First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist; Then they came for the trade unionists, … for the Jews, … Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Quoting Martin Niemoller is something that should be done warily. "They" - in the sense of the government - first came for the Communists in 1919, and lots of people spoke out. They even took to the streets and seized the government. If the Spartacist uprising in Berlin failed, that did not prevent the Communists and the Socialists from being the political majority until 1933. Niemoller ignores this inconvenient truth in his poem because he himself did "speak out" during this post-war period in Germany, but his speeches were against the Marxist Left and for the National Socialists. Niemoller was an early supporter of the Nazis, and so were many of the trade unions, whom the Nazis did not, in fact, "come for" at all. Hitler acknowledges that fact in Mein Kampf: "As things stand today, the trade unions in my opinion cannot be dispensed with. On the contrary, they are among the most important institutions of the nation's economic life. Their significance lies not only in the social and political field, but even more in the general field of national politics." Niemoller's actual quarrel with the Nazis only came when the National Socialists decided that Protestant and Catholic Churches should once again become part of a State Church. This was not, in itself, a dramatic departure from pre-WW I Germany practice where each regional church, whether Catholic or Protestants, depending on which was the majority religion - received subsidies form the government and were ruled by a regnal house that was part of the government. The greatest of all the dishonesties of this bold declaration of opposition is that it needed several revisions before it deigned to include the Jews. In his 1946 radio broadcast of his poem, Niemoller did not even mention the Jews. It is only in the English republication in the 1950s in the United States that they were added to the list of sanctified victims.
"Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. "
Not directly connected, but this was just on the radio -- a researcher who has results showing that a pesticide is causing catastrophic sex alternations in amphibians. This stuff is very common in the water supply and is likely to have an effect on human hormones. Guess what the industry-sponsored research shows? Who are you going to trust when it comes to your testicles?
I wonder if you can appreciate how offensive and fatuous it is to compare the fact that tobacco companies can't publish their research in PLoS with the murder of millions of people. Probably not.
Another comment: this is the Internet age, and anybody can put anything they want into the public discourse. What they can't necessarily do is get the imprimature of an authoritative publisher like Science, Nature, or PLoS. These institutions set their own standards. Would you prefer that they didn't have any?
My answer to your question should have been obvious from my first comment: I think we should focus on really obvious sources of conflict of interest. It's far from a perfect solution, and I'm not sure I'd call it a way of even estimating anything, but prima facie it looks like an improvement over not actively trying to curb conflict of interest.
Perhaps I am naive but could someone give me a quick rundown of why conflicts of interest are important? Is there any sophisticated thinking here.
For example, isn't it always in your interest to report results that advance your career. How often is someone rewarded for saying, "I spent fifteen years studying this and can with a high degree of confidence say that it is a complete dead end."
Just a moment, journals are private forums, allowed to exclude at will if conforming to the law were it is domiciled. So they are not going to exclude the jews because that would be illegal... regarding the exclusion of industry shills nothing wrong with that and is in fact perfectly proper if they want to maintain their credibility.So whats the problem again?
Exactly. If the PLoS announcement only excluded shoddy science that wouldn't have survived the peer-review process anyways, why institute the policy? The rejection of tobacco-funded studies would simply be overdetermined.
It seems like this policy is only useful for excluding studies which peer review doesn't find fault with, but gosh darn it there must be something wrong with it because it's funded by the evil tabacco industry!
I assume you heard about the story through the Offsetting Behavior post I linked to in "Big Bad News Ban". I think you should have linked to Crampton's response to the PLOS story rather than the older one referencing Tierney and nutrition.
Econ Journal Watch discussed industry funded tobacco studies here.
If the new principle is that we mustn’t publish research not funded by groups committed to proving our official beliefs,
but of course it isn't. As the PLoS editorial points out, other journals such as BMJ have considered and rejected such a policy, and PLoS Medicine hasn't even received any submissions of tobacco industry supported papers since its inception.
There really is nothing to see here. This is one journal making a decision we may or may not approve of, but researchers who rely on the tobacco industry are hardly being denied the opportunity to publish their work, let alone being dragged off in the dead of night.
I might also add a caveat to disclosure as a cure.
Businesses sponsor "centers" and "conferences". Sometimes you can't tell who actually is behind the "center" in terms of donation and governance.
It is a bit disconcerting to see, for example, university sponsored research slammed by a "center" which sponsors other researchers and their research. Any research should be able to withstand attack, but sometimes the attack to university research is recorded in the public media, and the not followed up response to the attacker some months later.
You have to worry when public relations firms are involved in arranging for and sponsoring research.
@Robert: Ever read an "economic cost" report produced by the anti-tobacco side? Talk about demonstrated bias.
I don't think that the tobacco folks are claiming zero harms from smoking; rather, they're arguing the harms are less than the anti-folks are saying and that links to things like second (or third) hand harms are tenuous at best. And I hardly think that claims around third-hand smoke are now settled science; didn't they just make that one up?
Unfortunately, even disclosure doesn[t help. I hire experts in antitrust litigation. In the US, you know which side someone is on based on the clients and prior testimony. Academics, being what they are, are also out looking for future income, and, based on observation, are eager to identify their IO research as relevant to a particular kind of client or industry.
What is interesting is that Europe, until recently, didn't have a litigation based demand for economic experts, at least in consumer cases. In my own view, their academics are less skewed, more objective, and do change their views based on current research. Not so the US.
"worries about who’s funding whom are legitimate based on general knowledge of human psychology"
1. Ideology is an exponentially more powerful motivator than any financial incentive. If we're going to be suspicious of a study funded by the wrong group, we should be considerably more suspicious of a study conducted by scientists with a history of research in support of some conclusion.
2. Even if 1 wasn't true, your logic would argue for equal or greater scrutiny of anyone receiving government grant money. How is their financial incentive any less than that of a tobacco company scientist?
Quoting Martin Niemoller is something that should be done warily. "They" - in the sense of the government - first came for the Communists in 1919, and lots of people spoke out. They even took to the streets and seized the government. If the Spartacist uprising in Berlin failed, that did not prevent the Communists and the Socialists from being the political majority until 1933. Niemoller ignores this inconvenient truth in his poem because he himself did "speak out" during this post-war period in Germany, but his speeches were against the Marxist Left and for the National Socialists. Niemoller was an early supporter of the Nazis, and so were many of the trade unions, whom the Nazis did not, in fact, "come for" at all. Hitler acknowledges that fact in Mein Kampf: "As things stand today, the trade unions in my opinion cannot be dispensed with. On the contrary, they are among the most important institutions of the nation's economic life. Their significance lies not only in the social and political field, but even more in the general field of national politics." Niemoller's actual quarrel with the Nazis only came when the National Socialists decided that Protestant and Catholic Churches should once again become part of a State Church. This was not, in itself, a dramatic departure from pre-WW I Germany practice where each regional church, whether Catholic or Protestants, depending on which was the majority religion - received subsidies form the government and were ruled by a regnal house that was part of the government. The greatest of all the dishonesties of this bold declaration of opposition is that it needed several revisions before it deigned to include the Jews. In his 1946 radio broadcast of his poem, Niemoller did not even mention the Jews. It is only in the English republication in the 1950s in the United States that they were added to the list of sanctified victims.
I think this Eisenhower quote is apropos:
"Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. "
Not directly connected, but this was just on the radio -- a researcher who has results showing that a pesticide is causing catastrophic sex alternations in amphibians. This stuff is very common in the water supply and is likely to have an effect on human hormones. Guess what the industry-sponsored research shows? Who are you going to trust when it comes to your testicles?
I wonder if you can appreciate how offensive and fatuous it is to compare the fact that tobacco companies can't publish their research in PLoS with the murder of millions of people. Probably not.
Another comment: this is the Internet age, and anybody can put anything they want into the public discourse. What they can't necessarily do is get the imprimature of an authoritative publisher like Science, Nature, or PLoS. These institutions set their own standards. Would you prefer that they didn't have any?
Judith Rich Harris maybe.
My answer to your question should have been obvious from my first comment: I think we should focus on really obvious sources of conflict of interest. It's far from a perfect solution, and I'm not sure I'd call it a way of even estimating anything, but prima facie it looks like an improvement over not actively trying to curb conflict of interest.
Perhaps I am naive but could someone give me a quick rundown of why conflicts of interest are important? Is there any sophisticated thinking here.
For example, isn't it always in your interest to report results that advance your career. How often is someone rewarded for saying, "I spent fifteen years studying this and can with a high degree of confidence say that it is a complete dead end."
Godwin and Slippery Slope argument all in one post, way to go.
Just a moment, journals are private forums, allowed to exclude at will if conforming to the law were it is domiciled. So they are not going to exclude the jews because that would be illegal... regarding the exclusion of industry shills nothing wrong with that and is in fact perfectly proper if they want to maintain their credibility.So whats the problem again?
Exactly. If the PLoS announcement only excluded shoddy science that wouldn't have survived the peer-review process anyways, why institute the policy? The rejection of tobacco-funded studies would simply be overdetermined.
It seems like this policy is only useful for excluding studies which peer review doesn't find fault with, but gosh darn it there must be something wrong with it because it's funded by the evil tabacco industry!
I assume you heard about the story through the Offsetting Behavior post I linked to in "Big Bad News Ban". I think you should have linked to Crampton's response to the PLOS story rather than the older one referencing Tierney and nutrition.
Econ Journal Watch discussed industry funded tobacco studies here.
If the new principle is that we mustn’t publish research not funded by groups committed to proving our official beliefs,
but of course it isn't. As the PLoS editorial points out, other journals such as BMJ have considered and rejected such a policy, and PLoS Medicine hasn't even received any submissions of tobacco industry supported papers since its inception.
There really is nothing to see here. This is one journal making a decision we may or may not approve of, but researchers who rely on the tobacco industry are hardly being denied the opportunity to publish their work, let alone being dragged off in the dead of night.
I might also add a caveat to disclosure as a cure.
Businesses sponsor "centers" and "conferences". Sometimes you can't tell who actually is behind the "center" in terms of donation and governance.
It is a bit disconcerting to see, for example, university sponsored research slammed by a "center" which sponsors other researchers and their research. Any research should be able to withstand attack, but sometimes the attack to university research is recorded in the public media, and the not followed up response to the attacker some months later.
You have to worry when public relations firms are involved in arranging for and sponsoring research.
@Robert: Ever read an "economic cost" report produced by the anti-tobacco side? Talk about demonstrated bias.
I don't think that the tobacco folks are claiming zero harms from smoking; rather, they're arguing the harms are less than the anti-folks are saying and that links to things like second (or third) hand harms are tenuous at best. And I hardly think that claims around third-hand smoke are now settled science; didn't they just make that one up?
Disclosure of funding is the cure.
Unfortunately, even disclosure doesn[t help. I hire experts in antitrust litigation. In the US, you know which side someone is on based on the clients and prior testimony. Academics, being what they are, are also out looking for future income, and, based on observation, are eager to identify their IO research as relevant to a particular kind of client or industry.
What is interesting is that Europe, until recently, didn't have a litigation based demand for economic experts, at least in consumer cases. In my own view, their academics are less skewed, more objective, and do change their views based on current research. Not so the US.
"worries about who’s funding whom are legitimate based on general knowledge of human psychology"
1. Ideology is an exponentially more powerful motivator than any financial incentive. If we're going to be suspicious of a study funded by the wrong group, we should be considerably more suspicious of a study conducted by scientists with a history of research in support of some conclusion.
2. Even if 1 wasn't true, your logic would argue for equal or greater scrutiny of anyone receiving government grant money. How is their financial incentive any less than that of a tobacco company scientist?