Friday, May 04, 2018 by Vicki Batts
http://www.realsciencenews.com/2018-05-04-front-page-mag-joins-natural-news-in-questioning-widespread-science-fraud.html
The proliferation of science fraud — particularly within the mainstream media — has been a problem for quite some time now. But a brave few are joining Natural News in taking a stand against fake science. David Randall and Christopher Welser of the National Association of Scholars recently authored a tell-all paper, The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science: Cause, Consequences and the Road to Reform [PDF]. While many people are unaware that the lack of reproducibility is a growing problem within the scientific community (especially when it comes to “trendy” science), the sad truth is that there are many more bad studies than there are good.
Along with the advent of studies with findings that can’t be reproduced has been a rise in scientific authoritarianism — wherein, you are deemed “anti-science” if you question findings largely upheld as “irrefutable facts” because they fit the mainstream’s desired narrative. Look no further than the great carbon dioxide debate for proof of that.
As Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, has reported in the past, carbon dioxide is essential for plant life. And since CO2 levels have been on the rise, there has been a universal “greening” effect — which means there are more green spaces on earth, not fewer.
William Happer, emeritus professor of physics at Princeton and former director of energy research for the U.S. Department of Energy, commented in the paper’s afterword, “Science that touches on political agendas has contributed more than its share of problems to the irreproducibility crisis.” Happer pointed to the mythological dangers of carbon dioxide as one such problem. He notes that so-called research on the harmful effects of CO2 has been published in peer-reviewed journals, but contends that “almost none of it is reproducible.”
In a similar vein, another skeptic notes:
“Groupthink also inhibits attempts to check results, since replication studies can undermine comfortable beliefs. An entire academic discipline can succumb to groupthink and create a professional consensus with a strong tendency to dismiss results that question its foundations.”
That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? How often have attempts at showing that global warming is actually not happening been dismissed?
Better yet, recall the numerous instances of scientists manipulating temperature and tidal gauge data to better fit the climate change narrative. It would seem that the plague of groupthink has infiltrated the scientific community to a much greater degree than anyone could have anticipated. Indeed, the authors surmise that “the combination of political groupthink with the rest of the crisis of reproducibility very likely has produced more irreproducible science that favors liberal policy.”
In his afterword, Happer again hits the nail on the head, noting that today’s “trendy” scientists view themselves as superior compared to the rest of us, in the “basket of deplorables.” Happer contends that the paper’s authors, David Randall and Christopher Welser, are doing science a great service by outing the problem of irreproducibility.
The authors told Front Page Mag, “It’s problematic that some progressive advocates seem to want people to just ‘believe’ in particular scientific conclusions as articles of faith. That runs counter to the spirit of science, which is based on a rigorous insistence that claims need to be supported by evidence, and it does tend toward indoctrination, because it implies that people shouldn’t think for themselves.”
Natural News has repeatedly reported on a myriad of concerns about the validity of a variety of topics, ranging from global warming, to the presence of certain hazardous ingredients in vaccines. While often met with scrutiny and even flat-out censorship, it’s clear that others are finally catching on to the dogmatic nature of the scientific community.
Learn more about real science, and what’s fake, at Science.news.
Sources for this article include: