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Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
Hugh Pickens writes "Researchers have found that the winner's curse may apply to the publication of scientific papers and that incorrect findings are more likely to end up in print than correct findings. Dr John Ioannidis bases his argument about incorrect research partly on a study of 49 papers on the effectiveness of medical interventions published in leading journals that had been cited by more than 1,000 other scientists, and his finding that, within only a few years, almost a third of the papers had been refuted by other studies. Ioannidis argues that scientific research is so difficult — the sample sizes must be big and the analysis rigorous — that most research may end up being wrong, and the 'hotter' the field, the greater the competition is, and the more likely that published research in top journals could be wrong. Another study earlier this year found that among the studies submitted to the FDA about the effectiveness of antidepressants, almost all of those with positive results were published, whereas very few of those with negative results saw print, although negative results are potentially just as informative as positive (if less exciting)."
Title is wrong. It says that the FDA is corrupt. And that published papers take around 3years to get peer reviewed where the bad ones are removed. What a blatent attack on science generally. Sure paper publishing needs to be reviewed but 'most published research is false' is an outright LIE. 'Most published research' includes all of our basis of scientific knowledge. If most of our theories on biology were wrong really we realistically wouldnt have been able to move forwards into working with genes if we didnt know what a cell did.
Peer review can both help and hinder - there's the reputation effect of guest authorship where having a well-known, senior, academic's name on the paper helps it through no matter how absurd the findings.
Then there are reviewers who review papers they do not have the expertise to review. And to be frank I've seen some pretty bloody ludicrous comments from supposedly expert reviewers - the sort of stuff 1st year students wouldn't make.
But I do think that the majority of researchers are dilligent and beleive in what they submit. And lets face it - if it is an emerging area and you have a neat result that either refutes someone else's grand theory or is just really novel you're going to want to see that in print. It is because we seek to replicate research that findings are later falsified. This isn't evidence that the system is broke it is pricesly how it should work. It is the work that can't be falsified that stands the test of time and contributes to our knowledge.
If there are people who think that falsifying published research is somehow a bad thing - that is shows there's a problem in research standards - the they really really need to go back to school and read some Karl Popper.
Even after reading the article, I'm still not sure if the authors are saying:
A) Given that research has been published, it is more likely to be false than not; or
B) Given that research is false, it is more likely to be published than is the case for true research.
I mean, it says:
So, (Wrong Articles)/(Total Articles) = >=0.5, right?
But the only figures I can find in the same article are:
So.. "most" is now "less than one third"?
I'm somewhat alarmed that The Economist lets people who don't seem to grasp basic statistics write their articles.
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
How long until some researcher releases a study showing that Dr. Ioannidis' research findings are themselves wrong?
Who needs a study? Simply reading the article shows that he has fallen precisely into the trap that he is complaining about i.e. overstating his results. He forgets one very simple point: not all science is medicine/biology.
As a particle physicist I would strongly disagree with his conclusions, at least as applied to experimental particle physics. It is certainly true that some papers turn out to be wrong but this is rare and usually ends up as a 'big thing' in the field. Outside my field I'd be very surprised if the majority of physics or even chemistry papers turn out to be wrong (but I certainly not a chemist so this is just my impression).
As for medicine I can certainly see that they have a problem. Afterall how many times have we been told "don't eat X/do Y it is bad for you" only later to find out that actually it isn't half as bad as they thought and may even have benefits? Just because a lot of medical research is often flawed does not mean that all of science has the problem on the same scale.
So, Dr. Ioannidis either show us some data from chemistry, maths and physics or stop complaining that all of science has a problem on this scale. From where I stand your evidence points to a problem with bioscience/medical research only.
It does indeed. Thirty years ago an assistant professor could get tenure by publishing one good paper per year in an archival journal. Nowadays an assistant professor is expected to publish four or more journal papers per year. This leads to the well-known academic concept of the "MPU", i.e. the minimum publishable unit, or "just how many papers can I squeeze out of this one good idea?". This also leads to the backwards situation where a senior professor sitting on a Promotion & Tenure Committee may have fewer published papers (and fewer awarded research dollars) over his entire career than the assistant professor whose tenure he is voting on. Believe me when I say that the hypocrisy of this double standard is not lost on the junior faculty.
There's no doubt in my mind that the signal-to-noise ratio in archival journal papers has plummeted in the past two decades. 90% of all journal papers are superfluous, repetitive, or lacking in any significant advancement of the art, and I'll plainly admit that includes my own papers. Everyone in academia realizes what's going on, and knows it isn't good for the students or the faculty, but unfortunately that's the way the beans get counted in the academic world.
Indeed in my field (a sub-area of computer science) people are usually highly skeptical of any supposedly important new result in the field that was first published in one of the highly prestigious but generalist journals, like Nature or Science. These often end up being, if not outright wrong, at the very least seriously over-extending their claims or the importance of their claims, in a way that would never get them published in a specialized journal filled with an editorial board who were actually experts in the specific area in question.
This is only exacerbated by the fact that, because generalist publications know they don't have expertise in every specialized area on staff, they often ask the authors to suggest potential reviewers of their own papers. Of course, authors are likely to suggest reviewers who they think will like the paper, not the ones who would give it a grilling.
I think the interest of this particular study is not so much that a lot of science turns out to be wrong, but that a lot of the most prestigious publication venues turned out to be wrong more often.
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