Science Forums 2

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Mike C

Influence dollars can control the content. This is a form of censorship.
This says about the samr thing.

Mike C

..

While I do not agree with much you say I have to admit this is true, very much true. It has to with with the scientists not science it's self. Any one can be influenced by personal opinion, money, political pressure and even a real scientific result can be interpreted in a way to support yours or any other agenda. I am somewhat trained in statistical analysis, it really is possible to use real data to "prove" almost anything. At the risk of being censured I saw a news report the other day where they said that people who used cannabis for more than five years suffered brain permanent brain damage and used this a spring board to give a reason it should be denied legal status and not be prescribed a s a medicine. Of course no effort was made to put this damage in context in any way. Five joints a day for 10 years was the base line for this study. I won't bore any one with the reasons this was flawed but suffice it to say not only was the premise flawed they failed to show the effect in the context of any other recreational drug that is legal or the context of the effects of other medicines that are prescribed for the same problems. The problems with cannabis was offered completely out of context. Lots of science is quoted this way. Sometimes with out the consent of the scientists who researched and came up with the data. I will be the first to agree that scientists can be close minded. Suggest the possibility of FTL and see how many people will actually even consider the possibility (some will of course but at the risk of being ridiculed by their peers.) all "real" scientists are "required" to accept the premise that FTL is impossible. It probably is, at least virtually all data we have so far says it is but I wonder how fast a theory that suggested other wise could get funding to try and validate it's assertions? Having said that I do not think science is close minded, scientists might be but they are human and humans tend to cling to the status quo. But to say science is close minded really does no one justice and insults both the scientific method and the real scientists that follow it.