I feel like we were talking about something like this recently

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Like most research, if you look at each individual published paper. Science still manages to be self-correcting.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nigel, I think the conversation you were remembering was whether peer review was a good control on the science community, yes?

That may well have been it.

The problem I have is this:

Either we face reality and admit that there are some huge problems, thus giving the religious nutjobs all kinds of ammunition, or we stick our heads in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong.

Of course, we have to do the former, or at least examine the hell out of it, but the temptation to do the latter is huge.  And now I know why the scientific community can be very reactionary.

We should hide frank scientific discussion in gay porno magazines.

A better place for frank scientific discussion would be the legislators offices.

[whenhellfreezes]

Nigel, I think the conversation you were remembering was whether peer review was a good control on the science community, yes?

That may well have been it.

The problem I have is this:

Either we face reality and admit that there are some huge problems, thus giving the religious nutjobs all kinds of ammunition, or we stick our heads in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong.

Of course, we have to do the former, or at least examine the hell out of it, but the temptation to do the latter is huge.  And now I know why the scientific community can be very reactionary.

We should hide frank scientific discussion in gay porno magazines.

A better place for frank scientific discussion would be the legislators offices.

There is a joke in there somewhere.

I'm not sure I could even think of a sane policy choice that the legislators could do to help here though. More funding maybe be better. Though I'm not sure if more money would help the broken dynamic with grants. Dance for your NSF grant monkeys, Dance.