3 ms·

What are the other, more important reasons that research is unreliable?

• Alex3917 11y ago
  I have a list of them going here, but it's definitely not comprehensive either: http://www.alexkrupp.com/Citevault.html#pharmaceuticals http://www.alexkrupp.com/Citevault.html#pharmaceuticals Even if you look just at statistical analysis, there are dozens of different issues. E.g. I seem to remember some articles about how basically 100% of research involving brain scans is incorrect, because of a mix of statistical problems and also issues related to the imaging software.
  • tcj_phx 11y ago
    This section is particularly useful to me: http://www.alexkrupp.com/Citevault.html#mentalhealth http://www.alexkrupp.com/Citevault.html#mentalhealth Thanks!
• aschreyer 11y ago
  A big problem are the perverse incentives researchers are facing. The only thing that matters is publishing in prestigious journals, otherwise your career is pretty much over (no real chance to get tenure). Universities often don't even check the publications, and researchers usually omit the actual title of the publication and only keep the name of the journal. Moreover, if you want to get tenure you need to work on "hot" topics (as in CRISPR at the moment or cancer in general), meaning you don't necessarily spend too much time on one subject. I'm sure researchers are often aware that the research results are not ready for publication yet, but it's either publish or perish, and you usually get away with publishing sub-par results because no one really follows up on them either. Cancer and Alzheimer are two fields were billions have been wasted by research grants and pharma companies because the initially promising drug targets for example could not really be validated. I'm afraid this will stay that way as long as the career dilemma researchers are facing does not change.