“In the acquisition of new knowledge, scientists are not guided by logic and objectivity alone, but also by such non-rational factors as rhetoric, propaganda, and personal prejudice
Spectacular failures to replicate key scientific findings have been documented of late, particularly in biology, psychology, and medicine. A report on this, published in Nature in May, found that about 90% of some 1,576 researchers surveyed now believe there is a reproducibility crisis in science. (1)
While this rightly tarnishes the public belief in science, it also has serious consequences for governments and philanthropic agencies that fund research, as well as the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. It means they could be wasting billions of dollars on research each year.
One contributing factor is easily identified. It is the high rate of so-called discoveries in the literature. They are false-positive findings and lead to the erroneous perception that a definitive scientific discovery has been made. This high rate occurs because the studies that are published often have low statistical power to identify a genuine discovery when it is there, and the effects being sought are often small. (2)
John Ioannidis paints a picture of a vast hive of researchers all pushed to publish short papers that are mostly a waste of time. The design is bad, the results useless. (3)
Joanne Nova notes, “Ioannidis doesn't say it directly, but his description of the effect of current funding (which is almost all government based) almost guarantees that researchers will be wasting time in the paper churn-fast short papers of little importance that may even be false. (4)
There are many millions of papers of clinical research—approximately 1 million papers from clinical trials have been published to date, along with tens of thousands of systematic reviews, but most of them are not useful. Waste across medical research (clinical and other types) has been estimated as consuming 85% of the billions spent each year. (3)
This is not a new phenomenon. William Broad and Nicholas Wade, two New York Times journalists had reported on this 34 years ago in their book Betrayers of the Truth. They reported, “The reality of science is so far removed from the ideal that fast swaths of what we think we know may be nonsense.” (5)
What Broad and Wade said in 1982 still holds today: “In the acquisition of new knowledge, scientists are not guided by logic and objectivity alone, but also by such non-rational factors as rhetoric, propaganda, and personal prejudice. Scientists do not depend solely on rational thought, and have no monopoly on it.”
References
Monya Baker, “1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility,” nature.com/news, May 25, 2016
“Let's talk about the bad science being funded,” acsh.org, July 18, 2016
John P. Ioannidis, “Why most clinical research is not useful,” PLOS Med. June 21, 2016
Joanne Nova, “85% of clinical medical research is false, or not useful, not worth the money—government funded waste,” joannenova.com, July 11, 2016
William Broad and Nicholas Wade, Betrayers of the Truth, (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1982)
Jack Dini is author of Challenging Environmental Mythology. He has also written for American Council on Science and Health, Environment & Climate News, and Hawaii Reporter.
