Is most published research wrong?

[Kuntantee]

In formal and natural sciences, the soundness and novelty is what matters, whether the proposed idea reflects the nature or not is irrelevant.

[Alydael]

It would seem that most studies and most published research is, basically, bullshit. This is, of course, no news to any of us who have known that trusting studies, especially studies without confirming studies to back them up, has been asinine for a long time now, but here's a comprehensive video by a very well regarded Youtube poster Veritasium giving you the facts:



Now, after you've listened to the case being made by Veritasium, what do you think? Can you still trust studies?



Is this better?

Well, before you trust a study you should: read the actually study (not the news report about the study), read other studies on the topic and look into who sponsored the study. That never happens though, because people are too lazy. They want to watch a 2 minute clip or read a short blurb and feel like an expert on the subject.

I can not tell you the number of studies that claimed all sort of things, but when you looked into it- the study was not accurately testing what they claimed to be testing and was directly sponsored by a company that would benefit largely from the results of the study.

Do your homework people! Don't believe everything you read, look into it yourself- don't trust these other people to give you the "facts." they are most likely just giving you their version of the "facts" and not necessarily the truth.

The worst offender is the US government. They put forth studies and base laws and fines on studies done by quacks all the time. You read the actual study and think "how could anyone believe this?" The truth is that they most likely never even read the study and just did what was politically expedient. The study is just to save their tails when people ask " Why did you budget %$ million for mood rings for prisoners?" "Well this study from blah, bl;ah,blah (a professor at Harvard) states that prisoners with mood rings have a lower recidivism rate than those without mood rings." Um.... yeah.....

[Ghostmcghosty]

I once got into a discussion with a professor. She had a Ph.D. I forget what the topic was about, but what she was saying was so flat out wrong that i felt the only reason she even made such a claim is because she is super insulated by academia and out of touch with the real world. I'll try to recall thge specifics.

But I will leave you with this tidbit. A therapist/Psychologist or whatever she was, tried to explain to me that "you are who you perceive yourself to be and what others think have no bearing on that."

I called bull. I explained that if others think of you as X, you are treated as X and will live the life of X. Example, If people think you are a pedo, you will be arrested, charged, and convicted of it. You will have to register after spending time in prison too. Whether you are not, or whether you think of yourself as different does not matter.


My point is that just because you have a degree doesn't mean you actually know what you are talking about. A lot of time the discussions and research get so nuanced and convoluted that it separates from the topic at hand and you may as well be speaking religion.

[MatadorMedia]

Random research studies by corporations are obviously biased. Academic research is objective and peer-reviewed / replicated.

[Holofernes]

Have you by chance done a study on horses? Specifically on how high they need to be before they can bear the weight of your massive ego?

Having a PhD doesn't mean you have a superior intellect. It means you paid for a piece of paper with your name on it. Congratulations. Add in the fact that you can get a PhD in just about any field of study, many of which are not even remotely related to anything that most people would think of when they hear the word 'science', and you end up with your claims of having a PhD meaning very little, as well serving no real purpose other than making yourself feel better. Did it work?


Moving on to the topic at hand, I actually do agree with you in some ways, despite the fact that you're an asshole.

As the recipient of a fair number of links to articles about new scientific studies, it is kind of saddening to see how the reactions of friends and family usually turn out. Far too many are willing to blindly believe facts and figures thrown at them without a second thought, or worse still get into arguments despite not ever having thought about the topic at hand in their entire lives up until that point. This video, if even remotely accurate, makes that all seem so much worse.

Having a doctorate means devoting your whole life to the idealistic task of research, for a comparable small financial compensation, wheeras u could go make money at some random job in some random industry with a lower grade. U talk to people that spent 9 years unpaid at university, living in a small room together with other students, to get their degree. In this time a normal stupid work at a factory at a little above minimum wage would have earned you a house and a car.

[Yelmurc]

All research is probably wrong. But if it helps move closer to a truth then its welcome. I'd rather be wrong and moving forward than do nothing and move backward in the quest for knowledge.

[Ghostmcghosty]

All research is probably wrong. But if it helps move closer to a truth then its welcome. I'd rather be wrong and moving forward than do nothing and move backward in the quest for knowledge.

How do you move backward?

I'd argue that coming to the wrong conclusion is worse than no conclusion at all. And that in fact would make the quest for knowledge go in reverse.

[Kraenen]

Random research studies by corporations are obviously biased. Academic research is objective and peer-reviewed / replicated.

Ever heard of the Sokal affair?

[Zoey141]

Not all research findings are wrong. Especially when it comes from an authority like NASA. I was researching for my global warming essay and I chanced upon this video and it makes total sense -

[Deleted]

We all actually agreed the process isn't perfect but the studies and research themselves aren't the major problem. If you actually understand a bit of statistics or whatever field the research is in, which probably still uses statistics, then it's pretty easy to determine if there was some bias in the study and that it may not be repeatable. The problem comes in when people who don't understand this and aren't capable of recognizing flaws in the statistics make all sorts of false conclusions taken as true and spread around by the media.

agreed! the real question then is: why do papers employing bad statistics still get published? in many field people still don't care about proper use of statistics in the evaluation of experiments and even worse in the design of the experiments... still they get "rewarded" by publishing.

[Deathquoi]

After having seen so many conspiracy theorists and YouTube evangelists spewing nonsense, I've realized they have one thing in common: their videos are absurdly long. This is done for a reason. The people that have a fanatical interest in this kind of bullshit will sit through the entire 10-20 minute video because they are captivated by the material. They will then link it to other people. The other people, not being fanatically interested in the subject matter, will decline to waste 10+ minutes of their life on a YouTube video that is not relevant to their interests. The fanatic will then deride them for being a sheep and not "doing the research". It's a no win situation. If you bother watching the video and take the time to deconstruct their argument, you've wasted precious time on their stupidity. If you don't watch the video, they claim victory. The only winning move is not to play the game.

[Deleted]

Yeah sure let's listen to the dude that makes a living off posting edgy conspiracy theories on youtube and comes up with such a simple hypothesis as stated in the OP.

Who's the fool here?

[Aeriel]

Random research studies by corporations are obviously biased. Academic research is objective and peer-reviewed / replicated.

Except that it is rarely replicated any more. It is a flaw in the tenure/PhD status quo. Novel research is "more valuable" than replicated. Most papers do have some degree of peer review (my two publications went through 3 and 6 rounds of editing), but that does not mean that the data is necessarily correct.

OT: is most published research wrong? No. Is it always be replicated? No. Are there issues with the peer review, and replication system outlined in the Scientific Method? Damn right there is.

[Deleted]

Because there is a lot of pressure put on professors and their grad students to publish some kind of results. Typically grad student papers aren't as much of an issue. They're not really meant to be ground breaking or even original in the case of a master's thesis. It's mostly just to get experience with the research, writing and publication process. I think universities just need to ease up on publication requirements for their professors and encourage higher quality research rather than quantity.

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If all research were wrong, how the hell does that help us move closer a truth?

thats true! things like "thesis by publication" which has become more widespread, atleast at my uni, don't particularly help in this regard.

[Holas]

The headline of "Is most published research wrong" kinda represent the problem he talks about that in order to publish (put video on youtube that will have many hits) people try to bluff a bit, exaggerate and pick the extreme unorthodox view. It is kind of ironic if you think about it.

Still, even though ofc not most research wrong, he does bring up an important point. However unlike what he claims that papers do not publish replicas that show opposite results, as far as I know they do. Even more -the most rewarding thing a scientist can do is show another scientist is wrong.