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The surprise is that so many regard scientists as superior to the general population in ethics -should there be such a thing.
Rather the rule is that nearly everyone, certainly professionals, support their employer, institution, industry, or association by at one level ignoring unpleasant news, then by slanting evidence, and some of them actually make up data. The field of climate science is full of that. Having a single source of money, such as government, is a good indicator that there will be more fudging than is usual.
On the other hand, the NIH and other federal agencies do have auditors, do report fraud, and do punish the errant. "... on June 28, 2006, Eric Poehlman was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for defrauding the National Institutes of Health. The False Claims Act of 1963 (Amended 1986) makes it a crime to lie to the government in a contract. The same law provides monetary rewards to whistleblowers." from my class paper cited in this thread.
On the other other hand, if you cheat General Electric or General Motors or General Mills, not much can be done, except to fire you. Bell Labs Lucent could do nothing to Jan Hendrik Schoen. However, his university rescinded his doctorate, even though their audit did confirm the veracity of his work. The university exists as a law unto itself. That was the intention from the very first and what "university" means - not that it studies all knowledge, but that it is whole within itself, legally.
http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/...
http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/car...
The independence traditionally given to universities we can now see does not promote or defend freedom of speech and the integrity of the scientific method. The commercial imperative of the enterprise take over. Maybe it would not be so serious if there were not the billions within reach to support the stories of the current government. In this type of commercial imperative there is no countervailing power.
As to university=legally within itself, very interesting.
So like the Roman church perhaps?
"On the other hand, a relatively recent academic research survey reported that misconduct is shockingly common. Fifteen years ago, “A Social Control Perspective on Scientific Misconduct” by Edward J. Hackett appeared in The Journal of Higher Education (Vol. 65, No. 3, pp. 242-260). A survey covering the five years 1983-1988 of members of the Council of Graduate Schools found that 40% (118) received allegations of possible misconduct. Those institutions whose external funding exceeded $50 million “were far more likely than others (69% to 19%) to hear such allegations.” The same article cited a 1991 survey of AAAS members in which 27% of 469 respondents claimed to have “personally encountered or witnessed scientific research that they suspected was fabricated, falsified or plagiarized during the past ten years.” In that same issue of the JHE, Mary Frank Fox wrote: “During the last fifteen years, hardly a year has gone by without the surfacing of a notorious case of misconduct in science.” She then cited nine by name." -- ("PROCEDURAL MISCONDUCT BY SCIENTISTS: PREVENTION AND REMEDIES" By Michael E. Marotta; PHYS 406: Ethical Issues in Physics; Dr. Patrick L. Koehn; Eastern Michigan University; Winter 2010.)
Which is worse? Crooks--or would-be tyrants like Floyd Ferris?
Here we see the utility of the John Galt Method of scientific research and application. In Galt's Gulch, and at the Twentieth Century Motor Company before Gerald Starnes, Senior died, a scientist worked for a businessman. He devoted his work to inventing something that businessman could build and sell on a large scale. Because to John Galt, there is never any such thing as "non-practical knowledge," nor any kind of "disinterested" action.
In John Galt's world, private investment and R&D budgets take the place of government grants. The focus stays on invention rather than some cloudy category some wag calls "abstract knowledge."
Sure, there's a place for the development of abstract knowledge. And the way the scientist finances that, is to develop insights that might be applicable to far more than just one business, and then offer those insights as lectures or white papers--for a price. That is what John Galt does in the Gulch: the John Galt Lecture Series on Theoretical Physics.
Crooked science wouldn't last a year, or even that long, in Galt's Gulch.
And the university system would no longer have the authority to judge what is sound, and what is unsound, science.
"Fertile hybrids demonstrate the limitations of strict Darwinian taxonomy." -- http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2012/...
"The mechanism of evolution has not been discovered. No consistent theory exists. Random mutations adapting to changing environments was the first suggestion. When subatomic radiation was discovered, that became a proposal. Now, epigenetics may indicate another, more powerful, model. Darwinian evolution does not explain the lack of intermediate forms. Scientists have bombarded fruit flies and mice with every radiation known and produced no new species." -- http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2014/...
" It is challenging to consider that we have about the same number of genes as mice and fish; but we have far fewer genes than plants. " -- http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2013/...
1. There is nothing about fertile hybrids that contradicts evolution. Most hybrids are infertile because they have an odd number of chromosomes. When you make gametes (sperm, in your case), you split your 46 chromosomes into their homologous pairs, and one from each pair (23 altogether) goes to each sperm. Imagine if you mated with something that had only 44 chromosomes. Your baby would have 45 chromosomes (23 from you, 22 from the mother). What would your baby do when it produced gametes? It can't split them int 22.5 chromosomes. That's why most hybrids are infertile. However, it is possible for two species to have a fertile offspring (say one has 48 chromosomes, and the other 44 - the offspring could produce gametes with 23 chromosomes). As I said, this in no way invalidates Darwin's theory that a) individuals vary, b) more individuals are produced than can be supported by the environment, and c) those individuals who are best able to reproduce are likely to see their variations increase in frequency within the population's next generation.
Furthermore, plants are actually very complex. Unlike animals, they don't germinated with ANY ORGANS - they go through organogenesis throughout their lifetime. And while they can have 3 or 4 copies of every chromosome (3 copies of one chromosome in humans is usually fatal), they also have a different mechanisms to ensure they're getting the correct gene dosage.
There is still more ways that genetic variation arises. There's homologous recombination, where both copies of the same chromosome (one from mom, one from dad) exchange pieces, so that the chromosomes you inherit don't look exactly like the chromosomes you parents have. Furthermore, the enzymes that copy DNA to make more cells (and gametes) aren't perfect. They usually only make a mistake once in a billion nucleotides, but that's a 2 nucleotide difference every time the DNA is copied.
In my research, I have DEMONSTRATED evolution in E. coli. But E. coli has the shortest generation time known (20 minutes), and it still took 10 days to demonstrate. Fruit flies (and organism I've also studied) has a generation time of 10 days, which means it would take about 2 years to show evolution in one gene - far from a new species. BTW, no graduate student is going to sign onto a project where it takes 2 years to complete 1 experiment. That doesn't make them crooks, it just means they value their time.
Intermediate forms- whenever one is discovered the creationists say there are now two gaps to explain!
MM, your reasoning is good, but try more up to date sources.
From the publisher:
As bestselling author James P. Hogan demonstrates in this fact-filled and thoroughly documented study, science has its own roster of hidebound pronouncements which are Not to be Questioned. Among the dogma-laden subjects he examines are Darwinism, global warming, the big bang, problems with relativity, radon and radiation, holes in the ozone layer, the cause of AIDS, and the controversy over Velikovsky. Hogan explains the basics of each controversy with his clear, informative style, in a book that will be fascinating for anyone with an interest in the frontiers of modern science.
Samples from the book:
http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200407/074...
"Four Books About Bad Science": http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2013/...
I had copied their Statutes in August 2009. It is no longer available on their website.
The IIASA is a closed group. Real scientists like Dr Patrick Michaels are not members of the group.
"Regular members are scientists who have spent at least one month working at IIASA---"
"Extra-ordinary members are non-scientific people who express a special interest in IIASA, and wish to support its' work."
Honorary members are those persons who, express a special interest in IIASA, and wish to support its work."
"All members have the right to vote in the General Assembly."
This group of so-called scientists is more political science than real science.
As a Mechanical Engineer, with extensive knowledge of thermodynamic and heat transfer I dispute their findings.
I have personally researched and evaluated the data and have found it to be inadequate to substantiate their claims.
The historical temperature data for the oceans comes mostly from Weather Buoys. The National Data Buoy Center publishes an interactive map showing the location of all of the buoys. www.ndbc.noaa.gov As you can see from this map,almost all of the buoys are between 20 degrees South latitude and 60 degrees North latitude. Very little data is available for the South Pacific, South Atlantic, and both of the Poles.
The IPCC group of so-called scientists have taken a very meager, hopelessly inadequate historical data set and great manipulation present us with a result that the world's temperature has increased by 1/2 of a degree over 50 years and postulate that CO2 is destroying our planet. They offer no margin for error. This is preposterous and I think very unscientific. The IPCC group of scientists who are climatologists are frauds. Most of the nonscientific members have a political agenda.
The objective of the theory of man-caused global warming is governmental control of the energy sector of our economy. This will be the final nail in the coffin of Freedom.
I have designed a Micro-Grid solar energy system that will economically provide for all of the energy and water needs of an off-grid independent self sustaining community. Anyone interested in being part of "Independence", Texas?
Thanks for sharing.
In 1993, geologists attended a conference in Columbia where the Galeras volcano had become active. They visited the calderon, climbing down into the crater. When it erupted, most of them were killed. Among the survivors was the only scientist actually wearing the protective gear mandated by the National Science Foundation. Some of the victims were in jeans and sneakers.
The case from criminal forensics about Josiah Sutton of Houston, Texas, took DNA evidence past the confines of even the Innocence Project. In this case, the so-called gold standard of physical criminalistics proved to be fool’s gold. The police lab had committed a series of mistakes, some perhaps accidental and careless, others apparently purposefully fraudulent. The victim wrongly identified two men as her attackers. When the DNA samples matched neither man, the prosecutor insisted on their guilt, and posited the existence of a third unidentified attacker. This is a common ploy with prosecutors who refuse to admit their mistake.
"Four Books About Bad Science":http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2013/01/four-books-about-bad-science.html
"Oxford’s status derived from its isolated locale. Teachers and their students clustered there to be apart from the wider world. Although the bishop at Ely appointed the chancellor in 1214, by the end of the century the masters elected their board. In Cambridge, the university – also rooted in loosely connected lecturers and their students – applied for a royal charter, and continued to petition for renewal with each change of monarch. Cambridge also received papal recognition in 1233. In the 14th and 15th centuries, German universities were often founded by a local prince or baron and less often a bishop, but nonetheless continued in the tradition of a corporation, independent of the noble house. Universitas referred not to the school per se but to the law of incorporation which recognized a collective entity. Thus, universities always had the right and obligation of independent governance.
"The disconnect comes from the fact that the ethical standards are created by professional societies whose enforcement powers are limited. The American Physical Society could do little to Jan Hendrik Schön (even if he had been a member), but the University of Konstanz stripped him of his doctorate even though they found no fault with his thesis. If universities created rigorous curricula in ethics, that would close the information loop, completing the feedback cycle, controlling the proportional, integrated or differential variances by scientists from the norms of moral and ethical practice." -- ibid.
You may take issue with the particulars of the ethics training, but it's an extraordinary thing to accuse 20% of an entire profession of being "crooks." You have no statistically relevant evidence to support your claim and at least some anecdotal evidence to make you rationally believe the opposite.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Ado...