
Rather than a sign that science is to be distrusted, the fact that recommendations change is a sign that the process works. So this is a good example of how our intuitions about the process (the uncertainty makes us uncomfortable) mislead us. It is actually
non-flip-flopping advice and recommendations that you should be most uncomfortable with.
While reading this, I couldn't find any disagreement, so I realized that this must not capture entirely what occurred to create the distrust. I think it was probably more how everything was presented to the public. I know some researchers were dismayed by how their research was presented, and felt they were misrepresented, however doctors certainly followed with the low-fat low-cholesterol and other general recommendations that came from the lipid hypothesis. Not only did marketing play a huge role, with everything being advertised as "low fat," or "no cholesterol," even if it was made of complete garbage, and sugar was added to compensate for the lack of fat. Somehow, though, margarine seemed to have support as being better than butter by research, doctor's advice, and of course corporate marketing, and this convinced people of it being true. This is not even mentioning that the government even used this to change official policy with dietary recommendations.
So while I am certainly not an expert on the history of the lipid hypothesis, there seems to be a lot more to it than just changing the general consensus based on the most current research. Did it start because of the original study on saturated fat did not support the conclusions, yet the researchers either consciously or subconsciously manipulated the data, or perhaps used poor methods, in order to publish successful findings, or be behind a discovery? That would be an area to blame researchers themselves. Or was it where doctors didn't carefully assess the research before using it to guide recommendations? It is nearly impossible for doctors to carefully assess a lot of research while actively practicing medicine, which itself is a problem, and part of it is because of how the profession has evolved, especially today, where there is almost just no time to do this for a typical PCP. Was it because of corporate interests taking the hypothesis and running with it, marketing it aggressively to the public? Was it because the government changed their dietary recommendations based on this, perhaps through lack of cautious and careful scientific scrutiny, and perhaps also because of lobbying of corporations that may have felt this would benefit them?
So I am glad you raised your point, because really I think there was an interplay of many factors here that led to, what should have been just a hypothesis requiring confirmatory research, to change in public policy, recommendations by doctors, and marketing of the idea by corporations with a financial interest, which led to this hypothesis being perceived as true. When research started to question these findings, it was heavily resisted for a long time, much more so than should occur in a normal scientific setting since there then existed public policies in place, along with what seemed like an almost brain-washing of medical doctors, and of course corporate interests that would then lobby to maintain their interests in these recommendations.
fls said:
However, I agree with you that this is likely one of the reasons for a general distrust in science, which isn't helped by the Alt-Med anti-consensus-science campaign which they depend upon to interest people in their products.
This is another good point that is very important. The alternative medicine and nutritional supplement industries also have their financial interests, and can be just as guilty, if not more so, then pharmaceutical companies in exploiting research or even falsely presenting information as being true. I have more of a sports nutrition background, and the supplement industry is pretty bad in a lot of ways. Certain companies are often digging the grave of the supplement industry, especially in the sports supplement category. The whole prohormone ban was a good example, where unregulated prohormones and sometimes pretty much outright steroids were sold as dietary supplements. There were certain categories of methylated oral supplements that were extremely harsh on the liver, and far more dangerous than most actual steroids (some case reports from personal contacts were alarming). The new steroid supplements would eventually be banned, only to have a slight chemical tweak and then remarketed since it was technically a different compound under the law, just trying to make money and stay one step ahead of the law as long as they could.
I recently had a conversation with a nutrition researcher I know about how most research on dietary supplements,
especially herbal supplements, is almost useless, yet it is used to market products for that particular purpose, not even mentioning all the problems with herbal supplements such as the quality, what part of the plant, what form on standardization,
or even if the supplement even contains the claimed herb in the first place. But even with that, how long did it take for science to confirm that asprin worked, even though it had essentially be used as folk medicine for over 2000 years in Europe, and an unknown time of likely even longer by Native Americans.
So while there are effective alternative treatments, supplements, and supplement companies, they are given a bad name by these types of practices. It does seem that currently there is not enough skepticism towards these products in general, and those in-the-know would say that most supplements people take are utter garbage, and many with potential negative consequences.
fls said:
This is also an example of our intuitions moving us in the wrong direction. These problems are best addressed by the increasing awareness and transparency. Science was less trustworthy when lay-people weren't aware of these issues, but awareness of the issues leads them to have less trust rather than more. But again, I agree that this contributes to the perception.
It does seem that this is improving, but there is an awful lot of improvement still needed. I would suggest that this initial exposure of these problems is far more troubling to the lay population than for you and I. I remember having a discussion with an individual that is a co-host on a science podcast about the problem of induction, and metaphysical assumptions of current theories, and he was in utter denial about any of these, because current science is based on "facts." Oh boy! So when there is exposure that these "facts" are questionable, due to the pedestal science is placed upon, many may think that the science as a whole is untrustworthy.
In some ways, it is hard to entirely blame the public, because even many educated people aren't educated in these aspects of science, and think it is based on established "facts." If this is the view of many educated people, what then will be the lay opinion that is often based on the opinions of these educated folks?
fls said:
Yeah, I think that there is an increased cynicism and many groups get lumped in with corporate interests without any distinction made as to whether or not there is independence. I found this in the 911 thread as well, where anybody who has experience and knowledge within a field was dismissed as "the establishment" without any consideration as to whether or not any trace of dependence could be found between them and our lizard overlords.
Yeah, that one sounds really tough. Government conspiracy theories can be pretty deep and confusing rabbit holes, which is why I generally do not get involved in them (other than UFOs). Government and corporate conspiracies happen so much that these conspiracy theories almost rely on a plausibility argument alone!
fls said:
You are confirming my perception of the Skeptical movement. I also notice a distinction between when someone is writing about science and someone is writing about skepticism. Martin Gardner was a good example for me. I loved reading his mathematics books and columns. Which made me assume that I would like his books on skepticism. But I didn't (admittedly, I've only read part of one). I was uncomfortable when I encountered fallacious reasoning and generic dismissals. Something like "Psychology of the Skeptics" by Marks and Kamann was much better, as it was specifically about investigating and testing claims made by Tart and Puthoff. If I am put off by some of the general trends in the Skeptical movement (as someone who is at least sympathetic with some of the ideas), I wondered whether it could be regarded as useful for anything other than preaching to the choir. If it's off-putting to the general public, I suspect that some of that perception rubs off on to science, even though the two are distinct.
It's funny how I somehow missed the skeptic movement, so thank you for bringing this up. I think the skeptical movement and many of its organizations such as CSI actually damage trust in science.
Your comment about it being distinct from science is true on the one hand, but effectively in different ways this ends up not being the case. CSI recruits scientists, so there are often big names essentially backing these organizations (for example, Carl Sagen), and then other scientists, while not using this as research, would allow it to influence and form their opinions on many subjects without real investigation. CSI has a history of attempting to influence policies, such as with remote viewing programs, and have been influential in even shutting down these programs. They also influence research grants, making it difficult to perform certain types of research. So in the end, you have a pseudo-scientific organization presenting themselves as scientific, influencing scientific opinions and what can even be researched, yet many are increasingly of the opinion that they are dogmatists and science is also guilty by association of the same dogmatism and aggressive hostility (people like Dawkins and Krauss certainly do not help, either, since this strengthens this association).
fls said:
And it is in a lot of group's interest to lead people to that distrust.
Yes, I agree. And it is often seen that because of the problems with the mainstream position that the alternative positions and practices are then true by default!
fls said:
So we are still going with an example from over a hundred years ago? Resistance is normal - people are protecting their own ideas as well. How do we know when someone is exhibiting unreasonable resistance to adopting a new idea or they are ignoring clueless mutterings?
Yes, I am purposefully using an old example. I am suggesting that these questions are ultimately decided by history. Only after a good amount of time can we clearly see who was right, who was wrong, and who was exhibiting unreasonable resistance to new ideas. Before the Wright brothers actually flew, was in unreasonable to say that man couldn't possibly fly based on physics? We know now, but if we were in that period of time and understood the world the way in which they did, that wouldn't be such a clearly absurd claim of impossibility.
fls said:
: As an example, why aren't we characterizing parapsychology as clinging to a failed paradigm by unreasonably resisting the new research which tells us so much about the ways in which cognitive biases and heuristics conspire to create the appearance of an effect when none is present, or the research into the ways in which the 'effect' within the field can simply be a measure of the prevailing bias created by experimental practices?
History will tell whether or not psi was a monumental scientific discovery or a lengthy example of problems within scientific research.
fls said:
Why are you calling those "paradigms"? I agree that lots of ideas are tested, and that at various times different ideas seem to be regarded as promising (which means that you have more people flocking into that area of research). And some of these ideas pan out and some don't. But this is what you'd expect when the practice of science is about following promising leads and investigating novel ideas.
As presented by the individual, it was a paradigm because it was not that there was an idea that some things are auto-immune, but rather than everything was essentially auto-immune in nature, and this changed to thinking that everything was viral in nature. They were not taught as individual hypotheses.
fls said:
Can you give me some examples of what you are thinking of with "their screw-ups"?
I think the lipid hypothesis fits the bill. There is still nutrition research going on under the assumption that it is true. It's odd to still see papers published that run experiments and test hypotheses that are based on a false premise.
fls said:
So ideas are not sorted on the basis of validity, but are sorted on the basis the palatability with respect to sociological factors?
Linda
Well, no, not entirely, but it does play a role in how the ideas are received. The sociological factors can stall the establishment of a discovery, but in the end the discovery wins by virtue of proving to lead to better predictions and that sort of thing.