“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything,”
I write on the weaponization of #Research by interested parties - be it the anti abortion lobby or the anti vaccines lobby.
#TrustInScience #researchIntegrity #academicMastodon

https://www.freepressjournal.in/analysis/analysis-the-weaponisation-of-research-is-science-becoming-a-tool-for-deception

Analysis: The Weaponisation Of Research – Is Science Becoming A Tool For Deception?

The revelations around manipulated research and the propagation of misleading narratives remind us of the fragility of trust and the ease with which it can be eroded in the digital age

Free Press Journal
@Calamur Enjoyed reading this. Other issues i'd love to see addressed more: preprints being taken as published research. people not declaring their affiliations and funding, how some drugs get small scale studies done in india and start selling the drug before full reviews.
@anandphilipc thank you so much.
yes - i have been looking at preprints. and more importantly on this entire peer review thing.
not sure how a system geared for mybe 10k papers a year, will work at scale for 22 million papers (or more).
the elephant in the room is payment to reviewers. there is only so much you can expect with free labour :)
but the system will implode in outrage, every time that is suggested.
@Calamur I dont know if paying reviewers will do enough, because it has been tried. the open science people talk about alternatives and using some automation now. at least for looking at methodolgy etc. also, making the data available. and more. But as you said, it is dizzying, the rate of growth and not many great answers.
@anandphilipc IMO, the main issue is that the entire system of academia seems to have rewards on one main parameter - how much do you publish?
and that is defended by too many corporate interests. Unless that changes - not sure how it is going to help science :(
@Calamur yes. this is the bottomline equivalent. and yes this is messed up. tougher for countries like ours where funding doesnt often support publishing in open access, so your choices are produce volumes in whereever you can publish. and such broken research infra.