Is most published science WRONG? – the replication crisis

Comments (5)

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  Steve Parker

  February 15, 2021 at 11:37 pm | #

  You don’t need experiments anymore. All you need is consensus and that is enough to make it real.

  Reply

  • 

    Alan

    February 19, 2021 at 1:52 pm | #

    That of course is reinforced by a failed education system that encourages such nonsense.

    Reply

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  James McGinn

  February 16, 2021 at 8:14 am | #

  I was surprised to see this guy, Mallen Baker, being shown in favorable light in this forum.

  Here is another video he made a few days after the one posted here:
  https://youtu.be/GtvqwO-fb6w

  James McGinn / Genius

  Reply

• 

  Ken Irwin

  February 16, 2021 at 3:29 pm | #

  This is why….
  “Publication Bias” is a well documented phenomenon in the field of published academic papers and is the result of several influences.

  Bias To Publish Positive Outcomes – research has shown that various scientific journals tend to publish work that had a positive outcome (by a ratio of 5:1 to 10:1) even though negative outcomes are useful information academically. This problem is much worse for the popular media.

  Bias To Submit Only Positive Outcomes – research has shown that researchers tend to feel that a negative outcome is a failure and tend not to write up the report for submission – seems like a waste of effort especially given that it is much less likely to be published in any case.
  It is thought that as little as 5% to 1% of negative outcomes are fully written up and submitted to academic journals.

  [Note: From the last two points – if 20 different researchers test a hypothesis and only one finds a positive result and gets it published and the others don’t bother – then the outcome is that the published research being the odd man out is likely erroneous. This will cause very serious imbalance in the Journals – that is why negative outcomes should be published so they can be included in larger meta-studies.

  This is further exacerbated by the fact that most journals decline to publish papers that refute a prior paper published by themselves – obviously it makes them look foolish – retractions are typically only forthcoming when the contrary evidence is overwhelming and being widely published in other journals.

  Bias To Funded Research – research has shown that researchers are 5:1 more likely to find positive results in research for a sponsor than in non-funded research – admittedly a plausible hypothesis is more likely to be funded than an apparently outrageous one and sponsors can be choosy.

  At this juncture “Global Warming / Climate Change” is the darling of the academic journals (not to mention the popular press), government and private academic funding (by advocacy groups) is severely biased towards the pro-camp which in turn makes this area of study unduly likely to attract interest from academics seeking funding to conduct research supporting the established dogma and ultimately get published – the “publish or perish” syndrome that is academia.

  Conversely the contrary position is therefore unlikely to attract interest from either sponsors or academics.

  Under these circumstances it is miraculous that any contrary position is researched and published at all – but in science the truth will out and the skeptics are becoming more strident in their demands to be heard.

  Reply

• 

  Jerry Krause

  February 16, 2021 at 4:28 pm | #

  Hi Folks,

  “The Mallen Baker Show is aimed at all people who see themselves as change makers.”

  Notice that he did not state that these change makers are SCIENTISTS and/or TECHNOLOGISTS like those who did help to change our (HUMAN’S) world.

  Have a good day, Jerry

  Reply