Two big science stories to address:
1) Last week The Lancet (impact factor 28.4; that’s big) retracted a controversial 1998 article linking MMR vaccinations to the onset of autism after almost 80% of the original authors wrote letters to the journal requesting a retraction.
2) Today in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention there was a study involving 60,500 Chinese and they discovered a link between drinking as little as two (2) cans of soda a week and 80% increase in pancreatic cancer.
Let’s address both of these.
1) http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56008/title/Journal_retracts_flawed_study_linking_MMR_vaccine_and_autism
2) http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/current pg#447
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Any thoughts on vaccines?
ReplyDeleteIs this the beginning of what David Kessler predicted, when junk food companies will be treated like cigarettes companies in the 1990s?
What caught my attention regarding the autism story was that it is one more in what seems like a recent surge of "bad" science getting front page status.
ReplyDeleteHas this been happening more often lately, or has it just got more attention?
I like to think science is neutral, but is political bias creeping in more in some fields?
If all scientists really have is their reputation (without which, we lose all credibility within the field), how could changes in the publics perception of the field impact honest scientists ability to do their work?
I think the biggest impact a changing perception by the public could have would be in scientific funding. A lot of the time the general public has no idea how different studies are/could be relevant, and so they view them as political pork. For an example of this at the highest level, one needs only to look back to Sarah Palin mocking fruit fly research to a laughing crowd:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=palin-takes-on-fruit-flies--and-los-2008-10-27
Adding on mistrust of the scientific community to the perception of wasteful spending, and funding could drop precipitously.
Regarding the politicization of science, I'm also reminded of Bush's former surgeon general stating that he was "muzzled" by the administration:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1034212120070710
On second thought, the politicization of science also leads to skepticism by the public and inaction on issues that require attention, such as climate change. Many see this as related to funding though, as scientists are supposedly chasing grant money, and so they create a fake issue that requires a lot of funding. I'd say this is a bigger problem than just the potential lack of funding.
I agree with Steve that the greatest problem scientist would face if the public lost faith in them would be science funding. I like to think that the role of the scientists is to observe, test, and report. If you accept this axiom then what compels a scientist to give false reports? One answer might be ego, his or her desire to be a name forever remembered. But a second option, and likely more powerful motivation, is money. The stress to continue to win funding, to secure a job (tenure), and help support a family are very real pressures even to scientists. Though I believe competition for funding helps innovation, the drive for money itself can be a motivating factor to cheat. There are a number of other dilemmas with current science funding I wont bring up now.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, to briefly address the second article. Stop drinking soda! High fructose corn syrup? Citric acid? Phosphoric acid? Sodium citrate?
ReplyDeleteWait, is this soda or a list of stock chemicals to start a lab?
It's savory goodness.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to read over that article this weekend, because I'm very curious about the methodology behind it. It's not easily available to find pancreatic cancer incidence rates in a nice tidy graph, so I'll try to find that also.
I'm a bit skeptical just because I haven't heard of any great rise in pancreatic cancer prevalence over the last 100 years, and especially over the last 30-40 years when people have been drinking well over two pops in a week (many do that or more every day). I need to see if they claim it's causal or just an association.
I wasn't in a research position during the Bush administration, was funding tighter and harder to come by then?
ReplyDeleteThough Bush didn't exactly embody the apparent Republican ideal of limited spending, have other Republican presidents (Reagan maybe) significantly limited scientific funding, or has it still been recognized as a valuable investment?
From what I heard from a friend, NIH funding still grew during the Bush years, but basically at the level of inflation following huge growth under the Clinton administration. I'd have to confirm this, though. I also don't know if that relates to real dollars or percent of GDP or what measure could be used to measure it.
ReplyDeleteLet's not kid ourselves, science is already somewhat politicized. There is a great deal of corruption in science (there'd have to be if we were witness to some of it ourselves and I'm not just talking about Osha). For example, I have still received pressure to change some of my Biomech data on a recent project at a prestigious institution to better fit what is already in the literature (only 2 similar labs that showed success with same protein so a large part of what I was doing was re-doing their work in a new lab but I found different results).
ReplyDeleteGood science, like any job with honor, requires a separation of the man from the idea/data. This is much easier said than done.
I think there's a divergence in meaning here, though. I think MrL is referring to standard political parties when he is talking about politicization of science. Whereas Randall Stevens is talking about politics within science, but those don't necessarily align with political parties.
ReplyDeleteI want to address MrL’s question regarding science funding during the Bush administration. I was cc’d on a few e-mails from various PIs within my field, some of whom are associate editors on major publication journals, and they were talking about how for the first time in their careers they were without funding (~2007). The consensus was that while the actual dollar amount did increase (as Steve mentioned) it did not keep pace with inflation and science funding in the budget does not mean lab science, hard science etc. For instances, wiki yucca mountain project and you will read where millions of “science” funding dollars went to die. This might be biased because I am a lab scientist, and my subjects are only about a dozen or so disgruntled PIs, but I thought I would let you know what I heard.
ReplyDelete