Posted on 09/14/2007 3:21:08 AM PDT by gridlock
We all make mistakes and, if you believe medical scholar John Ioannidis, scientists make more than their fair share. By his calculations, most published research findings are wrong.
Dr. Ioannidis is an epidemiologist who studies research methods at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece and Tufts University in Medford, Mass. In a series of influential analytical reports, he has documented how, in thousands of peer-reviewed research papers published every year, there may be so much less than meets the eye.
These flawed findings, for the most part, stem not from fraud or formal misconduct, but from more mundane misbehavior: miscalculation, poor study design or self-serving data analysis. "There is an increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims," Dr. Ioannidis said. "A new claim about a research finding is more likely to be false than true."
The hotter the field of research the more likely its published findings should be viewed skeptically, he determined.
(snip)
Statistically speaking, science suffers from an excess of significance. Overeager researchers often tinker too much with the statistical variables of their analysis to coax any meaningful insight from their data sets. "People are messing around with the data to find anything that seems significant, to show they have found something that is new and unusual," Dr. Ioannidis said.
(snip)
Every new fact discovered through experiment represents a foothold in the unknown. In a wilderness of knowledge, it can be difficult to distinguish error from fraud, sloppiness from deception, eagerness from greed or, increasingly, scientific conviction from partisan passion. As scientific findings become fodder for political policy wars over matters from stem-cell research to global warming, even trivial errors and corrections can have larger consequences.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
In the mean time, an active mind is our best defense!
So it’s a good thing we’re here on FR, having lots of thoughts!
Yup. With so much research being conducted within our universities the pressure to obtain grant money has never been greater. As the article makes clear, too many researchers are more interested in finding money than they are with finding the truth. This causes them to do things that guarantee the desired outcome and place their findings under suspicion. 95% of research today is meaningless.
No organization is more guilty of this than the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
The multiple absurd flaws here are self-evident, so I’ll just mention this one: does the mercury go away when raw sushi is cooked?
Why is this not logical?
There is no logical flaw where the scientists say that sushi might be harmful. The statement could be generalized, but that doesn't make it wrong.
For example, I could say that a .40 S&W cartridge can cause harm if you use it in a gun to shoot at yourself. I could generalize it more (to include other bullets), but it isn't wrong as is.
Those idiots don't even bother to fake it.
The study itself is devised primarily to meet mere standards for review — the analysis is easy since they knew going in what their conclusions would be.
It used to be the assumption was that scientists were committed to the scientific process first and their own agendas second. This has not been true for a long, long time.
Sorry, that's not the correct formulation.
The equivalent might be "Pregnant women should not drive Harley Davidsons, because motorcycles have high injury rates in accidents. I have therefore proven that Harley Davidsons are dangerous for pregnant women."
That's at least a double non sequiter, and one or two other logical fallacies.
I have to run but can take this up later if you like.
Nah. It isn't really important. And talking about .40 S&W makes me want to go to the range.
Statistics is not science and it is not history or sociology although it seems to be used extensively and blindly in those disciplines. Statistics provide an answer that is implied in the question so the mere phrasing of the question determines the result. We ought to pay more attention to the questions and less or none to the results.
Too often one treats the hypothesis more as a road map than a set of landmarks already located and assumes that the road ends there.
Have you ever read the study of the taint in a medical journal?
thanks, bfl
Science ceased to be science when it became political activism.
Now it is all tainted.
TC, the companies that I follow are very tight-lipped, but some powerful anecdotal info have nonetheless leaked out. If true, and I believe they are, we could see a mega breakthrough on the market in as soon as one year.
GB,
p.
Any really astute professor, in ANY field, should make this announcement at the beginning of the year, every year, with every incoming cohort of students:
“At least 50% or what we teach you in this classroom, as settled and highly researched fact, will prove to completely and totally WRONG, sometime during your career. We cannot tell you which 50% that is. You have to learn that for yourselves.”
The piece of data you KNOW is absolutely right, and completely irrefutable, will turn out to be total bull puckie. And it will be proven to be so by some young grad student who is not yet born.
“The Great Betrayal,” by Horace Freeland Judson.
Amazing! I hope there’s something that can help my father, before it’s too late.
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