this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

In January 1783, Price returned to his laboratory in Guildford, ostensibly to start production of the miraculous powders. In fact, he set about the distillation of laurel water (which contained hydrogen cyanide, commonly known as prussic acid). He wrote his will at the same time, but it was another six months before he returned to London to invite members of the Royal Society to witness the experiment on 3 August in his laboratory in Guildford.

Despite the claimed successes of his initial demonstrations and the furor they had caused, only three members turned up in Guildford on the appointed day. Although clearly disappointed by the poor turnout, Price welcomed the three men and then, stepping to one side, ended his life by drinking the flask of laurel water he had prepared. The three men immediately noticed a change in his appearance, but before they could do anything, Price had died of cyanide poisoning.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

...he invited them in to watch him die? I mean, that's probably the ultimate "Walks in, makes claim, refuses to elaborate" move, but also, it's kinda twisted and petty.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Why wasnt this un Huggbees Unusual Deaths series? This is hilarious!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Man, late to this party but if you want a wild ride this guy's got a few... Humans to elements. I realize the statement wasn't looking for a response but if you actually want to know buckle up...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ett_8wLJ87U

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago

Patenting my formula for turning mercury into gold, registering it with the state, and filing a series of vexatious lawsuits claiming anyone doing gold plating is actually using my technique.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

White mode screen shots nooo my eyes !

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

I'll ask Andrew Wakefield what he thinks

[–] [email protected] 49 points 4 months ago (4 children)

isn't there a problem with lack of replication in the scientific world though? i feel like replication experiments don't get grants easily so people are more likely to pursue one time experiments.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Just do experiments that confirm the bias of your peers and grant review boards.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Someone knows the Master's thesis trick.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

It counts as long as p < 0.05

[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah and if it were some mundane claim it would probably get away with it. But its always something outlandish like say being able to perform fully automated blood tests with a single drop of blood.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

For a hot minute, Elizabeth Holmes had a company with a multi-billion dollar valuation based on her specious claims. It doesn't seem like the risk of getting caught deterred her from committing a phenomenal fraud, or rendering false results to thousands of patients who relied on it during her initial testing. The enormous immediate profit and prestige drowned out the nagging fear of getting caught.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Also, the people investing in her company really should have done more independent research than they did.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 4 months ago (2 children)

If you want to see a good example of scientific fraud, read about the scientists and doctors who helped the tobacco lobby lie to the public for decades.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

More Doctors Smoke Camels

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Thank You For Smoking

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 months ago (1 children)

My daughter has just written her bachelor thesis. For that, she had to compare a bunch of papers and studies about a number of sub-topics related to her thesis topic. For one such point, there were only two studies to be found in the world. Both from renowned scientists and universities, both looking sound regarding their methods, both having comparably large data sets, and they both came to completely opposite conclusions. After a talk with her thesis advisor, she dropped this sub-topic and the studies from her thesis.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Well, this is extreme.

But in all seriousness, it's rare for someone to commit fraud on this scale, and even rarer for someone to expect fame from it.

It's much more common to be in a position where your grant obligations require you to publish 4 articles in a year, and the topic didn't turn out to be as good as you initially expected, so what do you do? Just take the samples that actually worked at least barely, at least once, apply the logic of "well, it did work once, it doesn't matter that two other replication attempts brought the catalysis efficiency twice as low, one sample is enough for a proof of concept, let's write a whole paper based on that", and here we have a manuscript that contains inflated data, maybe because the conditions were successful this time, or maybe because someone had previously polished platinum on the same surface that the electrode for the catalysis was polished on. Who knows? Who cares? At least you won't starve for a year until you have to do it again.

Not trying to justify such behaviour, just providing some sort of explanation of why this happens at least in some cases.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

But in all seriousness, it's rare for someone to commit fraud on this scale, and even rarer for someone to expect fame from it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Fair. But this is an example of something egregious by all standards. Sure, we can also remember Jacques Benveniste. Or recent ivermectin fiasco. And are we considering that superconductor story from last year fraud or just negligence?

Maybe a handful others can be found active today, but the number of those that attempted such a risk would be very small — probably several hundred bold enough to disrupt their area, virtually unnoticeable from outside perspective, and a couple dozens willing to try to act at a scale visible by popular media (well, like example you provided).

That’s what I mean by rare. I would call these outliers in terms of scale/frequency because incidents like these were allowed to happen and did not pop out of thin air. They are not a root of the problem, but rather a byproduct of how academic publishing, financing, and recognition work as a system. The random article you would try to replicate would with a certain far-from-zero probability fail not because the authors had a grandiose idea of how to fool the academic community and gain fame, but likely tried to fit in their poor results in the publishing process that requires novelty and constant publishing regardless of the quality of research, or else they lose their position/group/lab/not gain tenure/not gain next grant/not close the report etc. And that is more problematic and brings far more distrust in science, even among academics themselves, than any vaccine- or water memory-related nonsense.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I guess there are two sides to the problem here. People that do fraught on a level that is hard to perceive and those that do fraught on a grandiose level. I agree with all of your comments, especially what you say about how the harder to perceive fraught is actually more damaging to science.

But I guess the question initially posed why some people would do these high risk frauds. Why would someone say they've got a working room temp/low pressure supercomputer? Why would someone say they're able to turn anything into gold? As you say, these are just some spectacular outliers though. And some people are just in it for the short time of grandiosity and fame and don't care about the consequences I guess?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I’d say yeah, I agree with you, at least in some cases that must be true. It’s so hard to imagine what must go through their heads.

I can’t even say they aren’t doing it for science, because at times there’s such insistence that you can’t help but feel they are sincere in their beliefs (well, same applies to ‘psychics’ or ‘telepaths’, so ehh).

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