So I think I understand what you are saying but maybe I'm missing something. Wouldn't the overgrowth of the corruption be just as or more dangerous than the risk of using excess resources to stop it? Like isn't the outcome we are all doomed either way?

I would say if you saw a system was 0.01% rigged and you presented it as "the system is rigged" with no further clarification you are being very intentionally misleading. This would be a case where "technically correct" is actually dead wrong

Where did you read that the problem is a "few anecdotes of dangerous drugs?" I could not find that and find it misleading about the intent of the article.

Science, answering all those fun unanswerable philosophical questions since the 17th century. oooooh, they HATE that. This is going to have rage voting and banhammers abound. You've stepped right into the taboo topic of this place. See, philosophy is useless. It doesn't have any answers. It just makes questions. Which is a great thing to do and gets people thinking. It's a fun time. But the moment any of those questions can get answered, it leaves the realm of philosophical and enters reality, ie, the realm of science. Things like "What is man?" really got the ball rolling in ancient Greece, but once we learned about DNA, compatible code-bases, specification, and the horrifically nuanced details therein, philosophers had to move on to "what is a person?". And maybe we'll scoot them off that topic someday, but who knows.

Do "A tree falls in the forest" and Shrodinger's cat next.

> Yeah I get what you're doing here....

To some degree ("get" is not a binary).

> ...but you're reducing the 'rigging' down to smaller active chunks that are not necessarily representative of the system.

Correct - do you "get" why I am doing this?

> These chunks are far more dependent on personal corruption than systemic 'rigging'.

A reasonable speculation by common standards, although it is framed as (and perhaps even perceived as) a false dichotomy, so perhaps not likely to be necessarily correct.

> A 'rigged' system implies that the system is specifically set up in a way to produce erroneous results.

Very true! We could choose a different word if you'd like, but I will apply the same strict epistemology to that.

> A small team or department producing erroneous results for personal profit motives, is quite a bit different then systemic rigging - primarily because the system would want it try remove the offending people, because the system itself does not approve of 'rigging'.

Do you have knowledge of what is actually going on, or are you speculating? "does not 'approve of'" is a conveniently slippery/subjective way to consider it.

> And we don't have to imagine a system either...

It is not technically necessary, but to get to the level of detail you are making assertions about, imagination is necessary.

> ...there are lots of drug regulatory agencies, from the FDA to Heath Canada, to the EMA that we can examine to assess this rigging claim.

And the quality of such examinations is equal to the quality of the examinations, which is unknown to you and me (which is where imagination makes its appearance).

> I literally don't know what you mean by 'rigged' in this context.

That's the beauty about humans - we do not use precise definitions for words - not only do we not, people are generally severely opposed to them. I prefer them, so if you'd like to decide upon a definition together, I would be game.

> Do you know how complicated the data production and regulatory requirements are to pass something like FDA clearance? Because I do....

What definition are you using for "know" here?

> Just saying that 'the approval of drug X was rigged' is an incredibly vauge statement.

Correct - one among many vague/ambiguous/subjective statements involved in this conversation.

> There's a thousand different things that a company must produce and provide to a regulatory agency like the FDA to be verified prior to drug approval - there's many ways that companies can 'fudge' or 'massage' data to get it to say what the company wants prior to FDA submission.

Agree! This, and many other things.

>> the level of rigged-ness of a system is equal to the level to which the system is rigged - this is better because it cannot possibly be incorrect.

> Sure it can. You have to be very clear of what is 'rigging' and what is not 'rigging' - you have to define your terms of they're to be 'correct' or applicable.

"Rigging" is largely subjective. In addition to this, you also have a measurement problem, and and an epistemology problem (like: unknown unknowns), and a consciousness problem.

> Edit: furthermore, 'rigging' implies intentionality behind the decision - which is an accustaion that requires evidence.

Should require evidence...and this applies to all the claims you made here today. Lucky for you, presenting (epistemically sound and logically conclusive) evidence for claims on the internet is not only not required, it is almost never done!

> Just becuase the FDA approves a drug that otherwise wouldn't/shouldn't have been approved is not evidence of rigging, it could be, for exmaple, a mistake, or there may be other confounding variables.

Correct - it is kind of like the difference between lying and speaking untruthfully.

>>> It's much more likely that in this proposed scenario the drug would be erroneously approved due to the actions of a single, or a few corrupt individuals - which does not represent the system.

>> Is this to say that there are zero corrupt individuals in the system?

> Of course not - I'm saying that there's a dramatic difference between Bob the quality control officer at the FDA allowing a drug to pass some quality parameter when company X fudged a data set error rate from 12% to 9%, passing the 10% error threshold set by the FDA, because Bob is friends with Tim, a designer at company X

But, if there are in fact corrupt individuals within the system, would saying that the system is partially corrupt not actually be a more accurate representation than saying it is not corrupted? (Replace "corrupt" with "imperfect" if you prefer comprehensiveness as I do).

> And systemic rigging that specifically allows for certain companies or individuals to skate by regulatory constrains without question becuase the regulatory agency has some special interest in that company.

I wonder if this has ever happened, even once. 🤔

> Just becuase there are individual corrupt actors acting within a system does not mean that the system is systemically rigged...

Would you mind pasting in a pseudocode representation of your actual cognitive implementation of isRigged()? I am interested to see the variables and logic (the general form, and if you are using binary or ternary) you are using.

> ...it's not designed to be rigged.

This has no bearing on whether it is actually rigged (but it may have bearing on perceptions of it).

> Especially when, if the system was aware of the individual corruption, it would very likely act to expunge that corruption.

Actually, it would likely not (note: I literally just made that up - when in Rome, act like a Roman and all that).

It takes only a cursory glance at the American political landscape to see that the price of low voting percentage is very high indeed.

Oh plenty of our voters certainly aren’t living up to their moral obligations.
But the fact remains that mandatory voting has a hugely positive effect on government

By your standards, are pride bars not pride bars if hetero individuals (who represent a much larger portion of the population already) frequent them at a high enough rate to be the majority?

A system can be defined just as much by a featured minority. A system that allows even 1/100 drugs to make it through erroneously because you bribed the right combination of senators and researchers seems rather fair to label rigged. Sure, there’s a functioning system along side of it, but there exists a mechanism for avoiding its rigors and it has been exploited rather openly and documented in court cases with opioids most famously.

That requires massive amounts of energy and effort though. What you're talking about is entropy mitigation and in any system, working against entropy is energy intensive, so as long as we have a scarcity economy, we should think carefully about what and where we stop this "corruption" as you call it, because it could take up all our resources wastefully if we pick an energy hungry system to keep it from equilibrium.

>Imagine a system...

Yeah I get what you're doing here - but you're reducing the 'rigging' down to smaller active chunks that are not necessarily representative of the system. These chunks are far more dependent on personal corruption than systemic 'rigging'. A 'rigged' system implies that the system is specifically set up in a way to produce erroneous results. A small team or department producing erroneous results for personal profit motives, is quite a bit different then systemic rigging - primarily because the system would want it try remove the offending people, because the system itself does not approve of 'rigging'. And we don't have to imagine a system either - there are lots of drug regulatory agencies, from the FDA to Heath Canada, to the EMA that we can examine to assess this rigging claim.

>I am simply saying that if it is in fact rigged, then it is rigged.

I literally don't know what you mean by 'rigged' in this context. Do you know how complicated the data production and regulatory requirements are to pass something like FDA clearance? Because I do, it just so happens to be a large part of my area of expertise. Just saying that 'the approval of drug X was rigged' is an incredibly vauge statement. There's a thousand different things that a company must produce and provide to a regulatory agency like the FDA to be verified prior to drug approval - there's many ways that companies can 'fudge' or 'massage' data to get it to say what the company wants prior to FDA submission.

>the level of rigged-ness of a system is equal to the level to which the system is rigged - this is better because it cannot possibly be incorrect.

Sure it can. You have to be very clear of what is 'rigging' and what is not 'rigging' - you have to define your terms of they're to be 'correct' or applicable.

Edit: furthermore, 'rigging' implies intentionality behind the decision - which is an accustaion that requires evidence. Just becuase the FDA approves a drug that otherwise wouldn't/shouldn't have been approved is not evidence of rigging, it could be, for exmaple, a mistake, or there may be other confounding variables.

>Is this to say that there are zero corrupt individuals in the system?

Of course not - I'm saying that there's a dramatic difference between Bob the quality control officer at the FDA allowing a drug to pass some quality parameter when company X fudged a data set error rate from 12% to 9%, passing the 10% error threshold set by the FDA, because Bob is friends with Tim, a designer at company X

And systemic rigging that specifically allows for certain companies or individuals to skate by regulatory constrains without question becuase the regulatory agency has some special interest in that company.

Just becuase there are individual corrupt actors acting within a system does not mean that the system is systemically rigged - it's not designed to be rigged. Especially when, if the system was aware of the individual corruption, it would very likely act to expunge that corruption.

Meta studies exist today as a means to mitigate the issue. Typically what gets into a meta study and is verified, then it gets further studied and researches build on those findings, but if it doesn't make into the study or serious faults are pointed out, then it is either ignored or someone tries to falsify/verify the claims of the original study.

This issue is being addressed; it's not a growing, awkward problem like climate change or overconsumption.

There is also an issue with resources. Just how much resources are we to waste just to verify the verification of a verification, etc. ? Some research is much more expensive than others, so we can't just have the same blanket standard for all.

It is a problem, but it is not like modern science is anywhere close to fraud; we just have an unprecedented wealth of new reports and too few people with not enough resources to verify each.

Maybe. All I am pointing out is that all of the evidence that you think of checking is not all of the evidence out there. Science often solves this problem with peer review, but it is not the same as analysing as many possible evidences (even once you don’t normally think of) to try to find out if the theory or assertion is wrong.

Checking all the evidence you think of checking could be ok or it could be totally inadequate. Really depends, right?

I see the issue here. Reproducing RCTs in psychology = good idea. Reproducing RCTs in medicine = more often than not unethical (because you could design a better trial based on the previous one).

Most of the replication crisis is from RCTs in social psych

The paper is trying to provide support for a standard of enabling RWE to support RCT data in the FDA process which is a good thing. You don’t usually run RCTs in heterogeneous populations. You want a heterogeneous sampling of the population you are trying to treat, but depending on where you are on the world that changes ie There are ethnic and geographic differences in CYP enzymes that will change your study (if you are from a specific. Geographic/ethnic group you get 100 mg/kg if you are from group B you get 150 mg/kg). Clinical trials are designed around a specific question. Does my study meet my primary and secondary endpoints. If yes, then it supports approval for your drug. If no, then it discourages approval based on that study. Maybe you will need to do a different RCT. This is a different premise then, for example, research done in metal organic frameworks, providing support for a new battery material. This study contains the methods the authors used to create a new material, the experiment they did to test the energy storage capacity, and the result they obtained. This is the type of research it would be beneficial to reproduce.

The bird professor did not consider possibilities of his theory being wrong. He checked all of the evidence that he thought of checking, but since he was unaware of the possibility of contrary evidence, he did not check that evidence. Also, while no theory is foolproof, some theories ended up fundamental to our understanding of the universe around us. Two important and fundamental theories that come to mind is the theory of evolution and the theory of heliocentrism. These fundamental theories are seen as true and are important to our understanding of the universe around. Theorists have considered opposing theories for centuries, yet these fundamental theories have stood the test of time as more and more evidence comes in their favor. This is something that the bird professor should’ve done, and this is what this razor advocates for.

>Wondering about my funding, implying that despite a decade of training to become a scientist, and all the experience after, I’m really just in it for the money and so am willing to push false narratives.

This is one possible interpretation, but there are many other possibilities.

Do they not cover the difference between subjective and objective reality in science and philosophy curriculum these days? Or how about psychology - did heuristics get covered at all in your studies?

> I can’t help you.

Whether you can help yourself seems like a more pressing issue.

>As far as whether I’m in the right place, I’m a career scientist with a bonus philosophy degree, I might have a clue.

This may provide some very valuable insight into the metaphysical nature of reality.

It discusses using real-world data to replicate the findings of RCTs, not duplicate the clinical trial. If you want exact duplications, RCTs should be done in heterogenous populations to be generalizable and things that work for one population may well be duplicated later in a different population

Yes. No one is discounting that. Science should be inherently reproducible. The point I’m trying to make is that bringing up clinical trials in the same context and the general reproducibility crisis in science is comparing apples to oranges. You don’t publish the results of a clinical trial so someone can try to reproduce the trial. You share the results so that the next trial done on the same patient population can be designed to yield an even better outcome and as part of the drug/device approval process. If you run a new clinical trial on the exact same drug but you change the recruitment sites to attempt to change the characteristics of the patient population you recruit you are no longer reproducing a study. You are running a new study.

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This paper does not discuss duplicating clinical trials. It would most likely be unethical to try to reproduce a clinical trial based on the adverse effects you uncover. If the first study is unclear you design a new trial but you don’t try to replicate it…

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Nah, I don't actually care. I grew up not trusting anyone or anything, I just know that the words replication crisis make for a great headline.

I don't disagree about the incentives for academic work being heavily perverted by the current climate, however I have yet to see anyone propose a fix that will actually be adopted by anyone but idealists. Just like open source software vs. M$ and Apple, you have true believers, and then people that are just there to make money. At the end of the day, eating is more important that holding to your ideals.