The Scientific Fraud Pandemic: Few Honest Scientists Remain, Part II

Tuesday, March 30, 2010 by: Aaron Turpen
Tags: scentific fraud, medicine, health news

(NewsTarget) Recently, most of the scientific fraud accusations have been aimed at China, but they rarely (if ever) point towards the medical establishment or the pharmaceutical industry. Here on NaturalNews, of course, exposing the transgressions of Big Med and Big Pharma are commonplace. Scientific fraud, however, is rampant amongst nearly all of the sciences and no "peer review" is immune. In fact, peer review is the problem.

In 2002, Jon Rappaport interviewed an insider at a major pharmaceutical and vaccine company. In that interview, the insider revealed the inner workings of Big Pharma and how they work hand-in-hand with the Food and Drug Administration to get their chemicals promoted as medicines.¹

Hundreds of other cases have been found, many of those reported here at NaturalNews.²

This brings into question the so-called scientific process of peer review that is often cited as if it were holy writ and the end-all, be-all of truth. "It`s peer reviewed," they scream when anyone questions their research or evidence. The rejoinder should ask, "Peer reviewed by whom?"

An editorial by the Editor in Chief of Medical Hypotheses, Professor Bruce G. Charlton at the University of Buckingham³ says:

"Anyone who has been a scientist for more than 20 years will realize that there has been a progressive decline in the honesty of communications between scientists, between scientists and their institutions, and between scientists and their institutions and the outside world."

In his editorial, Professor Charlton notes the tendency for today`s scientists to pursue "trivial or bogus" research because it will progress their careers. Most of the lies and commissions of fraud scientists, he says, are not to make money, but rather to promote their colleagues, superiors, or institutions in order to gain favor and advancement.

So what is to blame for the rampant dishonesty in science today? Is dishonesty being taught in schools? Is it because there`s too much money at stake? Or is it a fundamental shift that`s taken place in how science itself is conducted?

The blame lies in the way that science is conducted with all other reasons emanating from this core paradigm change. You see, just a few decades ago, "peer review" rarely occurred and was not considered real scientific proof. During science`s golden age, the term and method used was "peer usage."

Scientific journals would publish anything that appeared to have merit and would let the readers and other scientists try to recreate, debunk, or otherwise test the hypotheses at hand. This allowed non-scientists like the young Mr. Einstein to get papers published because, well, their papers had merit and the journals were willing to let them be tested. Rebuttals, counter-papers, and other tests were common in those journals as well.

Peer usage meant that validity was judged in hind sight by those who`d read the original hypothesis and were willing to test it and write their own views on it. Usually this was done by researchers in a similar field who would use the new hypothesis to further their own experiments and find out if it panned out in their own studies.

Peer review, however, has no such requirements. It is merely the opinion of the reviewing scientists who read the original work and give an editorial on it. No tests or double-checking of facts or methods are required. Basically, with peer review, someone writes a study paper and it is then sent to a group of scientific critics to either blast or praise it.

Professor Charlton is right. Peer review is bunk and is just editorializing in the name of science. It is because of this practice that the rampant fraud and misleading conclusions of scientific research is so prevalent today.

Resources:
1 - Scientific Fraud and Vaccines by the Thinktwice Global Vaccine Institute

2 - Feature articles on scientific fraud NaturalNews

3 - Are you an honest scientist? Truthfulness in science should be an iron law, not a vague aspiration by Bruce G. Charlton, Editor in Chief, Medical Hypotheses

About the author

Aaron Turpen is a professional writer living in Wyoming in the USA. His blogs cover organic/sustainable living and environmental considerations (AaronsEnvironMental.com) and the science debunking mainstream medical and proving alternatives (HiddenHealthScience.com).