Big Science Reveals Dirty Laundry

Before giving obeisance to
Big Science, citizens should
examine the books

 

The United States is currently involved in a flurry of media tumult as the newly-appointed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is alleging trillions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse: automatic social security payments to people 150 years old, lost billions of dollars, and even payments sent to national enemies. One source estimates that a third of social security disbursements, amounting to about $522 billion, are fraudulent. Some of the government departments under scrutiny were created with good intentions but, like bad apples in the barrel, have polluted the whole container. Outsiders have long suspected waste and fraud but lacked details on the extent of it.

In a similar way, “science” began with good intentions. Back in the day, hobbyists, learned men and societies investigated nature for the pleasure of uncovering its secrets. Kepler felt science to be a holy calling on par with preaching, feeling he was “thinking God’s thoughts after Him” in a way that could give people more awe and appreciation for the Creator’s wisdom.

The founders of modern science knew innately that their investigation of nature required scrupulous integrity. This required no special training. It was part and parcel of the Biblical worldview that predominated in Europe before Darwin. Of course they wanted to tell the truth and follow the evidence where it led. Why would anyone do otherwise?

One can no longer assume that integrity rules science today. Many if not most practicing scientists work honestly, but Big Science today is heavily institutionalized and bureaucratic, dependent on government largess. To search for the “truth” about nature, observers must navigate a dense thicket of policies, procedures, traditions, departments, hierarchies of management, lawyers, unions, legal precedents, academic deans, lobbyists and special interests. Some of these entities, like barnacles welded to the rock, make the “search for the truth about nature” nearly impenetrable. They even have the power to censor the non-compliant.

> Suggested reading: Freud, Celebrity Fraud (22 March 2020), a case of the intellectual world falling for a guy who was “totally bonkers.”

For comparison, consider the difference in educational practices in the 1800s and now: a one-room schoolhouse taught by a grandmotherly figure who really loved children and wanted to help them learn, and today’s education establishment with layers of administrators, a federal Department of Education in faraway Washington DC, and powerful teachers unions run by far-left activists always demanding higher pay and the right to hold drag shows for kindergartners in libraries, and plummeting test scores. Can those two images both be conflated under the term “education”? Can Kepler’s vision of science as a search for truth about nature be equated to the bloated, top-heavy, bureaucratic, globalist, special-interest dominated monstrosity we call today’s Big Science? (or Big Science Cartel).

Recently, some articles in the leading science journals have exposed internal problems that threaten the trustworthiness of science. Airing this dirty laundry is only a first step in recovering public trust. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, lawyers often say. Painful as the DOGE revelations are, they are bringing hidden things to light that should have been washed and bleached or tossed out long ago.

Consider the following factors that, while not directly concerned about empiricism in research, influence the messaging. If you would not continue eating an apple after finding a worm in it, think about what these factors might do to your perception of “science as it is practiced today” compared to “what science always aspired to be.”

A scientific field, misled (Science, 13 Feb 2025). This is a review of Charles Piller’s new book Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s. Reviewer Carl Elliott bemoans the “greed, arrogance, self-deception, and hypocrisy, not to mention a healthy dose of hubris” that Piller uncovered in a case of scientific fraud as recent as… get this… 2021! Some individual researchers were at fault, but “Perhaps most damaging of all is the behavior of research institutions, many of which do their best to cover up misconduct and protect the researchers responsible.” The fraud was perpetuated in part by a “pervasive atmosphere of fear” that prevented insiders from breaking ranks or whistleblowing.

Failure to replicate (Science, 9 Jan 2025). Here’s another book review about the difference between the ideal and the real in Big Science. The book’s title is revealing: Anatomy of a Train Wreck, by Ruth Leys. The author analyzes how the scientific consensus fell for a psychological theory called “priming” in the 1990s. It all began unraveling when “charges of fraudulent data as well as cherry-picking and selective reporting of results began to roil the field” in 2011. See also our mention of the theory of priming from 22 May 2014.

Was this an isolated case? Reviewer Elizabeth Lunbeck says, “the empire of priming came crashing down in the course of psychology’s replication crisis, a crisis that has since swept through the sciences more generally.”

Giant study finds untrustworthy trials pollute gold-standard medical reviews (Nature, 18 Dec 2024). Last December, the leading scientific journal in the world expressed worry about ethical pollution of clinical trials, and promoted a “two-year collaboration to create tools to help counter the tide of flawed research.” But how can Nature be concerned about such things, when its entire editorial board are all Darwinists? The only value in Darwin’s world is fitness, which for Nature, would translate to winning the publishing competition by any means necessary.

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The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 4 Feb 2025 issue included a special section called “Dialogues about the practice of science.” Let’s look at topics that were discussed. (Note: the individual articles are dated 27 Jan 2025.)

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Introduction: Dialogues about the practice of science (PNAS, 27 Jan 2025). Four authors introduce the 8 articles in the special feature. “A key takeaway from these perspectives is that science is not a static endeavor but a dynamic process that adapts to new challenges and opportunities. It is our hope that these essays will be of interest to many scientists and spark even more debate and thought about these critical issues than has already appeared in journals, blogs, and public dissemination” [which includes CEH]. Let’s hope science adapts by intelligent design, not by Darwin’s Stuff Happens Law.

How can we make sound replication decisions? (PNAS, 27 Jan 2025). In this article, 18 scientists including John Ioannidis (who helped uncover the replication crisis back in 2005) assess the state of the crisis and what can be done about it. That there was and is a “crisis” over what many assumed was a feature of science (ability to replicate findings) continues to make waves in academia. It’s like entering Fort Knox and finding only IOU’s for the gold that everyone assumed was stored there.

Discourse on Measurement (PNAS, 27 Jan 2025). What’s more basic to science than measurement? It’s actually a topic fraught with difficulty and debate. These authors say that “how it [measurement] is understood and practiced in science at large is inconsistent and questionable at best.” Measurement does not exist in a vacuum. It must be interpreted to be meaningful. The article begins with a short review of the philosophy of measurement, and ends with a call to action. “Measurement literacy is crucial for effectively navigating and advancing scientific discourse,” they say. “A working understanding of its problems, requirements, and goals affords the working scientist with the foundation necessary for thinking things through, from problems in validity, inference, experimental design, and error to policy-making and communication.” What scientists measure can affect the law. Climate change come to mind?

Is Ockham’s razor losing its edge? New perspectives on the principle of model parsimony (PNAS, 27 Jan 2025). This article touches on the debate about what scientists should value in a scientific explanation: simplicity? elegance? explanatory broadness? reduction? Ockham’s Razor, the “principle of parsimony” (i.e., that the simplest answer is probably the right one) has been a guiding principle of science for centuries. Now, even that is being questioned. What else in science are researchers assuming on shaky ground? These authors argue that sometimes the truth is found in more complex solutions, not simple ones. There are successful models, they claim, that have more parameters than data! See also the press release from Santa Fe Institute about this paper, “A sharp look into Ockham’s razor” (28 Jan 2025). See also our biography of William of Ockham.

Alternative models of funding curiosity-driven research (PNAS, 27 Jan 2025). Ah yes, funding. The mother’s milk of politics is also the mother’s milk of science in this age of large multi-national collaborations of researchers and institutions. One cannot always do experiments with homemade contraptions like James Joule did in his spare time. “Curiosity-driven research” is not always possible under the domination of academic deans and graduate advisors, or when there’s no money for what a scientist thinks is interesting. These authors consider alternative models for funding, and conclude that “There is likely no single best way to fund curiosity-driven research; we examine arguments for and against the possibility of systematically evaluating alternative models empirically.” In other words, they will fix this bug in futureware.

The present and future of peer review: Ideas, interventions, and evidence (PNAS, 27 Jan 2025). John Ioannidis joins this group of a dozen authors critiquing peer review, another aspect of science that supposedly grants it superior credibility over other forms of knowledge generation. If it ain’t broke, why ask questions like: “What is wrong with the peer review system? Is peer review sustainable? Useful? What other models exist? These are central yet contentious questions in today’s academic discourse” – contentious, because of a shortage of reviewers, quality problems, biases, poor reliability, and the recent growth of predatory journals. This implies that when someone cites “peer-reviewed science” to support an argument, it may not be as valid as thought.

The misalignment of incentives in academic publishing and implications for journal reform (PNAS, 27 Jan 2025). While we’re cleaning out the mess in Big Science, why not clean out the mess in Big Science Media, too? Publication has long been a pillar of science communication (knowledge dissemination) and a necessity for establishing one’s credentials and documenting priority (academic recognition). The publish-or-perish mentality in academia, however, creates perverse incentives to get material into print. The open-access trend has helped but has created new problems. Another overhaul needed here? Follow the money.

While both goals can encourage research with significant depth and scope, the latter can also pressure scholars to maximize publication metrics. Commercial publishing companies have capitalized on the centrality of publishing to the scientific enterprises of knowledge dissemination and academic recognition to extract large profits from academia by leveraging unpaid services from reviewers, creating financial barriers to research dissemination, and imposing substantial fees for open access. We present a set of perspectives exploring alternative models for communicating and disseminating scientific research.

How should the advancement of large language models affect the practice of science? (PNAS, 27 Jan 2025). Artificial intelligence (AI) opens a whole new can of worms that Isaac Newton with his ink and quill could not have imagined. It’s now possible for large language models (LLM) to write authentic-looking scientific papers, complete with graphs and images. Even when used ethically, LLMs are often supplementing authors’ writings as convenient shortcuts for solving math problems or generating text. Here at CEH we use AI-generated images for illustrations, but not for evidence or proof.

This paper features back-and-forth responses by representatives for and against LLM use. One point to keep in mind: LLMs and AI only have ethics that are embedded into them. This is why Elon Musk has warned that AI systems must be “maximum truth-seeking” to avoid human-killing scenarios like the one portrayed in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Or worse. An AI system will not know to tell the truth unless a designer programs that into the code. Human beings are born with a conscience. AI has no integrity by default.

Automating the practice of science: Opportunities, challenges, and implications (PNAS, 27 Jan 2025). Can science be automated? Can it be cranked out like cars on an assembly line? Without integrity, automated systems could crank out lies as easily as truths. Who sets the bounds? Who watches the watchers?

Over a dozen scientists in this final article discuss the promises and perils of automation in science. Automation can assist in data collection, model testing and even hypothesis generation, but there are limits to what it can do (or should be allowed to do). The authors write optimistically about the possibilities, but conclude on a note that once again underscores the necessity of scientific integrity.

While the automation of scientific practice is currently confined mostly to well-defined engineering and discovery problems, there is the potential for automation to pervade a large part of scientific practice. We suggest that this trend represents not merely a series of quantitative changes, such as increased efficiency or precision in science, but brings about a fundamental shift in the conduct of science. The integration of AI into scientific practice has the potential to overcome human cognitive limitations, thereby expanding our capabilities for discovery. Yet, this advance is not without challenges—data availability, computational complexity, engineering demands, and subjectivity of scientific task goals mark the technical boundaries of current automatability. Furthermore, normative goals of science—anchored on societal values—potentially make complete automation of scientific practice neither desirable nor feasible. Finally, this qualitative shift comes with practical and ethical challenges that call for interdisciplinary and collective efforts from researchers, policymakers, and the broader community to navigate the future of science.

But whose “societal values” should be followed? There’s a huge disconnect between the societal values of China and the West. China wants to dominate the world and install communism as a world government. Their values include genocide and slavery. All scientific publishing must please the dictator (7 Jan 2025). Moreover, societal values are subject to change. Science built on today’s values could be at odds with future values. Consider the historical fact that the scientific consensus in the early 20th century supported racism and eugenics.

Something more basic, more fundamental, more universal must govern all societies – a voice that says, “Thou shalt not!” Evolving values are not values at all. An eternal, moral Judge of the universe is the only source of values that all scientists could point to as their canon, their rule, their pole star to guide what should and should not be done.

To the extent that Big Science is generating trustworthy knowledge, it is coasting on the values of the Judeo-Christian worldview. Materialism has no values. Values are immaterial. If the world doesn’t wish to see its crown jewel—science—ground down to useless powder, it must preserve and protect the Biblical worldview. Left to itself, Big Science will degenerate into 1984, Brave New World, or That Hideous Strength (see this video from Discovery Institute).

It is ironic, and tragic, that the very source of values that will most protect scientific integrity and trustworthiness is the source that academia under the control of materialists seeks to censor and suppress.