Why Trust Science?

by Naomi Oreskes

  44. Brandt, The Cigarette Century; Proctor, Golden Holocaust; Michaels, Doubt Is Their Product, 2008; Oreskes and Conway, Merchants of Doubt. In 2013, the editors of the journals BMJ, Heart, Thorax, and BMJ Open stopped publishing research funded by the tobacco industry. In an editorial, they said that, “the tobacco industry, far from advancing knowledge, has used research to deliberately produce ignorance and to advance its ultimate goal of selling its deadly products while shoring up its damaged legitimacy.” See Godlee et al., “Journal Policy on Research Funded by the Tobacco Industry.”

  45. Dugan, “In U.S., Smoking Rate Hits New Low at 16%.” See also https://news.gallup.com/poll/237908/smoking-rate-hits-new-low.aspx.

  46. Michaels, Doubt Is Their Product, 2008. See also Markowitz and Rosner, Deceit and Denial; Markowitz and Rosner, Lead Wars. Fanelli (“How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research?”) finds that “misconduct was reported more frequently by medical/pharmacological researchers than others.” This supports the possibility that misconduct in biomedicine is driven by the highly competitive atmosphere of medical research, the potentially distorting effects of interested funding, or both.

  47. Michaels, Doubt Is Their Product, 2008; Michaels and Monforton, “Manufacturing Uncertainty”; Oreskes et al., “Viewpoint,” July 7, 2015.

  48. Franta and Supran, “The Fossil Fuel Industry’s Invisible Colonization of Academia.”

  49. For a full discussion of facsimile science, see Oreskes, “Systematicity Is Necessary but Not Sufficient: On the Problem of Facsimile Science,” Synthèse, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-017-1481-1.

  50. Oberhaus, “Hundreds of Researchers from Top Universities Were Published in Fake Academic Journals.”

  51. On journals created or supported by the tobacco industry, see Proctor, Golden Holocaust.

  52. Public Health Law Center, “United States v. Philip Morris (D.O.J. Lawsuit)”; Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, “Tobacco Companies Ordered to Place Statements about Products’ Dangers on Websites and Cigarette Packs.”

  53. Oberhaus, “Hundreds of Researchers from Top Universities Were Published in Fake Academic Journals.”

  54. Carey, “A Peek Inside the Strange World of Fake Academia”; Wikipedia, “Predatory Conference.”

  55. Oberhaus, “Hundreds of Researchers from Top Universities Were Published in Fake Academic Journals.” For the original study, in which scientists created a nonsense paper and submitted it to one of these journals, see https://www.daserste.de/information/reportage-dokumentation/dokus/videos/exclusiv-im-ersten-fake-science-die-luegenmacher-englische-version-video-100.html. Of course, nonsense can be published in legitimate journals as well, as demonstrated by the famous hoax by Alan Sokal and my discussion of the critical positivity ratio, above. But it is important to note that Sokal’s hoax was perpetrated on a journal Social Text, which is not peer-reviewed. Some years ago, when Sokal was my upstairs neighbor, I asked him why he did not submit his hoax to a peer-reviewed journal, such as Social Studies of Science? (since his claim was that the field of science studies was largely nonsense). He replied, “Oh, well I knew the reviewers would see it was nonsense and it would be rejected.” This actually reassured me: Sokal apparently did not think his hoax would get past peer review.

  56. Open Science Collaboration, 2015. “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science,” Science. 349: 943.

  57. “Comment: Raise Standards for Preclinical Cancer Research.” Begley, C. Glenn and Ellis, Lee M., 2012. Nature 483: 531–533.

  58. A useful future line of investigation would be to examine how different social, intellectual, and political contexts produce different sorts of problems in different sciences. For example, in climate science we have documented conservatism—what my colleagues and I have called “erring on the side of least drama”—because the social pressure and intimidation has led climate scientist to be cautious (Brysse et al., 2013). In the oncology, and particularly in private sector research laboratories, there is an entirely different pressure: to move fast to be the first to prove a drug.

  59. “Comment: Raise Standards for Preclinical Cancer Research.” Begley, C. Glenn and Ellis, Lee M., 2012. Nature 483: 531–533, on p 532.

  Afterword

  1. For one perspective: Pomerantsev, “Why We’re Post-Fact.”

  2. For a global perspective, see Ghosh, The Great Derangement.

  3. Trump, “The Concept of Global Warming Was Created by and for the Chinese in Order to Make U.S. Manufacturing Non-Competitive.” See also Jacobson, “Did Trump Say Climate Change Was a Chinese Hoax?” and Zurcher, “Does Trump Still Think It’s All a Hoax?” In casting doubt on the reality of climate change and disparaging climate science, Mr. Trump followed in the footsteps of many Republican politicians, including Oklahoma senator James Inhofe, who infamously sought to disprove climate change by bringing a snowball into the halls of Congress, and Texas senator Ted Cruz who repeatedly insisted that global warming had stopped, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary and various scientists attempts to set the record straight. (C-SPAN, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) Snowball in the Senate. Mooney, “Ted Cruz Keeps Saying That Satellites Don’t Show Global Warming. Here’s the Problem.”) The claim that global warming had stopped was also picked up by numerous think tanks who have long promoted doubt about climate change and climate science, such as the Cato Institute: Bastasch and Maue, “Take a Look at the New ‘Consensus’ on Global Warming.”

  4. Smith, “Vaccine Rejection and Hesitancy.”

  5. “Where Is Glyphosate Banned?”;“IARC Monographs Volume 112: Evaluation of Five Organophosphate Insecticides and Herbicides.”

  6. Oppenheimer et al., Discerning Experts.

  7. Rudwick, The Great Devonian Controversy.

  8. Gross and Levitt, Higher Superstition.

  9. Wang et al., “Recent Advances on Endocrine Disrupting Effects of UV Filters.”

  10. Downs et al., “Toxicopathological Effects of the Sunscreen UV Filter, Oxybenzone (Benzophenone-3), on Coral Planulae and Cultured Primary Cells and Its Environmental Contamination in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands.” See also “Oxybenzone—Substance Information.”

  11. Gabbard et al., Relating to Water Pollution. The bill also bans the sale of octinoxate sunscreen, unless prescribed by a doctor. Octinoxate has also been implicated in coral toxicity. Schneider and Lim, “Review of Environmental Effects of Oxybenzone and Other Sunscreen Active Ingredients.”

  12. Jacobsen, “Is Sunshine the New Margarine?”

  13. They also state that, “The U.S. Food & Drug Administration has approved the active ingredients in both types of sunscreen as safe and effective.” The issue of FDA under-regulation, particularly of EDCs, is another matter. For a list of sunscreen ingredients allowed by the FDA see Code of Federal Regulations Title 21. For a discussion of questionable products allowed in US cosmetics but restricted or banned elsewhere see Becker, “10 American Beauty Ingredients That Are Banned in Other Countries.” At present, oxybenzone is permitted in both the United States and in Europe up to 6% in sunscreens.

  14. Perez, Musini, and Wright, “Effect of Early Treatment with Anti-Hypertensive Drugs on Short and Long-Term Mortality in Patients with an Acute Cardiovascular Event.” Studies analyzing the effects of blood pressure on long-term cardiovascular health are recommended to take multiple samples so short-term variability does not skew the data: “Age-Specific Relevance of Usual Blood Pressure to Vascular Mortality.”

  15. Consensus Development Panel, “National Institutes of Health Summary of the Consensus Development Conference on Sunlight, Ultraviolet Radiation, and the Skin. Bethesda, Maryland, May 8–10, 1989.”

  16. Cancer Council Australia, “Position Statement—Sun Exposure and Vitamin D—Risks and Benefits—National Cancer Control Policy.”

  17. Ibid. “In late autumn and winter in those parts of Australia where the UV Index is below 3, sun protection is not recommended. During these times, to support vit
amin D production it is recommended that people are outdoors in the middle of the day with some skin uncovered on most days of the week. Being physically active while outdoors will further assist with vitamin D levels.”

  18. Cancer Council Australia, “SunSmart.”

  19. “Sunscreen Fact Sheet.”

  20. Ibid.

  21. On the net risk of avoiding the sun: Lindqvist et al., “Avoidance of Sun Exposure as a Risk Factor for Major Causes of Death.”

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