Is there room in science for strong opinions?

Everyone has suggestions and ideas on every issues.

Science is a field that involves logical thinking. Everyone can input their ideas and the most valid ideas that explain whatever phaenomena out there will remain as the most logical explanation until someone proves it otherwise.

I have to agree with you, squirbel.

There are too many cases of studies that conclude exactly what the company/entity that commissioned the study was hoping to find. I don’t think that this kind of science is very helpful and just gets in the way.

Everyone has – and is entitled to their opinions.

A good scientist – or researcher or analyst of any kind – will have the ability to recognise own biases and avoid letting them direct their research or taint their findings.

I think one has to divide science into at least 2 parts: Corporate science and Pure science. The pitfalls of corporate science (science that has the capacity to affect huge flows of income) has already been described.

Pure science (though not without personal reward) has it’s own problems; primarily inertia. Many examples of the scientific community refusing to accept new ideas (even though they prove valid) simply because there is to much vested interest in keeping with the old.

Aren’t you basically defining “opinionated scientists” as “scientists who let their opinions interfere with science”? And isn’t that by definition bad science?

@ nikipedia – that is what I was wondering.

Science has room for strong opinions… as long as they stand up to testing and study, just like anything else.

Everyone is subject to the impact of their biases, whether a good scientist or not. Many of these biases we are completely unaware of. Other times, people with big reputations on the line will trash perfectly good research, because it seems to show their work was wrong.

Scientists are humans. They are subject to more venal motives. Money and prestige can coopt science. But it’s a universal problem, with good and bad scientists.

But it is science. So anyone can go and try to replicate the results. Something done wrong will probably not be replicatable, and that becomes an area for analysis.

So, sure, scientists can have strong opinions. If they do bad science, they will get caught.

A true scientist, by definition, leaves his/her opinions at the lab door. It’s their job. If they have a theory, or hypothesis, on the other hand, they have to find ways of proving it via tests and results. Gotta be reproducible in most cases. When theory becomes proven, it becomes fact. Case in point: theory of evolution. Still called “theory” because they’re waiting to find the “missing link”, which is literally the missing puzzle in their puzzle piece to prove their fact.

When scientists argue about ideas among themselves, it’s because whatever they’re arguing about hasn’t hit the “fact” stage yet, or they disagree on the “results” of their “tests”. That’s where the ambiguity comes in, and it seems like scientists are “opinionated”. Climate change is a good example.