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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.'"

3 of 656 comments (clear)

  1. Studies, Papers, Research by fembots · · Score: 5, Funny

    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".

  2. Re:Reach by Jamu · · Score: 5, Funny

    Therefore anything that anyone says is simply an opinion.

    That's just your opinion.

    --
    Who ordered that?
  3. Re:Lamarck and Darwin were wrong too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.