Cargo Cult Science

This article brought up some interesting points. It seems like in the world today many “scientific” studies have political backing and funding. This causes the study to become interesting in proving something to be true to prove another group of people wrong regardless of the quality of the research done. The experiment will be done with pre existing biases and will do it until they reach the conclusion they want or the study will be said to be flawed or be redone until the desired result is found in order for someone’s political position to be “proven” right.

I know this is not the case for all experiments and there are many quality studies that are being done with integrity and without bias. I think this article makes it seem like all experiments are done as described above. It is true that some are but it is also true that many are not done that way. I think he needs to do a study of his own, a study into the amount of experiments are done with scientific integrity and those that have a bias. It would be interesting to find out what the statistics on that would show.

Another thought about this is how much integrity is possible. Can you really have absolute control over an experiment especially one involving animals or humans, which are both unpredictable and uncontrollable at times? Is it possible to have a social experiment that is reproducible? People react differently based on past experience and it is impossible to reproduce and exact reaction to a situation because the pervious reaction with have an impact of subsequent ones. At what point do you accept the results as they are with the possibly of an incorrect or inconsistent result? Is true scientific integrity even possible?