Scientists Can't be Advocates!: In My Humble Opinion...
I don't think scientists can also be advocates because it could make them biased or corrupt. If they are advocates for a cause and decide to do their own research, their results could be biased from the beginning. I say this because they might be looking more carefully for the results that they want to see or even tweak their data to fit their desired results more closely.
Another issue is that scientists being advocates could also make them corrupt. There have been so many cases where big companies (like the oil industry) that pay scientists to discredit other scientists work or tamper with their own work to please the company. Some argue that scientists are less likely to do this because it will ruin their name in their field, however, people do a lot of things for money so you still never know.
^corrupt scientist/advocate
It was insightful of you to add the description of the oil companies; I also believe the can be corrupt scientists. It is very true that scientists become biased in their own research. Nice Picture.
ReplyDeleteYou made some very good points and I understand where you were coming from completely. However, I disagree that scientists who do their own research on an area of interest to them would produce bias results. If this were the case then most scientists would produce bias results because most scientists study a field that they are interested in, whether they advocate their research or not.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with your statement that scientists that advocate for a cause and then do research means that their research will be biased. Bias is innate in all research whether researchers are aware of it or not. I think that as long as they step out of the role of advocate while being a scientist it is possible to do work that can be used to further current knowledge that will not be biased or changed to fit a certain view. I do agree that their are scientists for hire that do research to get specific results to make companies look good. This is a big issue in how the public views scientists today and I am glad that you pointed it out.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with your assessments of scientists becoming biased. Does this mean that if a scientist has a hypothesis about how his experiment will result that he or she will be influenced by his or her theoretical goals? It also makes little sense for scientists with specialized experience not to be the ones suggesting what priorities to take regarding whichever cause they're qualified for.
ReplyDeleteI can see your point about scientists becoming corrupt due to their biases, however I feel like everyone has biases, so is everyone corrupted when they're put in a position of power? It makes more sense to have scientists involved because they intimately know the science behind the policies and they know how to develop feasible solutions.
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