Scientist Says Most Scientific Papers Are Wrong

An anonymous reader writes "According to epidemiologist John Ioannidis, the majority of published scientific papers are wrong. If Ioannidis's own paper is right, a randomly chosen scientific paper has less than a 50% chance of being true. He also says that many papers may only be accurate measures of the prevailing bias among scientists. However, a senior editor of a scientific journal says that scientists are already aware of this: 'When I read the literature, I'm not reading it to find proof like a textbook. I'm reading to get ideas. So even if something is wrong with the paper, if they have the kernel of a novel idea, that's something to think about.'"

Comments

groan

[grub]

Great... watch the Creationist/Intelligent Design kooks run with this.

"See? Scientists don't know what they're doing! All your answers are in Teh Bile-Balllllllll! Praise JEEEEEEE-zussssssssss!"

Re:groan

[grub]

Scientific journals? Hey, even if they can't get a paper into a scientific journal that's wrong 50% of the time....

Re:groan

[ugmoe]

While some scientists are claiming that intelligent design should not be taught because some religious people believe in it, other scientists are actually having difficulty determining if a particular plant is naturally occurring, whether it was created, or whether it is a cross between a naturally occurring plant and a human-created plant.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/gm-food/d n7729

Researchers at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Dorset, UK, tested the herbicide glufosinate ammonium on plants in fields previously sowed with oilseed rape modified to carry a gene conferring resistance to the herbicide. But a single charlock plant carried on growing happily, raising fears that the gene for herbicide resistance had crossed over to the charlock and created a herbicide-resistant strain.

For a theory to be "scientific," it must provide the basis for testable hypotheses.

Here are two sides of this particular debate:

1) "There is no superweed and there never has been," echoes Brian Johnson, ecological geneticist at English Nature, the nature advisers to the British government. "It's more likely that herbicide resistance in charlock has evolved naturally."

or

2) But according to some media reports, genetic testing of the purported hybrid showed that it carries the same gene as the GM crop.

Why would anyone want to close their eyes and cover their ears and say "I can't hear you - there is only evolution - there is no intelligent design - I'm not listening to you"? When actual real scientists are creating organisms which other scientists cannot distinguish from similar species found in nature?

Re:groan

[LightningBolt!]

> May you Twirl on His Noodly Fork Forever.

If you're going to quote scripture, at least do it properly.

From the book of Gino, chapter 7, verse 3, theme 6, section meatball:

"And unto the fork didth thine noodly appendage seek shelter. And it was then that Flying Spaghetti Monster wrapped His vermicellical tentacles, tomatoed and cheesy, betwixt the tines of my fork. And I did spaketh then such:

May He Twirl on My Noodly Fork Forever!"

You basically got it backwards, dude.

Re:groan

[grub]

Kent Hovind? Is that you?

Re:groan

[Kohath]

It seems to me that lately a lot of comments on slashdot have been trying to start a witch hunt for advocates of ID. Can we please knock it off and stop screaming wolf every time some thing that is related to science is mentioned on slashdot.

You realize you're talking to zealots, right? I don't think "please" is going to cover it.

Re:groan

[fbg111]

Unless someone in the ID camp is willing to admit that God is falsifiable, their theory will not be considered science.

Ah, but they don't actually need to admit such a thing, because the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves God exists, so therefore, by ID/Creationists' own arguements, God doesn't. QED.

Re: groan

[lgw]

You clearly deserve your flamebait mod, you evilutionist! You probably deny the truth of Intelligent Falling as well! After all, gravity is just a theory, and it isn't even consistant with quantum mechanics! Yet another paper in the bad half of that 50%. I could flip a coin and do as well as Newton!

Well

[Neil Blender]

Their is a 50% chance that that's not true.

Re:Well

[darklordyoda]

Ooh, it's like one of those logic puzzles!

Assuming 1/3 of studies are wrong, and 1/2 of scientific papers are wrong, and ten percent (made this one up) of slashdot articles are dupes, what are the chances of a study in a scientific paper mentioned on slashdot being incorrect?

Do I believe it?

[turtled]

Scientist Says Most Scientific Papers Are Wrong

I can't believe it!

Wait

[Saiyaman]

So if 50% of published papers are wrong, couldn't this be wrong? But if this is wrong, then maybe 50% of papers aren't wrong. Leading to this being right and creating a horrible paradox...

Studies, Papers, Research

[fembots]

Wow, I thought Study Shows One Third of All Studies Are Nonsense is bad enough, who knows scientific papers are worse!

I patiently await the next article: "Research Shows Three-Quarters of All Researches Are Bullshit".

Re:Studies, Papers, Research

[Gabest]

Both were published by the same guy. I wonder which one is the "nonsense" then.

In Related News

[ndansmith]

According to epidemiologist John Ioannidis, the majority of published articles on Slashdot are dupes. If Ioannidis's own paper is right, a randomly chosen story has less than a 50% chance of being original.

Re:Reach

[Jamu]

Therefore anything that anyone says is simply an opinion.

That's just your opinion.

Half empty, or half full?

[DrCode]

If 50% are wrong, then 50% are right. So if I write a scientific paper, the chance of it being right is 1/2. And if I write the same paper, say, 8 times, the chance of it being right at least once is 255/256.

I think I'll write that paper on statistics.

Re:Lamarck and Darwin were wrong too

[Anonymous Coward]

If atoms aren't billard balls, how can you be sure we're monkeys?

If fish aren't landmines, how can you be sure we're really elk?

But, more to the point, should you be really drawing any conclusions?

No. Not until the smoke clears, and I can once again tell the difference between billiard balls, atoms, monkeys, landmines, and elk. And neither should you.

But it did spark a tasty open letter

[teknomage1]

But Intelligent design did spark a great open letter - check out the dogma of the Flying Spaghetti Monster at www.venganza.org

Re:But it did spark a tasty open letter

[Jamu]

But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage.

Which explains why most scientific papers are wrong.

Re:Lamarck and Darwin were wrong too

[Anonymous Coward]

Natural selection has had its day, but we've discovered it's not the primary driving force of evolution, only someone naive would think that, or was educated a long time ago.

Huh? What is then the driver of evolution?

That would be the Flying Spaghetti Monster, of course.

Isn't it ironic...

[Alomex]

that in a paper where the author complains about generalizations from small data samples, he himself generalizes his observations on epidemiology papers to all sciences?

Now if this guy is right...

[skingers6894]

...there is a good chance he is wrong