# Is Science self correcting? Does it always trend towards realistic findings?



## wuliheron (Sep 5, 2011)

DMack said:


> Hahaha, you need to start subscibing to some research journals. I get updates from Harvard and they study important stuff like if you and your significant other travel opposite directions to work does it positively or negitively impact your relationship. There's a lot of corporate money on the hook based on those results.


Hollywood also makes a living off such wild speculations.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Not always because people forget that science isn't only about scientific research and improvement, it has a strong political component that is often overlooked. This political component ranges from political disputes within the scientific community to who will help fund scientific research. 

You will for example find that science conducted today is much more likely to be funded if it deals with politically correct hot-spot topics such as global warming or feminism, but it doesn't mean that the science itself will actually be honest. There are plenty of people within the scientific community who deny global warming and explain it as a naturally occuring phenomenon and is not human-induced. 

This perfectly demonstrates the politics of science as scientists can sometimes be more willing to protect their theories then they are willing to come up with a theory that is actually correct. The more controversial the research and subject being conducted, the less likely it is to also receive good feedback from the scientific community. This is because scientists are also participants in society and are definitely not removed from social influence. We are shaped by the social climate around us whether we like it or not, and this also often affects the results of scientific research or even the methods used to conduct research.

Nevermind the fact that sometimes, if you accept a controversial theory as true and you're a scientist, you might find yourself no longer having a job. I think this is particularly true in particle and theoretical physics that is an extremely competitive and ever-changing field right now.

At least I did something right becoming a social scientist, but then the problem is that there are no jobs for me because no one wants to hire a social scientist which is odd considering that we can perform so many things such as market research which is extremely useful in today's capitalist climate -.-


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## st0831 (Jul 13, 2010)

In my opinion,

I believe the general populous have a misunderstanding about science. The modern day term for science stems from systematic observations about our physical world. Over time, it manifested in such a way that it became objective producing widespread standardization and acceptance. These data were calculated to be accurate and precise to the point that we began to apply it to large scale systems in search for an answer. The speed of light is measured to a fixed value +/- error. From that knowledge, we can explain astronomical theories, conduct spectrophotometric measurements, etc objective enough that on any mountain peak and bottom valley a physical measurement is consistent (corrected by objective environmental deviations)

There comes the problem when we begin interpreting human data. Since the definition of the term, "science" has been exploited commercially and politically to set credibility to more bias-vulnerable topics such as medicine, biology, and psychology but not limited to than say chemistry and physics. All studies are vulnerable to bias including topics in chemistry and physics but these biases are easily expelled using the limits of physical laws, statistics, large accessible data pool, etc. In essence, faked data will automatically be *SELF-CORRECTED* due to questioning and re-experimentation combined with large sample statistics. 

As for human data, the sample pool is too small to be of any significant use to explain large populations, fueled by political and commercial agenda (use this organic shampoo, it can prevent cancer!), and the lack of widespread experimentation is the problem for these human-associated topics. In essence, these topics cannot self-correct, which hurts the confidence of these topics which are "labeled science." If I claimed and measured that not breathing for 30 seconds a day and drinking green tea lowers the cancer risk by 40% for a pool of 10 people, it requires more effort and is harder to refute than say I measured the UV absorbance of carbon dioxide to be of some value.

I do not have data but I believe medicine is where most of the science-funded research money lies. Contrary to one poster, I believe medicine is already super-funded compared to the physical sciences (when, in my opinion, physical sciences are much more important about human health in the long term). My basis for my claim is that nobody really cares (or understands) if whether nitrogen reacts with hydrogen (and the potential methods to speed up the reaction or cheapen the production, if any) but people most certainly care about certain cancers or HIV.

My hypothesis is that people want to see immediate results but are not willing to understand (or try) more profound connections. If this pill cures HIV, then it is more valuable (because it saves lives) than say hydrogen/nitrogen. But if I were to say that the hydrogen/nitrogen reaction, the reaction that makes ammonia, known as the Haber Process, is far more important, people may label me a freak by valuing two gases over a human life. The further explanation is that with the current human population, natural fertilizers are not enough to support agriculture for our population. Without fertilizer, agriculture will be much more difficult, with lower crop yields. Ultimately, leading to lack of food. When there is no food, we all know what happens. Death. Widespread hunger and malnutrition is certainly more important than a HIV cure.

The rest just lies by inserting any topic in lieu of the hydrogen/nitrogen example. Someone in this thread mentioned carbon dioxide and global warming. The raw data for global warming is higher carbon dioxide levels, temperature measurements, insolation, the tilt of the earth with respect to the sun, solar cycles, etc. There is really no doubt about higher carbon dioxide levels by the ppm. It is up to the interpreter to interpret the data and assign a meaning on it. Does a higher CO2 level indicate a higher atmospheric temperature? Even if it does, is it the anthropogenic CO2 that is contributing or is it the sun's natural cycle. At the interpretive level, is where the problem is. People may lie due to greed or corruption by "interpreting" CO2 impacts directly and the need for GREEN technology is just, etc. I am no expert in this field so I am not commenting more. 

I absolutely do know and trust that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is higher in concentration than pre-industrial periods (personally sure that it is anthropogenic with correlation to human population). However, I am not confident whether if that amount of CO2 produced would impact our planet in such a way. Nonetheless I believe in the goal of sustainability and that resources should be conserved, not spent on useless things. Also, a oil dominant energy source is not sustainable so I think global warming is a good alarm for people to think about their environment more regardless of whether it is true or not.


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