What Social Science Doesn’t Know

Interesting review of the epistomology of social science.  by Jim Manzi

“The experimental revolution is like a huge wave that has lost power as it has moved through topics of increasing complexity.”

Science’s Problems with Statistics

ODDS ARE, IT’S WRONG

Science fails to face the shortcomings of statistics

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/57091/title/Odds_are,_its_wrong

Free “Free the Facts!” – Dave Gray on the need for open access to scientific journals

Free the Facts!

Gist: critical thinking needs access to good factual information, information that has itself been derived through a process of (relatively, at least) good CT.  We have been accumulating a very large amount of such factual information (i.e., scientific knowledge).  This is mostly publicly-funded.  People should have access to that information, but it is hidden behind “toll booths” of journal fees. 

Interesting use of handwriting and drawing in a PowerPoint-type format. 

How badly corrupted is medical research?

Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption

“The problems I’ve discussed are not limited to psychiatry, although they
reach their most florid form there. Similar conflicts of interest and
biases exist in virtually every field of medicine, particularly those
that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is simply no longer possible
to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely
on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical
guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached
slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”

my emphasis

thanks to Neil T for pointer