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Manfred comments on Some Heuristics for Evaluating the Soundness of the Academic Mainstream in Unfamiliar Fields - Less Wrong
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Speaking of which, smoking, asbestos, and pesticides are good examples of the venal interest heuristic where the most respected people on the academic side are pretty damn correct.
Manfred:
I don't think this is an accurate analysis. Venal interests are relevant when they have ways of influencing researchers in ways that won't make it look like immediately obvious fraud and crude malfeasance, which the modern academic system is indeed very good at stamping out.
If a researcher benefits from affiliation with some individuals or institutions and in turn produces research benefiting these parties, thus forming a suspiciously convenient symbiotic relationship, it will work in practice only if this relationship is somehow obscured. Sometimes it is obscured by channeling funding through neutral-looking third parties and similar swindles, but again, this is difficult to pull off in a way that won't raise all sorts of red flags in the present system. A far more serious and common problem, in my opinion, is when the relationship is completely in the open -- often even boasted about -- because the institutions involved have such high status and exalted image that they're normally perceived as worthy of highest trust and confidence in their objectivity and benevolence.
I mostly agree, but I think there's a continuous scale here, not a general rule. The situation of pesticide companies and pharmaceutical companies is very similar, and both have used similar tactics to try and corrupt the science around them, but pharmaceutical companies have been much more effective - probably by spending much more money.
I don't think the amount of money is relevant in this particular comparison. Far more important is the ability of the corrupting special interest to assume the forms and establish the social and legal status enabling it to present itself as a legitimate patron of scholarship, association with which won't be detrimental to the researchers' reputation. Money clearly doesn't hurt in this endeavor, but I think that it's far from being the most important factor.
Can you spell this out some more, focusing on this example? I'm looking for criteria which can be applied in advance to predict the degree of success of special interest propaganda.
Does the social and legal status and legitimacy of pharmaceuticals, as against pesticides, simply reflect the greater prestige of doctors over farmers?
torekp:
In this case, I think that's a correct hypothesis. The medical profession -- and by extension all the related professions in its orbit, to varying extents -- certainly enjoys such a high-status public perception that people will be biased towards interpreting its official claims and acts as coming from benevolent and objective expertise, even when a completely analogous situation in some ordinary industry or profession would be met with suspicion. Thus, it seems eminently plausible that in medical and related research people can let themselves be influenced by much more venal interest than usual, thinly disguised and rationalized as neutral and objective expertise and beneficial cooperation.
In my opinion, however, this is not where the worst problem lies. As long as the beneficiaries of biased research are easy to identify, one at least has a straightforward way to start making sense of the situation. A much worse problem is when the perverse incentives have a more complex and impersonal bureaucratic structure, in which ostensibly there are no private profits and venal interests, merely people working according to strict standards of professional ethics and expertise, but in reality this impeccable bureaucratic facade hides an awful hierarchy of patronage and the output is horrible nonsense with the effective purpose of rationalizing and excusing actions out of touch with reality. In these situations, venal interests effectively blend with ideological ones, and with all their elaborate and impressive bureaucratic facade, they are very difficult to recognize and analyze correctly.
You are right. However it is worth noting the powerful forces that are arrayed against any researcher who threatens powerful economic interests.
Given how much research is funded by the government, it is very possible for those with the right connections to punish those who do not sing the right song.
The story of trans fats is a good case in point, well documented in Gary Taubes's book. Good Calories Bad Calories.