Political science’s problem with research ethics

[Doc Savage Fan]

Look's like poly sci field may have a credibility problem of late. There was a recent scandal involving Michael LaCour which has focused attention on the problem of research misconduct, which appears to be especially prevalent in the field political "science".

http://www.nature.com/news/political-science-s-problem-with-research-ethics-1.17866

Surveys over the past decade have shown that up to 2% of scientists self-report fabrication, falsification or modifying data at least once. If you ask scientists how often they have witnessed this behaviour in colleagues, that jumps to 14%.

There are also questionable research practices, which fall short of fabrication, falsification or plagiarism (FFP). Surveys that ask scientists about whether they have committed questionable research practices show a self-reported incidence of 33% — which jumps to 72% when scientists are asked how often they have witnessed this behaviour in colleagues.

14% have seen data fabrication and 72% have witnessed questionable research practices! Wow!

This is fairly shocking imo and I had no idea it was this common. Makes one wonder about other disciplines being affected as well. cough...climate science...cough...climategate...cough

 

[shira]

Look's like poly sci field may have a credibility problem of late. There was a recent scandal involving Michael LaCour which has focused attention on the problem of research misconduct, which appears to be especially prevalent in the field political "science".

http://www.nature.com/news/political-science-s-problem-with-research-ethics-1.17866



14% have seen data fabrication and 72% have witnessed questionable research practices! Wow!

This is fairly shocking imo and I had no idea it was this common. Makes one wonder about other disciplines being affected as well. cough...climate science...cough...climategate...cough

You might want to get that cold taken care at.

Unsurprisingly, political "science" is a not-very-scientific research field. But that doesn't mean that other research fields are also unscientific, and I'm surprised you'd try to smear climatology in this way, especially as you now know how misguided you were in your claims about the multi-year stall" in increasing global temperatures.

Maybe you need to start paying attention to sources with less of a political ax to grind.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

You might want to get that cold taken care at.

Unsurprisingly, political "science" is a not-very-scientific research field. But that doesn't mean that other research fields are also unscientific, and I'm surprised you'd try to smear climatology in this way, especially as you now know how misguided you were in your claims about the multi-year stall" in increasing global temperatures.

Maybe you need to start paying attention to sources with less of a political ax to grind.

Perhaps you missed the part where several thousand NIH scientists were surveyed...and the numbers cited were not confined to the political science field.

http://www.nature.com/articles/4357...StCU3-AXvg==&tracking_referrer=www.nature.com

Over 20% of mid-career scientists changed the design, methodology, or results of the study due to pressure from the funding source! I'm concerned and you should be too imo.

 

[First]

Those numbers aren't large, surprising or, frankly, interesting.

Tough last week or so to be a conservative Republican, I guess.

 

[shira]

Perhaps you missed the part where several thousand NIH scientists were surveyed...and the numbers cited were not confined to the political science field.

http://www.nature.com/articles/4357...StCU3-AXvg==&tracking_referrer=www.nature.com

Over 20% of mid-career scientists changed the design, methodology, or results of the study due to pressure from the funding source! I'm concerned and you should be too imo.

I don't see anything in that result that points to climatology as being particularly deficient. Furthermore, 99%+ of climate change is the data, and that study indicates that only 0.2% of scientists manipulate the data. So can you tell us again why you're picking on Climate Change as a questionable theory?

 

[Paratus]

I don't see anything in that result that points to climatology as being particularly deficient. Furthermore, 99%+ of climate change is the data, and that study indicates that only 0.2% of scientists manipulate the data. So can you tell us again why you're picking on Climate Change as a questionable theory?

I think we know the answer to that.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Climate not found - no, really, do a search on the link; the word climate appears nowhere.

Not even change.

 

[Moonbeam]

Look's like poly sci field may have a credibility problem of late. There was a recent scandal involving Michael LaCour which has focused attention on the problem of research misconduct, which appears to be especially prevalent in the field political "science".

http://www.nature.com/news/political-science-s-problem-with-research-ethics-1.17866



14% have seen data fabrication and 72% have witnessed questionable research practices! Wow!

This is fairly shocking imo and I had no idea it was this common. Makes one wonder about other disciplines being affected as well. cough...climate science...cough...climategate...cough

Lets look at this from a liberal point of view:

Suppose we take a room full of 100 scientists and have one of them fabricate data based on questionable data where 14 scientists see the data and 72 spot the questionable practice.

Or we can look at it from a conservative angle:


Science is generally speaking the flowering of liberal rational thinking, but we know that not every conservative is totally bereft of scientific ability. In our example above, the one scientist who cheated was probably therefor a conservative in liberal clothing who rationalized his science to conform with the wishes of his funders because he felt empathy for the fact that the original research would cause their butts to hurt painfully and out of kindness wanted to save them from that.

 

[Moonbeam]

Wherever there are people who have no real self respect there will be fucktards who cheat because they feel too worthless to believe then can achieve anything real and have placed before themselves the God o Ego and self aggrandizement as personal ideals. This is how they announce to the world they are scum.

And while this makes me feel indignation that such folk pollute the sacred well of science, they can't really be blamed. They have not the slightest idea they hate themselves. They sleep and have no knowledge of the joy one has when one has ones own self respect.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Climate not found - no, really, do a search on the link; the word climate appears nowhere.

Not even change.

I know....I threw that part in for color. :sneaky:

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Lets look at this from a liberal point of view:

Suppose we take a room full of 100 scientists and have one of them fabricate data based on questionable data where 14 scientists see the data and 72 spot the questionable practice.

Or we can look at it from a conservative angle:


Science is generally speaking the flowering of liberal rational thinking, but we know that not every conservative is totally bereft of scientific ability. In our example above, the one scientist who cheated was probably therefor a conservative in liberal clothing who rationalized his science to conform with the wishes of his funders because he felt empathy for the fact that the original research would cause their butts to hurt painfully and out of kindness wanted to save them from that.

One of the the interesting aspects of LBD is that liberals typically have limited understanding of how conservatives think.

 

[Moonbeam]

One of the the interesting aspects of LBD is that liberals typically have limited understanding of how conservatives think.

No we don't. Liberals perceive instantly that conservatives don't actually think, are more incapable of reason when their emotions are involved and rationalize instead. What liberals fail to do, the liberal defect if you will, is to see that your thinking is motivated by moral concerns they do not have and don't therefore recognize What liberals don't understand is that conservatives have moral concerns liberals don't have but which are more important to them than rational truth, concerns they value and defend as the good as if they were the good. Liberals are instantly repelled by the dark side of such morality and do not see the good intended. I believe that I am perhaps more able to see thins for the reason is that I have a very conservative moral structure with all of the full range of moral concerns typical of conservatives, with the one exception that all of them have been emptied by the shocking realization that nothing moral actually exists. There is only love and from love's being that becomes what thought will later destroy by trying to formulate into words and thoughts instead of lived expression. Morality is undivided love in action. It can never be put into words or something concrete you can believe in. It is inseparable from ones being.

The typical liberal reaction to the kind of moral rationalizations conservatives make to protect their ego identification with the goodness of what they think they perceive is to call it stupid because a liberal would need to be very stupid to be able to do that. Being illogical looks like stupid when you can't see what motivates it.

 

[glenn1]

Perhaps you missed the part where several thousand NIH scientists were surveyed...and the numbers cited were not confined to the political science field.

http://www.nature.com/articles/4357...StCU3-AXvg==&tracking_referrer=www.nature.com

Over 20% of mid-career scientists changed the design, methodology, or results of the study due to pressure from the funding source! I'm concerned and you should be too imo.

In the business world this is called ensuring your product is fit for purpose and meets the success criteria set by the end consumer, which is a good thing. It's a problem when the person paying for your research can't use it because of something like using an incompatible data formatting or logical data model structure, your hypothesis is addressing a question not even asked by your sponsor, the confidence level isn't high enough with the current study design, etc.

 

[Newell Steamer]

I know....I threw that part in for color. :sneaky:

,... racist.

 

[MongGrel]

One of the the interesting aspects of LBD is that liberals typically have limited understanding of how conservatives think.

Well, some people seem to have a very limited idea how anyone's thought processes work I guess.

It's just something you have to deal with in life.