Traitors to Truth: Cheating and Deception in the Halls of Science - Authors Introduction

Traitors to Truth: Cheating and Deception in the Halls of Science - Authors Introduction Introduction This is a book about how science works on the truth, it's an attempt to better understand a cognitive system that in Western societies is seen as the ultimate judge of truth, and we wrote it believing that the nature of science is misunderstood by both scientists and the public. According to popular knowledge, science is a rigorous logical process, in which objectivity shapes the world’s attitude toward its work. Scientific claims are rigorously examined through peer review and reproducing experiments, thus creating a self-correcting system that quickly and inevitably eliminates all kinds of mistakes. We began to question this view by observing some recent cases in which it was discovered that scientists were publishing false results. At first we examined incidents of scientific fraud within one’s psyche: How could a researcher committed to uncovering the truth betray the fundamental principle of his profession by publishing false data? We were influenced by the spokesmen of a common scientific ideology that persistently insists on the individual nature of the crime. With the news of scientific cheating increasingly leaking into public opinion, and whispers about other cases being disposed of more quietly, we wondered whether cheating was a secondary feature in the science scene? We noticed, after careful examination, that these cases had failed to conform to the supposedly popular model of science. Every case of cheating we have studied is a wonderful reflection of human behavior, and often of human tragedy, but we soon realize that there is a more general and serious issue beneath these individual occurrences; cheating has been a phenomenon for which the popular scientific ideology has failed to provide adequate justification; and so the ideology itself should be seriously flawed or incomplete. Since fraud has led us to question popular ideology, we believe that it may also provide an alternative and useful perspective on science. In our view, popular ideology derives from the work of historians, philosophers, and social scientists who have viewed science not for its own sake but through their own scientific disciplines. Fraud, we think, offers another way to understand science. Above all, medicine has gained useful knowledge about the normal functioning of the body through the study of its ills. By studying science through its ills, rather than through a priori criterion, it facilitates seeing the process as it is, as distinct from how it should be. We believe that the distinctive logical structure of scientific knowledge reveals nothing about how that structure is built or the mentality of the builder. In the process of acquiring new knowledge, scientists are guided not only by logic and objectivity, but also by irrational factors such as rhetoric, propaganda, and personal bias. Parts of this book grew out of articles we wrote for Science and New Scientist. The comments of those who read the draft were of great help: Karen Armes, Stephen J. Brash, Thomas Callan, Jonathan Cole, Robert C. Eckart, Colin Norman and Leslie Roberts. C Higgins, Gerald Holton, James Jensen, Peter Mattson, Dennis Rollins, Boyce Rainsbarjar, Hal Seder, and Marcello Trozzi. William Broad - Nicholas Wade — Source: Brahin Center website - Posted on 2018-01-25 (archived at the Internet Archive) https://braheen.com/publications/intros/خونة-الحقيقة-الغش-والخداع-في-قاعات-العلم-مقدمة-المؤلف