Pharmaceutical companies find that test results favoring new drugs typically disappear when the tests are repeated. Bayer found that two-thirds of such findings couldn't be reproduced, and Amgen scientists, following up on 53 studies that at first glance looked worth pursuing, could confirm only six of them.
In fact, in almost all research fields, studies often draw erroneous conclusions. Sometimes the errors arise because statistical tests are misused, misinterpreted, or misunderstood. And sometimes sloppiness, outright incompetence, or possibly fraud is to blame. But even research conducted strictly by the book frequently fails because of faulty statistical methods that have been embedded in the scientific process reports Tom Siegfried. (1)
A leading computer scientist thinks that three-quarters of papers published in his subfield are bunk. In 2000 to 2010, roughly 80,000 patients tool part in clinical trials based on research that was later retracted because of mistakes or improprieties. (2)
Close to 10% of the papers received by the journal
Surface Science show some signs of academic misconduct, reports the journal's editor Henrik Rudolph, but since the total number of submissions is increasing, the absolute number is also rising. The most common issue is too large an overlap with previously published material, i. e., plagiarism. Most often these submissions are identified in the editorial phase and are rejected before they are sent out for review. (3)
A report published last year in the journal
Nature found a tenfold increase in the number of retractions of scientific papers in the last decade. Another study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at all retracted studies for the decade preceding May 2012. From this work, researchers ultimately reclassified 158 papers as fraudulent, meaning they were published based on intentionally falsified data. (4)
David Freedman devotes a full chapter to scientific fraud in his book Wrong published in 2010. One example: In 2008 an important Nature paper by the Nobel Prize-winning Harvard researchers Linda Buck and her colleagues, which focused on mapping regions of the mouse brain dedicated to smell, was retracted after it became clear some of the data in the paper had been falsified. (5)
In recent years large studies or growing consensus of researchers concluded that mammograms, colonoscopies, and PSA tests are far less useful cancer-detection tools than we had been told; or widely prescribed antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil were revealed to be no more effective than a placebo for most cases of depression; or that staying out of the sun can actually increase cancer risks. (6)
One of the most egregious study is that regarding vaccines. The deliberate falsification of the research linking autism to childhood vaccines has been attributed to Dr. Andrew Wakefield. His paper, including 12 co-authors, appeared in 1998. As the ensuing vaccine scare took off, critics quickly pointed out that the paper was a small case series with no controls, linked three common conditions, and relied on parental recall and beliefs. Over the following decade, epidemiological studies consistently found no evidence of a link between MMR vaccine and autism. By the time the paper was finally retracted 12 year later, few people could deny that it was fatally flawed both scientifically and ethically. (6)
The now discredited paper panicked many parents and led to a sharp drop in the number of children getting the vaccine that prevents measles, mumps and rubella. Vaccination rates dropped sharply in Britain after its publication, falling as low as 80% by 2004. Measles cases have gone up sharply in the ensuing years. In the United States, more cases of measles were reported in 2008 than in any other year since 1997. More than 90% of those infected had not been vaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown, reports Clarice Feldman. (6)
Why is all this happening
The Economist suggests one reason is the competitiveness of science. In the 1950s, when modern academic research work took shape after its success in the second world war, it was still a rarefied pastime. The entire club of scientists numbered a few hundred thousand. As their ranks have swelled to 6 to7 million active researchers, scientists have lost their taste for self-policing and quality control. The obligation to 'publish or perish' has come to rule over academic life. Competition for jobs is cut-throat. Full professors in America earned on average $135,000 in 2012—more than judges did. Every year six freshly minted PhD's vie for every academic post. Nowadays verification (the replication of other people's results) does little to advance a researcher's career. And without verification, dubious findings live on to mislead. (2)
References
- Tom Siegfried, “Science's significant stats problem,” Nautulus, Issue 4, August 22, 2013
- “How science goes wrong,” The Economist, October 19, 2013
- “Editor: Close to 10% of the papers we receive show some sign of academic misconduct,” September 19, 2013
- “Publish or perish: scientific fraudulent studies on the rise,” American Council on Science and Health, October 3, 2012
- David H. Freedman, Wrong, (New York, Little, Brown and Company, 2010), 257
- Clarice Feldman, “Be scientific (skeptical) about scientific research,” American Thinker, January 9, 2011
