It’s easier to commit fraud when the new discovery fits people’s preconceived assumptions, and when… the basic honesty of all involved is one of those assumptions.
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It is if the consequences cause harm. Medical research and kinesiology come to mind. Women weren’t allowed to run marathons because it was assumed if they tried to do the same as the men their uteri would rip apart.
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Was this purely due to patriarchy? Or due to an incorrect assumption about human biomechanics?
I’ll give you a personal example. When I was diagnosed with IBD in 1963 or thereabouts, it was thought to be due to psychological factors (the way stomach ulcers were back then). I grew up absorbing the idea that it was all my fault. Then in the seventies, it was recognized to be an immune system disease. By then it was too late; it caused a lot of problems that I’ve found difficult to deal with. But I can’t really blame the doctors for that; it was the best hypothesis they had at the time. I can blame them for other things, but not that.
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Haraway said patriarchy, and has some fun plotting anthropologist PhD trees the way anthropologists plot primate family trees. The essay is in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women if you’re interested. The book also includes The Cyborg Manifesto. It has an essay or two on the psychology of the immune system as well, which I have found useful in understanding my own health issues. It’s not about “fault” (ugh), but more about how the mental affects the physical and vice versa. This is the book that made me realise I tend to feel sad a day or two before a cold comes on, and that if I take preventative measures at that point I can avoid or at least shorten the cold.
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It’s pretty hard not to drag my brother in law in a very socialist way (he’s a Big Bank exec) when he asks me how my work makes people any money. I’m often baffled by how little people seem to understand how the man-made world around them got there, whether that pertains to how they got an iPhone in their pocket, or how they don’t get dysentery from their tap water.
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I was actually thinking of
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I still think it’s a vapor trail from one of those flying saucers the military keeps seeing.
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(has not much to do with science, and a lot to do with human nature, but hey.)
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Along the same lines comes this anecdote:
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Haven’t heard a snake oil story like this in a while:
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It’s amazing people like Paltrow and others are still allowed to peddle stuff like this. The FDA decided not to regulate “neutraceuticals” because they don’t have the resources (and maybe because of industry pressure too; who knows). But maybe a few deaths will set a fire under them. Quack medicine has been around for ages, and it looks like it isn’t going away any time soon. This Jilly character ought to be prosecuted for murder.
The real tragedy is the stupidity of people who fall for it – and the lack of science education that might have saved a few people.
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As much as I like sauerkraut and kimchi, if the selling point for a particular brand/recipe is “You’ll learn to enjoy explosive diarrhea!”, that’s a hard pass, never mind the snake oil nonsense.
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But without explosive diarrhea, how are you going to expel all the toxins?
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Needs more cheesecake.
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Some really interesting asides.
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