The Theory of Theories
I‘ve come to an interesting conclusion about what is wrong with science today. All science.
At a certain point, in one science after another, scientists stopped observing phenomena and started hypothesizing. When you start with a hypothesis, rather than raw data, you are already trying to prove something is true.
Scientists lie – to themselves, each other, and everyone else – about this. They tell themselves, each other, and us, that they are capable of such superhuman disinterested objectivity that they are as perfectly willing to disprove their hypothesis as they are to confirm their hypotheses and turn them into theories…..which is one of the reasons that “the replication conundrum” exist.
Simply stated, it appears that an increasing number of published papers that purportedly prove the theories they were designed to confirm or reject cannot be replicated and, since no one attempts to replicate research that fails to confirm the hypothesis on which it was based, it turns out that, according to 2018 study, only 62% of the papers in the social and behavioral sciences that appear to have proven their hypotheses can be replicated.
Even worse, a 2012 study discovered that only 11% of 53 pre-clinical cancer studies – the ones that are done before human trials are permitted – could be successfully replicated.
In 2016 survey of more than 1,500 scientists in different fields, the highly-respected journal NATURE found that 70% of the biologists surveyed reported that they COULD NOT replicate the findings that were achieved by previous researchers. Lest you think that this was because they weren’t as skillful as the original researchers, 60% of the same researchers admitted they could not replicate the same results they originally obtained when they attempted to duplicate their own work.
The same study found that, among physicists, 78% believed that 50% of the papers published in their field were reliable. which, of course, means that 50% were not.
Replicability rates for psychological studies hovered around 40%, but cancer biology studies scored a meager 10%.
Confusingly, Nature also reported that 73% of the scientists who responded to their survey said they believed that at least half of the studies in their own fields of study could be trusted…but there was no indication whether they had actually read ALL of the studies published in their fields and, since no one (with the possible exception of Robert Sapolsky) ever does that, they actually have no idea how many papers are flawed or simply bogus.
We might console ourselves with the news that physicists and chemist were the most optimistic about reliability of the papers published in their fields of study, which is amusing since physicists from different specializations don’t even understand what other physicists are studying, nor do they attempt to replicate each other’s work because the costs of those experiments are sometimes literally astronomical.
To make matters worse, funding sources are notoriously reluctant to underwrite replication efforts by other researchers.
I started thinking about this after doing some research on the treatment alternatives for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) issues. (Yes, I have one.)
It turned out that there are more than a dozen different treatments for this condition, most of which are described as minimally invasive procedures.
These include something called Urolift (now replaced by Urolift 2) that involves inserting staples into the prostate to hold it open so urine can flow through it more easily, to the use of lasers to burn away pieces of the prostate, or high pressure steam (or cold water jets) to shrivel the prostate, using balloons covered with a drug that shrinks the prostate, prostate artery embolization (which involves inserting tiny plastic balls into the arteries that provide blood to the prostate to shrink the gland by starving it), and an interesting procedure that involves inserting a wire into the prostate through the rectum to deliver measured doses of electric shocks to the bladder to increase or decrease the flow of urine. (This is just a sampling; there are quite a few others.)
Now, what is relevant to this discussion is that the only reason there are so many different treatments for BPH is that none of them work very well, or the others wouldn’t exist.
When I went looking for scientific studies documenting the efficacy of these treatments, I soon realized that the scientific method doesn’t work any more. It is really impossible to fake most of these treatments, and therefore impossible to conduct a double-blind study. Even if the victims, excuse me, the patients, don’t know which treatments they received (or did not receive) the doctor performing the procedure obviously must know which procedure he or she is performing. This means that doctors are relying on anecdotal evidence from patient reports which are, like eyewitness testimony, highly subjective and therefore largely unreliable.
Each urologist specializes in one or two of these procedures. No one does them all, so no one has any definitive comparative experience with the treatment spectrum.
Getting back to the theory of theories, my theory is that we have gone theory-happy. Scientists in just about every field of study sit around thinking up theories that they can test with experimental procedures of one sort or another, not because we actually need another procedure (we might, but that’s not the motivation) but because the only way to get ahead in the sciences is to publish papers and the only way to get papers published is to perform experiments or summarize the experiments performed by other scientists.
I am currently amused by the fact that astrophysicists can’t seem to agree about the Big Bang, which used to be settled science but has now become unsettled. String theory, which used to be all the rage, has gotten tangled up in its own complexities. Einstein, who once apologized to Newton about gravity, is now being challenged himself. (Newton thought that gravity traveled infinitely fast and therefore exceeded the speed of light. Einstein sank that theory when he proved that nothing can exceed the speed of light which, itself, is now being called into question.)
Right now, I am also plowing through the question of whether we have free will or not. Spinoza says we don’t have free will, and so does Robert Sapolsky, who has a current bestseller based on that premise. There are some physicists who think that physics proves we don’t have free will.
It seems there is a link between atheism and the rejection of free will. Both Spinoza and Sapolsky seem to be atheists. Spinoza was an atheist at least to the extent that he did not believe in the concept of a conscious all-powerful supreme being with the ability to control the physical universe. Sapolsky admits to being an atheist but he doesn’t make a big deal about it the way Neil DeGrasse Tyson does.
Somehow, it almost seems as if you need to have a God in order to have free will. This makes a kind of sense since a belief in God demonstrates magical thinking, and both Spinoza and Sapolsky believe that if you believe in free will you are indulging in magical thinking. Perhaps God gives us permission to have free will because God, being God, could set limits on our free will, if that isn’t a contradiction of free will itself.
Both Spinoza and Sapolsky reject the concept of free will, although Sapolsky actually hedges his bets on that one.
But here’s my proof that free will exists. I tried my best not to write this article, but I did anyway.
Wait. Doesn’t that prove that there is no free will?
Not really, because I really wanted to write it but didn’t want to want to write it. I also don’t want it to end here, but I have to go take a leak and if I don’t post this now, I never will.
There’s an example of how your bladder can control your free will, unless you use your free will to control your bladder.
JP Hart
02/08/2024 @ 6:18 pm
“Karl Friston: Schizophrenia, Autism, and the Free Energy Principle”
‘(sic)…”They also touch on the disconnection hypothesis of schizophrenia, how theories of schizophrenia have evolved over the last two centuries, and the relationship between schizophrenia and autism. This podcast was released on October 20, 2021…”)’ The External Medicine Podcast’ (YouTube)
Al, the aforementioned is possibly germane and/or contrary to: “Sapolsky admits to being an atheist but he doesn’t make a big deal about it the way Neil DeGrasse Tyson does.” Thoughts are not protein. My trepidation is that if we continue to usurp good/evil-right/wrong -does/don’ts-crime/punishment etc. our presumed goal of truncating the trigger finger of homicidal maniacs–felonious high risk insouciant mayhem—right/wrong; truth/what?! false machinations (the expediency of greed … teeter-tottered opposite paranoia) we’d ’86’ empathy — wild and wonderful good deeds, stump tranquility et.al.
As a teen I’d the good luck to learn of multifarious potential platitudes
watching — enjoying W.F. Buckley’s ‘Firing Line’ sessions with the flamboyant Gore Vidals and Norman Mailers. My protracted supposition right now is: wouldn’t it be exquisite to ‘parley’ an international broadcast (commercial free in the land of the free) with Messrs. E.J. Friston and Robert Sapolsky⚖️⁉️ Perhaps more practically an epic Club Random with Bill Maher. Al thank U for your time and amazing grace.
Art Stone
02/08/2024 @ 8:47 pm
I cannot for the life of me figure out what JP Hart is conveying.
Bitey
02/08/2024 @ 9:44 pm
I never have.
Alan Milner
02/08/2024 @ 9:53 pm
Me neither.
JP Hart
02/09/2024 @ 6:14 am
Negative feedback beats no feedback.
Bitey
02/09/2024 @ 6:51 pm
I never considered my inability to understand your comments to be a negative characteristic for either of us. I read most of them, but I have never been able to make heads or tails of them. And since I don’t understand the first thing about them, I try not to comment on them. It would seem unfair to you to do so.
Suzanne
02/09/2024 @ 11:47 am
JP Hart, mystery writer.
Sometimes I wish you’d drop the veil. I’m a fan of abstraction, seriously, I am, just not all the time.
When someone has worked on a thoughtful post, with a goal of communicating something using common language, it feels kind of rude to leave them an impenetrable collection of words. Only a few of us remaining, none of us poets. Some conversational commenting now and then would be refreshing.
Suzanne
02/09/2024 @ 11:50 am
Oooops apologies! Alan MIlner is a poet. Sorry, Alan.
Yet Alan said above that he doesn’t understand either.
Alan Milner
02/09/2024 @ 2:15 pm
I admit that I don’t actually read JP’s comments – but this time I did because of JPs comment that negative feedback is better than no feedback. I am amazed to report that I actually understood it. Now, my question is why he only comments but never posts.
JP Hart
02/10/2024 @ 2:43 pm
More than a decade ago cross-complementing blog peers Rodney Roe and Damon J Walters occasionally would nip my heels re: cogency {…} at one juncture Rodney emphatically insisted that I enlist Grammarly and “by all means …! why aren’t you including URLs with all these arcane references! ” My surprise with Rodney: he did not realize one can simply mouse/highlight unknown subjects and learn whatever the ‘rabbit hole’ proffers. Hence perhaps I ‘glory-days-like’ heap obscurantic with a ‘tautological bias that imaginary readers imbibe ‘pivot points’ for continued intellectual stamina. Shucks if we don’t have free will how can we insist: ‘Let my people go…?’ If most empiricists throw fudge on the Monopoly Board (in order to keep supper on the stove?) and how far off was my Drill Sergeant when he sprayed yelling at the top of his lungs: “You don’t have to be a Chinese Nuclear Physicist NOT TO STOP and GAPE at the B-52s !!!” Rachelle-at-First-Sight and I packed in the morning bound for Kankakee yay! Super Bowl immersion and spaghetti. Unless the moon hits us in the eye. Already she’s confided that BindleSnitch does not acronym well. And I (e)goes that My Sweet Lord means more than refined sugar.
Bitey
02/10/2024 @ 6:37 pm
I’m really encouraged by this. At least, I think encouraged is what I mean.
Have you ever played baseball? I lettered in three sports in high school, but baseball has something special about the experience. Football and basketball are kind of labor intensive. They are like heavy sculpting, where you work with the medium, having an idea about what you want to produce, and then getting there after spending time and effort. Baseball is different. With baseball, the tolerances are smaller, the errors in technique are more frequent, so the ‘sweet spot’ is much harder to come by.
Throwing a baseball can be wondrous. You may throw it 100 feet, or 200 feet, and it goes precisely where you intended, within a 2sq. inch space. It can boggle the mind if you stop to ponder it after the fact. And much greater than that is hitting the sweet spot on the bat, when batting. Hitting the ball most often is a bit painful. The rub of the bat is irritating enough to cause calluses on your hands. Hitting the ball when the air temperature is too low, let’s say 65º or lower, the vibration of the bat is more intense. And if you connect with the ball on the end of the bat, beyond the sweet spot, it can feel like you’re holding a handful of angry bees. And if the ball hits the bat too close to the handle, it is a sharp, solid crack, like you’re getting whacked across the hands with a metal pole.
But, when you hit the sweet spot, you feel almost nothing. It’s not quite nothing, it is something, but it is not corporal punishment. It is a split second of affirmation, and excitement. It feels like bespoke gloves. Also, when that happens the balls jumps. It flies off of the bat like a giant invisible suction is taking it somewhere else. Adrenalin spikes and you run to get as many bases as you can while the other team tries to track down the ball. It is a flat, straight desert highway with no speed limit, and 600 horsepower available to pin you back against a leather seat. With all of the other sensations present when hitting a baseball, the sweet spot is the hardest to understand. You just know when you have hit it.
One day I was leaving a Pottery Barn at a mall in Columbus, and as I was leaving, a man was walking in. I stopped to hold the door for him, and he walked in. As he passed, I nodded and acknowledged him with a little smile. As my wife and I walked down the street, he ran out of the store and tapped me on the shoulder. He spoke in a heavy Russian accent and said, “you are very nice, and very smart…” It came completely out of the blue. I thanked him, smiled, and nodded again, and he went back to the store, and we went on our way. For me, that was like hitting the sweet spot. Connecting with another human can be difficult. Meaning gets lost easily. Bad communication is everywhere. We try and try to get someone to understand our feeling about some thing or another, and when even a simple courtesy is received and appreciated, it is glorious. So, I try really hard to understand, and to be understood. Sometimes confusion is fun…to a point. It’s good to resolve the chord at the end…from my personal perspective.
Alan Milner
02/10/2024 @ 11:48 pm
Well, will wonders never cease. I actually understood what JP wrote.
Bitey, that was a beautiful essay in and of itself.
JP Hart
02/11/2024 @ 12:47 am
Coincidentally I just dusted my 1966 high school baseball team photo (younger days) {LO;}. Eyes wide, eighteen of us were determinedly watching the sunset. Three (3) of whom died bravely a couple-a-three-four-years forever and day way out yonder in Vietnam.
The road is long …
I close my eyes ….
JP Hart
02/11/2024 @ 5:48 am
Whew! At first glance I saw BEELZEBUB SLURPING A CHAMPAGNE COUPE!
AL, Bitey: your kindness and tutorial profusion rival your due diligence; 0round and 0round she she goes! Rambunctiously I am curious if our (effete?) pert- alert systems have more robots than the 365 Saints? Rachell At-First-Sight and I roll up the windows after our protracted sing-along with great seldom-harked Cat Stevens:
Jesus Loves the Little Children {…} IF Van Morrison’s Brown-Eyed-Girl comes on right after this Team Rubicon commercial we’ll be barefoot-twirl dancing along the way …. Por favor: take no chances driving this weekend … and HUH! May your team naturally win! At first light I’ll quantify the over [+] under [-] around and through bet … just before the dawn …namaste emoji emphatically … RACHELL NOT YOU …! Keep yo’ hands upon the wheel
Suzanne
02/11/2024 @ 8:16 am
Bitey’s baseball piece was pretty. I’m in need of pretty after this week of bleak political/war news, and climate change flooded streets.
Also, JPHart, you wrote something I understood. Maybe I will get to know you better?
Re: sweet spots. A small reproduction of a Rembrandt painting hangs on my studio door, where I see it every morning. Title is just ‘Artist in His Studio’. The original painting hangs in the MFA Boston, so I’ve seen it hundreds of times since my art student days. It’s a much different wordless conversation now though.
Rembrandt stands in a shadowy empty sepia space, at a distance from a gigantic dark beast of a looming canvas that is turned away from the viewer. In my little reproduction, Rembrandt’s figure is less than an inch high, while the canvas takes up fifty percent of the picture.
I’m about the age that Rembrandt was when he painted it. Every time I look at this painting, which has been an uncountable number of times, it hits my mind out to the left field bleachers. Many times it makes me cry. Yep. That’s pretty much it, buddy. Artist, small and alone in the sepia dark. Art, immense and domineering, a compelling master. Yet that’s where we spend our entire lives.
It can be argued that what made Rembrandt so famous was not his technical skill as a painter, but his content, and his ability to converse with his viewers over centuries, without words, about life: family, beauty, love, the sublime, aging, and death.
Bitey
02/11/2024 @ 1:47 pm
You just did it. That connected.
Alan Milner
02/11/2024 @ 10:49 pm
Wait. That’s your painting, not Rembrandt’s?
Suzanne
02/12/2024 @ 1:05 pm
LOL and thanks, I think, Alan.
I don’t really post my art here, mainly because it instantly becomes searchable. I write things that the student grapevine would pay to know, and they can find stuff on the internet with far more skill than I ever could.
Here’s a drawing from this year that is still a favorite, with the painting that inspired it. First image is mine, of a blackbird watching his mate chow down a crabapple. The muse follows it, Titian’s ‘Fall of Man’, showing Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
Suzanne
02/12/2024 @ 1:06 pm
Program only allows one image at a time. Here’s the Titian
Alan Milner
02/12/2024 @ 1:25 pm
Honestly, I like yours better. I always think that Titan is too busy being busy.
Suzanne
02/12/2024 @ 1:32 pm
Funny. But seriously Alan.
Might as well say, knowing full well that I’m in the company of men, that Titian may or may not have made that painting for the fun of showing a man copping a feel
Alan Milner
02/12/2024 @ 2:39 pm
Seriously? Wow. I didn’t even notice that. No, really.
Suzanne
02/12/2024 @ 3:09 pm
Alan, now you know. 95% of Western art since the Renaissance is naked women under a man’s gaze (if the artist was gay, then the subjects were naked men). Once women grabbed brushes, that began to change. We got to have color field painting and gigantic spiders. Next time you’re strolling through a museum, count up the nakeds. You’ll see 😂
JP Hart
02/18/2024 @ 2:26 am
O!M! Googleness!
I finally laughed aloud during a ETSY commercial spotlighting a cheese board ‘payback’ to France for the Statue of Liberty!
Then too soon crashed to the ground like a misaligned calliope viewing True Grit (1969) with its graphic lynching scene as the township choruses Amazing Grace…Damn; indeed ☆*: .。. o(≧▽≦)o .。.:*☆ just maybe Deacon Blue is the Eye in the Sky!?
Alan I appreciate your prompt that I ought post. However my equipment is such a walking antique (Craigslist good deal refurbished Inspiron) per example the day before yesterday my John Hawkes souvenir coffee mug doused my keyboard as it was collared by my Henry Winkler jacket as I abruptly got up from this ‘ergonomic desk chair’) … yeah but: kindly please allow the question why Art Stone only comments hereupon like a ghost in a wishing well? ‘Ol Art is neither naïve nor nihilistic. And no, I have no clue what my aforementioned emoji conveys {ty}
koshersalaami
02/18/2024 @ 9:02 pm
In regard to the post itself, the phenomenon can be explained by one simple concept that you addressed:
You get what you incentivize.
People in authority think they should get what they ask for, but it rarely works that way.