Is it possible to be negative all the time?

chocolate_owl

thisonetimeatthegym wrote: »

chocolate_owl wrote: »

thisonetimeatthegym wrote: »

NorthCascades wrote: »

thisonetimeatthegym wrote: »

Did you know that most published scientific research is fake?

Fake like a deliberate hoax to fool everybody, or fake like how you could send a rocket to the moon with Newton's laws but they're not a complete description of reality?

Fake as in not reproducible.

Here's a quote:

"It is the title of a paper [why most published scientific findings are false] written 10 years ago by the legendary Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis. The paper, which has become the most widely cited paper ever published in the journal PLoS Medicine, examined how issues currently ingrained in the scientific process combined with the way we currently interpret statistical significance, means that at present, most published findings are likely to be incorrect.

Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet recently put it only slightly more mildly: "Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue." Horton agrees with Ioannidis' reasoning, blaming: "small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance." Horton laments: "Science has taken a turn towards darkness."

Confused what your point is. Or rather, confused what your endgame with this line of thought is - are you implying modern science is somehow invalid?

Are there poorly designed, limited studies that get published? Yes, frequently. Are there scientists who present their results so they skew toward a particular agenda? Of course, everyone has inherent bias, and some have a harder time letting it go than others. But there's also good ones, and I'm smart enough that when I read them I can tell the difference. I'm pretty good at filtering out actual data from a biased discussion, too. Plus a handful of small studies with interesting but non-reproducible results lead to larger studies and meta-analyses that bring about a clearer picture. Just because there are some hurdles with methodology doesn't mean scientific research as a whole should be dismissed.

Also, they media rarely reports on scientific studies in any sort of accurate manner, so there's a good chance that what my local news is "reiterating" is not what the researchers actually found. Internet news sites in all their clickbaitiness are super guilty of this.

As to the original topic: yes, some people can be amazingly negative all the time. They thrive on talking about how much their lives suck and how dark and gloomy the world is. They seek out sob stories and bad news for gossip. Could we maybe talk about puppies and butterflies instead of how your sister's friend's husband's second cousin's mom's coworker got cancer?

...Is this post too negative?

Lolol. I do prefer cheery.

"Confused what your point is. "

The truth.

I've lied, I'm sure you have too, yet we somehow put a class of people as above mere human nature. I've worked in academia a long time and found out we are human and fallible just like everyone else.

The fact IS that the sciences are in a crisis, scientists know that science is in a crisis, and has been for at least a decade now, but the general public does not know this. And when informed that there is a crisis, because of the mental block that is the trust in people in lab coats, the general public don't believe the scientists that say science is broken.

But it is and I want it fixed. Don't you?

Our research system is and will continue to be inherently flawed because of funding. Government funding only goes so far and rarely from a neutral place. Charities will raise money for high-profile causes like breast cancer while ignoring less common but still life-threatening conditions. Private enterprises will fund studies that they hope will benefit them (and at least in this day and age it's required to disclose who funded your study and if you have any interests that would create bias). Researchers need money to do research, and that means it will likely come from groups that would like to see certain results, or they'll be too underfunded to do an appropriately-sized, appropriately-controlled study. You can improve the system in other areas, but you will never be able to "fix" it entirely.

I do get tired of reading poorly-designed rat studies that the media claims "proves" artificial sweeteners are bad for us or that sugar is as addictive as hard drugs. I get annoyed with researchers who use sample sizes of seven people, see similar results in 4 out of 7, and decide that's enough evidence to back up their hypothesis. I'm familiar enough with the academic world to understand researchers aren't always trustworthy, researchers are under pressure, researchers simply aren't always as smart as we'd like them to be. But that doesn't mean everyone is doing bad work, or even that poor studies aren't useful in some way. It means we're inefficient at finding answers.

What I'd like to see fixed more than our current research processes is the scientific illiteracy of the public and the media's sensationalized reporting on scientific matters. If reporting was less misleading and the public was better at understanding what a study actually concluded, maybe we'd set expectations for our researchers to design better studies, and maybe we'd put pressure on private enterprises to spend money on research where it most needs to be spent.

finny11122

It's a choice to be negative . If you associate and surround yourself with negative people , you will end up just like them . You can also choose to be positive and surround yourself with positive people who want the best for you and themselves . Negativity is a symptom of envy , hate , jealousy , etc and will set you on a downward path to nowhere .

lessismoreohio

finny11122 wrote: »

It's a choice to be negative . If you associate and surround yourself with negative people , you will end up just like them . You can also choose to be positive and surround yourself with positive people who want the best for you and themselves . Negativity is a symptom of envy , hate , jealousy , etc and will set you on a downward path to nowhere .

This.

HookedOnMySweetFish

I'm around and have been around a constantly negative person for too long now. Yes , it's possible to be constantly negative. And yes, it's harmful to those who have to live with said person

thisonetimeatthegym

NorthCascades wrote: »

thisonetimeatthegym wrote: »

The first scientist makes things, the second group writes papers and teach. Both groups make discoveries. One group has a much greater incentive to make sure what they are promoting actually works.

Let's assume for the sake of discussion that it's true, engineers are good honest people who want to do right by the world, and scientists are conceiving tricksters who just want to publish anything they can to fatten their pockets.

Ok. Engineers genuinely want to make things that work. But half of everything we think we know about reality is false. So how do engineers succeed in building incredibly complex things from scientific knowledge that's patently false? Good intentions aren't enough.

I'm not interested in a debate. If you don't believe the there is a reproducibility crisis in the sciences, even though there is an entire section of the science journal Nature's website dedicated to articles on the topic, or that entire new organizations have veen developed to improve the crisis, then you just don't believe it.

I am a peaceful person and once it becomes apparent a person is more interested in "holding their ground" than sharing information, it becomes less of a conversation and more of a fight. I don't want to fight.

Have a wonderful day, and keep up the beautiful work!

thisonetimeatthegym

chocolate_owl wrote: »

thisonetimeatthegym wrote: »

chocolate_owl wrote: »

thisonetimeatthegym wrote: »

NorthCascades wrote: »

thisonetimeatthegym wrote: »

Did you know that most published scientific research is fake?

Fake like a deliberate hoax to fool everybody, or fake like how you could send a rocket to the moon with Newton's laws but they're not a complete description of reality?

Fake as in not reproducible.

Here's a quote:

"It is the title of a paper [why most published scientific findings are false] written 10 years ago by the legendary Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis. The paper, which has become the most widely cited paper ever published in the journal PLoS Medicine, examined how issues currently ingrained in the scientific process combined with the way we currently interpret statistical significance, means that at present, most published findings are likely to be incorrect.

Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet recently put it only slightly more mildly: "Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue." Horton agrees with Ioannidis' reasoning, blaming: "small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance." Horton laments: "Science has taken a turn towards darkness."

Confused what your point is. Or rather, confused what your endgame with this line of thought is - are you implying modern science is somehow invalid?

Are there poorly designed, limited studies that get published? Yes, frequently. Are there scientists who present their results so they skew toward a particular agenda? Of course, everyone has inherent bias, and some have a harder time letting it go than others. But there's also good ones, and I'm smart enough that when I read them I can tell the difference. I'm pretty good at filtering out actual data from a biased discussion, too. Plus a handful of small studies with interesting but non-reproducible results lead to larger studies and meta-analyses that bring about a clearer picture. Just because there are some hurdles with methodology doesn't mean scientific research as a whole should be dismissed.

Also, they media rarely reports on scientific studies in any sort of accurate manner, so there's a good chance that what my local news is "reiterating" is not what the researchers actually found. Internet news sites in all their clickbaitiness are super guilty of this.

As to the original topic: yes, some people can be amazingly negative all the time. They thrive on talking about how much their lives suck and how dark and gloomy the world is. They seek out sob stories and bad news for gossip. Could we maybe talk about puppies and butterflies instead of how your sister's friend's husband's second cousin's mom's coworker got cancer?

...Is this post too negative?

Lolol. I do prefer cheery.

"Confused what your point is. "

The truth.

I've lied, I'm sure you have too, yet we somehow put a class of people as above mere human nature. I've worked in academia a long time and found out we are human and fallible just like everyone else.

The fact IS that the sciences are in a crisis, scientists know that science is in a crisis, and has been for at least a decade now, but the general public does not know this. And when informed that there is a crisis, because of the mental block that is the trust in people in lab coats, the general public don't believe the scientists that say science is broken.

But it is and I want it fixed. Don't you?

Our research system is and will continue to be inherently flawed because of funding. Government funding only goes so far and rarely from a neutral place. Charities will raise money for high-profile causes like breast cancer while ignoring less common but still life-threatening conditions. Private enterprises will fund studies that they hope will benefit them (and at least in this day and age it's required to disclose who funded your study and if you have any interests that would create bias). Researchers need money to do research, and that means it will likely come from groups that would like to see certain results, or they'll be too underfunded to do an appropriately-sized, appropriately-controlled study. You can improve the system in other areas, but you will never be able to "fix" it entirely.

I do get tired of reading poorly-designed rat studies that the media claims "proves" artificial sweeteners are bad for us or that sugar is as addictive as hard drugs. I get annoyed with researchers who use sample sizes of seven people, see similar results in 4 out of 7, and decide that's enough evidence to back up their hypothesis. I'm familiar enough with the academic world to understand researchers aren't always trustworthy, researchers are under pressure, researchers simply aren't always as smart as we'd like them to be. But that doesn't mean everyone is doing bad work, or even that poor studies aren't useful in some way. It means we're inefficient at finding answers.

What I'd like to see fixed more than our current research processes is the scientific illiteracy of the public and the media's sensationalized reporting on scientific matters. If reporting was less misleading and the public was better at understanding what a study actually concluded, maybe we'd set expectations for our researchers to design better studies, and maybe we'd put pressure on private enterprises to spend money on research where it most needs to be spent.

Agreed. And applause!