Here's What's Wrong with Science...

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Also, the media is hopelessly attracted to soft sciences like psychology, sociology, and economics, and not so concerned with hard sciences such as bio, chem, and physics where more stringent methodology is used.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by orthodoc

The above 'study' is not science.

I disagree. It was published in the journal Science, which has a perfectly valid reputation as a scientific journal. Your argument is of the 'no true Scotsman' variety. It is bad science, I agree, but as a currently published study, it counts as part of our cultural definition of science.

Now, another part of that definition is that we can disprove and otherwise retract it from our understanding, and that's excellent, and I have faith that we will eventually do so with this particular study. But even in the hard sciences, there are many examples of flawed studies that sit around unchallenged for decades, or even continue to be referenced after they've been rejected.

Originally Posted by glatt

He wasn't impressed with most of the applications he saw, but there were a few that were very good.

This is my experience: when science is good, it's completely fucking amazing. But just like humans as a whole, the majority of it is plagued with human error. The amazing parts are worth it, I think--I'm definitely not saying we should cancel all learned inquiry. I'm just saying 1.) most researchers do not deserve anything approaching a pedestal, and 2.) the world could do with better oversight of study design, at least over studies coming out of major universities.