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1

Smooth_Imagination t1_iyk093y wrote

Science seems to be increasingly captured by Big Money or political ideology (which may come via possibly financial interests as well, although it is hard to trace the interests behind those that organise the grants, theres capture of many publishing platforms or indirectly through the institutions in which they work.)

It harms honest science and its standing in the public eye through no fault of the good scientists working in the public interest and to proven scientific methodology.

322

beastinsideabeast t1_iyk7ahw wrote

In my school the influence was often obvious, there was no hiding it. I guess we most of us, including the faculty, "accepted" that this is how the world works.

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Dr_Baby_Man t1_iyk8336 wrote

Emory University <visabley uncomfortable>

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Two_Corinthians t1_iyk8r3h wrote

What exactly did they achieve with all this nefarious activity? The only meaningful allegation I saw in the paper is putting emphasis on physical activity. Unless they suggest that people should drink coca-cola while exercising, I don't see anything incriminating in the article.

3

Meatrition OP t1_iyk97tg wrote

Replying to Two_Corinthians (#842,792)

Coca Cola is trying to say that drinking sugar is just drinking calories and that all calories are the same — energy, and weight loss just involves eating less energy -> energy balance. However, it’s likely much more complicated with various hormones like insulin being raised from drinking sugary soda.

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ForwardEmergency23 t1_iyka3tt wrote

I mean. This is all pretty par for the course here. It’s not even technically against the rules. Is it right, no. But this shouldn’t be a surprise for anyone.

2

2TimesAsLikely t1_iyke56l wrote

Replying to Meatrition (#842,814)

Short acting carbs will impact insulin more then medium or slow acting carbs. All carbs raise insulin though. Any diet high on sugar is less healthy then a balanced diet but calories in = calories out is still going to be mostly accurate. The problem with people drinking high sugar sodas is that you consume tons of calories with nearly no nutritional value. You are still going to be hungry and actually hitting calorie/energy goals is going to be much more difficult.

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blindly t1_iykfp4d wrote

Check where Emory University (based on ATL) gets its money from…

18

lkeltner t1_iykgsq9 wrote

Why does this surprise anyone? Almost every study or finding I see posted here is like "well of course that's how it is." Greed drives all

2

tidowobodo t1_iykjbn0 wrote

They're trying to increase their carbon dioxide footprint.

There might be some politics at play to influence Coca-Cola and then this may all go away until needed another time

−2

jibbidyjamma t1_iykluj3 wrote

periodontal disease is the most widespread disease in the world.

6

betweenthebars34 t1_iyl4p5i wrote

Corporate greed and endless influence is our downfall, from the economics to public health to the climate.

4

Cleistheknees t1_iyl815h wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#843,247)

There are three authors of this paper, and the lead is a woman: Sarah Steele. Also, investigators generally aren’t “funded” by “an industry”. Studies can be, and certainly are, however this one was not.

Do you have a specific problem with the methodology in this paper? In the kinds of studies Coca Cola is accused of influencing, sometimes the methodology is opaque enough to hide behind, even if it appears sound (food-frequency questionnaires, etc), but in this case they’re just using Coke’s own correspondences.

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flekkzo t1_iylfz76 wrote

Reminds me of the tobacco and oil industry. It’s a problem if the rest of the scientific community goes along with it. Shouldn’t accept tainted research.

5

cannondave t1_iylh0j9 wrote

Replying to Meatrition (#842,549)

Big money are even bigger now, relatively and absolutely, than x decades ago. If you have a revenue of $100 million it might be profitable to influnce some politics, but if you have $22 bn like some large companies such as Pfizer, it's profitable to even gain 5% positive sentiment for a single new product, even if you have to pay $10 m to influence social media such as Reddit, Twitter, and another $100 m to lobby FDA and it's counterparts, especially EU and FDA. It would be profitable for sure, to some extent. If they do it, who knows. Maybe they are ethical and allows us to discuss freely and openly about their products pros and cons, without intercepting. Would you? If you had a button to press, generate $1 bn by influencing social media? If you wouldn't, and you worked at marketing at a large corporation, do you think you would be replaced by someone who would? Interesting thoughts.

21

Sawses t1_iylhpeg wrote

Replying to Smooth_Imagination (#842,453)

Do bear in mind that the history of science is extremely political and driven by "Big Money". All the way from philosophers like Plato and Aristotle all the way through proto-scientists like Tycho and Darwin into the 19th/20th centuries with "scientific" justifications for things like sexism and classism.

It didn't end then. Now you've got bloated bureaucratic institutions that are far more about money than about science, with no end of people willing to trade scientific rigor for better odds at tenure by pursuing the "right" lines of questioning or failing to address certain implications of their research.

That isn't to say science is an unworthy pursuit, or that modern scientists are all corrupt or that the institutions don't do a lot of good. IMO it's the highest calling a person can pursue even in the present circumstances. That doesn't make modern scientific institutions or their practitioners beyond reproach, however.

1

Cleistheknees t1_iylhxwc wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#844,630)

Got it, I’ll tell my girlfriend to take him off our Christmas party invite list.

Can you tell me an actual problem in the methodology of using Coca-Cola’s direct correspondence about their influence on nutrition research as….. evidence of their influence on nutrition research?

6

Sawses t1_iyli2rg wrote

Replying to insaneintheblain (#844,574)

There are only so many hours in the day. Most people have too many other responsibilities to be able to think scientifically about everything.

I'm trained as a scientist and understand the nature of science better than most. I don't use a scientific mindset for everything, because that requires a great deal of thought, data collection, and background investigation.

I'll let experts in economics or geopolitics or computer science dictate my reality in areas of expertise. Not because I can't just figure it out for myself, but because that will take hundreds of hours to even get to a point where I can begin to have an educated opinion.

18

heyitscory t1_iyliik9 wrote

Replying to beastinsideabeast (#842,741)

Sure, we had to pay for Pepsi out of the Pepsi machines, but the Pepsi-branded book covers were free, and totally radical.

And mandatory. Book covers were mandatory. Sure, you could use a shopping bag, but I just turned the Pepsi ones inside out, and doodled on the white side. By my senior year, the ads were double sided.

22

Kipzi t1_iylijzs wrote

Replying to Meatrition (#842,549)

Remember that study published in a bunch of higher tier academic journals about chocolate making you lose weight? The guy made up a fake name and put it in just to show it would be published knowing full well it was junk science.

Also the greivance studies. They published mein kempf using feminist speech and that was accepted too. They also published something about a dog park, dildos and toxic masculinity.

I never took social sciences the same.

8

phantomranch t1_iylqqlg wrote

When I grow up, I wanna go to bovine university

1

ZdravoZivi t1_iyltq60 wrote

Please do same kind of research on Pfizer

5

mustbe20characters20 t1_iyluyyw wrote

Looking at the results this honestly seems perfectly fine.

"Documents suggest Coca-Cola provides direct financial support to institutions and organizations hosting events in exchange for benefits, including influence over proceedings. Coca-Cola also provided direct financial support to speakers and researchers, sometimes conditional on media interviews. Also, indirect financial support passed through Coca-Cola-financed non-profits. Often, such financial support was not readily identifiable, and third-party involvement further concealed Coca-Cola funding."

Coca Cola pays for events and backs researchers, sometimes conditional on media interviews, but that's all fantastic. That's more funding for science, more funding for socialization between scientists, all so coca cola can have a platform to attempt to make themselves look better (presumably).

Typically "X funded y" statements aren't a problem whatsoever as long as there's transparency and the underlying science is still solid. And if it isn't, well, we disregard it.

−1

C2h6o4Me t1_iylv1a8 wrote

Replying to Meatrition (#842,549)

It's not "just starting to come to light", either. Oil, tobacco, food and pharma companies were well known to have been practicing this in the 90's (I can't speak to before that, because I was a child in the 90s, yet still had a basic level of awareness), well before the Internet was as ubiquitous as it is today. The problem is the industries that practice it generally have a captive audience in one form or another, or the people that purchase their products either don't care or can't be bothered with the politics or ethics of the companies they buy their goods from.

6

MycroFeline t1_iylv8cu wrote

If they do that, what does Nestlé do?

7

boshlop t1_iym1jro wrote

your telling me "the science" isnt actually alwyas honest when it involves millions and billions? no never

6

Darkhorseman81 t1_iym27e7 wrote

Ah, the age of Narcissism and Psychopathy, and their insidious influence. They even corrupt the sciences.

You think the crisis of replicability in scientific peer review is a phenomena that rose out of a vacuum?

1

m-in t1_iym3vc0 wrote

Replying to insaneintheblain (#844,574)

It’s not only about thinking. It’s also about access to information. A lot of science is behind paywalls. Not everyone is a student or lives close to a campus to get access to papers “for free”. I go to campus biweekly just to download IEEE papers I need. Had I had to buy those at list price, it’d have been hundreds of dollars each month. I graduated almost 2 decades ago.

1

Grey___Goo_MH t1_iym5005 wrote

Replying to PMs_You_Stuff (#844,159)

Telfon production

“It’s all ok to dump this byproduct in a major river” np at all - internal documents

It’s in everything and it’s everywhere you can detect it in blood of everyone …np at all ships production over seas see NO PROBLEM AT ALL

Idiocracy was a rosy version of our future

6

abtei t1_iym5x97 wrote

Follow the money. It always unearths the truth.

1

insaneintheblain t1_iymd3vo wrote

Replying to m-in (#845,324)

Information is everywhere - the ability to parse it constructively is rare in individuals

“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” ― Jean Baudrillard

3

Nael5089 t1_iymptih wrote

Replying to lkeltner (#843,129)

Because humanity operates on a system of refreshing its population by means of reproduction. This results in new people needing to learn much of what humanity has already discovered. Many people happen to miss a lot of the information due to the necessity of surviving/not dying so when the info does finally reach them, it may cause them to be surprised.

Some people call this phenomena "the lucky 10000"

The idea being that every day 10000 people will learn something that many consider to be common knowledge.

3

TheTapeDeck t1_iymt09m wrote

This is the same mechanism by which we ended up with “part of this complete breakfast” and “the food pyramid” etc. So messed up.

2

Darwins_Dog t1_iyn6l2g wrote

Replying to OrgeGeorwell (#846,080)

It was a thing for me in grade school (I think that's what they mean) because the books had to last for at least a decade. We had to have paper covers to protect them (or maybe just hide years of damage idk).

3

Notyalc0230 t1_iynwwru wrote

Replying to Smooth_Imagination (#842,453)

Leonardo Da Vinci was not cooking up great ideas because he was just a generous guy. Science had been captured by the wealthy for a long time, with some scientists actively looking to gain the support of wealthy benefactors. This is why public funding of science, funding that aligns science to the public interest, is so critical. It's not a coincidence that a golden age of scientific advancements and trust in science coincided with a massive increase in publicly funded science.

1

NexexUmbraRs t1_iynzps7 wrote

Replying to OrgeGeorwell (#847,616)

Possibly the books were donated by coke/Pepsi on condition that they'd have book covers. Yes it's gross but it also makes some sense if they can't get funding elsewhere.

And this is why socialized education is important.

1

Gordon_Explosion t1_iyo0oum wrote

Next, let's talk about how much they pay politicians and political parties.

1

jpaulham t1_iyokyc3 wrote

Replying to mitchanium (#845,270)

Who? Local bottling companies? Yes, that's horrific. Coca-Cola, which doesn't own or control those local bottling companies? Coca-Cola, which was removed from the lawsuit because they had no part in the union murders?

Don't start making baseless claims via headlines just because you know most people won't take the time to read the whole article. You end up doing exactly what others are complaining of here on this thread.

1

Agreeable_Dark5713 t1_j0p3ec9 wrote

Well, I'm convinced. I'll definitely be wearing a mask from now on.

1