We can beat COVID-19 — just trust the science, we’re told. Trust in the scientists, we’re told. And that’s not a paraphrase.
“From the Editors: We Can Beat COVID-19. Just Trust Science,” Wired wrote.
Well and good. Fine and dandy. But fact is, scientists often lie. Science isn’t always the beacon toward truth. It’s not just frequently flawed; it’s frequently deceptive. And purposely so.
So tossing citizens’ civil rights into the sea and allowing medical professionals and scientists to steer the COVID-19 boat may not be the best case scenario for a free America.
“Stanford researchers uncover patterns in how scientists lie about their data,” wrote Stanford News, back in late 2015.
The story went on to report how a couple of researchers “cracked the writing patterns of scientists who attempt to pass along falsified data,” a finding that gave the science world a tool to “identify falsified research before it is published.” The discovery of the pattern is one thing; the fact that the pattern had to be pursued in the first place is entirely another thing. It says, not so subtly, that falsified scientific data is so prevalent that a tool to identify — and slow the creep of — the false data was actually an in-demand item.
In fact, books have been written about the prevalence of falsified science.
“The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science,” is a 2004 expose about the true state of science, and science that’s been peer-reviewed — that is, self-checked, self-policed. It’s 480 pages long. And in a terse assessment of his findings, author Horace Freeland Judson wrote, “Their claims about science are unscientific.” He was speaking of the scientific greats — of Gregor Mendel, of Charles Darwin, of Louis Pasteur, of Sigmund Freud.
They all fudged data.
What’s more, it’s well-known they all fudged data.
“Freud was a lousy scientist,” The New Yorker wrote, in 2017. “He fudged data; he made unsubstantiated claims; he took credit for other people’s ideas. Sometimes he lied.” [I’m not sure anyone still considers Freud a scientist by this point?]
Mendel, the founder of modern genetics, “may have falsified data,” The Great Courses Daily reported in 2016. It’s been a lingering shadow. From an August 2016 abstract, “Are Mendel’s Data Reliable? The Perspective of a Pea Geneticist,” published in the Journal of Heredity: “Based on a large number of statistical analyses as well as the review of several well-known geneticists, there can be little doubt that the data Mendel presented in 1866 corresponded much more closely to the predictions of his model than could be reasonably expected by chance.”
Moving on; Darwin.
https://www.anti-empire.com/covid-19-puts-spotlight-on-science-but-...
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