24
votes
The malignant degradation of trust in scientific work
Link information
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- Title
- Peter McCullough, Nicolas Hulscher, and the Rise of Predatory Journals
- Authors
- Professor Dave Explains
- Duration
- 1:52:54
- Published
- Feb 3 2026
Looking forward to seeing where this thread goes.
This is, perhaps, a bit of an outlier topic, and I don't want to derail OP's primary goal here, but this might still be relevant, as well.
Separate from the primary concern of people in power maliciously undermining the public trust/belief in the value of science (that's my haphazard restatement of OP's thesis subject), I think another legitimate concern is how science has been co-opted/corrupted by capitalism: the $$-gate-keeping of access to scientific papers and publications, that has led to illegal-but-moral rebellions like Sci-Hub ... the constant efforts of various big-business concerns to buy/manipulate/corrupt scientific research to suit their needs (Monsanto on Round-up, the tobacco industry that's still not sure if smoking causes cancer, literally dozens of high-profile efforts to control the messaging of assorted miracle drugs that may-or-may-not also be killing people, Exxon scientists learning about Climate Change back in the '80s and then dedicating the next 40 years to poisoning further research, etc) ... even the way scientific funding preferentially goes to big-headline new studies but often neglects equally-important (if not more so) reproducibility efforts.
I'm sure there's more; this is just some of the high-profile issues that come to mind offhand ... the scientific method is somewhat broken in the West (or at least, in the US), largely thanks to Capitalism. IDK how to fix these issues w/o burning the modern capitalist system to the ground and starting over. I am also not suggesting that this somehow justifies the assorted RFK-jr-like efforts to further undermine it ... rather, I see those efforts as the next stage of the same issue, with a gullible public getting their information from increasingly biased propagandist "news" sources, buying into it all, becoming ever less informed and more paranoid about and distrusting of science.
The scientific method is the general process "question, research, hypothesize, experiment, analyze, conclude, repeat". It can't be broken, although people can do it wrong, e.g., by misinterpreting their experiment and making unsupported conclusions.
I like to think of capital "S" and lowercase "s" science. The former is science culture, including academia and research branches in companies. The latter is, effectively, the scientific method, and more generally, how we discover truth through observation. Capital "S" Science is what you're referring to, and I agree it's corrupted. Lowercase "s" science is incorruptible, because the truth is incorruptible: no matter how much you believe something false, or try to convince others, it's still false (and sometimes the truth doesn't matter, but in the long run it usually does).
Something that would address both the corruption within and attacks on capital "S" Science, is training people to use the scientific method, and more generally critical thinking. People can "do their own research" and make conclusions that are reasonable and correct, if they know how. The problem is that it's very hard. Nobody is immune to bias and shortcuts in reasoning, and critical thinking isn't something you teach/learn like a mundane fact, it's something you train/practice because one must apply it every time they reason.
I agree with your classification of the different types of “science”. If I were to restate my own understanding of what you said, scientific research (capital ‘s’) can be performed with the intent to either “prove” a hypothesis for the gain of corporate benefactors or “prove” a null hypothesis for the gain of corporate benefactors. While the scientific method (lowercase ‘s’) seeks only objective truth.
The latter becomes corrupted when the incentive and therefore resources to conduct said research has the goal of producing monetary gain for the provider.
Where I think I have a differing opinion is on the claim of noble intent as a prerequisite for good science. All research requires resources and funds, regardless of the motivations of those who provide them. Those that choose to spend resources to hide, distort, or bury objective truth (capital ‘S’ science) can only do so for a short period of time because “the truth is incorruptible”. If your lab needs new funding to pay participants, or to buy equipment, or buy materials, I think the pragmatic solution would be to take funding from practically whomever is willing to give it, with the caveat being both they and you agree to try an eliminate bias as much as possible. The existing scientific community I think can and has done this pretty well. Consider double blind studies, peer reviewed papers, etc.
Arguably the most critical phase of the scientific method is the final stage of repetition. “Can an independent researcher follow the same methodology and get the same results?”
We must reclaim the phrase, “Do your own research”, to align it more to the meaning as described by the scientific method (lowercase ‘s’) instead of what I think is has become colloquially to mean, “Google it and pick whichever result you choose to believe”
If you don’t trust or suspect the institutions or research centers, appeal to the ones you do trust to repeat the study, fundraise for them, seek out learning to join them and contribute meaningfully, and/or offer your own capital.
We can’t all know everything but it doesn’t mean we can’t dedicate ourselves to know some things.
Totally agree, but it’s damn near impossible to get funding to repeat work, whether it’s yours or someone else’s.
This really feels like the crux of the issue for me.
We can obviously analyze and expose how information is being derailed in real time by corporate/political interest groups. And I think that is very important work to do.
But zooming out, you clearly see the root of the problem is that in a capitalist society, once it has advanced enough, those in power (capital owners) have enough resources to essentially own and control the flow of information, and it really seems to me that that cannot be fixed without a fundamental change in the system, one that puts the power clearly in the hands of the working people such that they can depose those in power (beyond politics, I'm talking within corporate structures and beyond) and thus keep them in check.
Very good and an important addition.
This capitalistic side symptom is one that crossed my mind yesterday but I forgot about it when writing.
And like the other commenter wrote it's good to remember the difference of the scientific method ("s") and the subsequent process ("S") which I wish could somehow be made more robust against wrongful implementation.
Also a thing to remember I think is that even if there was some disclosed funding or ties to some industry it doesn't automatically lead to corrupted science. But the examples of clear corruption have had a real detrimental effect on lives and reliability of science and probably on its image.
I think another aspect of this is public perception of what the results of research is and how it’s presented.
Some of the anti masking beliefs I’ve heard recently relate to messaging telling us to wear fabric masks and then later that we need n95 masks. “They lied to us!” Even aside from the aerosol thing, these folks don’t understand that the change came from further study. They seem to think that once a statement is made by the scientific community, they were supposed to consider it final.
If I recall correctly, there was at least the appearance of dishonesty in how that was presented in the US, not from a scientific perspective, but from a public policy and outreach one.
The scientific community was crazy at the time (turnaround times at journals were orders of magnitude faster, everyone was thinking about it, etc), and everything was unclear and new. Papers about masks were flying around; there were models, experiments, and so on; doing any practical studies would of course take time, especially given the incubation period and other potential transmission mechanisms that weren't yet well characterized (eg, surfaces).
But (again, as I remember it), the early US government statements to the public suggested that fabric masks were better for the public, and that it was understood that N95 masks would not provide better protection, or would provide worse protection (with the argument that N95s were easier to wear incorrectly or have fitted poorly). These statements were misleading at best, and I think knowingly so. It was certainly not known that N95s would not provide better protection, it was just something where there wasn't enough data yet. Reasonable speculation, along with the lack of data and understanding, would have suggested that they would be better if some ideas around mechanism were correct, and the same to slightly better otherwise. The suggestion that fabric masks would be better seems very hard to justify as anything but a lie or an extremely naive take on how much the public could mess up wearing fabric masks too.
The later justification for these statements was that, given the limited supplies of particulate masks, the government wanted to prioritize getting them to medical staff and essential workers most at risk of exposure; and that goal does make sense. But rather than be honest about that, there was some attempt to give the facade of a scientific reason at an individual level. I'd note these justifications were not given outside the US.
And I think that early dishonesty did real damage to mask wearing in the US. One one side, it gave an unfortunate sense of legitimacy to some claims of anti-maskers. On the other, it may be a reason why the combination of vastly increased production and better scientific understanding that lead to particulate masks being considered much more effective didn't seem to have nearly as much of an effect on mask wearing in the US. Going between the EU and US frequently during the pandemic, the difference was quite striking to me: at a point when no one in the EU wore cloth masks, and several countries had outright banned them from being acceptable in indoor spaces, it seemed like a significant majority of people in the US wore them, by choice. Today that seems to be even more the case: almost everyone in the US I now see wearing a mask wears a cloth mask, and I'm left wondering whether they are wearing them as political statements or whether they continue to believe they are the best option (I don't mean people who are wearing them because they are ill).
Like using a vaccination program in Pakistan to assist in spying for the assassination of Osama bin Laden, it feels like this was a really short-sighted attempt to do something useful while doing long-term damage to scientific/medical trust.
(I should note I'm in no way anti-mask; rather, I wore FFP2/3 and N95 masks and respirators through much of the pandemic, and still wear them in some circumstances today.)
It’s a big country. I haven’t seen anyone wearing a cloth mask in years, except as a layer over an n95 mask. I went to an mma match about a year ago where masks were required, if you had a cloth mask you were given an n95 mask to wear instead or asked to leave.
I don’t recall the messaging around cloth masks being better at all. I remember being asked to donate any n95 masks to hospitals, and that we should keep to cloth masks because there was a shortage. I remember fairly early on seeing instruction videos on how to make a UV mask sanitizer out of fish tank bulbs, for when those n95 masks were too precious to throw away.
I’m guessing you and I were seeing different sources of information.
I live in Australia, but my family lives in the US, and it was fascinating how differently the two countries approached public outreach regarding pandemic PPE.
Here in Australia (at least in Victoria where I live), the messaging was much more consistent. Early on, they basically said, "We don't know how this spreads yet, so we recommend nitrile gloves, masks, and a face shield if possible." As COVID research advanced, they switched to recommending just masks. They were honest from the start that P2 masks (basically the equivalent of N95) were likely the best option and surgical masks the second best, but in limited supply due to the needs of the medical community (plus already in severe shortage due to the 2020 bushfires around Sydney), so they recommended everyone should buy or make the best masks they could (with sewing instructions on how to make masks with double layers of cloth, etc). They even said that in a pinch, wrapping a t-shirt or scarf around your face was likely better than nothing.
In contrast, my family in the US got conflicting messages: that N95 masks don't work or that you needed to be a professional to use them correctly, then that cloth masks don't work and everyone should be using N95. It was messaging whiplash, and we had a lot of arguments because I was following Australian guidelines — using P2 masks early in the pandemic because I had some already, then switching to homemade cloth masks later on the pandemic when I ran out of P2 masks, which was essentially the opposite of what they were getting told.
My attitude was that I was using the best options available to me and those options were working (I never caught COVID at any point), so I wasn't worried. But my family was very fretful that I was using options that were "proven" to not work and that it was giving me false confidence. They caught COVID several times, likely because a lot of people around them had given up on masks altogether due to the confusing/mixed messaging, so I'm not surprised they were so worried about me. But it was extremely frustrating.
I've recently got familiar with the YouTube channel Professor Dave Explains and watched the Covid19 and health politics related content as a catch up after some years post pandemic. I really appreciate Dave's and other science communicators' efforts to shine light on the things and explain with evidence and principles the more nuanced stuff that has gone around.
I am amazed. I knew the things happening have been absurd and harmful to the general public but goddamn it's not looking good at all (Apart from the fact that people like Dave are fighting and refuting the bullshit claims). I'm not sure what I want to discuss here. Maybe this is more like a group therapy session. Or what do you think about it all?
I'm looking at this from far away country in Europe and while our situation here is better for now I've been really frustrated at times of various obvious and not so obvious misinformation that has been circulating even here in some circles. Some of it is leaking from US to here. Often it's these exact same dis- or misinformation claims and views that spread around in the social media here. Of course every country have their own local elements added to that in the information space. It's of course not as bad here and many know better but still some less educated lack the tools to properly identify it. I'm someone who has at least some background and education in scientific principles and have always been interested in that so I can at least disregard or refute some of it.
I think this linked video is one of the best along with the lab leak debunk in explaining a lot of what kind of straight up lying and disinformation has been generated and fed to public.
Dave vents his frustration when he is annoyed by the fact that the one thing humanity has long relied on — something that has brought well-being, understanding, and progress — seems to be under some bizarre skepticism. Especially when it’s disguised, its caricature is used as a tool for power or to pursue someone’s own interests, and that skepticism is fed to people damaging the scientific community and its potential to work properly, as we’ve seen lately. And that it has, and can have, very serious consequences. And it certainly seems intentional.
I can only wish all the best to everyone that are suffering from this and trying to fight the idiocracy.