"One of the most worrying distortions that scientific knowledge might endure is the loss of negative data. Results that do not confirm expectations—because they yield an effect that is either not statistically significant or just contradicts an hypothesis—are crucial to scientific progress, because this latter is only made possible by a collective self-correcting process. Yet, a lack of null and negative results has been noticed in innumerable fields. Their absence from the literature not only inflates effect size estimates in meta-analyses, thus exaggerating the importance of phenomena, but can also cause a waste of resources replicating research that has already failed, and might even create fields based on completely non-existent phenomena," says the analysis."

http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... SAbr8i9LTp

Because of the immense prestige science has gained over the recent years, mostly related to its sccuess in machine building for the layman, its findings and conclusions often go unquestion.
In particular, the disciples of science who proselytize to no end will nether question, nor encourage the questioning of scientific findings, which more often than not become untenable over time.

Those who have a religious like ferver for science are the most delusional of all self proclaimed people of "pure reason." They should not be taken too seriously.

I've never heard of a "disciple of science" that didn't think you should question findings, try to duplicate results, examine data, etc.

What does it mean to have a "religious like ferver (sic) for science"? To accept everything published on faith?

Do you know of any these people outside of your imagination?

Yes, there are flawed studies and scientists who just want to publish their papers. Only in your strawman world does someone claim science is perfect and that all answers are known.

If theology was an actual field of knowledge, it would also have these problems.

Do disciples of science wear hoods and chant I wonder. Just who are these mythical science disciples?

I believe that Ant gets his information from Creationist and Intelligent Design web sites. It's the only thing that makes sense.

What real people who are pro science say is that people are fundamentally driven by their own biases. Yes, even scientists. And that's the beauty of the scientific process. It all comes out in the wash eventually.

ant wrote:Those who have a religious like ferver for science are the most delusional of all self proclaimed people of "pure reason." They should not be taken too seriously.

what about those that have a religious like fervour for trolling strawmen, or tilting at windmills? are they delusional as well?

i agree we should not take them TOO seriously

getting the balance right is often the tricky part.

The scientific method is intrinsically self-correcting through its reliance on evidence as the criterion of credibility.

ant has a good point that science is incomplete, but a bad point that this means we should take religious rubbish seriously.

Science is the gold standard of rigour.

Robert Tulip wrote:The scientific method is intrinsically self-correcting through its reliance on evidence as the criterion of credibility.

ant has a good point that science is incomplete, but a bad point that this means we should take religious rubbish seriously.

Science is the gold standard of rigour.

Science is practiced by HUMANS.
HUMANS ARE IMPERFECT AND DRIVEN BY MOTIVE.
There is really no questioning inherent problems such as this one.
Go back and read Thomas Khun.

No one has stated all religious doctrine should be taken seriously.
Stop making crap up. You're getting famous for that here and I love pointing it out when you do.

geo wrote:Do disciples of science wear hoods and chant I wonder. Just who are these mythical science disciples?

I believe that Ant gets his information from Creationist and Intelligent Design web sites. It's the only thing that makes sense.

What real people who are pro science say is that people are fundamentally driven by their own biases. Yes, even scientists. And that's the beauty of the scientific process. It all comes out in the wash eventually.

This was mostly a brainless response.

The article is clear. There is a growing problem with truthful disclosure. As a result, it becomes exceedingly difficult to trust published findings.
Who knows how that has influenced our understanding of disseminated literature?

You're really getting childishly defensive now.
Throw all the adolescent temper tantrums you like. My point here is valid.
Your rhetorical play should be left to your students.

Don't be a lemming.

What does it mean to have a "religious like ferver (sic) for science"?

Where is Johnson when you need him?

Am I off-base here, or is this pretty much an example of the science community policing itself? If it is, we can find that as remarkable as the findings that are causing the concern.

ant wrote:

Robert Tulip wrote:The scientific method is intrinsically self-correcting through its reliance on evidence as the criterion of credibility. ant has a good point that science is incomplete, but a bad point that this means we should take religious rubbish seriously. Science is the gold standard of rigour.

Science is practiced by HUMANS. HUMANS ARE IMPERFECT AND DRIVEN BY MOTIVE. There is really no questioning inherent problems such as this one. Go back and read Thomas Khun.

No one has stated all religious doctrine should be taken seriously. Stop making crap up. You're getting famous for that here and I love pointing it out when you do.

Who is making anything up here? ant's contribution at booktalk has been to defend theism and attack atheism. Am I making that up? Now ant implies I accused him of saying people should take all religious doctrine seriously. I never said that. ant is making it up. What I meant was just that theism is rubbish in principle, and ant wants people to take theism seriously. The implicit back story in ant's diatribe against science is an effort to promote theism as somehow intellectually coherent.

ant's invocation of the science philosopher TS Kuhn makes precisely the point that DWill has stated, that science has potential to recognise and address its limitations. But that is not what ant wants. He wants people to convert to belief in God.