Science is hard enough

Science is hard enough without the reality of human weakness. Some may not find the findings of scientists as suited to their personal beliefs and scientists can have weaknesses for fame and fortune that encourages misrepresentation of scientific findings. The first situation has been well documented by way of the current issues of climate change and the benefits of child vaccinations. The second topic is less frequently examined.

This post from FiveThirtyEight Science does a nice job of explaining how human frailty can influence scientists. Discussing this reality and what can be done should be important experiences for any future scientist. Issues such as replication, the bias toward promoting only significant findings, and simplistic reward systems based on publication counts need to be examined.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.