The Psychologist reports on a recent debate at University College London involving Neuroskeptic and other panelists with backgrounds in neuroscience and psychology, asking “Is Science Broken? If so, how can we fix it?”
Is science broken? (The Psychologist, April 2015)
To me a logical way to help toward fixing science is to make it compete against a different view with different rules in a contest to see where the best solution comes from. Certainly I tend to believe it would work in the health research field.
For example say there was a consensus that we needed a “first do no harm” cure for cancer instead of a way to manage it. We could have a group of 6 credentialed scientists as one team looking for a cure. We could also have another mixed group of 6 made up of people who had cancer or no longer have it . I believe within most any population of people those most directly personally affected by a problem among them are people with a heightened sense of necessity to solve their own problem and also that a certain number of them in many ways are more suited to be in charge of and do, maybe some with help and cooperation more focused research then many credential professional scientists are able to do. I say lets do a fair test of this maybe a dozen times and see what happens. Equal funding for both groups and a 6 month or 1 year time duration. Just an an idea thats been in my mind for about 30 years . I believe the results would be surprising . A third team of alternative healers should also be allowed to compete.
Money corrupts everything, and science is sadly no exception. Another victim of the current socioeconomic and political system.
