A Sect of Barefoot Scientists

It is with not a little amusement, that I have been reading some of our colleagues here, who tried to convince me that I am sort of charlatan or at least a demented conspiracy theorist.

Now, my feeling is that most if not all of the writers have little or nothing to do with actual DOING science. It sounds like they belong to a proud sect of readers of popular-science color magazines and believe that science is an aloof answer to all the problems of mankind. Present, future and past.

This aloofness is very noticeable.

I can tell all the colleagues why I am a bit more sceptical about science: I have been working scientifically in medicine and seen some practical sides and shades of science.

I´ll give you an example (I´m not going into greater detail - in order to keep my relative anonymity. you have to believe me or not. Choice is yours).

An older American doctor from Harvard Medical School, professor, proposed that a certain combination of medicines never hitherto used for the disease X will probably help. So, he made an investigation about it. A major group of people with dis. X were observed in period 1. without tratment and nothing happened. In the 2nd period, the good professor used his combination-treatment and the patients got very much better, most of them could live a normal life after the cure . The professor had a theory why the treatment helped, of course. Ripples went through medical community in this specialty.
The ripples reached me too. I thought it might be a bullshit because it sounded too good.
With a lot of trouble and time consumed, I managed to gather the necessary money for the project (and an European medical factory to supply the medicine for millions of dollars: the American company which I and my Chief approached first was not interested.).

We thought that the best would be to make a double blind, placebo controlled, cross-over study to be sure if the combination works. We had also to use a lot of patients.
At last, all worked and we pulled the study through. You´ll never believe how much trouble it is to try medicine on people. Tons of paper, thousands of hours of thinking, talking, persuading, reassuring.
At last - the study was ready.
We sent it to World´s most read scientific journal in this field of medicine. It was an American journal. After a long period, they answered - they will not publish it and offered a not very convincing explanation.
The professor in question was in Editorial board of the journal, and we knew it.

In the meantime, the good professor has collected some investors and built a private clinic for tratment of this particular disease, himself as director. He secured refunding of the costs by insurance companies.

We knew of all this, of course, but it was important, for reasons of principle, that they are not going to publish. Our study was so time - and money-consuming that we knew that nobody in the world was doing it and would come first with the results.

Next, we sent the paper to an European journal - nr. 2 in the world. They took it with Thank you very much and no hesitation.

When I presented the results at a world´s most important congress in this discipline of medicine, the good professor didn´t even come and hear to my lecture, even though we have seen him on the premises.

Later, the results were confirmed by others. They never appeared in the first journal.

The good professor is still using the combination in his privete business-clinic, despite the fact that we have shown NO effect, only side-effect atthe high doses, he´s using.
Nobody in the world is doing it outside USA, where minority are using it.

The good professor publishes some "reviews" from time to time, to keep patients being sent to him. His most recent "review" appeared in Dec. 2004 (I´ve just checked).

Our results appeared in 1998.

Now you can see for yourselves - what science is: It´s far feom perfect, it´s sometimes corrupt and it certainly gives only fragmentary insight in what´s going on in the world.
Sitting and reading color magazines and skeptical revievs are certainly entertaining, but just as sectarian as UFOmania.

Any comments?

 

The fact that the particular "doctor" was a phoney who intended to make profit out of a faked investigation and enrich himself under the pretext of curing people, has little to do with science not being trustworthy. After all, you countered his findings with your own and thus probably just proved old research wrong with new, better research. This is the way of science, of scientific progress. It doesn't dent my trust at all.

The fact is that when money is involved, some people will indeed abuse the opportunities at hand to make money, to ignore science as a cause, or the results of good science as a cause, in order to enrich themselves. This is usually exposed over time by those who don't allow themselves to be distracted by money and who seek the truth through science. Therefore believing that science has the answers is not "sectarian", it may be a tad idealistic but there is a huge foundation to it which is formed by serious scientists doing serious research, for money or not. Competition really helps in this field by creating a kind of fund-based checking of each other's findings by doing similar research.

I may indeed be a popular science magazine reader, but this doesn't set me to a certain course, other than this: science is simply the only answer to questions that seeks to describe reality instead of imaginary dreamworlds.

 

All scientists are fallable especially where money is concerned. Greed is a very strong urge.

Contary to popular beleifs all proffesionals, be them pharmacists, lawyers, doctors or scientists are capable of mistake and deliberate missreprensentation. Don't trust them.

My wife is a pharmacist and has caught her GP lying to her about drugs/tests on a couple of occasions. The GP was trying to baffle her as an uneducated patient with technospeak and medical drivel.

My job involves dealing with civil litigation for injury claims within the UK and I more than aware of the rubbish that medical experts spout and the fact that they are unreliable as they have a vested interest in these claims going on.

No doctor will dismiss a whiplash victim as a mallinger when the doctor leeches masses of personal income from the same system.

And does anyone trust lawyers? Nah. :bang:

FNG

 

Working as I do for a company that packs clinical trials, I can safetly say yes I do believe how much paperwork is involved.

 

A leeetle bit over the top, surely. Don't trust professionals??? Bwahahaha. If I need a lawyer should I therefore go to an amatuer? Hey would I be better off getting a fishmonger to represent me in court?
As a "professional" engineer/ scientist/ mathematician maybe I should stop posting - after all, it's now common knowledge that we're not trustworthy, so maybe my posts are lies??
"where money is concerned"? Half the time we don't even know how much we've got in the bank, there's better things to occupy our time and effort than money. If you want to bribe us, give us a good research project or a really, really interesting problem. :smok:
Come on ANYBODY can make a mistake, ANYBODY can be corrupted (just a matter of how I suppose, I'm still trying to find out how I can be corrupted, but I'm working hard at it :lol: )
Trust, but bear in mind that people are fallible.
Oli

 

It is just so frustrating to try to get people to understand that physics is not metaphysics and will never be. That is why I wrote this grim story (but true).

And that a lot of present day science is industry-driven, veeery purposeful. You must look good to find a major study for non-industry money. Industry decides the large part of medical science and the direction of development.

Btw: I think the old Professor is realy believing in what he is doing (while making money). His problem is, that he is fixed on his idea. Fossilized in it.
Those who come to him are simply mishandled by others - and get better because a professional doc is caringfor THEM and knows their disease by heart, opposite their usual docs. That´s what makes them feel and function better, not the "mixture".

Oli´s also right: a real scientist lives for his work. And if he, or someone close has a little understanding for pr, he´ll also get funds.

 

what I am saying is that some people just blindly trust prefessionals which is wrong.

There are a lot of very good profesionals out there, and some average ones and some real bad ones. Not all of them are the same

FNG

 

Yeah, I know what you mean.
OTOH my dentist remarked one day that I was always relaxed when I went to see him, and asked if I trusted him that much.
I told him I was an engineer, and expected the same professionalism from him that I would give him if he came to me. And that if he got it wrong I'd sue him so hard I'd never have to work again, so why should I worry? :lol:
I trust professionals - blindly. My lawyer, car mechanic etc etc mainly because I haven't got the time to learn what they know, and have legal recourse if they turn out to be crap. The same way I would expect people to trust my professional opinion. I'd be massively insulted if a client went off seeking a second opinion after consulting me. But then again, not everyone has my sense of ethics! (Somewhere near Thuthics? English joke)
Oli

 

I would be happy if consumers were so effectively protected in Holyland.

I generally mistrust professionals, I´m afraid. And I am usually right. Imo.

 

Are you not a professional? Do you expect people to trust you?
Give them the same consideration
Oli

 

I've seen a lot of bad advice given to trust people blindly.

The internet allows people to obtain broad information on subjects in order to support the comments of people. You should check up on stuff to see if it's true.

The problem usualy is that people guess or predict the answer they give rather than bother to research it. People also give advise outside their skill base. A litigation laywer talking about contract law, a GP talking about orthopaedic surgery. They have some knowledge but often not enough but are trusted by the people asking.

Oli, you're an engineer but presuably you specialise aeronautics, materials, marine etc and I bet people ask you stuff outside your actual specialism which you know something about. It's very easy to give an answer based on your knowledge of the cuff which later turned out to be wrong.

FNG

 

Blind trust (of anything) is never good. Trust? I believe I, and most professionals, deserve.
It is easy to give off-the-cuff answers, especially as more and more disciplines are getting more specialised, and therefore narrower in scope. But one test for reliability is how is the answer stated?
If I'm certain I say so, if I'm uncertain I'm prepared to admit it (surprise!), and suggest the listener gets a second opinion.
Which is why a lot of my posts have AFAIK in them.
As for Internet - good resource, I believe you should always get a second opinion, or corroboration. But, like I told my "social sciences (aargh)" fellow students, opinions are like a**eholes - everybody has one. And the 'net has no editorial control.
Don't want to switch topic to censorship :lol: , but I could invent something reasonably feasible and post it/ create a site. How many people would believe it implicitly just because they found it on the 'net.
One on my ambitions was to "discover" documents for a totally outrageous WWII German tank and leak bits of information piecemeal to see how many wargamers would start using them. The problem is, once found out it would destroy any credibility I have :roll:
Oli
The heresies we should fear are those which can be confused with orthodoxy.
Jorge Luis Borges - The Theologians

 

I agree with your comments on the internet, thats why I never quote or link to sites when giving information or making comments. Most of the stuff to do with armour, penetration ranges etc is open to interpretation and even varies by book, but some of the internet sites are done by well believing amateurs and may highly inaccurate.

FNG

 

I have seen enough not too good doctors and dentists maybe. I can´t help it. But once I find someone who seems to be a professional professional, then I am all ears. it´s not so hard to admit someone´s superiority. It´s reassuring.

 

I fail to see how your suspicion that this particular Dr. is a fraud and the failure of that particular journal to accept your abstract translates to an indictment of the scientific method.

That seems rather condescending to me. I have presented papers at medical conferences and have authored and co-authored papers in several journals (Journal of Vascular Technology...Journal of Vascular Surgery )and yet I also see nothing wrong with reading Popular Science. I wouldn't cite it in a technical paper however this is an informal forum based on a shared interest in tanks and world war II not a scientific forum. I sometimes ask people for their sources but usually because I want to read them myself not to establish their bona fides as experts in the field.

 

The way I read it, Isaac correct me if I'm wrong, is "that portion of the population whose knowledge of science is based solely, implicitly and uncriticisingly upon popular science magazines" and by "popular science magazines" I took him to mean the lowest common denominator of that sort of publication.
Those people who scream "it must be true, I read it in XXX, the little words between all the pretty pictures explained it perfectly" :lol:
Grieg, how often have you found an article in a popular science magazine about your field of knowledge that made you want to tear it up, or write a letter explaining the errors? There are a number of particularly insidious articles out there, (and not a few books), which purport to explain the "facts" but gloss over the reality so much as to be (IMHO) criminal.
With regard to books, check out Has Hawking Erred? by Gerhard Kraus :angry: To be found in the science section of libraries - aargh!
Anyway, that's how I read Isaac's post
Oli

 

Grieg, who and where indicts scientific method? The entry was an aswer to the many entries containing "Science has shown this or that..." or similar, concerning rather metaphysical problems.

The sorry example with Dr.X from Boston B&W Hosp. and his continued using of the method, long discredited also by others has nothing to do with this. This was just an example that process of diffusion of science can be distorted (and, yes, I was angry because the paper was an example of a very clean study, all well documented and the result unambiguous: zero effect: and who you think got the paper for peer review?).

I am glad you publish, in good journals too.
There is nothing wrong in reading popular science journals. The only thing I wanted to point out is that I´ve got an impression that for many discutants science can can virtually answer any question: verifiable or not. Some can take it personally and find it condescending. Others - simply ironic. Choice is yours. I will not cite examples where you may sound condescending, answering my posts. I am too old, probably, to take it personally or get offended. (I daren´t say that I´m sometimes amused).

 

Isaac wrote:

You need not as I'm well aware that I sometimes come off as condescending (some might even say arrogant)
It's a cross I must bear, you could say

Because I recognize the same trait in others and even point it out occasionally doesn't mean that I'm offended though.

 

Rhino skins of the world.....UNITE!!!!

:smok: