Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “Science”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 937 records · Page 52Linked to original sources
PubMed2004

Conflicts of interest in medical science: peer usage, peer review and 'CoI consultancy'.

In recent years, the perception has grown that conflicts of interest are having a detrimental effect on medical science as it influences health policy and clinical practice, leading medical journals to enforce self-declaration of potential biases in the attempt to counteract or compensate for the problem. Conflict of interest (CoI) declarations have traditionally been considered inappropriate in pure science since its evaluation systems themselves constitute a mechanism for eliminating the effect of individual biases. Pure science is primarily evaluated by 'peer usage', in which scientific information is 'replicated' by being incorporated in the work of other scientists, and tested by further observation of the natural world. Over the long-term, the process works because significant biases impair the quality of science, and bad science tends to be neglected or refuted. However, scientific evaluation operates slowly over years and decades, and only a small proportion of published work is ever actually evaluated. But most of modern medical science no longer conforms to the model of pure science, and may instead be conceptualized as a system of 'applied' science having different aims and evaluation processes. The aim of applied medical science is to solve pre-specified problems, and to provide scientific information ready for implementation immediately following publication. The primary evaluation process of applied science is peer review, not peer usage. Peer review is much more rapid (with a timescale of weeks or months) and cheaper than peer usage and (consequently) has a much wider application: peer review is a prospective validation while peer usage is retrospective. Since applied science consists of incremental advances on existing knowledge achieved using established techniques, its results can usually be reliably evaluated by peer review. However, despite its considerable convenience, peer review has significant limitations related to its reliance on opinion. One major limitation of peer review has proved to be its inability to deal with conflicts of interest, especially in a 'big science' context when prestigious scientists may have similar biases, and conflicts of interest are widely shared among peer reviewers. When applied medical science has been later checked against the slower but more valid processes of peer usage, it seems that reliance on peer review may allow damaging distortions to become 'locked-in' to clinical practice and health policy for considerable periods. Scientific progress is generally underpinned by increasing specialization. Medical journals should specialize in the communication of scientific information, and they have neither the resources nor the motivation to investigate and measure conflicts of interest. Effectively dealing with the problem of conflicts of interest in applied medical science firstly requires a more explicit demarcation between the communications media of pure medical science and applied medical science. Greater specialization of these activities would then allow distinctive aims and evaluation systems to evolve with the expectation of improved performance in both pure and applied systems. In future, applied medical science should operate with an assumption of bias, with the onus of proof on applied medical scientists to facilitate the 'data transparency' necessary to validate their research. Journals of applied medical science will probably require more rigorous processes of peer review than at present, since their publications are intended to be ready for implementation. But since peer review does not adequately filter-out conflicts of interest in applied medical science, there is a need for the evolution of specialist post-publication institutional mechanisms. The suggested solution is to encourage the establishment of independent 'CoI consultancy' services, whose role would be to evaluate conflicts of interest and other biases in published applied medical science prior to their implementation. Such services would be paid-for by the groups who intend to implement applied medical research.

Conflict of Interest↗
PubMed1964

EMPIRICISM IN LATTER-DAY BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE.

Let me recapitulate. I am not happy with developments in the behavioral sciences. I wonder whether science does actually stand divorced from the intention, motive, and character of the scientist. I suspect that some of our current philosophies in science, whether so conceived or not, encourage and abet a science of the trivial. I believe we should recognize that, as epistemology, the empirical rule cannot stand alone. The great advances in science are associated with its grand conceptions even more than with its discoveries. We often mistakenly assume that the rule of objectivity has traditionally divided the character of science from that of the scientist. This is far from true. The objectivity of 18th- and 19th- century science was believed to be a function not so much of methodology and procedure as of the honesty and integrity of the scientist. Michael Faraday had this to say about the matter (3, p. 233): It puzzles me greatly to know what makes the successful philosopher [scientist]. Is it industry and perseverance, with a moderate proportion of good sense and intelligence? Is not a modest assurance or earnestness a requisite? Do not many fail because they look rather to the renown to be acquired than to the pure acquisition of knowledge, and the delight which the contented mind has in acquiring it for its own sake? I am sure I have seen many who would have been good and successful pursuers of science, and have gained themselves a high name, but that it was the name and the reward they were always looking forward to-the reward of the world's praise. In such there is always a shade of envy or regret over their minds, and I cannot imagine a man making discoveries in science under these feelings. As to Genius and its Power, there may be cases; I suppose there are. I have looked long and often for a genius for our own laboratory, but I have never found one. But I have seen many who would, I think, if they submitted themselves to a sound self-applied discipline of mind, have become successful experimental philosophers. Are these issues native only to behavioral science? Earlier, I laid at Skinner's door much of the blame for an unreasonable complacency regarding the disposition of modern behavioral science. In all fairness to Skinner, however, it is only correct to acknowledge that the same problem is evident in other areas of science. Skinner appears to be a spokesman, in the behavioral sciences, for one of those famous "Zeitgeists." Let me quote a series of observations by Paul Weiss, a biologist at the Rockefeller Institute, New York City, from a paper entitled "Experience and experiment in biology" (5): Without imagination one can contrive infinite variations of experimental set-ups, all of them novel, yet utterly uninteresting, inconsequential, insignificant. The mere fact that something has not been done or tried before is not sufficient reason for doing or trying it. . . . But is not scientific history full of instances of accidental discovery of the unexpected? True again, but he who does expect something will be on the alert even for the unexpected, while he who just ambles, looking for nothing in particular, is prone to miss even the obvious. . . . We see instruments turning from servants into tyrants, forcing the captive scientist to mass-produce and market senseless data beyond the point of conceivable usefulness-a modern version of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. . . . Finally, I recommend study of N. W. Storer's article "The coming changes in American science" (6). Storer, a sociologist at Harvard University, feels that prior to 1940 the basic currency in science was professional recognition. This in turn reinforced certain fundamental values-a high emphasis on communication; dedication of the individual and a tendency to work in small, select groups; a spurning of worldly gain and a proclivity for basic research. Today, professional recognition is being replaced by more common currencies-money, power, and worldly prestige. The result is a shift of values in science: numbers are no longer small or groups select; communication and professional recognition are viewed as means to gain money, power, and prestige rather than as ends in themselves; basic research is giving way to a kind of imposter with a thinly disguised commercial goal. I do not know how to resolve the issues in modern science. It seems to me we may be troubled by the embarrassments of too much success. Will we continue to succeed if we do not change our ways? Maybe, but not as magnificently I am sure as we could if we did change them. We cannot do anything about our numbers-nor would I want us to forswear all worldly possessions. We can examine critically and revise certain of our guiding philosophies. We can follow a suggestion of P. H. Abelson (7) and alter granting procedures so that institutions, as well as individuals, are given support. In the end, however, the major force for change resides in the minds and hearts of scientists who share a concern about science.

Behavioral Sciences↗
PubMed2005

The future of 'pure' medical science: the need for a new specialist professional research system.

Over recent decades, medical research has become mostly an 'applied' science which implicitly aims at steady progress by an accumulation of small improvements, each increment having a high probability of validity. Applied medical science is, therefore, a social system of communications for generating pre-publication peer-reviewed knowledge that is ready for implementation. However, the need for predictability makes modern medical science risk-averse and this is leading to a decline in major therapeutic breakthroughs where new treatments for new diseases are required. There is need for the evolution of a specialized professional research system of pure medial science, whose role would be to generate and critically evaluate radically novel and potentially important theories, techniques, therapies and technologies. Pure science ideas typically have a lower probability of being valid, but the possibility of much greater benefit if they turn out to be true. The domination of medical research by applied criteria means that even good ideas from pure medical science are typically ignored or summarily rejected as being too speculative. Of course, radical and potentially important ideas may currently be published, but at present there is no formal mechanism by which pure science publications may be received, critiqued, evaluated and extended to become suitable for 'application'. Pure medical science needs to evolve to constitute a typical specialized scientific system of formal communications among a professional community. The members of this putative profession would interact via close research groupings, journals, meetings, electronic and web communications--like any other science. Pure medical science units might arise as elite grouping linked to existing world-class applied medical research institutions. However, the pure medical science system would have its own separate aims, procedures for scientific evaluation, institutional organization, funding and support arrangements; and a separate higher-professional career path with distinctive selection criteria. For instance, future leaders of pure medical science institutions would need to be selected on the basis of their specialized cognitive aptitudes and their record of having generated science-transforming ideas, as well as their research management skills. Pure medical science would work most effectively and efficiently if practiced in many independent and competing institutions in several different countries. The main 'market' for pure medical science would be the applied medical scientists, who need radical strategies to solve problems which are not yielding to established methods. The stimulus to create such elite pure medical science institutions might come from the leadership of academic 'entrepreneurs' (for instance, imaginative patrons in the major funding foundations), or be triggered by a widespread public recognition of the probable exhaustion of existing applied medical science approaches to solving major therapeutic challenges.

Biomedical Research↗
PubMed2005

Editorial: rethinking science as an area of concern.

Science has played an influential role in framing public policy in many areas of concern. But in recent years, science itself has become an area of concern. This is partly because scientific theories can be difficult to understand and because the evidence that supports them is rarely as definitive as we might hope. But it is also because scientific inquiry is increasingly influenced by a variety of factors that many people regard as non-scientific. We are currently straddling several different concepts regarding what science is and what its primary goals are. The idea that science aims at the preservation and enhancement of our economic welfare is just one example. It is difficult to know whether we are witnessing a distortion of science or its evolution. But the time has come to begin a discussion aimed at rethinking science as an area of concern. This discussion should explore, develop, and describe each of our several contrasting concepts of science, together with their possible consequences. The purpose of the discussion is not to decide what science is, or even what it ought to be. It is to illuminate the different possible concepts of science and their likely consequences as clearly as we can so that we can see more clearly what science might become - and so that we will be in a better position to choose how we should think about science, and about how it should interact with public policy in democratic open societies with market economies like our own. We should discuss our different concepts of science not so much with an eye toward determining whether they are accurate as descriptions or attractive as ideals, as with an eye toward understanding what our future science, scientists, scientific research, and scientific knowledge might become under their influence. It is only by rethinking science in this way that we will knowingly be able to choose which way we want to go.

Public Policy↗