[HN Gopher] 'Preapproved Narratives' Corrupt Science
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'Preapproved Narratives' Corrupt Science
Author : wjb3
Score : 57 points
Date : 2023-10-03 19:41 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| tenkabuto wrote:
| https://archive.ph/Yttxo
| tomgp wrote:
| This feels short on facts high on opinion (almost like the WSJ
| has some pre-aproved narative!). I can't speak to the other
| pieces mentioned but I think it's worth noting that Brown's
| claims about a 'prefered narative' in Nature are rather
| undermined by some of the peer reviewers comments which
| encouraged him to broaden the scope of the research in precisely
| the way he claimed that Nature tacitly discourages.
|
| A more indepth look at the claims and counter claims...
| https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-scientists-pour-cold-w...
| ryandrake wrote:
| > This feels short on facts high on opinion
|
| Well, it IS the Opinion Page, so don't expect much. You don't
| really need facts if you are just going to blame a vague
| "Narrative" boogeyman.
|
| It's a common excuse from people claiming to be censored: "I
| can't say this or that because it 'goes against The
| Narrative.'" OK, so tell us more about this shadowy narrative
| that's hiding around every corner! Is The Narrative in the room
| with us right now?
| UncleMeat wrote:
| There's an entire media ecosystem for this sort of stuff now.
|
| Step 1. Write a crappy paper or make an otherwise ill supported
| claim in the scientific community.
|
| Step 2. Scientific community says "hey that work is not good."
|
| Step 3. Run to media outlets that are thirsty for "look at how
| this community doesn't permit alternative thought" narratives.
|
| Step 4. Pivot into reactionary grifting, rake in patreon cash.
| [deleted]
| tomgp wrote:
| A beter example might have been the lack of funding available
| to alzheimers researchers not looking into the dominant (and
| now increasingly shaky) amyloid hypothesis. which to me looks
| like a genuine case of a "prefered narative" which may have
| held back progess for a decode or more.
| mint2 wrote:
| "But makes cost effective and publishable news reporting, that we
| often use" - continued an alternate reality more open and
| transparent WSJ that likes to properly contextualize its stories.
| johnea wrote:
| > "No doubt the editors at the New York Times and ProPublica
| would say the same of their own pages."
|
| Of course, the WSJ would NEVER have a "a preferred narrative".
|
| And so we should really keep burning as much petro as possible,
| because otherwise shareholders are being stolen from!
|
| And this is obviously another "prefered naritive":
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/interactive/2023/ameri...
|
| "Forty years ago, small towns and rural regions were healthier
| for adults in the prime of life. The reverse is now true. Urban
| death rates have declined sharply, while rates outside the
| country's largest metro areas flattened and then rose. Just
| before the pandemic, adults 35 to 64 in the most rural areas were
| 45 percent more likely to die each year than people in the
| largest urban centers."
| gustavus wrote:
| One of the best indicators of what the results of a psychotherapy
| study/experiment will be is what the scientist doing the research
| already believes. I doubt this is limited to simply
| psychotherapy.
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-o...
| tgv wrote:
| It's easier to get a desired result in fields like psychology
| and educational sciences, since it's so hard to control the
| experimental setting. To add insult to injury, this makes that
| even when done correctly, studies often don't generalize.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Very funny that it comes from WSJ, which preapproved all of these
| narratives in the first place.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-criticism_(Marxism-Lenini...
| nimish wrote:
| Lest anyone think this is limited to "soft sciences" we should
| recall that this "settled science bias" happens in hard ones,
| too: https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/264/timeline-of-
| meas...
| tomohelix wrote:
| This is very common and is basically one of the "ugly truth" that
| people get to know once they start doing academic research. If
| you want to live, you have to get published, and to be published,
| you have boots to kiss. The grant agencies and the reviewers are
| not going to be "open-minded" about all topics and there are
| things you are basically pressured into not saying even if you
| know that is likely how it actually is.
|
| Journals and conferences would also refuse to host your studies
| if they find the contents to not align with "settled science",
| regardless of how or what the studies is actually about. And to
| an academic, that is potentially the end of their career once
| they got branded as someone too controversial to be associated
| with. No funding will come and no student will join. Unless they
| are big enough to carve out their own niche. But those are rare.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's only tradition; universities and the education sector in
| general have a long history as religious institutions of one
| sort or another - either in themselves, or funded by them. It's
| just a different sort of belief system now, but there has
| always been a strong "faith" element.
| tnecniv wrote:
| There's an old joke that you finally get to do the research you
| want to do when you're an emeritus professor
| mnky9800n wrote:
| I believe when this was published the review was also published,
| or at least part of it, because I recall that one of the
| reviewers had pointed out that he had biased his model by leaving
| out the stuff he left out. Which means he needed to argue why he
| left it out, which seemed rather duplicitous to me at the time.
| Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
| mimd wrote:
| The reviewer's criticism didn't stop the article from being
| published. Sure, they didn't recommend it initially but that
| happens.
|
| I'd call it somewhat mild attention to other factors from the
| one reviewer. The pointing out of issues in data balance, why
| an nn model, are also good criticism. Here's the review page if
| anyone wants to read it.
|
| https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs415...
|
| So the question becomes, is his claim of leaving out other
| factors not greatly influencing and it's just a grift and/or is
| nature's review process a dog and pony show?
| tomgp wrote:
| Yeah, thats correct. He also threw his co-authors (many early
| in their career and now potentially reputationally compromised
| by association) under the bus to get his moment in the
| spotlight before leaving academy. The whole thing was pretty
| unedifying.
| jimwhite42 wrote:
| I thought this was a good analysis of Patrick Brown's claims:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXZUXQPqY3k
| umvi wrote:
| Maybe more generally it's just "Politics Corrupt Science"?
|
| I doubt "preapproved narratives" are plaguing fields such as
| niche north american spider research (but maybe so if biased
| gatekeepers have reputations at stake).
|
| But things like covid, climate change, lgbtq issues, and soon
| probably ai/ai safety are politically controversial and thus are
| much more susceptible to corruption.
| molave wrote:
| But not all "preapproved narratives" are bad, though. Things
| like "murder is bad" is something almost everyone would agree
| on.
| falalalala wrote:
| To a deontologist, murder is bad. To a consequentialist, it
| depends.
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