That makes no sense. The reason science has gone astray is because people have abandoned the scientific method and adopted science as religion where truth comes from a position of belief and authority instead of test, experimentation, and direct observation.
You can't show that science has "gone astray". Many try. But, they just don't have evidence of that. There IS a problem in the methods of distributing information. There are reporters, including science reporters who don't understanding the issues they report on. And, there is major efforts to sow doubt when they think it is to their financial advantage.
There's always a chance the Null was right. It may be an infinitely small chance, but it exists nonetheless.
Infinitesimally might have been a better word. But I think I have a pretty good idea of how science works. But maybe, I'm wrong? I don't mind if I stand to be corrected. How I understand how science works: Researchers create falsifiable hypotheses based on observations then devise experiments to test predictions that are a logical consequence those hypotheses then the results of those experiments are tested via peer review. How do you understand how science works???
That same method. Its just that sometimes its still wrong, and the only way we find out is by considering the results of more testing that challenges what we think we know. Theres also human error, bias and conspiracy to consider. If you're wondering what Im talking about, consider the 'science' around smoking, vegetable oil, sweeteners, animal fats... all were manipulated by profit driven un-science masquerading as science for decades before the word got out.
Naturopaths and others in Alternative Medicine cite early studies while ignoring later studies debunking those early studies. For example, you mention sweeteners. In early studies, in the late 70's and early 80's, it was found the artificial sweetener Saccharine causes bladder cancer in mice and therefore also human beings. However, we know now that bladder cancer caused by Saccharine is specific to rodent physiology. Using mice as proxies for human physiology is similar to a study using dogs as proxies for the effect of chocolate on human physiology. Everyone knows chocolate is toxic to dogs but not humans.
It's more complicated than that. There are tens of thousands of studies on issues such as climatology. When one study is an outlier, it may not be known why. One can't throw out the thousands of studies on the grounds of one study. The proper reaction to outliers that can't seem easy to invalidate is to study that area with greater intensity. Considering the other thousands of studies to suddenly become questionable because of one study is not a rational approach. This is a CONSTANT ISSUE in ALL of science. There are ALWAYS outliers that are difficult to explain when collecting and analyzing real world data, and science has methods of dealing with this common issue.
In Multivariate Regression Analysis you can remove a confounding variable. For example, a study on the wage gap between men and women found that all but 5% of the 22% wage gap could be explained by choice. And there wasn't any evidence the remaining 5% was the result of discrimination. In fact, evidence suggested the remaining 5% was the result of more choice that just couldn't be quantified statistically due to the limitations of the researcher's model, multivariate regression analysis. When the independent variables were run against each other using linear regression, it was found there was collinearity between benefits and experience-the more experience, the more non-wage benefits women chose. It's not that women don't tend to choose more compensation in the form of non-wage benefits. It's just that variable could not be quantified statistically. It's kind of funny. Usually, researchers look at removing a confounding variable as a good thing, however; in this case, it made for a weaker study.
When has it been bad? The attitude of a scientist has nothing to do with the scientific method.Tell you what, come up with something better than using an observation or line of questioning to come up with a research topic, then make a hypothesis, test with experimentation, analyze the data and finally report conclusions which then are questioned or brings up more questions and the whole process starts again. Come up something better than that, and you have my respect, otherwise you sound like a poor loser who's favorite pseudo-science was just smashed to pieces by the scientific method.
Extraordinary claims SHOULD require extraordinary inspection. Why would that NOT be the case? That is an example of science WORKING! Not everyone in science agrees, and results require serious work. And, let's remember you are talking about theoretical physics - not biology/vaccination healthcare or climatology. I would suggest that trusting people whose expertise is based on claims that they DIED is not a better idea than trusting scientific exploration by people with decades of serious study.
