We’ve seen the way that the scientific establishment went after purveyors of entirely scientific doubts about Covid policy, cancelling those it could and censoring those it couldn’t cancel. The venality, dishonesty, and sheer lust for power and control that marked the Covid response – together with a deeply unimpressive record of actually getting the science right themselves – suggests that our science authorities are not to be trusted with policing science fraud, particularly as they’re often purveyors of fraudulent science themselves.
Yet there really is a problem. Science currently faces a “replication crisis.” in which vast numbers of published results don’t hold up when examined. Whole disciplines (*cough* social psychology *cough*) are so riddled with fraud as to be useless. And the public’s faith in science, which the “fraudbusters” of ORI were trying to preserve, has taken an enormous hit as a result.
Ed Morrissey
This looks like we should file it under “be careful what you wish for.” Glenn offers a nightmare case that actually took place when we used the law to civilly punish science fraud, which ended up ruining a legit scientist over a typo.
