Combating bad science
economist.com
Combating bad science
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: Combating bad science
#2This is an incredibly important problem that Ioannidis is working on. Not only could it increase our confidence in scientific results, it can help institutionalize a bunch of practices (reproducibility, publishing negative results, post-publication review) that we know to be good ideas.
But it might be worth it to take a step back and recognize what a brilliant process science is. After all, even with such waste, such bias, and such low rates of reproduction, science still gives us amazing insights into the world, enriches our understanding of the universe and our place in it, and of course births incredible technology. Through fraud exists, though scientists are flawed humans, though funding agencies can be so conservative or wrong-headed—still, science chugs along. It's so robust, so powerful, and yet so simple!
It's truly amazing to live in our world.
Re: Combating bad science
#3> what a brilliant process science is.
Compared to what? Religion? Well, due.
> After all, even with such waste, such bias, and such low rates of reproduction, science still gives us amazing insights into the world, enriches our understanding of the universe and our place in it
The low rates of reproductions are in social sciences, drug research, etc, where the "insight into the world" comes from physic, astrology, etc.
Re: Combating bad science
#4This is an incredibly important problem that Ioannidis is working on. Not only could it increase our confidence in scientific results, it can help institutionalize a bunch of practices (reproducibility, publishing negative results, post-publication review) that we know to be good ideas. But it might be worth it to take a step back and recognize what a brilliant process science is. After all, even with such waste, suc…
The problem is that science for many scientists is the business of persuading reviewers and editors, publishing positive results on a regular basis and spending the rest of the time writing grant proposals.
This has to do with the publishing process itself, and the poor peer review (closed, sloppy, even for "respectable" journals) of the current publishing system. Science nowadays generates large amounts of knowledge, not all of which is useful, but we lack even rudimentary tools to catalog and analyze that information.
Very few people have suggested ways to catalog science in ways that are useful to inform future research[1,2].
[1] http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-tools-to-manage-information-ov...
[2] http://www.silvalab.com.cnchost.com/silvapapers/S2Neuron2013...
Re: Combating bad science
#5This is an incredibly important problem that Ioannidis is working on. Not only could it increase our confidence in scientific results, it can help institutionalize a bunch of practices (reproducibility, publishing negative results, post-publication review) that we know to be good ideas. But it might be worth it to take a step back and recognize what a brilliant process science is. After all, even with such waste, suc…
The problem is that science for many scientists is the business of persuading reviewers and editors, publishing positive results on a regular basis and spending the rest of the time writing grant proposals. This has to do with the publishing process itself, and the poor peer review (closed, sloppy, even for "respectable" journals) of the current publishing system. Science nowadays generates large amounts of knowledge…
Amen. In my experience academic research is very different from what the wider public thinks it is.
You sometimes ask yourself: Would the public continue throwing their taxes at scientific research if they knew that most of their cash is just consumed to fuel the egos of professors?
Re: Combating bad science
#6> what a brilliant process science is. Compared to what? Religion? Well, due. > After all, even with such waste, such bias, and such low rates of reproduction, science still gives us amazing insights into the world, enriches our understanding of the universe and our place in it The low rates of reproductions are in social sciences, drug research, etc, where the "insight into the world" comes from physic, astrology, e…
> the "insight into the world" comes from physic, astrology, etc.
then I hope we live in two different worlds - preferring astrology over religion will not get us very far, I guess... (just cracking some balls, but it's a too funny typo to resist)
Re: Combating bad science
#7This is an incredibly important problem that Ioannidis is working on. Not only could it increase our confidence in scientific results, it can help institutionalize a bunch of practices (reproducibility, publishing negative results, post-publication review) that we know to be good ideas. But it might be worth it to take a step back and recognize what a brilliant process science is. After all, even with such waste, suc…
Public policy based on such science impacts millions of people. The lipid hypothesis is a classic example.
Re: Combating bad science
#8NSF/NIH grants? :D
Re: Combating bad science
#9This is an incredibly important problem that Ioannidis is working on. Not only could it increase our confidence in scientific results, it can help institutionalize a bunch of practices (reproducibility, publishing negative results, post-publication review) that we know to be good ideas. But it might be worth it to take a step back and recognize what a brilliant process science is. After all, even with such waste, suc…
The problem is that science for many scientists is the business of persuading reviewers and editors, publishing positive results on a regular basis and spending the rest of the time writing grant proposals. This has to do with the publishing process itself, and the poor peer review (closed, sloppy, even for "respectable" journals) of the current publishing system. Science nowadays generates large amounts of knowledge…
I could not agree more to your description of what the life after your PhD seems to be. The only other workday activities you are missing out are probably (a) travelling, meetings, and conferences [lots] and (b) reading papers [hundreds/year].
However, I fail to see how "research maps" would improve our way to catalog and analyze information. What is shown in your ref [1] is a regulatory network. These models have been used for years to drive research into diseases ranging from cancer to neurodegenerative diseases. And, there is (at least in the biomedical sciences) a very vibrant community dedicated to that very job, the "bio-curators" [http://www.biocurator.org/] that directly or indirectly fill (relational) bio-repositories. "Research maps" like STRING, Reactome, PIR, BioCyc, or KEGG, to name a few, have been around for quite a while, too. So I think the claim in [1] that Silva has "invented" "research maps" is a quite some PR exaggeration, as this can be simply described as a "Reactome limited to Neuroscientists only".
Re: Combating bad science
#10This is an incredibly important problem that Ioannidis is working on. Not only could it increase our confidence in scientific results, it can help institutionalize a bunch of practices (reproducibility, publishing negative results, post-publication review) that we know to be good ideas. But it might be worth it to take a step back and recognize what a brilliant process science is. After all, even with such waste, suc…
The problem is that science for many scientists is the business of persuading reviewers and editors, publishing positive results on a regular basis and spending the rest of the time writing grant proposals. This has to do with the publishing process itself, and the poor peer review (closed, sloppy, even for "respectable" journals) of the current publishing system. Science nowadays generates large amounts of knowledge…
I would propose an even more "meta" categorization. Research should be categorized into 'A' level and 'B' level. B level would mean that the purpose of this research is to explore an hypothesis and suggest directions for further research, while A level would mean an attempt at conclusive (or as close to conclusive as possible) results after enough B level research has been done in a certain field. B research would encompass what we suspect and/or want to examine; A research would encompass what we claim to know.