Fraud are threatening science

[Big Bad Voodoo]

The Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel was found to have published fabricated data in 30 peer-reviewed papers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/sep/13/scientific-research-fraud-bad-practice?INTCMP=SRCH

"Outright fraud is somewhat impossible to estimate, because if you're really good at it you wouldn't be detectable," said Simonsohn, a social psychologist. "It's like asking how much of our money is fake money – we only catch the really bad fakers, the good fakers we never catch."

"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts" Einstein

[Abramelin]

It started early:

Freud, Fraud In Science

(...)

The author details some high profile cases of scientific fraud, among them not surprisingly Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis -"A small, recent set of charges dynamite the plinth beneath the heroic statue showing Freud as fraudster." The new finding? Freud's cases are bogus from start to finish. Misrepresenting cases and their outcomes began early. For the pregnant years 1887 to 1904, the essential source for Freud's activities are his letters to an intimate friend and colleague, Wilhelm Fliess, a physician in Berlin, in which he admitted to Fliess that he had treated 13 hysterical women, and not one successfully. Next came the appalling treatment of Emma Eckstein. Freud was deeply and weirdly influenced by Fleiss's theories. Fliess had developed a theory that associated the genitals with the nose, in such a way that disorders of the nose could cause psychosexual problems --nasal reflex neurosis" --which had to be treated by cauterizing and applying cocaine to the spongy bones of the nasal passages. Freud send Emma to Fliess who operated on her removing some bone. When Emma returned to Vienna, she developed a grave infection and a near-fatal hemorrhage. Freud diagnosed the cause: Emma was "bleeding for love" of him. Her life was saved when it was found that during surgery Fliess had left behind half a metre of gauze. She was permanently disfigured as a result of surgery. Next was the famous case of Dora, the hysterical young woman-which was the classical analysis of the structure and genesis of hysteria--so described by Erik Erkson, an eminent psychoanalytic practitioner and theorist. We now understand "Dora" as the classic case of gross malpractice! For more details of bizarre logic of psychoanalysis--see page 87 of the book.

(...)

http://psychroaches.blogspot.nl/2011/07/freud-fraud-in-science.html

[Render]

It's an unfortunate phenomenon.

But it does prove, yet again, the self-corrective nature of science.

[Big Bad Voodoo]

1.This from wiki:

http://en.wikipedia....on#Use_of_tools

„The use of tools has been interpreted as a sign of intelligence, and it has been theorized that tool use may have stimulated certain aspects of human evolution, especially the continued expansion of the human brain. Increased tool use would allow hunting for energy-rich meat products, and would enable processing more energy-rich plant products. Researchers have suggested that early hominids were thus under evolutionary pressure to increase their capacity to create and use tools.

The oldest known tools are the "Oldowan stone tools" from Ethiopia, 2.5-2.6 million years old, which predates the earliest known "Homo" species. There is no known evidence that any "Homo" specimens appeared by 2.5 Ma.

A Homo fossil was found near some Oldowan tools, and its age was noted at 2.3 million years old, suggesting that maybe the Homo species did indeed create and use these tools. It is a possibility but does not yet represent solid evidence.“

2.Now enter this site:

http://anthromuseum....xes/intro.shtml

„Homo habilis, an ancestor of Homo sapiens, manufactured Oldowan tools.“

3.Now lets play game connecting dots:

A. Homo habilis, an ancestor of Homo sapiens, manufactured Oldowan tools.

B. The oldest known tools are the "Oldowan stone tools" from Ethiopia, 2.5-2.6 million years old, which predates the earliest known "Homo" species. There is no known evidence that any "Homo" specimens appeared by 2.5 Ma….suggesting that maybe the Homo species did indeed create and use these tools. It is a possibility but does not yet represent solid evidence.

Edited September 20, 2012 by the L

[cladking]

"Science" is nearly completely out of control. Even cosmology which was

at one time sacrosanct has degenerated into guesswork with nothing more

than math and thought experiments to support it. The other sciences are

far worse and most things that don't have military applications find dif-

ficulty even getting funding.

Few people even understand what science is and this is rampant even among

scientists. Most specialties have become "old boys clubs" which exist

primarily to exclude new ideas and to protect the status quo. This could

be the start of a new dark age but the probability is the computer will

save us from it.

[cladking]

I should add that the specialties have become so incredibly narrow

that most practitioners can't see the forest for the trees. They ob-

serve such a narrow piece of nature they can't put it in the big pic-

ture so are essentially blind.