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Continuing on the theme of scientific bias, another interesting observation is that in "scientific" studies - which most people assume to be an objective source of knowledge about the world - there is usually a great deal of bias involved.

This is exemplified by the studies quoted below. I have been searching for the sources of the studies mentioned, but have not been able to locate more information about them as yet (if you know where to look, please post it in a reply to this post!) Nonetheless, it raises a vital point:

In social science research, errors commonly occur in favor of the anticipated outcome. In one study, researchers gave genetically identical white rats to students. The researchers told the students that some of the rats were fast runners and some were slow. When the students recorded running times in a maze, the "fast" rats had faster times than the "slow" ones.

Another study collected the original data from 27 published studies. The median error rate was about 1 percent, but rates of 3 percent and 4 percent were not uncommon. Two-thirds of these errors supported the researcher's hypothesis. Of course, if the researchers were unbiased, half of the errors should have supported the hypothesis and half should have countered it.

Source: http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:oz ... =clnk&cd=3

Think about it: this basically means that the results of studies are often a foregone conclusion. That possibility is a terrible blow to the public image of science as an objective source of gospel truth. It appears the "scientific" researchers may often simply be finding the results they expect to find!

How and why does this happen? In all kinds of ways and for all kinds of reasons. . . The first key factor laying waste to the idea of objective scientific truth are the assumptions written in from the start to the original structuring of any study: before anything can be studied, a hypothesis and possible outcomes must be envisioned. This immediately restricts and directs the possible outcomes of the study, and in addition the assumptions often create all kinds of blind spots, neglected areas and prejudices that are merely taken as the initial assumptions even before the study has begun.

As a simple example, if someone is suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) caused by amalgam poisoning, and you set out to do a study, first you have to design the study: and if there is an assumption from the outset that the syndrome might have something to do with a virus or genes then this immediately introduces a severe limitation and prejudice to the study, no matter how scientifically it is later conducted. Ten thousand apparently "objective" and "scientific" studies might be done on CFS in this manner and yet none ever hit upon amalgam poisoning as the cause if somehow it never occurs to any of the researchers to check!

However, that's only the beginning. As indicated above, we can see that once the study itself is underway, researchers tend to find what they're looking for. As unscientific as this sounds, it simply happens: data that doesn't fit well with your expectations is ignored, and therefore everything you see and record has an inbuilt tendency to confirm your expectations.

In addition, since researchers are dependent on funding, many of them will sub-consciously or consciously be seeking to please their funders: how can it be any other way unless there is "blind funding" (see next post below)? The current situation of scientific research can be compared to previous eras in which great artists were commisioned to paint only certain things, and in certain ways, according to the desires of their patrons, whom they were enslaved to try to please (who would paint an unflattering portrait of their patron?)

Furthermore, as if this wasn't enough, a similar process of selection bias occurs with scientific journals. Many thousands of studies are done every year, but only a select few are chosen for publication in widely read peer-reviewed journals. The rest will tend not to have much impact because not many people will hear about them. And which ones are chosen? Mostly those, of course, which tend to confirm the expectations of the current "scientific" (superstitious) consensus. Ten studies might be done showing a result that didn't match the ideas about the world held by a journal's editorial staff; but then when that eleventh study comes out with a different conclusion to the ten that preceded it, suddenly there is an interest in publishing it!

In the medical world, this happens all the time. It happened to my cousin-in-law, an MD in Wisconsin involved in research of echinacea. When his study achieved fame in journals, as well as the media, he said himself he was happy to be suddenly popular, but unhappy about what he knew were the real reasons: he reported that many previous studies had shown echinacea to be beneficial, and these studies had been ignored, but now his study had apparently indicated that echinacea wasn't so good after all, suddenly the journals and media had all pounced on it with great interest. Scientific bias? You bet.

For the above reasons, Michael Crichton (quoted also in the previous thread on scientific bias) has made a proposition which struck me as interesting - to revolutionize the methods of scientific research through blind funding. This wouldn't clear up all of the above-mentioned problems with scientific research, but it would certainly be a good start:

The fact is that the present structure of science is entrepeneurial, with individual investigative teams vying for funding from organizations which all too often have a clear stake in the outcome of the research-or appear to, which may be just as bad. This is not healthy for science.

Sooner or later, we must form an independent research institute in this country. It must be funded by industry, by government, and by private philanthropy, both individuals and trusts. The money must be pooled, so that investigators do not know who is paying them. The institute must fund more than one team to do research in a particular area, and the verification of results will be a foregone requirement: teams will know their results will be checked by other groups. In many cases, those who decide how to gather the data will not gather it, and those who gather the data will not analyze it.

Source: http://www.crichton-official.com/speech ... ote04.html