Have any of you folks noticed a decline in objective reasoning in the realm of Scientific research?

Question

I seem to notice a great many conclusions and theories formed from observations of correlations rather than the more exhaustive search of causation . I know that the latter often evolves from the former, but so much "Science" that one reads in the newspapers involves someone grabbing a telephone and surveying a few thousand people and asking them some sort of question like did you ever suffer from cancer, and how much coffee do you drink a day?

Please don't get me wrong--I am aware of the utility of surveys and how it might assist in solving scientific queries, but there just seems to be so many flimsy conclusions drawn from "surveys" and correlating data. Thank goodness lots of folks still bang around the pyrex and pipettes!

Answer 1

Decline?  No.  But there is a constant noise level of bad data, bad analysis and bad science.  Correlations should never spawn conclusions, just hypotheses to be tested.  There is quite a science to surveys and polls, and part of the 'science' is structuring questions to get the response you are going after.  So the value of survey results to science is entirely dependent on who is asking (or who is paying to ask) the questions and why.

Answer 2

There seems to be an increase in corporate sponsorship of research, leading to studies that are either designed specifically to support a particular assumption, or selected so they can be spun in the desired direction. This is abetted by a press that is increasingly content to simply reformat press releases.

In the US you have the further complication that the current administration has spent the past seven years systematically  placing political hacks in many government positions formerly occupied by scientists.

Answer 3

i see an increase in incorrect, shoddy, half-arsed "scientific" reporting done by "journalists" who, at best, took one survey course in biology to fulfill their college science class requirement so won't typically understand what's being conveyed in a scientific press release; sometimes what's scientifical is simplified so much for the lay public the "info" isn't useful  (e.g., eat food, gain weight...DUH!).

furthermore, media (including newspapers) are about sensationalism. if you want quality scientific pieces look through peer-reviewed journals...

Answer 4

There are rigorous mathematical controls for testing correlations, although the common-causation fallacy, of course, cannot be controlled for mathematically.  It is indeed the case that a great deal of research relies too much on the idea that responses to surveys are in any way an accurate depiction of reality, but it's also the case that scientific papers are generally misconstrued in the mass media; for instance, a number of papers heavily publicized some important research on the internals of metabolic pathways by proclaiming that "Scientists have proven that eating carbohydrates makes you fat!"

Unless you've read the actual study you can't be sure that the article describes anything related to the actual study.