Most Science Studies Tainted by Sloppy Analysis

mlimber writes "The Wall Street Journal has a sobering piece describing the research of medical scholar John Ioannidis, who showed that in many peer-reviewed research papers 'most published research findings are wrong.' The article continues: 'These flawed findings, for the most part, stem not from fraud or formal misconduct, but from more mundane misbehavior: miscalculation, poor study design or self-serving data analysis. [...] To root out mistakes, scientists rely on each other to be vigilant. Even so, findings too rarely are checked by others or independently replicated. Retractions, while more common, are still relatively infrequent. Findings that have been refuted can linger in the scientific literature for years to be cited unwittingly by other researchers, compounding the errors.'"

Comments

Yes, science is worthless, look to Jebus.

[FatSean]

When it becomes too difficult for a small mind to sort through all the data out there, there is a place where one can turn: the mindless belief of the religious.

Otherwise known as the ol' "If it isn't obvious to me, a god did it!" mis-thought.

Wait for it...

[FatSean]

Soon enough all the believers will arrive to say something similar to my post, except that they actually mean it.

Re:Learn to read, then

[AKAImBatman]

I can read just fine, thank you. And i presume that must be in the independent.co.uk article, because that's the only one that gives a "404: OracleJSP: java.io.FileNotFoundException". I checked the other links, and NONE of them contain that text.

And a quick check confirms it. Searching the Independent's site finds the article in question. The only one to contain the text you mention. The *correct* link is:

http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2934320.ece

NOT:

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2368999.ece

as you had previously linked to. So... learn to hyperlink?