Skip to main content

Good Science vs Bad Science

 



Science is about observation and insight. There is a difference between how the public thinks science works, and how it actually works. This is fundamental to the question of good science vs bad science. In both cases an observation is made and then a hypothesis is created to explain the observation. This is the point at which good science and bad science differ. A good scientist will then look for other evidence that either confirms or denies his hypothesis. S/he may then do experiments to test that hypothesis. If a test confirms the hypothesis, they are not finished. They may go through many cycles of experimentation and testing before they feel comfortable in publishing their results. Good scientists have to be ready to accept the fact that further testing may prove their hypothesis wrong. That is part of the process; it is essential to the process.

Bad science is where after making your observation and coming up with a hypothesis, you only look for other data that supports your hypothesis and ignore anything that runs counter to your hypothesis. You see that Jane wears a blue shirt on Tuesday and come up with the hypothesis that Jane always wears a blue shirt on Tuesdays. The next Tuesday you see Jane wearing a blue shirt confirms it! But maybe you weren’t looking that hard on a Tuesday when she wasn’t wearing a blue shirt. Or maybe you stopped looking after you got your one point of data that confirmed your hypothesis, patting yourself on the back and saying, “my work here is done.” Of course this may not be true at all. On any given Tuesday, Jane might wear any color she wants, but you go around telling everyone that you have solved the mystery of Jane’s Tuesday wardrobe.  

People who make drugs have to follow the scientific method. It is required, so the new drug will be safe and effective. Even after all those safeguards, they sometimes get it wrong, because it is difficult to do experiments on humans. Nowadays, drug makers manufacture drugs from the molecule on up. But in the olden days it was simply based on observation. You notice that after chewing on that spiraea twig, your headache went away. You might then wonder if it was something in the spiraea that did it. If you were a good scientist, you would then test that hypothesis, lining people up with aches and pains and having them chew on the twigs. If the results seemed positive, you would do more testing, maybe on other parts of the plants and other similar plants, cataloguing which method led to the best results. In this way the drug aspirin was derived. But there were and are many, many anecdotal remedies that have not stood the test of science. Just because you do X, and it relieves Y, doesn’t mean that X is the cure for Y. Anecdotal evidence is not scientific evidence. Thus, we had (and have) snake oil salesmen.

Most general new media companies do not understand how science works. This is why you will hear these stories that “scientists have found . . .” that seem to be contradicted by the next news story that claims “scientists have found . . .” it is because they do not understand the difference between a preliminary study and an actual scientific result. News people want headlines. They want to draw the reader or viewer in. The news sites are publishing the results before they have been proven or disproven by the scientific method. Just like snake oil.

Star Liner

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove

  Despite both of us having science backgrounds, my wife and I share a leaning toward the artistic, though we may express it in different ways. In her life, my wife has been a painter, a poet, a singer, an actor, and a fiction writer. Not to mention a mother. I don’t remember what precipitated this event, but my wife, my son, and I were at home in the front room. My wife was responding to something my son said. She said, “remember, you get half your brains from me. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be a complete idiot.” To which my son started howling with laughter and said to me,” I think you have just been insulted.” Sometimes I feel like Rodney Dangerfield. I get no respect. But that is not an uncommon state of affairs for fatherhood. When my son was going to middle school and high school, my wife was always the one to go in with him to get him registered for classes. One time she was unable to go and I had to be the one to get him registered. “Ugh,” he said. “why can’t Mama do i...
1 comment
Read more

Empathy

  Websters defines Empathy as: “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.” Empathy is what makes us human, though lord knows there are many humans who don’t seem to have any. A person without empathy is like a caveman, only concerned for himself. Selfish. It is a lack of community and by extension, a lack of the need for civilization. The person who lacks empathy can have a bit of community, but only with others exactly like himself. It seems like societies go through cycles of empathy and less empathy. Sometimes a single event can change the course of society. Prior to America’s involvement in WWII, the general feeling in America was not very empathetic. We had our own problems. We were still dealing with the lingering effects of the Great Depression, and had been for years. That kind of stress makes it hard to think of others. Hitler was slashing through Europe. He and his fol...
1 comment
Read more

A Deception

  I have a secret. I deceived my mother. Okay, it was like 50 years ago and she is gone now, but still . . .  I was generally a good boy. I did as I was told. My family lived a pretty strait-laced, middle-class, fairly conservative life. We were a G-rated family, well, until my older siblings broke the mold, but at this time, I was still in the mold. My friend Rich and I made a plan. Rich had asked me if I wanted to see Cabaret . He said he didn’t think much of Liza Minnelli, but he wouldn’t mind seeing her take her clothes off. We were like 13 years old and sex was ever-present on our minds as much as it was absent in our households. Cabaret was not rated R. It was rated PG. The ratings system has changed since that time. There was no PG-13; there was just the choice of G, PG, and R  (X was not an official rating).  Apparently the makers of Cabaret satisfied the ratings commission enough to escape an R rating, so it was PG.   There was therefore no law or ...
Post a Comment
Read more