Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Most Scientific Papers Are Probably Wrong

Most Scientific Papers Are Probably Wrong
(New Scientist)
“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 related news, almost all unscientific papers are most certainly wrong.

3 comments:

Ookami Snow said...

Including this one.

Mujib said...

Yes, the caveat is in the article.

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.

Anonymous said...

It's this part that bothers me:

"The replication process is more important than the first discovery..."

Sounds like someone who is incapable of original work is a little jealous.

What?! You discovered something?! Well, I doubt it and it's not important even if you did. What is important is that my name gets on a follow-up paper. Originality and breakthroughs are SOOOO 20th century.