Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth

by Stuart Ritchie

Science has cured diseases, mapped the brain, forecasted the climate, and split the atom; it’s the best method we have of figuring out how the universe works and of bending it to our will. It is, in other words, our best way of moving towards the truth. Of course, we might never fully get there – a glance at history shows how hubristic it is to claim any facts as absolute or unchanging. For ratcheting our way towards better knowledge about the world, though, the methods of science are as good as it gets.

In recent years, it’s become increasingly, painfully obvious that peer review is far from the guarantee of accuracy and reliability it’s cracked up to be, while the system of publication that’s supposed to be a crucial strength of science has become its Achilles’ heel.

Science requires transparency, it requires valuing method over results, and it should be ideologically neutral. These are not concepts that flourish under a totalitarian regime. Also, the scientists who get promoted to positions of respect and power are likely to be those who please the regime, by proving, for example, that their cultural propaganda is real.

Having your child vaccinated is an act of commission: you’re actively having something done to them, trusting that the medics are right that it’s safe.143 If a study in a famous journal with the seal of approval of scientific peer review implies that it’s not, it’s only rational to take notice. For years after the publication, people genuinely didn’t know who to trust about vaccines. Many still don’t.144

A 2015 piece by José Duarte and several other prominent psychologists argued that, partly for this reason, political bias could be particularly damaging for psychology.98 They posited that, similarly to the example of groupthink we just encountered, if the vast majority of a community shares a political perspective, the important function of peer review – to hold claims to the harshest scrutiny possible – is substantially weakened. Not only that, but priorities for what to research in the first place might become skewed: scientists might pay disproportionate attention to some politically acceptable topics, even if they’re backed by relatively weak evidence, and avoid those that go against a particular narrative, even if they’re based on solid data.

Trying to correct for bias in science by injecting an equal and opposite dose of bias only compounds the problem, and potentially invites a vicious cycle of ever-increasing division between different ideological camps.

Physics has laws, mathematics has proofs, and social science has ‘stylised facts’: statements such as ‘people with more education tend to get a higher income during their lifetime’ and ‘democracies tend not to go to war with one another’.

It’s a clear example of Goodhart’s Law: ‘when a measure becomes the target, it ceases to be a good measure’.

Perverse incentives work like an ill-tempered genie, giving you exactly what you asked for but not necessarily what you wanted.