Corrupt Big Science Needs to Clean House
The picture of institutional science as
the paragon of objectivity is gone
The Big Science Cartel, consisting of journal editors, lobbyists, and academic deans, is corrupt. The journals love to boast of their objectivity, their peer review, their scientific methods, their high-and-mighty stance above all other forms of knowledge pursuit. The reality is quite different. They are predominantly leftists who use their powerful media voices to push their ideology, promote their echo chamber, and silence dissent. Read on.
Associate Editors: Please Jump in the Mosh Pit (The Scientist, 26 June 2024). Author of this essay James Zimring, an MD and PhD, still holds out hope that peer review can bestow superior objectivity within the scientific publishing industry:
Peer review is one of the sacred characteristics of modern science that makes scientific claims distinct. The validity of a claim is not based upon the authors’ authority; rather, qualified peers determine the validity of researchers’ claims based upon the data. Usually, the reviewers are anonymous, so they feel free to give an unvarnished assessment without the fear of political fallout. This process helps remedy the confirmation bias that humans seem quite incapable of escaping from, despite actively trying. This is not to say that reviewers are not prone to their own particular biases as well, but they may view the data from a different perspective than the authors. As such, what is confirmation bias for a reviewer may serve as disconfirmation bias against the authors’ claims. In this way, the thought collective has a more balanced internal dialogue.
Zimring knows better, though. The reality is different from this Pollyanna ideal. The ones who make it through the peer review gauntlet are not necessarily those with the best ideas. Conflicts of interest abound to subvert the standards of peer review.
Peer review is essential to ensure that author claims are held to the standard of being supported by observation, interpretation, and reason. However, the peer reviewer should be no less bound by these same standards. Sometimes, however, a reviewer may dislike the findings in a paper for myriad reasons other than those based on observation and interpretation. Worse, reviewers could be biased for political or personal reasons unrelated to the science. Any paper can be killed by pulling out the old armamentarium of thought-ending clichés that facilitate “manuscriptocide.” In such cases, an author may be rendered helpless.
For these and other reasons, Zimring encourages Associate Editors to help rescue the ideals of science, because the Senior Editors are doing a lousy job of it. There’s favoritism, cronyism, and bias all over the place. Associate Editors willing to “jump into the fray” (the “mosh pit”) are “desperately needed,” he says, never taking his rose-tinted glasses off.
While overriding a reviewer’s comments risks replacing one bias with another and could encourage inappropriate favoritism, intrinsic bias, and cronyism, there might be other solutions. The editor could also facilitate debate amongst the reviewers, using reviewers to peer review the reasoning of the other reviewers. In this way, rather than being a passive administrator who recruits reviewers and is simply a referee as authors and reviewers hash it out, the associate editor becomes an active scientific mind in the process, which, at least in my view, is what the role entails.
Then off he goes, telling editors what they “could” do (2x) and “should” do (4x). Good luck with that. Don’t hold your breath.
Outsiders should respect scientists who follow the ideals of science (observation, interpretation, reason) to the best of their ability. But when you look through the pages of research that actually gets published, keep in mind the reality:
- You’re only reading the few papers that made it through the gauntlet— not potentially good ideas of researchers whose work was rejected because of reviewer or editor bias or conflicts of interest.
- You’re unaware of how funding ($$$) factored into the choice of accepted articles, and even determined the research to be conducted.
- You may not know about personal antipathy between researchers and reviewers, or about perverse incentives that rushed a paper through without adequate observation, interpretation and reason (“publish or perish”).
- You never hear from those censored because of disagreement with a currently-popular consensus. That’s why critics of anthropogenic climate change never get published (watch climate scientist Judith Curry talk about this at Prager U).
- You will probably never hear from conservatives, since the culture in many universities and labs is far left and academic deans refuse to hire them. Surveys show that university science departments are almost entirely leftist, atheist, and Darwinist (20 June 2018). How can such an echo chamber possibly be objective?
The Leftist Bias of Big Science
We’ve been demonstrating the Leftist bias in Big Science and its media outlets for years now (see, for example, 11 March 2024 or search the Politics, Education, and Media categories in our search bar). Here are some of the latest examples showing the bias in these institutional businesses (that’s what they are) who pretend to be objective about nature while screening out all Darwin skeptics.
Institutionalizing a culture of inclusion to upend structural invisibility in school settings (PNAS, 17 June 2024). DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) are the calling cards of the Left. In practice, they use racial stereotypes to promote communist-style redistributions of wealth and opportunity based not on merit, but on ideas of “social justice.” Author Rebecca Covarrubias, psychologist at UC Santa Cruz, uses emotion and DEI talking points to promote “inclusion” within science classrooms.
Stonehenge protest: if you worry about damage to British heritage you should listen to Just Stop Oil (The Conversation, 21 June 2024). This website masquerading as a science town hall cannot bring itself to give good press to conservatives on anything. (Phys.org and Medical Xpress frequently copy its articles verbatim as “science news” material.) Incredibly, in this piece, Sarah Kerr from University College Cork praises protestors who spray-painted the pillars of Stonehenge! Why? Because they were on the “right side” of the climate change issue—the Leftist side.
Study examines social media advocacy for reproductive rights (City University of New York via Medical Xpress, 24 June 2024). Finally, abortion comes up for the usual one-sided advocacy. Hoo boy, another “study” is cited. Who studied? Did they study hard? Did they rid their minds of confirmation bias and consider all sides? Of course not. The CUNY “researchers” were not interested in objectivity, but in promotion of the pro-abortion agenda, and institutions like Planned Parenthood (brainchild of racist pervert Margaret Sanger) that donates hundreds of millions of dollars to Democrats. They frame their advocacy in the customary euphemism of “reproductive rights.” Yes, women have reproductive rights; they can have babies! But can they kill babies in the womb? How about framing it that way? This article is not interested at all in discussing arguments for or against abortion. It’s only about what are the most effective propaganda methods for framing the issue in political campaigns on social media. See also this article on The Conversation from June 17, where a biologist at the University of Michigan worries that abortion restrictions in some states are affecting the mental health of young women. But does Prof. Julie Maslowsky have any sympathy for the unborn life snuffed out by abortion? The large banner photo at the top shows protestors with signs proclaiming “My Body My Choice” and “Abortion Is Healthcare.”
There are many more headlines in our queue showing Leftist bias in the science media, but you get the point. Big Science and Big Science Media continually attack every conservative candidate and promote every far-left candidate in the USA and around the world. They take far left positions on virtually every issue on the ballot. They wear their bias proudly on their sleeves. This is the state of “science” in the world today.
On this day when an important debate will take place in the evening between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, it’s important to be reminded just how biased American institutions have become. We’ll ask again: if you find a pro-conservative paper or article in the mainstream science journals, please share a link in the comments, because we can’t find any, and we search the headlines almost every day.
Conservative commentators have noted how Trump will be debating not just Biden, but the two “journalists” pretending to be moderators, one of who has stated that Trump is like Hitler, the other one being married to one of the signatories of a letter that tilted the 2020 election to Biden by claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop had the hallmarks of “Russian disinformation”— which proved to be a hoax. That letter, which Biden used in his last debate with Trump, no doubt influenced a non-trivial percentage of voters to ignore the laptop story that came out shortly before the election. If they had known it was real, many said, they would not have voted for Biden. The authenticity of the laptop has since been corroborated by all the news media now, given that the FBI used it as evidence in Hunter Biden’s recent trial on gun violations. Anyway, we shall see how Trump does in this 3-against-1 contest tonight, where the moderators can cut his mike if he starts to say something they don’t want to hear. Trump agreed to this debate even though the rules were stacked against him: no audience, no interaction between the candidates, and two Trump-hating hosts of a Trump-hating network (CNN) as moderators.
The situation with Big Science is similar in some ways—but far worse—for scientists wanting to get a word in edgewise about intelligent design or even doubts about Darwinism. The Big Science Cartel holds a literal monopoly against intelligent design with the power to censor anyone who doubts Darwinian evolution. But first let them clean their own house, because they are corrupt, biased, and dictatorial.