Brian D. Earp (@briandavidearp) has written this timely article on bull shit in science. This has been a frequent topic in my work and was discussed on the Real Coaching Podcast
This is why the job of the coach to filter the BS is so important to be effective.
“It’s about a methodology for investigation, which includes, at its core, a relentless drive towards questioning that which came before. You can both “love science,” he concludes, “and question it.
if you love science, you had better question it, and question it well, so it can live up to its potential.”
“There is a veritable truckload of bullshit in science.¹ When I say bullshit, I mean arguments, data, publications, or even the official policies of scientific organizations that give every impression of being perfectly reasonable — of being well-supported by the highest quality of evidence, and so forth — but which don’t hold up when you scrutinize the details. Bullshit has the veneer of truth-like plausibility. It looks good. It sounds right. But when you get right down to it, it stinks.”
“The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” This is the unbearable asymmetry of bullshit I mentioned in my title, and it poses a serious problem for research integrity. Developing a strategy for overcoming it, I suggest, should be a top priority for publication ethics.”