From The Guardian:
Scientific research findings that are probably wrong gain far more attention than robust results, according to academics who suspect that the bar for publication may be lower for papers with grabbier conclusions.
Studies in top science, psychology and economics journals that fail to hold up when others repeat them are cited, on average, more than 100 times as often in follow-up papers than work that stands the test of time.
The finding – which is itself not exempt from the need for scrutiny – has led the authors to suspect that more interesting papers are waved through more easily by reviewers and journal editors and, once published, attract more attention.
Say the newspaper that will publish every single climate change scare story going (many of which were probably hoaxes), the scarier the better.
Was it all worth it?
7 hours ago
3 comments:
And research which reaches a politically positive conclusion is more likely to attract further funding over research which seems to suggest that a scientific gravy train which looks like a scientific gravy train is in fact a scientific gravy train.
AKH, nailed it!
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