# I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken



## Metryq (Feb 8, 2012)

*The numbers on “bad science”*



> This infographic from www.clinicalpsychology.net is interesting. It speaks to President Eisenhower’s second warning in his famous farewell speech.


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## mosaix (Feb 8, 2012)

I was quite interested in what the guy was saying until: _"maybe get behind Obama’s plan to tax your breath?"_


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## Metryq (Feb 8, 2012)

> I was quite interested in what the guy was saying until: "maybe get behind Obama’s plan to tax your breath?"



Huh? Am I missing something, or did you post in the wrong thread?


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## mosaix (Feb 8, 2012)

Metryq said:


> Huh? Am I missing something, or did you post in the wrong thread?



Sorry, Metryq. I followed the link about "Ike's second warning" near the foot of that page and I was commenting on that.


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## hopewrites (Feb 8, 2012)

not to mention the whole problem with "you find what you look for" in that you rarely find things you are not looking for in research.


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## David B (Feb 8, 2012)

Interesting article Metryq - Science Fiction in the real world!

The second link in the quote is confusing as it jumps to an unrelated article on bullying.

To see the reports backing up the infographic, I had to follow the source links below it.

i.e.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0005738


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## Snowdog (Feb 8, 2012)

Quite disturbing, especially some of the anecdotal evidence given in the comments. We're so often asked by the Government to take on faith things that their scientists tell them, and which form policy. Pressure groups also seize on scientific studies to push their own agendas and there's little or no effort made by journalists or politicians to independently verify the findings before running a story or pushing through a new policy.


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## Metryq (Feb 12, 2012)

Scientific research can be difficult enough without overt distortions to collected data. Conclusions are not always obvious, correlations do not necessarily indicate causation, and so on. Yet I doubt any of the researchers who have distorted or even "made up" data would consider themselves guilty of Lysenkoism. Technology and engineering can be directed towards a desired end result, but not science.


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