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How many medical studies are faked or flawed?

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Re: How many medical studies are faked or flawed?

#41

Post by gmd63 »

bjourne wrote: post #22

We all know it is super-easy to cheat in science, but not much can be done about it. Short of requiring replication for every result published which isn't feasible if the study was costly to produce. And the problem isn't confined to medicine either. How many studies in hpc of the type "we setup this benchmark and our novel algorithm/implementation won!" aren't also faked or flawed?

Plenty can be done about it. We can start by increasing the standards for experimental proof past words on a piece of paper.

Stream or record your experiment. If a 12 year old has the ability to stream his gaming life on twitch, scientists should be able to record what they are doing in more detail.

You could start a new journal with higher level of prestige that only publishes experiments that adhere to more modern methods of proof.

Re: How many medical studies are faked or flawed?

#42

Post by systemvoltage »

some_random wrote: post #18

While we're on the subject, how many studies period are faked or flawed to the point of being useless? It seems to me that the scientific community's reaction to the replication crisis has been to ignore it.

> has been to ignore it

This is putting it very mildly.

Re: How many medical studies are faked or flawed?

#43

Post by ftxbro »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #2

Those are two wildly different things. Most things are flawed. Deliberately fabricating results is anathema to advancing science.

They mean flawed to the point of being useless in a way that indicates incompetence or negligence or fraud. Not flawed like they had a typo or a negative result or didn't use MLA formatting in their citation.

Re: How many medical studies are faked or flawed?

#44

Post by rfrey »

Solvency wrote: post #13

I often chuckle that same people who vehemently defend vaccine safety studies also decry studies that show processed seed oils, glyphosate, aspartame, and hundreds of other molecules or compounds are unsafe over time. That's the beauty of medical studies! Whether they're good or bad, your own biases mean you can simply ignore the ones that don't align with your opinions. Oh, before I forget! Red meat and saturated fa…

It's pretty easy to ridicule (and therefore feel superior to, nice bonus!) an intellectual opponent if you get to invent their views out of thin air.

Re: How many medical studies are faked or flawed?

#46

Post by RugnirViking »

some_random wrote: post #18

While we're on the subject, how many studies period are faked or flawed to the point of being useless? It seems to me that the scientific community's reaction to the replication crisis has been to ignore it.

> the scientific community's reaction to the replication crisis has been to ignore it

What can they do? It's an incredibly hard problem to solve. It's like asking why the buisness community has done nothing to adress the housing crisis.

Large scale culture changes, or the entire structure of the way science is conducted and funded, would be the only solutions

Re: How many medical studies are faked or flawed?

#47

Post by Ilverin »

Tenoke wrote: post #37
jermaustin1 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>helps them advance their careers ... into the multi-billion dollar companies GP is talking about.

A lot who stay purely in Academia do it as well, presumably for the prestige.

Well you need peer reviewed papers in highish impact journals to get tenure. For some people, the only way they're getting that is by cheating.

Re: How many medical studies are faked or flawed?

#49

Post by vampirical »

Solvency wrote: post #13

I often chuckle that same people who vehemently defend vaccine safety studies also decry studies that show processed seed oils, glyphosate, aspartame, and hundreds of other molecules or compounds are unsafe over time. That's the beauty of medical studies! Whether they're good or bad, your own biases mean you can simply ignore the ones that don't align with your opinions. Oh, before I forget! Red meat and saturated fa…

I think you're accidentally telling on yourself here. You're looking at somebody getting a result which is surprising to you but rather than being curious about how they might be on to something you're turning off your brain and assuming they're malfunctioning.

Something being in a category, such as "a study", doesn't tell you much about a thing. If you read multiple studies on vaccine safety critically and reason about them and what experts are saying about them, IMO most functional human being are going to reach the same general conclusion about vaccine safety. If you do the same thing on studies about seed oils or aspartame you're also going to come to the conclusion that they're safe! If you're not reaching these same results it doesn't necessary mean you're the one who is malfunctioning but you should seriously consider it and try again to learn what you might not know.

Re: How many medical studies are faked or flawed?

#50

Post by gustavus »

gmd63 wrote: post #41
bjourne wrote: post #22

We all know it is super-easy to cheat in science, but not much can be done about it. Short of requiring replication for every result published which isn't feasible if the study was costly to produce. And the problem isn't confined to medicine either. How many studies in hpc of the type "we setup this benchmark and our novel algorithm/implementation won!" aren't also faked or flawed?

Plenty can be done about it. We can start by increasing the standards for experimental proof past words on a piece of paper. Stream or record your experiment. If a 12 year old has the ability to stream his gaming life on twitch, scientists should be able to record what they are doing in more detail. You could start a new journal with higher level of prestige that only publishes experiments that adhere to more modern…

This seems overly simplistic, I mean part of the reason so many studies are so difficult is because they can happen over the period of months or years. This isn't like your High School chemistry experiment. These studies can be massive longitudinal studies that take years to conclude and work on.

If the answers were easy I'm sure someone would've implemented it already, it turns out those kind of things are hard.

I'd recommend checking out the following article. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-o...

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