Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
In the thread "getting it wrong" we saw that 50% of what your doctor knows from medical research is wrong.
But did you know that wrong science is not limited to medical research?
In a survey of more than 2,000 American psychologists scheduled to be published this year, Leslie John of Harvard Business School and two colleagues found that 70 percent had acknowledged, anonymously, to cutting some corners in reporting data. About a third said they had reported an unexpected finding as predicted from the start, and about 1 percent admitted to falsifying data.
Also common is a self-serving statistical sloppiness. In an analysis published this year, Dr. Wicherts and Marjan Bakker, also at the University of Amsterdam, searched a random sample of 281 psychology papers for statistical errors. They found that about half of the papers in high-end journals contained some statistical error, and that about 15 percent of all papers had at least one error that changed a reported finding—almost always in opposition to the authors' hypothesis....
While inaccurate and even fabricated findings make the field of psychology look silly, they take on potentially far more serious ramifications in forensic contexts, where the stakes can include six-figure payouts or extreme deprivations of liberty.
For example, claims based on fMRI brain-scan studies are increasingly being allowed into court in both criminal and civil contexts. Yet, a 2009 analysis found that about half of such studies published in prominent scientific journals were so "seriously defective" that they amounted to voodoo science that "should not be believed."
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/witness/201111/psychology-rife-inaccurate-research-findings
But did you know that wrong science is not limited to medical research?
In a survey of more than 2,000 American psychologists scheduled to be published this year, Leslie John of Harvard Business School and two colleagues found that 70 percent had acknowledged, anonymously, to cutting some corners in reporting data. About a third said they had reported an unexpected finding as predicted from the start, and about 1 percent admitted to falsifying data.
Also common is a self-serving statistical sloppiness. In an analysis published this year, Dr. Wicherts and Marjan Bakker, also at the University of Amsterdam, searched a random sample of 281 psychology papers for statistical errors. They found that about half of the papers in high-end journals contained some statistical error, and that about 15 percent of all papers had at least one error that changed a reported finding—almost always in opposition to the authors' hypothesis....
While inaccurate and even fabricated findings make the field of psychology look silly, they take on potentially far more serious ramifications in forensic contexts, where the stakes can include six-figure payouts or extreme deprivations of liberty.
For example, claims based on fMRI brain-scan studies are increasingly being allowed into court in both criminal and civil contexts. Yet, a 2009 analysis found that about half of such studies published in prominent scientific journals were so "seriously defective" that they amounted to voodoo science that "should not be believed."
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/witness/201111/psychology-rife-inaccurate-research-findings
