The truth is such a relative thing. I saw its relativity in the recent Netflix series of “Making a murderer,” a documentary about Steven Avery. This poor guy was convicted twice, firstly as an innocent person.

And then, secondly, probably as an innocent guy as well. When you watch the process, you cannot believe it. Such a course of events, including clear fabrication of evidence and bias of the judges, still happens in the twenty-first centur

y. According to the Innocence Project (2020), DNA testing has exonerated 375 wrongly convicted Americans since 1989.

But what was even more striking to me, probably because it concerns me personally, was the debate on Poland in European Parliament. It took place on 18th January. The debate is available here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QkJLKhXAss

What Happened to the Truth in Polish Politics?

What was all this buzz about? We have had a new government in Poland since mid-November.

And these guys only needed two months to dismantle the Polish Constitutional Tribunal and the public media. First, they passed a new bill. Due to it, the Tribunal now needs 2/3 of the votes to withdraw a proposed bill as inconsistent with the constitution.

Since the leading party controls half of the judges in the Tribunal, this will never happen. As a result, this makes it possible for the leading party to force any new bill inconsistent with the constitution from now on.

Second, the leading party exchanged all the supervisory board of the public television, put their envoy as the chairman. Then, it claims that this move will… ‘bring back the impartiality and pluralism to the public television.

But most strikingly, even clear points from European politicians during the debate did not encourage our new Prime Minister to change her tone. She was dumbly repeating like a mantra that her government respects the constitution and supports unbiased journalism.

Say what?… I could not believe what I was hearing. And I was ashamed that our politicians, including the Prime Minister herself, display a clear difference in intellectual levels when compared to some of their Western counterparts.

Is the Truth Just as Plastic in Science?

Is it that the truth is so plastic and relative everywhere? I like to think that in the microenvironment called science, it is.

I am not so sure about this one though when I observe double dipping and colouring the results. Did you see this one?

http://www.nature.com/news/scientific-method-statistical-errors-1.14700?WT.mc_id=FBK_NatureNews

How Common Is Questionable Research Practice in Science?

The thrilling and disturbing truth about science these days. According to Ioannidis (2005), a large share of published research findings, across many fields, may not hold up under closer scrutiny.

This is partially a result of the same phenomenon as in politics or forensic science. It comes down to peer pressure, the pressure of time, pressure for results, and pressure for success.

According to John, Loewenstein and Prelec (2012), a surprisingly large share of researchers admitted to using questionable research practices to make their results look better. They were surveyed anonymously, with incentives for honesty. 

Pressure. So, there is no fraud-free environment. According to Fanelli (2009), about 2% of scientists admit to having fabricated or falsified data. The only difference is that in some disciplines, it comes in more of a vanilla version (let’s colour the results so that the boss is happy).

And in some other disciplines, the consequences are more gruesome (let’s finally put this prick in prison and go home). And I cannot come up with a medicine for this.

If you want to prevent playing around with truth, you need to eliminate the pressure that caused it in the first place.  So, how to eliminate pressure from academia?…