[megaman22]

> ... and, of course, the rebuttals to this were mostly of the "no true Scotsman" flavor. "It's not the fault of scientists, it's the bad media". Let's ignore http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/ (Why Most Published Research Findings Are False) and many other similar results - we have to defend scientists because!

It seems like the worst offenders are in biology/pharmacology/genetics/biochemistry. I'm not trained in any of those fields, but it seems pretty obvious that organic life should be orders of magnitudes more complex than mechanics, materials science, aeronautics, or any of the other man-made scientific fields. They are also comparatively young subjects. We don't really understand enough about how all the pieces fit together, or even what all the pieces are, in biological processes to make much in the way of definitive statements.

But seriously, if I hear another nightly news story about how food X prevents cancer based on a study of a dozen people or the current consensus on whether eggs are good or bad for you...

[jleyank]

Careful. Human biological response is sufficiently well understood to permit the design of antibodies (which are grown in fermenters) that treat the symptoms of disease (RA, for example). There are decades of successful pharmacological research based on receptor targets, signaling pathways, etc.

However, your point is valid in that knowledge of, say, digital engineering is easier to understand and investigate as the systems are simpler. Those who are successful in the tech field should keep this in mind when they talk of disrupting fields involving wet-ware.