Originally Posted by MTVN

Maybe in theory, in practice they can and often do have an agenda

Such as?

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by Jesus.

Such as?

Well in pretty much anything, scientists should really base their conclusions on their research but you'll often get those who base their research on trying to justify whatever preconceived ideas they hold. Like how historically the Nazis would use apparent science to support their claims of racial supremacy, or more recently how scientists have been shown to distort their findings for greater evidence of climate change. You could also say the fact there are Christian scientists proves this, that they maybe gear their research towards trying to show that scientific findings are not incompatible with their religion.

Not that this would just apply to science of course, it happens in everything, you see it a lot in history as well where people's political persuasions will influence the way they interpret certain events

Originally Posted by MTVN

Well in pretty much anything, scientists should really base their conclusions on their research but you'll often get those who base their research on trying to justify whatever preconceived ideas they hold. Like how historically the Nazis would use apparent science to support their claims of racial supremacy, or more recently how scientists have been shown to distort their findings for greater evidence of climate change. You could also say the fact there are Christian scientists proves this, that they maybe gear their research towards trying to show that scientific findings are not incompatible with their religion.

Not that this would just apply to science of course, it happens in everything, you see it a lot in history as well where people's political persuasions will influence the way they interpret certain events

I wouldn't class cognitive dissonance as an agenda, necessarily, but you've raised some interesting points.

That nazi science you mentioned is actually a good example of how exactly science works. As scientists learned more about the physiological/cognitive/biological make up of our species, then old disciplines, such as eugenics were left behind. It's also important to remember what they were actually there to do - they didn't have to tender for grants from science organisations - they were given people to experiment on, and brainwashed into an ideology of occultism and norse blood mythology.

I'm not too sure there were any scientists that exaggerated their findings on climate change. I remember the story well, but not the finer details, and I also remember a massive investigation being done into examining those emails, and after looking at the complete sets of emails, there was nothing found that was either wrong played up. We may be talking about different things with this one, and you may have a better recollection of that issue than I do, so I accept I could be wrong.

Science is such a long winded process these days, that agenda's are weeded out pretty quickly.

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by Jesus.

I wouldn't class cognitive dissonance as an agenda, necessarily, but you've raised some interesting points.

That nazi science you mentioned is actually a good example of how exactly science works. As scientists learned more about the physiological/cognitive/biological make up of our species, then old disciplines, such as eugenics were left behind. It's also important to remember what they were actually there to do - they didn't have to tender for grants from science organisations - they were given people to experiment on, and brainwashed into an ideology of occultism and norse blood mythology.

I'm not too sure there were any scientists that exaggerated their findings on climate change. I remember the story well, but not the finer details, and I also remember a massive investigation being done into examining those emails, and after looking at the complete sets of emails, there was nothing found that was either wrong played up. We may be talking about different things with this one, and you may have a better recollection of that issue than I do, so I accept I could be wrong.

Science is such a long winded process these days, that agenda's are weeded out pretty quickly.

I was thinking about that incident yeah though having just looked it up it seems that a full investigation showed results hadn't been distorted which I didn't realise, though there were still criticisms over how they conducted their research

I'm not a great expert on it but even at the time was eugenics science not considered questionable at best, but it served a very clear political purpose for it to be presented as credible. I still think that can be the case today, that scientific findings or research can get manipulated when it's convenient to do so. Motives should always be questioned imo and it should never be taken at face value that all a scientist cares about is the truth and that their research will never be prejudiced by their own preconceived ideas or to serve their own or somebody else's interests. In all things you'll have competing groups and ideas that are going to want supposed scientific research behind them because it will give greater weight to their argument. Like the tobacco industry would used to employ scientists to try and show smoking wasn't as bad for you as made out, if those scientists are relying on that industry for their living and if their findings are expected to support it, then you'd have to question how reliable their research is

Obviously as with eugenics no scientist worth their salt would argue something like that nowadays but it's just an example that could easily be repeated in a different field before a consensus has been reached on something