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RE: Can we trust peer-reviewed papers?

in #science7 years ago

I was made aware of this earlier because, similar to one of the examples in the video, I heard of fake papers getting published — though not so blatant. Related, I also heard on a podcast, Scientific Guide to the Universe, the story of a dog being on the board of seven editorial boards (http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/olivia-doll-predatory-journals).

Humor has a great way of revealing the flaws of a system.

Pay-to-play publications is one way that science is undermined in public conscious but there are more subtle flaws in scientific research right now also. Steven Novella, a leader in the skeptical movement, has helped me greatly in my critical thinking skills. One problem he highlights about bad research now is p-hacking. Most don't even know they are doing it as it's a broadly accepted approach to finding significance. From my limited understanding it is the act of expanding on sample size until the results get the significance they need, instead of identifying the right sample size ahead of time. I highly recommend his blog and podcast. Here is an article about p-hacking and the reproducibility problem: http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/science-we-have-a-reproducibility-problem/

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Thanks James. I've heard of this p-hacking concept before, but haven't looked into it much. Thanks!

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