Most studies are crap, says study


The New Scientist has published a scientific research paper that shows that most scientific research papers are wrong. (I've been saying that for years.)

Assuming that the new paper is itself correct, problems with experimental and statistical methods mean that there is less than a 50% chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper are true.

John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece, says that small sample sizes, poor study design, researcher bias, and selective reporting and other problems combine to make most research findings false. But even large, well-designed studies are not always right, meaning that scientists and the public have to be wary of reported findings.

"We should accept that most research findings will be refuted. Some will be replicated and validated. The replication process is more important than the first discovery," Ioannidis says.

In the paper, Ioannidis does not show that any particular findings are false. Instead, he shows statistically how the many obstacles to getting research findings right combine to make most published research wrong.



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Comments

Of course, his findings also suggest that his findings are probably crap too. Good thing they also state that he's probably wrong about his own findings being wrong.

Posted by: roger at August 31, 2005 7:28 AM

Science went down the tubes when they started doing statistics.

Objectivity was no longer guarded by the curiosity of this or that odd peer, but rather an institutional arrangement; which always comes down on the side of the institution.

Just on the claimed merits, for that matter, experiments are done to 95% confidence, which means that 5% of these statistically valid results are wrong, and so thousands of studies are wrong every year even if the statistics worked as claimed.

Posted by: Ron Hardin at August 31, 2005 12:20 PM

So why are these things funded with public monies?

Oh yes, income for the governing classes' friends.

Posted by: Brett at August 31, 2005 3:59 PM

And then they try to prove we came from apes and that lemers are our next of kin and we also came from fish that crawled of the ocean heck no fish ever had those dumb little legs

Posted by: screaming eagle at September 4, 2005 9:20 PM

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