see my recent entry but also Science yesterday
Francesca Gino lawsuit has been dismissed – we won!
Category Archives: Philosophy
Taxonomy of Poor Science
Source of this new taxonomy is Figshare while being modified by Retraction Dashboard, It is a big update of my 2006 diagram that was itself based on a Lancet paper. 
Das Hauptproblem der Erwählung
Tilman Moser (1938-2024) schreibt in “Gottesvergiftung” seine (An-)klage gegen Gott in der langen Tradition der Psalmen, des Klageliedes, von Hiob bis zur Anklage Jesu am Kreuz
Mit der psychischen Grundfigur der Erwählung, des auserwählten Volkes, hast du dir ja schon ganz zu Anfang einen kleinen Teil der Menschheit eingefangen, einen Brückenkopf aus dem Nichts gebildet.
Weißt du, wie listig du mit den narzißtischen Bedürfnissen deiner Anhänger umgehst, wie fein dosiert du die Grade der Erwählung und der Gottesnähe verteilen kannst, wie virtuos du die Angebote von Geborgenheit, Führung, Glanz und Einzigartigkeit mischst – von den Strafangeboten einmal abgesehen -, so daß sich jeder nach seinen ureigensten, geheimsten niemals öffentlich eingestandenen Bedürfnissen bedienen kann?
Du bist raffiniert und wirst dadurch mächtig, daß du die Angebote an alle anderen im Dunkeln läßt und im Grunde dich jeder so ganz im stillen verehrt und verzehrt.
Das grundlegende Problem ist nicht, ob ein Volk, ein Stamm oder eine Gruppe von Gott erwählt wurde, sondern ob es sich als erwählt versteht. Damit wird der Glaube an die Überwertigkeit zur Realität, ganz ohne Erwählung, was auch als Thomas Theorem bekannt ist
If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences / Wenn die Menschen Situationen als wirklich definieren, sind diese in ihren Konsequenzen wirklich (W. I. Thomas und D. S. Thomas)
So erfüllen sich ganz von selbst alle Prophezeiungen. Und die Konsequenz? Einfach nur furchtbar was die täglichen Nachrichten seit dem 7. Oktober bringen, eine Gewaltspirale zwischen zwei Völkern die kein Ende nimmt. Denn nicht nur die Juden Jes 42,1-4
Siehe, das ist mein Knecht, den ich halte, und mein Auserwählter, an dem meine Seele Wohlgefallen hat. Ich habe ihm meinen Geist gegeben; er wird das Recht unter die Heiden bringen.
sondern auch die Palästinenser fühlen sich auserwählt Sure 3,34
Allah hat Adam, Noah, die Familie Abrahams und die Familie Amrans vor allen anderen Menschen auserwählt.
Das mag alles etwas verkürzt sein, aber warum nicht wenn es den Kern trifft. Religion als Opium fürs Volk? Nein, nicht Opium sondern Crystal Meth.
Science was based on mutual trust in the past
Science was based on mutual trust a few decades years ago but with the development into a large money making and career system we cannot believe any more in published results. This affects basically all disciplines not only those that notoriously known for bad quality.
It affects now even thousands of papers that report wrong microscope manufactures as possible sign of misconduct as reported now by Retractionwatch.
One in four papers on research involving scanning electron microscopy (SEM) misidentifies the specific instrument that was used, raising suspicions of misconduct, according to a new study. The work, published August 27 as a preprint on the Open Science Framework , examined SEM images in more than 1 million studies published by 50 materials science and engineering journals since 2010.
So I see only one possibility: Mutual trust needs to be replaced with more vigorous control of the the research community and not just two dozen sleuths and journalists. Research integrity should become an own recognized scientific discipline with full-term departments, funding, teaching and established methods & software tools.
Scientific fraud kills people
Please go to www.vox.com
You probably haven’t heard of cardiologist Don Poldermans, but experts who study scientific misconduct believe that thousands of people may be dead because of him.
The technology of environmental damage
Here are some impressions from my visit last week -a reactor dome without cooling towers. and substation without function.
<irony>Thank you very much Franz Josef Strauss, Konrad Adenauer, & Max-Planck-Gesellschaft for all your efforts</irony>
Professors are the enemy
Never forget, the press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy; the professors are the enemy. Professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times and never forget it.
by R.Nixon and cited again by J.D.Vance in 2021
Wo immer Ethik gepredigt wird, liegt die Moral im Argen
Rechtzeitig zur Olympiade kommt eine ARD Dokumentation zu Doping, der kriminellen Abkürzung zu Ruhm und Ehre.
Irgendwie erinnert die SZ Filmbesprechung daran, wie aktuell Betrug in der Wissenschaft gehandhabt wird:
Ausführlich zu Wort kommt im Film der spanische Blutpanscher Eufemiano Fuentes, ein verurteilter Superdoper, dessen Dienste das Vaterland bereits in den Achtzigerjahren diskret anwarb. Sportärzte verstehen was von Muskeln und Gelenken, Gynäkologen wie Fuentes was von Blut und Hormonen…Anfragen der Rechercheure zu Fuentes’ Aussagen ließen alle Betroffenen unbeantwortet. Gewagt sei aber die Prognose: Bei den Spielen, die in keinem Halbsatz ohne Floskeln zu Fairness, Ethik und Erziehung auskommen, wird die Causa totgeschwiegen.
Wo immer Ethik gepredigt wird, liegt die Moral im Argen.
The long shadow on Eysenck
Twitter integration has been suspended by WordPress after renaming to X … but here is an announcement as screenshot
Program at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/open-research-summer-school-tickets-910343470827
Unforgotten the testimony of Eysenck’s peer Grossarth-Maticek in Heidelberg
Science relies on controversy. Disagreement is part of research, solid consensus is overturned, celebrated researchers enter shady territory. Most of the time, this proceeds more or less smoothly, without all too much of an outcry. Most of the time…
How to ruin yourself
Found at futirism.com
Google researchers have come out with a new paper that warns that generative AI is ruining vast swaths of the internet with fake content — which is painfully ironic because Google has been hard at work pushing the same technology to its enormous user base.
The study, a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper spotted by 404 Media, found that the great majority of generative AI users are harnessing the tech to “blur the lines between authenticity and deception” by posting fake or doctored AI content, such as images or videos, on the internet. The researchers also pored over previously published research on generative AI and around 200 news articles reporting on generative AI misuse.
The authors painfully collected 200 observed incidents of misuse reported between January 2023 and March 2024 and find
– Manipulation of human likeness and falsification of evidence underlie the most prevalent tactics in real-world cases of misuse…
– The majority of reported cases of misuse do not consist of technologically sophisticated uses … requiring minimal technical expertise.
– The increased sophistication, availability and accessibility of GenAI tools seemingly introduces new and lower-level forms of misuse that are neither overtly malicious nor explicitly violate these tools’ terms of services, but still have concerning ethical ramifications.
Ethikrat vor Auflösung?
Das DÄ schreibt über die “Hängepartie für den Deutschen Ethikrat”
Der Deutsche Ethikrat bleibt vorerst arbeitsunfähig. … Entsprechend des Ethikratgesetzes muss die Hälfte der normalerweise 26 Ratsmitglieder von der Bundesregierung vorgeschlagen werden, die andere Hälfte vom Parlament. … Momentan sind lediglich vier Mitglieder im Ethikrat verblieben, deren Amtszeit noch nicht beendet ist: die Theologin Elisabeth Gräb-Schmidt, der Physiker Armin Grunwald, der Bioethiker und Philosoph Mark Schweda und die Philosophin und IT-Expertin Judith Simon. Ihnen gehe jetzt Arbeitszeit verloren, so Vetter. Da es bis zur Neuberufung des Rates keine Sitzungen gebe, müssten sie untätig warten, bis ihre neuen Kolleginnen und Kollegen berufen seien.
Ich fürchte, weder Bundesregierung noch Parlament hat allzu großes Interesse mehr an den Stellungnahmen, die oft reichlich apodiktisch herkamen und – trotz oder wegen des akademischem Backgrounds nahezu aller Mitglieder/innen – nicht immer so qualifiziert waren wie man:frau sich das gewünscht hätte. Statt mehr externe Experten einzubinden, gab es unzählige PR Alleingänge der Vorsitzenden [vgl Dabrock, Buyx, u.v.a.m.]. Der Ethikrat steht sicher nicht vor der Auflösung – er ist immerhin gesetzlich legitimiert – aber als Gremium hat er an Bedeutung verloren.
Successful methods
Why was the Cambridge’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology so successful?
It was not by increasing administrative staff or new programme oriented funding research as many German research managers believe. It was by scientific (not primarily cultural) diversity
The LMB sets a coherent culture by promoting scientific diversity among its staff, encouraging the exchange of knowledge and ideas and valuing scientific synergies between different areas of research… It encourages the recruitment of groups with diverse but aligned interests that are complementary.
What did we do instead in Germany? We increased competition among groups and develop more hierarchical structures while the LMB is
promoting shared values and common aims helps researchers to feel part of the LMB community and proud to belong to it, fostering long-term loyalty. The LMB has always had a non-hierarchical structure — one in which emphasis lies in the quality of the argument, rather than in the status of the proponent.
So, indeed the incentives are different… While we laudate the number of external EU grants a group leader has been securing, LMB does the opposite
… resources are allocated in ways that encourage innovative collaboration between internal teams and divisions. For example, limits are set for research groups to bid for external grants, because these tend to have short-term, results-oriented requirements that might not align with the LMB’s longer-term ambitions.
Retired is a terrible word, let‘s call it graduated
Why do people become whistleblowers?
The former BMJ editor Richard Smith is writing about a new book by Carl Elliott “The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No” that is on backorder now. Most interesting for me is not his book review but his own insights.
Over the years I’ve been rung by potential whistleblowers, and I say to them two uncomfortable things: you have a duty to act but you are likely to be badly damaged as a result… What I haven’t said to them but will now after reading Elliott’s book is that the damage you experience is likely to affect your whole life. It’s a matter of power: “doctors have it and their subjects don’t.” Elliott quotes John Pesando, a whistleblower in the Cincinnati case, who says “Every whistleblower is an amateur playing against professionals.” […]
Most of us don’t blow the whistle because we recognise where the power lies. The state, the university, our employer, or the professor will crush us. But some people do blow the whistle. What drives them? Elliott concludes that there is no whistleblower “type” but that they usually act for deeply held moral reasons. He invokes the somewhat old fashioned idea of “honour” as the best way to explain why they act. […]
An alternative explanation offered by political scientist Fred Alford is “narcissism moralised.” Perhaps that’s close to honour. When I think of whistleblowers I know I think of people with a much greater sense of right and wrong than most of us have. I could use words like “exaggerated” or even “pathological,” but I like the concept of honour. I certainly admire whistleblowers.
Some observations about science administration
I’ve witnessed an ongoing expansion of science administration personnel at local, national, and international levels. What’s more concerning is that this administration is becoming increasingly disconnected from the day-to-day realities at the laboratory bench. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as Parkinson’s Law, first elucidated 1955 by C. Northcote Parkinson (not to be confused with James Parkinson).
In summary, employees like to talk to each other in the administration office, they want more subordinates (and not competitors from the lab) while even little work is expanded to fill the time available for its completion.
After Parkinson, the annual increase in staff, regardless of variations in workload, ranges from 5.2% to 6.6%. He even goes so far as to claim that core tasks could be completely eliminated without the administration shrinking as a result.
Parkinson formulated this in the 1950s. In modern administrations, new terms have been introduced, such as Controlling, New Management Models, business indicators, etc. Often, the proportion of staff in these areas of work increases, while for the actual core tasks, staff remains stagnant or even decreases.