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Summary- Although the classical ideal is that scientific theories are evaluated by a careful teasing-out of their internal logic and external implications, and checking whether these deductions and predictions are in-line-with old and new observations; the fact that so many vague, dumb or incoherent scientific theories are apparently believed by so many scientists for so many years is suggestive that this ideal does not necessarily reflect real world practice. In the real world it looks more like most scientists are quite willing to pursue wrong ideas for so long as they are rewarded with a better chance of achieving more grants, publications and status. The classic account has it that bogus theories should readily be demolished by sceptical (or jealous) competitor scientists. However, in practice even the most conclusive ‘hatchet jobs’ may fail to kill, or even weaken, phoney hypotheses when they are backed-up with sufficient economic muscle in the form of lavish and sustained funding. And when a branch of science based on phoney theories serves a useful but non-scientific purpose, it may be kept-going indefinitely by continuous transfusions of cash from those whose interests it serves. If this happens, real science expires and a ‘zombie science’ evolves. Zombie science is science that is dead but will not lie down. It keeps twitching and lumbering around so that (from a distance, and with your eyes half-closed) zombie science looks much like the real thing. But in fact the zombie has no life of its own; it is animated and moved only by the incessant pumping of funds.

Zombie science is science that is dead but will not lie down. It keeps twitching and lumbering around so that (from a distance, and with your eyes half-closed) zombie science looks much like the real thing

cheerleader wrote:...and the only way to kill zombies is a head shot with a shot gun (according to my teenage son)...so it's going to be a tough time getting the autoimmune zombie down-

NHE wrote:

cheerleader wrote:...and the only way to kill zombies is a head shot with a shot gun (according to my teenage son)...so it's going to be a tough time getting the autoimmune zombie down-

Damn, and here I've been under the impression that it was the aluminum chlorohydrates in cheap antiperspirant that killed zombies. Well, maybe it only works on Redneck Zombies (which was a really bad movie by the way, not grade B, more like an F).

NHE

The fundamental error here is summed up in an old joke scientists love to tell. Late at night, a police officer finds a drunk man crawling around on his hands and knees under a streetlight. The drunk man tells the officer he's looking for his wallet. When the officer asks if he's sure this is where he dropped the wallet, the man replies that he thinks he more likely dropped it across the street. Then why are you looking over here? the befuddled officer asks. Because the light's better here, explains the drunk man.

Researchers tend to look for answers where the looking is good, rather than where the answers are likely to be hiding. The result: a lot of dubious science.

But in the early 1990s, cardiologists realized that the drugs were also doing something else; killing about 56,000 heart-attack patients a year......Cardiologists had been so focused on immediately measurable arrhythmias that they had overlooked the longer-term but far more important variable of death.

Many, and possibly most, scientists spend their careers looking for answers where the light is better rather than where the truth is more likely to lie.