Science, and the things we all know for sure.

[Frank]

For starters: most of those things aren't right or true. They're just what "everyone knows" them to be. Education by example, authoritan figures who say so. Politics and advertising. Those have to be right, right? Scientist very often have other opinions. And they can even seriously back them up!

But, those scientists need budgets.

Is the scientific knowledge and progress in general hindered or helped by that? And does it filter down to the common people? Or is it, that scientists are pushed into reinforcing that politically required and commonly known point of view, no matter if it is based on facts and proven by actual experimental data?

 

[Humus]

Or is it, that scientists are pushed into reinforcing that politically required and commonly known point of view, no matter if it is based on facts and proven by actual experimental data?

If a particular matter is a political topic, science will get screwed. Similarly if there are commerical interests in a certain "truth". For some research you need publicly funded universities to deal with it, and (this is important) academic freedom. It needs to be illegal for politicians to control research. Unfortunately, even in that case politicians tend to try to control it by adjusting funding toward their favorite research topics. Like pumping in a lot of money in gender related research in Sweden, which fits the feminists' agenda. What's more disturbing is that much of this "research" starts on premises such that "gender is a social construction" that have already been disproved by biology a long time ago.
And in other cases universities tries to get more funding or other advantages by buttkissing politicians. Like when Göran Persson the prime minister of Sweden was awarded a doctor's title by the university of Örebro last year. It certainly looked like a bribe for upgrading them to university status.
For commerical interests you have research funded by for instance a drug producer. If their product is found to have bad side effects the contract may allow them to pull the report.

In general scientific data needs to be taken like any other opinion in an environment of freedom of speech. You always need to check who funded a certain report, if the sources are credible, and if someone stands to gain anything from its message.

Personally I'd like publicly funded research to be strictly controlled in the constitution to keep politicians from trying to control it. In fact, the only thing politicians would be allowed to control would be the total amount, and not where it goes. It wouldn't solve all problems, but it would improve things.

 

[KimB]

More important than motivations and money and whatnot, I think, is the process of independent corroboration. If you really want to convince people of something, you should have more than one research group doing the same basic work using completely different methods, and without talking to one another about their results. If they then agree to great precision once both are published, then you have something strong to say. If either or both groups have fudged data, you wouldn't expect to see much agreement.

 

[Blazkowicz]

say you get funded by $EVIL_CORPORATION to make a study that says tobbacco is not harmful or global warming is caused by volcanoes, or some shit like that. If you do some real science you'll came to the conclusion it's bullshit.
So, I guess you decide first on the conclusion and then decide to "proove" it, that looks more like theology than science .

so I'll answer/evade your question with, science is clean, and if you do that you're doing pseudo-science or fraud.


@Humus : yes, that makes sense. but it seems you're moving the problem to another point, with the powers. I can imagine the endless flamewars/politics, old-style biologists saying they have been well underfunded for decades and should get double/triple the funds, nuclear physicists who want say a 200km long gold plated tunnel with plasma beams and tesla coils everywhere, other who want a moon base on the hidden surface of the moon to build a network of giant radiotelescopes, etc.

How much buttkissing to the Great Council of Elder Scientists with Long White Beards will there be, how can they decide on priorities on scientific grounds, how can you know in advance what will benefit humanity the most.

I'll agree you need strong public research. how to make it adequately independant seems a hard problem to me.
I also reckon the governments have the right to set some strategic priorities (on say nuclear energy, agriculture..). but dumb things were done off course, it sickens me to see the enormous piles of money wasted on space shuttle and ISS for instance.