A flawed paper in management science has been cited more than 6k times

The gatekeepers were able to convince the American public of such heinous things like circumcision at birth based on "science" and now they're having to deal with the corruption. People like RFK Jr. are able to be put into top positions because what they're spewing has no less scientific merit than what's accepted and recommended. The state of scientific literature is incredibly sad and mainly a factor of politics and money than of scientific evidence.

I studied a Masters from Cambridge Judge Business School, and my takeaway is that “Management Science” is to Science what “Software Engineering” is to Engineering.

I think what these papers prove is my newer theory that organized science isn't scientific at all. It's mostly unverified claims by people rewarded for throwing papers out that look scientific, have novelty, and achieve policy goals of specific groups. There's also little review with dissent banned in many places. We've been calling it scientism since it's like a self-reinforcing religion.

We need to throw all of this out by default. From public policy to courtrooms, we need to treat it like any other eyewitness claim. We shouldn't beleive anything unless it has strong arguments or data backing it. For science, we need the scientific method applied with skeptical review and/or replication. Our tools, like statistical methods and programs, must be vetted.

Like with logic, we shouldn't allow them to go beyond what's proven in this way. So, only the vetted claims are allowed as building blocks (premises) in newly-vetted work. The premises must be used how they were used before. If not, they are re-checked for the new circumstances. Then, the conclusions are stated with their preconditions and limitations to only he applied that way.

I imagine many non-scientists and taxpayers assumed what I described is how all these "scientific facts" and "consensus" vlaims were done. The opposite was true in most cases. So, we need to not onoy redo it but apply scientific method to the institutions themselves assessing their reliability. If they don't get reliable, they loose their funding and quickly.

(Note: There are groups in many fields doing real research and experimental science. We should highlight them as exemplars. Maybe let them take the lead in consulting for how to fix these problems.)

The problem with academia is that it's often more about politics and reputation than seeking the truth. There are multiple examples of researchers making a career out flawed papers and never retracking or even admitting a mistake.

All the talks they were invited to give, all the followers they had, all the courses they sold and impact factor they have built. They are not going to came forward and say "I misinterpreted the data and made long reaching conclusions that are nonsense, sorry for misleading you and thousands of others".

The process protects them as well. Someone can publish another paper, make different conclusions. There is 0 effort get to the truth, to tell people what is and what isn't current consensus and what is reasonable to believe. Even if it's clear for anyone who digs a bit deeper it will not be communicated to the audience the academia is supposed to serve. The consensus will just quietly shift while the heavily quoted paper is still there. The talks are still out there, the false information is still propagated while the author enjoys all the benefits and suffers non of the negative consequences.

If it functions like that I don't think it's fair that tax payer funds it. It's there to serve the population not to exist in its own world and play its own politics and power games.

Conservatives very concerned about academic reproducability* (*except when the paper helps their agenda)

In the past the elite would rule the plebs by saying "God says so, so you must do this".

Today the elites rule the plebs by saying "Science sasy so, so you must do this".

Author doesn't seem to understand this, the purpose of research papers is to be gospel, something to be believed, not scrutinized.

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Do people actually take papers in "management science" seriously?

Welcome Ideological science published to support the regime. There's a lot more where this came from .

The paper touches on a point (“sustainability “) that is a sacred cow for many people.

Even if you support sustainability, criticizing the paper will be treated as heresy by many.

Despite our idealistic vision of Science(tm), it is a human process done by humans with human motivations and human weaknesses.

From Galileo to today, we have repeatedly seen the enthusiastic willingness by majorities of scientists to crucify heretics (or sit by in silence) and to set aside scientific thinking and scientific process when it clashes against belief or orthodoxy or when it makes the difference whether you get tenure or publication.