The academy welcomed him with open arms, gave him awards, and lauded his book. He came to the local campus on his book tour, where he was introduced with glowing accolades.
It took an independent individual to start finding the problems, the academy failed in its review.
But - you were asking for proof of bias - here it is in one situation. Look at the amount of work it took to finally knock him off of his perch.
here is my problem with gun control studies: most of the data comes from police/FBI/NCIC. Why doesn’t it come from other sources? because they don’t exist. I tried finding statistical data relating to number of times a concealed weapon owner brandishes their weapon versus number of times a CCW owner brandishes AND discharges their weapon, from a non-partisan institution or group. The data does not exist. As a concealed carry license holder I can tell you why that data doesn’t exist. If I draw, but don’t have to fire, then I am not going to waste my time calling the cops. Do you know how much paperwork there is? I’n the 15 years I have been legal to carry concealed, I have pulled my gun 20 times. I discharged once…at a doberman who had previously mauled two other people, who was out of his yard, who was intent on making me need 100 or more stitches I had no interest in receiving. Every other time the incident went like this: I am in fear of my life and well being because of you; I have a gun and I may still die, but one of you is going with me; 'It’s cool bro, its cool…" with me replying something along the line of ‘yeah, you’re walking away, its very cool.’ Then I find a bathroom and toss my drawers and wipe. I may be (probably am,) an anomaly, but my concealed carry weapon has taught me one of the best lessons I’ve ever learned: how to just avoid a situation where I would need it while still enjoying life and adventure.
On a related note, I don’t think that anyone is looking at this in a wide enough scope (pardon the pun.) Everyone is focused on gun violence. That is a start. The big problem is the fact that we (the United States,) doesn’t have a gun violence problem. We have a violence problem. The attention we’ve given to gun violence and the energy we have so far expended on arguing the subject and blame placing could have been better spent paying some anthropologists and philosophers and psychologists to spend their time figuring out why the US is one of the most violent developed countries in the world. I’ll be optimistic and even task these sharp minds with recommending some possible solutions. It seems like it would be a better use of our time and resources, you know, figuring out and addressing the problem rather than its symptoms.
I can see this bothers you, hoss, so I’m going to try and help you out. You see, its not that progressive people are smarter, its that smart people tend to be progressive. Of course, the numbers end up the same that way, but I hope that takes some of the sting out of it.
Yes, but as I have seen in the case of intelligent design and climate change even the ones opposed to the scientific consensus can get it right and they **do **convince the ones the guys that count to make corrections, how is that possible? Easy, they bring the evidence and others can replicate it. I’m referring here to a claim to fame of one climate change contrarian that demonstrated one bit of data processing was wrong, scientists made the correction and while it still showed that it made almost no difference (earth is still warming) the contrarian did go to gain fame, although he has been coasting on that for more than ten years and has not been effective on finding errors anymore, but I digress.
The point is that if evidence that show a mistake on something so controversial as this is willfully ignored by the scientists, then you bet that many groups would jump at it and be very loud about it.
Unfortunately, and based on what I have seen so far, there are many politicians that are involved with creationism and climate change denial, these guys (specially the tea partiers) are there in congress to disregard all science. Removing funding or preventing research of any inconvenient topic is their bread and butter.
Seems to me that if the problem is lack of reliable data, that’s one we can fix. Let’s think on it for a while, see if we can’t come up with something.
That statistic is not an indictment of academia, it is an indictment of conservatism.
So? They might come from the Centers for Disease Control, but for the NRA and certain cowardly Congresscritters.
So, no money to fund guns n’ violence, but videogames n’ violence? TEN meeeelliion dollars.
… seriously guys.
Y’know, they watch the same shows and play the same games in Canada. It does not turn Canucks into killers. And a lot of those games come from Japan, not much real-life violence there.
:dubious: OK, that is going far too motherfucking far. I have reviewed the GD rules, and there is nothing against “flaming” organizations. And the Dope generally is no place for decorum, thank Og! Shame on you!
It is not a matter of decorum. It is a matter off poisoning the debate by deliberately antagonizing one’s opponents.
A certain amount of that occurs in most debates, but deliberate efforts to kill the discussion through vitriol have always been Moderated against.
[ /Moderating ]
Well, obviously the Communist agents in the CDC have been suppressing the facts about what fluoridation is doing to our precious bodily fluids.
Where do you get the idea that something bothered me? I supported doing research. I simply stated that ALL research should be considered in the context of the researcher.
Who said it was an indictment? It is a simple fact, and should be considered when reviewing research.
Isn’t that why we have such things as peer review? To ferret out such biases? Are we to abandon the whole notion of research altogether?
You realize, I hope, that you are dangerously close to suggesting the research that supports your preconceived notions is valid, but those that challenge them are suspect.
And the fact that the ATF has been limping along with a part-time director for 6 years thanks to Congress probably doesn’t help, as well as having been castrated as Hurricane Ditka said.
And how about when deciding to refuse to fund research altogether?
Nonsense. I have said nothing to suggest that. I am nowhere near that, have said nothing about that, and you are reading into my post things that do not exist.
Period.
You appear to be dangerously close to simply accepting all academic research as pure as the driven snow, with no need for any questioning once it has gone through peer review. I put up the cite to the book as a case point where peer review utterly failed, and where a researcher allowed his bias to influence his work.
Are you familiar with how peer review works? How you can have people excluded from your review panel? How various pissing matches hinder research? How others support each other when necessary
Are you aware of the gamesmanship that goes on at the grant review meetings? Where discussions and decisions are made on what to fund?
It is not a pure academy where everything is above board and professional. The same level of childish behavior and actions occurs there as occur anywhere else.
ALL I have stated (and restated several times) is that when you read an article referencing a bit of academic research, before you embrace it 100% you should consider who the author is and do they have an subconscious or conscious inherent bias in their approach. There might be questions they ignored (or never thought of due to their perspective). They might have problems with the dataset. There can be issues around data coding and classification. The sample set might be too small, or it might be of a group that is not representative.
Research should be funded, supported, reviewed, considered and duplicated. Personally, I enjoy initial findings, but I like it even more when someone else replicates the findings in another bit of research. THAT is when you know that someone is onto something.
Funding should be based on the quality of the grant application and if the applicant has the resources to complete the research.
Well, that’s hardly an issue with the CDC.