News

37878 readers

2206 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.

Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.

7. No duplicate posts.

If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.

All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

JonsJava@lemmy.world

gedaliyah@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

The problem with Trump promoting "gold standard science" (www.motherjones.com)

submitted 2 months ago by HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to c/news@lemmy.world

2 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Federal agencies have been branding some of their research and policy work as “gold standard science,” a trend that gained new force after an executive order on the term was issued in May 2025. The phrase now appears in speeches and guidance documents from agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. It shows up in social media posts intended to signal credibility, rigor, and authority. The message is clear: This is science you can trust.

The intention may be to reassure the public, but the framing is misleading. The executive order outlines principles that are broadly consistent with good scientific practice, such as transparency, reproducibility, and peer review. These are not controversial. The problem arises in how those principles are translated into a simplified label that suggests a single hierarchy of evidence.

In scientific practice, “gold standard” has never meant universally best. It has always been conditional. Researchers have used the phrase to describe the most appropriate method for answering a very specific type of question, under particular assumptions and constraints. Outside of that narrow context, the phrase loses its meaning.

One of the most common examples comes from medicine. Randomized controlled trials are often described as the gold standard for determining whether a drug or clinical intervention causes a particular outcome. The reason is straightforward. Randomization helps isolate cause and effect by reducing bias and confounding. When the question is whether treatment A is superior to treatment B under controlled conditions, randomized trials can be extraordinarily powerful.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] catbum@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

He and his henchmen are probably just being literal here about the gold standard.

"Yep so we are doing science that all but guarantees the outcome of some researched thing (of some value perceived to be stable or at least predictable, might as well be gold) is predicted to be ~~exploitable~~ explorable further in some way, preferably fiscally."

Scientific integrity, psh, it all about that dolla dolla bill y'all