Integrity in Science

For John, BLUF:  Science should not be treated like a religion.  Questioning should be endemic.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Team Biden’s plan to ‘ensure scientific integrity’ should start with itself

From The New York Post, by Law Prof Glenn H. Reynolds, 13 January 2022, 6:23pm.

Here is the lede plus three:

The Biden administration has announced a plan to “ensure scientific integrity.”  It’s about time.

The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, in a 67-page report, says the task force aims “to ensure that science is conducted, managed, communicated, and used in ways that preserve its accuracy and objectivity and protect it from suppression, manipulation, and inappropriate influence — including political interference.”

It won’t have to look far: The United States government has been misbehaving on the scientific front for years, most notably in the COVID-19 pandemic.  Political interference, suppression, manipulation and inappropriate influence have been standard, which is why trust in government, particularly on science, has fallen so far.

Ironically, even as this initiative was announced, damning new information about government scientists’ response to the COVID-19 outbreak came out.  A series of just-released e-mails from top scientists revealed they were highly confident that the disease came out of a Chinese laboratory, even as their public statements treated any such suggestions as crazy talk, “conspiracy theory” and “misinformation.”

The COVID-19 Pandemic has gone a long ways toward discrediting "science".  One of the things I hope has been discredited is the expression "The Science is Settled."  Science is about delving deeper and gaining a better understanding of what is actualy happening.  As a result, science advances by hungery young sciences attacking the theories of the older, more experience, entrenched establishment scientists.  The new scientists breaking with the old scientists.  I remember a CNN newscast from around 1985, in which a guest said that 80% of what was scientific truth in 1900 we now knew to be false.

Let us respectfully question scientific truth, looking to see if there are seams in the seamless garment of science.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff