I don't believe that good science is failing. Just some of the folks practising it, coupled to a dollar influanced messianic culture?

Take statins i.e. This widely accepted and big pharma's most lucrative money spinner, is "recommended" by "most" heart specialists, neuro specialists, and vascular specialists!?

And in spite of the fact that in a recent double blind study only those taking the placebo didn't suffer some level of cognitive impairment. [Enter the case against statins into your search engine.]

And too high a price for an extra nine months (averaged) of seriously reduced quality of life. In any event all the claimed benefits can be duplicated by good nutrition and selected vitamins?

Me, I'd want to opt for a combination of chelation therapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy and HRT. and rolled out as a long term comparative case study measured against other therapies that claim various improved outcomes.

And no I'm not in favour of extending life, just the final days quality, which by the way have a massive upside of dramatically reduced aged care costs!?

Everybody understands results can be skewed by simply removing those with a negative reaction or response from any so called study. And given the money that could be involved, it not to big a call to envisage certainty replacing good old fashioned, by the book slogging, and proving your findings with standard tests; that stand up under peer review and can be endlessly repeated, the very foundation of good science!

One day Mankind will take his first tentative steps to the stars; and only with the assistance of the very best science! Where modeling will be seen for what it is, a useful what if tool?

As always, we need to study history and be guided by known and indeed repeatable cause and effect outcomes. And given it can be shown that decarbonizing our economies can be accompanied by quite spectacular economic growth and huge upsides, why would anyone including some of the most prosperous persons on the planet be so rigidly opposed to very doable change!?
Alan B.

Science is not failing, it is corrupted by big business and money of the scientists that is at fault.

To agree and support the global warming science means billions of dollars in funds for scientists.

Scientific support for Genetically modified food etc is as before worth billions of dollars.

Some essays which describe the baneful limitations of the now world dominant ideology/paradigm of (doubt-mind) scientism, in which we now all trapped with NO exceptions, including all of the back-to-the-past religionists. None of whom, by the way, ever talk about Consciousness with a capital C, and thus of the paradoxical nature of Quantum Reality. Indeed many/most of them are stuck in the entirely speculative medieval dream/scribblings of Thomism (tombism) and the boring old fart Aristotle
The dogma of scientism as distinct from the scientific method of free open-ended inquiry into certain limited aspects/dimensions of the natural world. Essays which in one way or another also refer to the very important topic of DEATH.

Essays which are summed up in the authors bold statement:
Matter IS Death.

The first reference contains two essays, namely:
Free Enquiry & Scientific Materialism
Right Human Life Must Transcend The Materialist "Culture" Of Death

http://www.aboutadidam.org/newsletters/toc-february2004.html

http://www.aboutadidam.org/lesser_alternatives/scientific_materialism/reductionism.html

http://www.dabase.org/doubt.htm

Plus this remarkable essay on the paradoxical nature of Quantum Reality. Section 3 is particularly interesting re the science vs "religion" culture wars.
http://www.dabase.org/Reality_Itself_Is_Not_In_The_Middle.htm

Plus an introduction to a remarkable philosopher/scientist whose work is seldom (if ever) mentioned in any of the usual science versus "religion" shouting matches.
http://www.tillerinstitute.com

It's good to see a scientist being honest about science.
Congratulations to Doug Hoffman for having the courage to speak out.

Honesty in science may reverse to death spiral if not left too late.

'Twas ever thus. The great scientific discoveries that we now recognise in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries emerged from a similar potpourri of nonsensical twaddle. Modern readers can have a similar experience for themselves by reading ten-year-old copies of New Scientist or Scientific American. Every issue tells us about some startling 'breakthrough' which will undoubtedly have dramatic effects on society: but only about one in twenty of them ever do.

Only time can distinguish the true from the nearly true and the plausibly false theory, and it does it extremely well. It's the job of science to keep coming up with candidates to take the test of time. It simply doesn't have the resources or the interest or the expertise to carry out prolonged real-world testing. That's OUR job.

The author likes the Retraction Watch website, as do I. However he fails to mention the 'Pattern Recognition in Physics' debacle also published there, in which a publisher shut down a whole journal because climate change deniers were engaging in pal review to get 'peer-reviewed' papers with their own viewpoint into the scientific literature.

Most science and studies are flawed in some way or another, and especially most science on the cutting edge is likely to be wrong in one way or another. It is the job of science and scientists to work out which is not entirely wrong and to discard that which is, and as Jon J has already pointed out: 'twas ever thus.

The death (or even illness) of science itself has been greatly exaggerated.

Seems some are getting confused between Scientist and Inventor.

I think the difference is between science and scientists

Billions are wasted by people with egos trying to find life on Mars while god denier's cry about money donated to recreate Noah's ark. Yep consensus pseudo science stinks. Evolution and the gw scam are prime examples.

Spot on, runner.

Quite obviously science must be broken if it comes up with answers that do not agree with your pre-conceived views. There is no other obvious explanation for the mis-match.

I was impressed with Doug's first arbitrarily dismissing modelling activities as 'not science' and then complaining that climate science has the largest number of papers using modelling terms. Such sleight of hand should be applauded.

Of course climate science has to rely on models for a significant part of its exploration of hypotheses, simply because it is impossible to run multiple experiments with full scale planetary systems of eons. The same is true of evolution, where it is impossible to re-run the evolution of humans, so instead research is conducted with small scale experimental systems and models (just of a different sort). But you don't get people (other than a small rump of ignorant denialists) complaining that evolutionary theorists are only in it for the money and to produce politically acceptable results.

The key difference now in science is that years ago the cut and thrust of disproving ideas was done in academic journals and at conferences and the public rarely saw what went on. Now this is done on-line in blogs where even those with no knowledge get a chance to weigh in. It has always been the case that most science turns out to be not quite correct, but wrong ideas were frequently left by the wayside or struggled on in quiet, ageing lab corners. Now they all get a new lease of life through the internet, with legions of vocal supporters pushing them on people at every opportunity. Have a look at the Fans of the AVN facebook page if you want to see an example.

Why step backwards by looking at Facebook?
There is need to get to the heart of the problem without wasting time.
Science is in need of respect and a good future.

Facebook is one thing however an example of science in a death spiral can be understood from looking into respected scientists being bullied and intimidated or dismissed from the CSIRO, because their view or research apparently did not suit CSIRO political agenda.

http://victimsofcsiro.com/