Science is No Place for Fudge

Consider the following three pieces found in the February 4th 2005 issue of the journal, Science.

1.

Many scientists are aware of the subtle influences on their own scientific conduct, but many are others are not. Sydney Brenner, the joint winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine, delightfully described a slide in which data points were scattered very close to a straight line - but a large mysterious black object lay in one corner. By degrees, the onlooker realizes that the object is a thumb placed over a data point far away from the straight line.

2.

Social psychologists and sociologists have long been aware of the subtle ways in which bias can creep into research. The behavior of their subjects sometimes results not from the effects of experimental manipulation, but merely from the attention paid to them by the experimenter. Much evidence suggests that experimenters often obtain the results they expect to obtain, partly because they unwittingly influence the outcome of the experiment.

3.
The reality of prejudice or theoretical conformism in scientific work emphasizes that a considerable job of educating many members of the scientific community is still needed. That kind of awareness becomes all the more necessary when issues of funding and promotion are at stake. Some notorious cases have demonstrated just how ferocious ca be the pressure from commercial funders to ignore good scientific practice. A well known example was the shameful treatment at the University of Toronto of Nancy Olivieri, who published data uncongenial to the drug company that funded her.

These three pieces point to a picture of serious problems in the picture of medical science. A picture that shows the pressure to alter scientific findings, not to mention errors and theoretical bias built into the experiment.