After reading your post, uwot, I can see that you've used deception in your post to make a point. For example, I see that you have took out one sentence on each of my "Exhibits" to "refute" (deceptively) my arguments, and have omitted the rest (which contained examples and more detailed information), which is called Cherry Picking. On top of that, in selectively quoting my information, you've pretty much downplayed what I've said (straw man) to make your conclusions.
Some scientists are dishonest, it would be a miracle if none were. There are also instances of scientists being manipulative and vindictive; Isaac Newton, for one, was an utter bastard. 'Science', therefore, is tainted; it is not a pure, uncorrupted, virgin godlike thing; it is a human endeavour and is therefore as weak and silly as humans are. I would add that it is also as brilliant and magnificent as humans are, but then I do have a rather optimistic view of humanity.
It is not "some scientists are dishonest", but many scientists who are dishonest (as in the "elite" scientists). As this post to you progresses, it will be shown that this argument is utterly false which is the result of selective reading and selective argument as well as straw man.
Yes. If I hire a house decorator, they have very little choice what colour to paint my walls. The majority of jobbing scientists do very mundane work performing dull experiments and analysing results; if a pimple cream or soap powder you see advertised says it is clinically proven to do x, y or z, you can be fairly certain that some scientists have done enough research for the companies lawyers to defend that claim in court, if necessary. If someone pays you to do a job and you do something completely different, you should not expect to keep that job for very long.
Scientists are employed to do all sorts of useless and even dangerous work. The tobacco industry has funded research to find evidence that cigarettes are not harmful. The oil industry has funded research to show they are not responsible for global warming. For an example of how mental scientists can be, look no further than Josef Mengele; Nazi, torturer, murderer and scientist.
You see, by selectively using one sentence of an entire excerpt of my sources to debunk my argument, you have ignored the more significant parts of my argument which contradicts what you said.
Not only do scientists have to do certain things which are indeed overly pragmatic and boring, but they also have to make "scientific claims" that support a companies claim, no matter if it is true or false.
This can be found in medicine, as in the pharmaceutical industry, for example.
These reports reminded us that the global pharmaceutical industry has been fined more than $11bn in the last three years for nothing less than criminal wrongdoing.
There has been clear promotion of drugs for use beyond the conditions for which they are legally licensed. Also there was evidence of Big Pharma withholding data that queried drug safety.
Altogether 26 companies, including eight of the 10 top companies in the global pharmaceutical industry, have been found to be dishonest. The reports say that this has undermined public and professional trust in the industry and that this is holding back clinical progress.
[...]
In another report, The Health and Social Care Information Centre of the NHS says that almost 50 million prescriptions for antidepressants were dispensed in the community (not in hospitals or other institutions) in England last year. That amounts to just about one prescription for every person. The total is 9.1% up on last year.
Glaxo Smith Klein, a major force in the UK pharmaceutical industry, were hammered for mis-marketing the antidepressants Wellbutrin and Paxil in the USA.This is a betrayal of clinical responsibility of the first order.
So called 'antidepressants' are only 20% more effective than placebo tablets that have no active ingredient whatever. However, they can cause a psychological dependency and they are dangerous and sometimes fatal in overdose.
Source:
http://lefeverblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012 ... fines.html
Not only, though, are there scientists that have to do these jobs, which can at times be deceptive as evidenced by the pharmaceutical industry, but another part of my excerpt have said, but the scientists who do have choice in doing experimental research are discouraged from pursuing more controversial issues, which would get them relieved from their job.
An example from that excerpt (from:
http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01cescience.html), was Cold Fusion, where the scientific establishment had rejected this research for many years, despite the fact that there have been several experiments confirming it by many scientists (for example, Edmund Storms).
Then, back to the actual subject of this thread, we have the Ether. Many people believe that Relativity was against the idea of Ether, but that is actually not true. As a matter of fact, Einstein in his speech in 1920 had said that Ether was also required in his theory of Relativity. You can view the speech here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH9vAIdMqng
Robert B. Laughlin agreed that Einstein had never got rid of the ether, but yet the scientific establishment rejected that idea because it is "taboo", according to Laughlin.
You can view the quote from "A Critique of Pure Physics" here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=_Le0Uw ... er&f=false
Oh, please! Forums can be set up by any individual or small group to pursue or promote whatever interests them and they are quite at liberty to censor it as they wish. If you don't like a forum, move on.
The fact that there are many close-minded people on forums, such as science and physics, and that they often resort to censorship to those who disagree is precisely reflective of the larger scientific establishment in their own blunders. It is not fair or democratic to censor people at forums, just because they don't support the agenda of people running the forum.
Or peer review, as some people call it. It is very difficult to get papers published in academic journals or forums, their reputation is based on good quality research backed by watertight logic, in the case of philosophy, or incontrovertible experimental results, in the case of science. Those claims will need to be checked by respected figures who only have so much time. Given that they are only human, inevitably some papers that deserve inclusion won't make it, but even the best ideas meet resistance and need determination.
If peer review (as in particularly the mainstream peer review) was really like that, then there wouldn't be any articles on scientific journals which base much of their articles on mathematics and off the wall speculation. Don't get me wrong for I'm not against peer review, but what just find laughable is how so much "discoveries", for example on Black Holes and Dark Matter and such (based on equations and scant observation), have been promoted throughout many scientific journals, while more authentic scientists who have discovered actual things (ie. Cold Fusion, Free Energy, etc.) have either been ridiculed or ignored by mainstream outlets, despite the fact that there experiments have held water and have at times passed peer reviews.
You can go on and on finding examples of scientists behaving badly. You can conclude from that that science isn't perfect, which it isn't; or you can conclude that it is rotten to the core, which it isn't. I dunno; is it worth pointing out that there is more than one government on this planet?
Another testament to how you downplayed my argument. The many examples that I have shown have proved that it's not just "scientists behaving badly"; it is more of the scientific establishment being dogmatic and domineering.
