Comment Re:Kinda minimizes "consensus", doesn't it? (Score 2) 123
Some economists at Harvard got busted publishing fake crap that support hokey rightwing anti-tax ideology and nothing happened, they just said "oops, gosh, we just made a mistake using Excel" and it blew over. The lamest part is it was published in a supposedly peer reviewed journal yet their fraud was only exposed by an undergrad a public university.
Most likely "peer reviewers" only checked that the paper is consistent with "economics" (or whatever the specific "science" in question is). How often do they look for errors with mathematics or logic? No doubt such reviewers also tend to assume things like measuring instruments, software packages, etc being used correctly and that things which depend on another science havn't been misinterpreted/misunderstood.
Also this case appears to be a "genuine mistake". Whereas with actual fraud you'd expect at least some attempt at obsucation.
I have a lot of respect for physical sciences but these "human sciences" like economics and psychology are full of shit.
Those possibly arn't even the best examples. This sort of thing even has a specific term in the field of medical research :)
Most likely "peer reviewers" only checked that the paper is consistent with "economics" (or whatever the specific "science" in question is). How often do they look for errors with mathematics or logic? No doubt such reviewers also tend to assume things like measuring instruments, software packages, etc being used correctly and that things which depend on another science havn't been misinterpreted/misunderstood.
Also this case appears to be a "genuine mistake". Whereas with actual fraud you'd expect at least some attempt at obsucation.
I have a lot of respect for physical sciences but these "human sciences" like economics and psychology are full of shit.
Those possibly arn't even the best examples. This sort of thing even has a specific term in the field of medical research