Examples of bad science

[Timsup2nothin]

So I corrected someone who seemed to take a reference to "bad science" as if that meant "evil science." Naturally, since my very existence is apparently an affront to science believers (though not scientists, oddly enough) they took off with a claim that no matter how you define "bad" there is "NO BAD SCIENCE!!!!"

So, I had pointed out that "bad" could mean "poorly done" science. Something I consider to be a fine example of this would be the guys with the giant radio telescope conducting surveys of interstellar background noise who got sidetracked analyzing a recurring signal that could have signified intelligent origin...which after some years of analysis turned out to be the unshielded microwave oven in their lunch room.

That is BAD science, as in poorly executed.

I also pointed out that "bad" could mean unproductive. A real world example I think qualifies:

Back in the eighties, when dinosaurs roamed free and few humans had even been born, some bright specimen figured out that dissolving cyanuric acid in swimming pool water greatly reduced the rate that chlorine escaped from solution. This not only saved vast amounts of expensive chlorine, it made it easier to avoid "low sanitizer excursions" that present a health hazard. So some tests were done to make sure that people exposed to cyanuric acid in their pool water would not sprout tentacles or be paralyzed by terrifying hallucinations or anything, and "chlorine stabilizer" was marketed to the masses.

Immediately, pretty much every university in the land had grants and someone in either biology, chemistry, or some other related department was tasks with accurately determining the lifespan of bacteria in chlorinated water with and without stabilization. This research went on for years, developing ever more precise measurements because a difference of a few milliseconds could be critical...to the chemical companies that were the market leaders in the production of chlorine. If you could come up with a methodology that could demonstrate a longer extension in the lifespan of a bacteria caused by this evil stabilizer that was cutting demand for their product by 60-70% you were a winner.

Because they needed that science in their efforts to get governments to BAN the use of cyanuric acid. The science clearly showed that bacteria could live as much as TEN TIMES LONGER! The stabilizer never got widely banned, because most health departments realized that since by then it had been on the market for a couple years and no one was going to stop using it and double their chlorine expense there was no point. However, in public pools where taxpayers pay for the chlorine and don't know what they are getting it was predominantly not used.

So the lawsuits started. Anyone who's kid swam in a pool and subsequently got ill just knew it had to be the stabilizer extending the lifespan of dangerous bacteria, not the fact that their kid ate seven chili dogs in fifteen minutes on a bet at the pool party. This led to vast amounts of attorney driven science, which came up with a whole additional volume of incontrovertible scientific facts.

So, thankfully, today we not only know that an E Coli bacteria can live ten times longer if there is cyanuric acid in pool water with a typical level of chlorination, BUT we also know that extending its life span by a factor of ten means that instead of expiring a quarter inch from the dingleberry from whence it came it can make a solid two, maybe two and a half inches. So we know DO NOT SLURP POOL WATER OFF ANOTHER SWIMMER'S BUTT.

NONE of this information has ever served any purpose, other than having been misrepresented under the "scientific, hence irrefutable" banners by a profit driven company that funded the research. No scientist involved in the research cared, or expected anyone else to care. They were the grunts, earning the grant money for their university.

So, that's what I've got, off the top of my head. What else we got?

Or are you a fan of "no bad (by any definition) science"?

 

[bhavv]

which after some years of analysis turned out to be the unshielded microwave oven in their lunch room.

Human error does not mean that the science was bad.

So, thankfully, today we not only know that an E Coli bacteria can live ten times longer if there is cyanuric acid in pool water with a typical level of chlorination,

The only reason why we know this is because of science. The refusal to remove cyanuric acid products from sale actually has absolutely nothing to do with science.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Human error does not mean that the science was bad.

Human error is the defining quality of "poorly done".

 

[bhavv]

So it wasn't actually the 'science' that was bad, but the people carrying out the methodology.

Also as for my above edit, it wasn't the 'science' that was bad, but the greedy companies selling the product refusing to remove it from sale.

Maybe to put into simpler terms, the problems you are describing can be summed up into one word - 'Humans'.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The attempt to prevent a good product from being marketed was made through "bought science." Now, "bought science" may or may not be something we can agree is "bad science;" based on the definition "spoiled, gone to waste."

In the other case there were millions of dollars spent, and huge hours expended, on concentrated analysis of erroneous data. That analysis of data was science. It was total waste of money and time, hence "bad". You can parse out the blame however you want.

By the way, I knew not to slurp pool water off another swimmer's butt all the way back in the sixties, no science required.

 

[jackelgull]

If you mean something inherit to science that makes it bad, then no I don't think there's such thing as bad science. Even technology harnessed to make more devastating killing machines has uses outside of that. Can science be used or done badly? Absolutely. But that is a problem with people. As Martin Luther King said, " Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."

 

[bhavv]

Oh, so basically you mean 'humans corrupted by money to provide false evidence', not 'science'.

I have never played the oboe before in my life. If I go and buy an oboe, try to play it, and sound absolutely dreadful, does that make the oboe 'bad'?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Oh, so basically you mean 'humans corrupted by money to provide false evidence', not 'science'.

I have never played the oboe before in my life. If I go and buy an oboe, try to play it, and sound absolutely dreadful, does that make the oboe 'bad'?

The evidence wasn't false. Bacteria DO live ten times longer in chlorinated water that has been stabilized. Millions of dollars and tens of thousands of hours went into measurements to prove that (when I say ten, I am rounding, the actual analysis that was done at the time eventually justified a number with about five digits of precision)...despite the fact that with a child's chemistry set a high school life science graduate could have determined "in neither case does the bug live long enough to matter."

The science wasn't corrupted, it was just wasteful and only done because someone would pay to get it done. In years of research there was no advancement of useful knowledge accomplished beyond the first week.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If you mean something inherit to science that makes it bad, then no I don't think there's such thing as bad science. Even technology harnessed to make more devastating killing machines has uses outside of that. Can science be used or done badly? Absolutely. But that is a problem with people. As Martin Luther King said, " Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."

I specifically don't. You are using "evil" as the definition of "bad," which I specifically said that I wasn't. This is about "bad" as defined "poorly performed" or "wasteful of resources."

 

[bhavv]

The evidence wasn't false. Bacteria DO live ten times longer in chlorinated water that has been stabilized. Millions of dollars and tens of thousands of hours went into measurements to prove that (when I say ten, I am rounding, the actual analysis that was done at the time eventually justified a number with about five digits of precision)...despite the fact that with a child's chemistry set a high school life science graduate could have determined "in neither case does the bug live long enough to matter."

The science wasn't corrupted, it was just wasteful and only done because someone would pay to get it done. In years of research there was no advancement of useful knowledge accomplished beyond the first week.

So there was absolutely nothing wrong or bad about the science. You are simply complaining about how money was spent.

In other words, once I become an established oboist, you would find it to be 'bad' if people paid to see the same performance over and over again?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So there was absolutely nothing wrong or bad about the science. You are simply complaining about how money was spent.

In other words, once I become an established oboist, you would find it to be 'bad' if people paid to see the same performance over and over again?

To be honest, I don't really care about money. That major lab and manpower resources across the country were knowingly run down this rathole does irritate me. In that regard I'm not even irritated at the chemical company that funded the detailed mapping of the rathole. I'm irritated at the the chemists and biologists who didn't stand up to their administrators and say "I don't care if it is easy to fund, this research is pointless and i have better things to do with my time," because everyone involved in this research knew two things:

1) No one, ever, including themselves would care beyond whole unit precision about the measurements they were pushing out to fractions of milliseconds.

2) The research was only "successful" if it supported the conclusion the funding agency wanted, so no report that put the results into any sort of useful context, or even mentioned that there might be such a context, would ever be submitted.

So, research known to be pointless, packaged to support a preconceived position known to be erroneous. Bad science.


By the way...special bonus point challenge...one time I was talking about this with an actual scientist who DID successfully poke a potential hole in my argument (using science, not an oboe). Since we could not think of any way to test his theory on the potential value of the research it wasn't really a complete puncture and by and large he agreed with me.

 

[jackelgull]

I specifically don't. You are using "evil" as the definition of "bad," which I specifically said that I wasn't. This is about "bad" as defined "poorly performed" or "wasteful of resources."

Is there such thing as intrinsically wasteful science? Well, in your chlorine example- were the principle involved only transferable to pools? Even if the scientific study fails in producing its original goal, it can still not be a waste

In the early 1990s, Pfizer was testing out a drug called UK92480, intended to treat patients with angina, a common precursor to heart attacks, involving the constriction of blood vessels that supply the heart. The company was hoping the drug would relax the blood vessels. Mm, it failed in that regard, but test subjects reported some fascinating developments below the belt, and so became the little blue pill known as Viagra

That said, I admit that I struggle to see the significance of the fruits of the research for the entire debacle.

 

[bhavv]

I'm irritated at the the chemists and biologists who didn't stand up to their administrators and say "I don't care if it is easy to fund, this research is pointless and i have better things to do with my time,"

So basically you are saying that those people should have turned down their wages and therefore been unable to feed their families and pay their living costs. Makes total sense!

FYI there is no shortage of 'scientists', even if they are funded to repeat the same tests. However, there most certainly is a shortage of work for scientists, so it hardly matters if some are paid to repeat the same experiments over and over again.

No different to repeating the same task in any other job on a daily basis.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Is there such thing as intrinsically wasteful science? Well, in your chlorine example- were the principle involved only transferable to pools? Even if the scientific study fails in producing its original goal, it can still not be a waste

Cyanuric acid is only useful if you are dealing with chlorinated water, and its only function is that it reduces losses through the surface due to exposure to sunlight. The kind of testing that might have found some alternative usefulness had either already been done or at the least wasn't being done, because the testing was all done on water that met the general description "typical swimming pool water". Applications where chlorinated water is exposed to sunlight over a broad surface area...swimming pools...maybe some water treatment facility application, but cyanuric acid was already verified as not acceptable in drinking water applications.

I don't see anything as nominally useful as a little blue pill coming out of that. Thirty years later, other than the fact that it comes up pretty regularly for operators of public pools, I think the entire project has been forgotten about.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So basically you are saying that those people should have turned down their wages and therefore been unable to feed their families and pay their living costs. Makes total sense!

FYI there is no shortage of 'scientists', even if they are funded to repeat the same tests. However, there most certainly is a shortage of work for scientists, so it hardly matters if some are paid to repeat the same experiments over and over again.

No different to repeating the same task in any other job on a daily basis.

Basically that might be what I were saying if we run what I actually said through google translate through a loop of several languages.

If you think there was a shortage of useful chemistry to be done in the eighties, build a time machine and check for yourself.

 

[bhavv]

I'm sure there always is useful chemistry to be carried out, but you seem to fail to realize that there would have been plenty of labour to carry out all the other experiments whilst a mere few scientists were researching Cyanuric acid over and over again.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm sure there always is useful chemistry to be carried out, but you seem to fail to realize that there would have been plenty of labour to carry out all the other experiments whilst a mere few scientists were researching Cyanuric acid over and over again.

Got any science to back that up, or are we accepting your expertise?

Just to make sure we're together on whatever strange track you have wandered off on, we are looking for facts to support a theory that there are so many trained chemists in the world that if we didn't provide useless research for them to do they would have to get jobs flipping burgers...that the gist?

This being your position adopted in the face of an example that there is such a thing as bad science because you are afraid that acknowledging that I am right in any way ever might just lead to your conversion to religion by some insidious process since I'm not absolutely rabid in support of atheism...or at least that's the impression you've left me with in our previous conversation.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

So I corrected someone who seemed to take a reference to "bad science" as if that meant "evil science." Naturally, since my very existence is apparently an affront to science believers (though not scientists, oddly enough) they took off with a claim that no matter how you define "bad" there is "NO BAD SCIENCE!!!!"

Don't you ever get tired of this silly paranoia? I know I'm beyond tired of your insistence on insulting me by claiming that science is a religion when you've been told many, many times that it is not.

As far as I'm concerned, it's your continued insulting behavior that is the affront. There are some things I think/believe that some people here would take exception to, either because of the subject matter or how I feel about it, but since this is one of my "internet homes," I act like a guest and don't post them.


Yes, there is a plethora of bad science. There are mistakes that are accidental, results that have been falsified, and pointless "experiments" that go on year after year - not because they need to, but because of the grant $$$$$$$ - and as a consequence, innocent animals suffer.

That doesn't mean science itself is bad, just that there are some people who are either incompetent, without ethics, or both.

 

[Thedrin]

I was expecting this thread to directly relate to this book.
Author's blog.

I disagree that the microwave example listed in the OP qualifies as bad science, but then I have a narrow definition of that term, associating it with work masquerading as science to promote an agenda.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I was expecting this thread to directly relate to this book.
Author's blog.

I disagree that the microwave example listed in the OP qualifies as bad science, but then I have a narrow definition of that term, associating it with work masquerading as science to promote an agenda.

That's pretty close to the second example. It was actual science, in that it was measuring an actual physical property...but it was only done to promote an agenda.

Thanks for the link.

I look at "damn, overheated the sample and spoiled the results" as an indication that errors will be made and caught and corrected...the microwave thing went on for a long time and led to additional funding and took the entire installation in a direction they had no previous intentions about. I think it qualifies, but admit that I'm not really sure where I would say the scale crosses from mistakes happen to genuinely bad science.