• LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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    2 months ago

    True but people also use this as an excuse to dismiss any research they disagree with which is idiotic.

    Most research is legit. It just might not be interpreted correctly, or it might not be the whole picture. But it shouldn’t be ignored because you don’t like it.

    People are especially prone to this with Econ research in my experience.

    • FundMECFSResearchOP
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      2 months ago

      For sure, but it’s important to keep in mind in fields with large financial interests.

      Medicine especially. Most studies claiming Cealiac disease (gluten allergy) was not real before it was conclusively proven to be legitimate were funded by bread companies. You won’t believe the number of studies funded by insurance companies trying to show that certain diseases aren’t really disabling, (even though they really are).

      • OpenStars@discuss.online
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        2 months ago

        And sugar probably kills as many people as smoking, but… yup.

        Then again, we all are okay with killing children too, so long as it is with a gun and unwillingly rather than safely in a doctor’s office and medically necessary or at least expedient.

    • socsa@piefed.social
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      2 months ago

      The entire thing is an edgy strawman. Honest practitioners obviously take seriously the need to understand and articulate the limits of empiricism, and are hostile towards those who abuse the public trust placed in scientific authority. It would honestlt be great if we could do the same with our critiques of capitalism.

  • Draconic NEO@mander.xyz
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    2 months ago

    Let’s also not forget that Scientists are also humans. Humans with their own beliefs and biases which do get transferred into studies. Peer review can help reduce that but since peers are also humans with their own biases, but also common biases shared amongst humans it’s not bulletproof either.

    There will always be some level of bias which clouds judgement, or makes you see/think things that aren’t objectively true, sometimes it comes with good intention, others not so much. It’s always there though, and probably always will be. The key to good science is making it as minimal as possible.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    If you catch your friends using Science as a religion, tell them they’re not a skeptic, they’re a cunt.

    • SoleInvictus
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      2 months ago

      Am scientist (well, was, before career change), can confirm. Fuck dogmatic scientists, they’re worse than regular dogmatists because they’ve been given many opportunities to know better.

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Ah SoleInvictus, he is an average [Insert Career Here], but he was a BRILLIANT Scientist!

        Memes aside - (https://youtu.be/F_DFJ-OXTzQ)

        This is such a common problem that it’s lead to the phrase “Science progresses at the march of funerals.”, what with all the people so attached to their pet theories they can’t humor anything that contradicts them…

        • SoleInvictus
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          2 months ago

          Hah, I haven’t thought about Dragonball in ages. Thanks for the laugh.

          Progress through turnover is true, and it’s maddening because the core tenets of science are explicitly against this. At our hearts, we’re still just apes with extra inflated egos.

  • molave@reddthat.com
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    2 months ago

    Why not both?

    What’s decided to be worthy of study is subjective. The process to hypothesize, experiment, and conclude what’s being studied is objective.

    • NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.org
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      2 months ago

      Do you or have you ever worked in science? I did for a bit and that was not my impression.

      One cannot really argue that science as practiced is very effective at certain things but it is also extremely far from being objective in practice. Especially the further you stray from simple physical systems.

      Also like I never saw someone formulate a hypothesis in any sort of formal sense haha.

      • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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        2 months ago

        Do you or have you ever worked in science? I did for a bit and that was not my impression.

        I imagine it depends heavily on the field. In some fields there are ideas that one can’t seriously study because they’re considered settled or can’t be studied without doing more harm than any believed good that could be achieved. There are others subject to essentially ideological capture where the barrier to publish is largely determined by how ideologically aligned you are (fields linked to an identity group have a bad habit of being about activism first and accurate observation of reality second).

    • underwire212@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Ideally, absolutely. That’s what makes the hallmarks of a great scientist.

      In practice, institutionalized science can be just as dogmatic and closed-minded as some of the worst religions.

      I have had advisors/coworkers/management straight up ignore certain evidence because it didn’t fit their preconceived views of what the results “should be”. This doesn’t make the process of science objective anymore when people are crafting experiments in ways to fit their views, or cherry picking data that conforms to their views.

      And you would be surprised at how often this happens in very high-stakes science industries (people’s lives are at stake). It’s fucking disgusting, and extremely dangerous.

    • Katrisia@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Even by itself, the first statement might not be the case. I don’t remember the book that well, but I remember thinking it was a good introduction to this topic. Philosophy of Science: A Very Brief Introduction by Samir Okasha.

  • FlapJackFlapper@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    The fact that capitalism taints everything it touches is not a criticism of the things it touches.

    • Katrisia@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Yet, it’s not as simple as “scientists are under capitalists’ interests”, but “the ideologies within capitalism permeate the way we do science”. A common example is how we measure functionality (and therefore pathology itself) in medicine.

        • Shark_Ra_Thanos@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          Whether or now “it” is touched by capitalizm is relevant. Because if it is touched, then “it” at least needs fixed if not viable at providing benefit anymore at all.

          • GiveMemes@jlai.lu
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            2 months ago

            What about the scientific method is ‘unviable’? What is the issue with empirically driven analysis? Is your issue not with those things? If it’s not, then your issue is not with science, but capitalism. It’s pretty simple, really.

  • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    And under socialism in the 20th century, science was an institution that only funds research that advances whatever narrative the hermetic powers-that-be decided to push and strengthen their grip on power, their obsession with secretiveness and projecting an image of infallibility.

    Take the Soviet Union.
    T.D. Lysenko and his crackpot food engineering ideas is one such glaring example. But boy oh boy could he talk a “toe the party line” game and suck up to Stalin.
    Or how about how the kremlin rendered nearly one quarter of Kazakhstan uninhabitable due to their relentless nuclear testing. And they nearly did that for all of western Europe with Chernobyl.

    In the name of workers and science, we shall poison your land. Science for the workers’ paradise, rejoice, comrades!

    • fern@lemmy.autism.place
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      2 months ago

      Okay, you have one point of data, the USSR, can you list a second point of data, otherwise this is not a trend of socialism but of a single country.

      • ahornsirup@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        The entire eastern block adopted Lysenkoism.

        The USSR also abused medical science to imprison dissidents in mental institutions based on false diagnoses.

  • socsa@piefed.social
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    2 months ago

    Nihilism is fun! Science as a framework for truth seeking, and big S Science are functionally different things. Nobody is making the argument that Science is free from political or economic bias, or even that empiricism is the sole arbiter of truth. Literally just finish reading Kant, I’ll wait.

    On the other hand, you can look at the world and very plainly see that science… does things. It discovers truth with a far better track record than every other imperfect epistemology. But sure, capitalism bad. Twitter man cringe. And the internet is just like, an opinion, or something.

  • crawancon@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    science is science. it can be (sometimes necessarily) prioritized via societal influence, culture and monetary means.

    socialist countries have different types scientific spend but I don’t see femboys taking things in the ass for them I guess.

    • socsa@piefed.social
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      2 months ago

      Look, the only thing in the world which hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism is OP’s brain, which happens to be in a jar, on a shelf, owned by an evil demon, who lives in a hole at the bottom of the sea. Just be thankful that the capitalists have not figured out how to harness this phenomenological power yet.

    • FundMECFSResearchOP
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      2 months ago

      If you’d like to read into this I recommend these books.

      1. “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas S. Kuhn

      2. “Science as Social Knowledge” by Helen Longino

      3. “The Politics of Science” by David Politzer

      4. “The Science Industry” by Philip Mirowski

      5. “The Commodification of Science: A Critical Perspective” by various authors

      An example of why this matters would be that research claiming ME was psychological was heavily funded, by both governments and insurance companies because it meant that they didn’t have to spend money on people disabled with ME. No effort was made to look at possible biological causes. Only a couple decades later, we now know it is a neuroimmune disease. But since insurers and government don’t benefit from that fact, it took decades to show and disprove the mountain of research claiming it is psychological. This meant thousands of people died from the disease or were in severe poverty.