Science isn't always Science and The Data is not alway the Data

We almost all know enough not to automatically trust politicians and salespeople, but still it is so easy to think that a scientist or a doctor are true professionals that hold truth to be more important than money, power or glory. Sad but not so true, especially since there is so much money to be made. Below is an excerpt from a much large article by Shannon Brownlee which appeared in 2004 in the Washington Monthly.

I have excerpted because I feel it highlights the nexus of the problem: we trust and there are those that abuse that trust because they can profit.





From the article:

Isn't science, well, scientific, an objective search for the truth? That's what many academic clinicians, especially those who are mixed up with corporate sponsors, would have the public believe. A typical comment comes from Niels Reimers, an early promoter of industry-university ties, who told the Hartford Courant, "You may think I'm a Pollyanna or something, but most people are honest. It's sort of the ethos of academic research." Here's Dr. Irwin Goldstein, a Boston University urologist who has consulted for at least seven companies developing impotence therapies: "Science is science. It comes down to the bottom line. What the data shows, the data shows."

Such statements reflect the ideal of science, not the reality, says Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine. Public protestations aside, she says,

"Clinicians know privately that results can be jiggered. You can design studies to come out the way you want them to. You can control what data you look at, control the analysis, and then shade your interpretation of the results." <my emphasis>

Even the most careful research can be fraught with murky results that require sifting and weighing, a measure of judgment that the researcher hopes will bring him closer to the truth. Was this patient's headache caused by the antibiotic you gave her, or does she have a history of migraines? Is that patient's depression lifting because of the drug you are testing, or because a kindly doctor is actually listening to him?

for the full article click on the link below

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0404.brownlee.html

http://snipurl.com/31kgc