
Should Scientists Publish Their Personal Biases? - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/should-scientists-publish-their-personal-biases
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ineedasername
No. Scientific results shouldn't be viewed through the lens of the scientists'
personal beliefs. Beyond that, even with good-faith effort, its simply not
possible or practical, not least because an individual may not know their own
biases, making self-disclosure inherently unreliable.

And why would even a good-faith effort be made? Why would a politically
liberal/conservative scientist want their research on "X" automatically
discounted by a significant fraction of the population? On personal political
biases, I think you'd just find a whole lot of scientists suddenly identifying
as "independent"

Much better to mandate disclosure of professional biases. I'd rather know if
your research was funded by an organization or institution that had an
interest in a _specific_ outcome. I want to know if your research is funded by
the modern equivalent of the Tobacco Research Institute. Mercenary science is
a much bigger threat to research integrity, and more readily solvable. Focus
on that.

