• Tag Archives science

  • Science Has a Major Fraud Problem. Here’s Why Government Funding Is the Likely Culprit

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    President Biden’s 2024 budget includes over $210 billion directed toward federal research and development, an approximately $9 billion increase from 2023 funding. That might not sound particularly bad—after all, who doesn’t like science and innovation?

    But, although seemingly noble, the billions pumped into the US government’s National Science Foundation don’t always translate into finding cures for debilitating diseases, or developing groundbreaking technologies.

    In recent years, although technology and peer-review techniques have become more widespread, fraud has remained a consistent issue. The problem has gotten so out of hand that world-class researchers and medical ethics analysts believe the public should be aware of the widespread inaccuracies plaguing medicine.

    Dr. Richard Smith, the former editor-in-chief of the BMJ and cofounder of the Committee on Medical Ethics (COPE), details,

    Health professionals and journal editors reading the results of a clinical trial assume that the trial happened and that the results were honestly reported. But about 20% of the time, said Ben Mol, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Monash Health, they would be wrong. As I’ve been concerned about research fraud for 40 years, I wasn’t as surprised as many would be by this figure, but it led me to think that the time may have come to stop assuming that research actually happened and is honestly reported, and assume that the research is fraudulent until there is some evidence to support it having happened and been honestly reported.

    Independent analysis done by J. B. Carlisle confirms Dr. Smith’s suspicions. As Carlisle analyzed dozens of government-funded control trials, he found a staggering 44% contained false data. These findings are swept under the rug by most mainstream news outlets, which is a problem in itself. If government-funded research produces such sloppy results, the taxpayers funding it at least deserve to know the outcomes of the experiments they paid for.

    To understand why government-funded research tends to be so inaccurate, it’s crucial to look at history and remember how government involvement in research started.

    It all ties back to the National Science Foundation (NSF), one of the first government agencies built for funding science. In the late 1940s, one of the most outspoken supporters of the NSF was Democratic Senator Harley Kilgore. His motivations were clear: the NSF was to provide the government with a pool of educated researchers that could be used for strategic purposes during the Cold War. Scientific inquisition was never the primary purpose of the NSF.

    In addition to this, the system of “checks and balances” in scientific research is completely off-kilter. Private journals risk damage to their reputation if it is revealed that they have published fraudulent research. Privately funded journals compete to be the best among pools of hundreds of other publications. To maintain legitimacy in the eyes of future researchers and funders, publishing high quality research is in the private journal’s self-interest.

    Academic institutions funded by governments, on the other hand, are motivated to shield their researchers, as researchers play a crucial role in securing substantial grant funding for the institution, often reaching into the millions of dollars. Government exists in a playing field outside the private sector—they aren’t competing against other specialized journals. Because they aren’t specialized and fund a wide array of projects, they can often afford to let “a few bad apples” through (unfortunately, at the expense of taxpayers).

    The source of funding also undoubtedly (at the very least subconsciously) sways the research outcomes. There are several ways the government introduces bias into research. For one, the state often ignores certain scientific queries, forcing researchers to adopt different hypotheses or study different questions to gain any funding. Without any market forces guiding research and development, study objectives start aligning more with the interests of bureaucrats and less with the interests of patients.

    Government agencies also don’t want to fund proposals that contradict the agency’s political ideas. If the research’s outcome even slightly threatens the government’s power, funding is likely to be cut off, often for extended periods. These outcomes are clearest when it comes to funding regarding the social sciences and economics, but also occur with life science research. 34% percent of scientists receiving federal funding have acknowledged engaging in research misconduct to align research with their funder’s political and economic agenda. Moreover, a mere 24% of these researchers have disclosed these ethically questionable research practices to their supervisors.

    This incentive structure also explains why there is a limited amount of research into the accuracy of government-funded research. Many researchers are simply too afraid of the funding and reputational consequences that come with revealing problems with government funding. When there is research into federal funding bias, it is often concentrated on very specific and politically divisive topics (such as the use of stem cells). A team of researchers at the CATO Institute found just 44 Google Scholar articles from 2010-2014 that dealt with this type of government bias influencing research.

    The government’s overpowering role in science simultaneously crowds out private sources of funding. Despite this, there is some good news: the private sector is getting more and more involved in scientific funding by the day.

    Globally, 70% of science is financed privately. Charities like the American Cancer Foundation and Howard Hughes Medical Institute collectively contribute billions of dollars to spurring innovation in their respective fields.

    For example, renowned neurologist Dr. Helen Mayberg’s research into deep brain stimulation as a depression treatment wasn’t supported by government grants. Instead, private sources funded her research. Yet, her discoveries led to additional trials and eventually breakthroughs in the way depression is treated.

    Most Americans treat government-funded science as the holy grail of scientific research, but it truly isn’t. Without proper market signals guiding the direction of research, millions of tax dollars are lost, and thousands of hours of scientific research are wasted. As Milton Friedman explained regarding government funding of science, “The scientific ability of really able people is being diverted from the goals they would like to pursue themselves to the goals of government officials.” It’s up to the next generation to decide who they trust more: scientists, or the state?


    Ulyana Kubini

    Ulyana Kubini is a Ukrainian-American entrepreneur and political activist.

    This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.


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  • New Study Provides Yet More Evidence That COVID Lockdowns Didn’t Work

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, even alarmist government officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci have admitted that it’s time to learn to live with the virus rather than disrupt our ordinary lives. In recent months, there has been a concentrated shift among our elected officials and expert class attempting to “move on” from the pandemic—perhaps because the policy decisions they made have aged so terribly. 

    Yet another comprehensive study was just released showing that the drastic lockdowns (“stay-at-home orders”) enacted in many US states did not meaningfully reduce COVID-19 mortality. Economists Casey P. Mulligan, Stephen Moore, and Phil Kerpen ran the numbers to rank all 50 states on COVID mortality, economic performance, and pandemic education outcomes (based on how much they were able to keep schools open). 

    The results show that despite their drastic, sometimes-lethal second-order consequences, government lockdowns did not meaningfully reduce COVID-19 mortality.

    “Excluding the geographically unusual cases of Hawaii and Alaska to focus on the continental U.S., there is no apparent relationship between reduced economic activity during the pandemic and our composite mortality measure,” the authors conclude. 

    While one can find outliers in either direction, the data for the individual states analyzed in this paper support this general conclusion.

    Florida, for example, was much-maligned for its hands-off approach to the pandemic. 

    “Florida Man Leads His State to the Morgue,” a New Republic headline blared.

    “How did Florida get so badly hit by Covid-19?” asked the BBC. 

    “Ron DeSantis Plays Disaster Politics as Florida Again Reels From Coronavirus,” thundered US News.

    Yet as the Wall Street Journal editorial board noted, Florida ranked 6th overall, 3rd for educational outcomes, 13th for economic outcomes, and 26th—pretty middle-of-the-pack—for COVID mortality. (Despite having a disproportionately elderly population!)

    California, meanwhile, ranked 40th for its economic outcomes and 50th for education outcomes because it so heavily restricted its economy and kept its schools closed for so long. However, it ranked 27th for COVID mortality, marginally worse than Florida despite all the lockdown damage California inflicted on itself. 

    New York and New Jersey fared similarly dismally. 

    There were some states, like Hawaii, where drastic lockdowns did correspond with excellent COVID-19-related outcomes. However, they were exceptions to the norm, and can often be explained by other factors. (Like Hawaii being, you know, a series of islands). 

    This is hardly the first study to reach the conclusion that lockdowns didn’t work. 

    Consider, for example, a comprehensive literature review examining relevant studies published by Johns Hopkins University in February. It found that despite their drastic costs, “lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality.”

    Why? Well, other research also found that the most COVID spread occurred, paradoxically, at home. (Making “stay-at-home” orders tragically counterproductive). 

    But the real reason lockdowns failed is much more fundamental. Lockdowns failed because they were rooted in extreme hubris, a deadly arrogance from policymakers who believed that if they simply wielded enough concentrated power they could stop the spread of an uber-contagious virus. They decided to play God, and that decision proved disastrous. 

    The Greek philosopher Socrates once said that “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.” 

    Lockdown politicians should have heeded this ancient advice. Because, as yet another study just showed, their arrogance imposed drastic costs on citizens while failing to achieve better results. 


    Brad Polumbo

    Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

    This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.


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  • Mask Mandate Advocates Championed ‘Science’ and ‘Experts’ — Until They Didn’t

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    For most of the COVID-19 pandemic, wearing a mask, especially indoors, was the official guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But, on May 13, the CDC announced that vaccinated people — whether they be indoors or outdoors — no longer have to wear masks except under special circumstances.

    While this was cause for celebration in most parts of the country, Democratic politicians in various states and cities have decided to leave their mask mandates unchanged — even for those who have been vaccinated. Reason reported that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are among those who made that decision.

    Lightfoot justified her decision by saying, “People need to continue to follow the public health guidance that has gotten us this far, and masks are a big and important part of that.” Gov. Murphy tweeted that New Jersey’s mask mandate remains in place because many people in his state are still not vaccinated. Gov. Newsom said that he did not change mask policy in his state because he was unsure how to deal with kids in schools or businesses that want to keep requiring them.

    Whatever the merits of mask mandates when they were first implemented, they have clearly overstayed their welcome. Now that the CDC has new guidance, to keep mask mandates in place would be to go against their initial justification: namely, that research and expert authorities suggested that we must have them.

    At this point, the science is clear: once people are vaccinated, they are essentially immune from COVID-19. A study from the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that vaccines had a 97 percent efficacy at stopping symptomatic cases of COVID-19 and an 86 percent efficacy at stopping asymptomatic cases of COVID-19.

    A CDC study showed that the risk of COVID-19 infection was reduced by 90 percent after being fully vaccinated, and another CDC study showed that even for older people — those most at risk from COVID-19 — the vaccine is 94 percent effective at preventing hospitalization.

    After all of this research came out, the last viable pro-mask-mandate talking point was that there are variants out there, and there is simply too much uncertainty about them to lift mask mandates. But, a study on the variants showed that Pfizer’s vaccine was 89.5 percent effective against the UK variant and 75 percent effective against the South African variant.

    Even with this new science, it has been argued by people such as Gov. Murphy in New Jersey that there are still people who are unvaccinated, and therefore we cannot lift the mandates just yet.

    The truth is that for those who are unvaccinated, nobody is preventing them from continuing to wear a mask or taking extra safety precautions. In fact, they are still being encouraged to take those measures. And, it is also true among vaccinated people that if they would like to ensure an extra level of safety, then it is 100 percent their prerogative to wear a mask as well.

    But the converse must also be true. For those people who are unvaccinated and make — in my view — the ill-advised decision not to wear a mask indoors, that is a risk they are freely taking on. And, for those who are vaccinated, there is absolutely no reason to impose mask-wearing in indoor and outdoor settings alike because studies tell us that they are essentially immune from COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated.

    We are at a point where it is more clear than ever that each person can make an individual choice, based on their own situation, whether or not they want to wear a mask. Some people will be more cautious than others, and that is okay.

    At the start of the pandemic, many Americans looked to the government for guidance on how to best protect themselves, and deferred to their recommendations. However, times of crisis have always been a pretext for the expansion of government and limitations on liberty for exactly that reason: it is easy to justify at the beginning of that crisis.

    However, regaining those liberties on the back-end of a crisis is hard. When government officials act in their self-interest — as one would expect them to do — it invariably means not only expanding and maintaining their own power, but also continually trying to impose their preferred version of the world onto others.

    In F.A. Hayek’s book, Law, Legislation and Liberty, he wrote:

    “‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded – and once they are suspended it is not difficult for anyone who has assumed emergency powers to see to it that the emergency will persist.”

    That politicians are justifying continued mask mandates even after the recommendation from the CDC has changed is a clear example of what Hayek was talking about. They are stubbornly trying to maintain the state of emergency to cling to the power and importance it gives them.

    Embracing individual choice and liberty now makes more sense than ever because we are on the last stretch of the pandemic and more and more people are not only gaining access to vaccinations but also actually being vaccinated every day. It is past time that our government policies start to reflect that.


    Jack Elbaum

    Jack Elbaum is a Hazlitt Writing Fellow at FEE and an incoming sophomore at George Washington University. His writing has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The New York Post, and the Washington Examiner. You can contact him at jackelbaum16@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @Jack_Elbaum.

    This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.


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