While theory indicates that many (or even most) published empirical findings are false [1], this doesn't make experimental science garbage in its entirety. Alt

While theory indicates that many (or even most) published empirical findings are false [1], this doesn't make experimental science garbage in its entirety. Although the signal from individual papers is noisy, some results do get confirmed repeatedly by independent experiments over time. Those results are likely to be correct. Theory and multiple independent experimental methods should converge on the same result as work continues; if this doesn't happen, it's a red flag. Working scientists have to constantly estimate and re-estimate their confidence in a result, but progress still (so very slowly) gets made. Tracking research developments this way takes a lot of time and expertise. Sometimes unpublished knowledge or insider access are needed. Unfortunately, news reports about science rarely provide the context of prior work and competing hypotheses that is necessary to estimate the veracity of a result. Simple, sensational statements apparently get more clicks. This is not a good situation and leads to the impression that entire fields are garbage. Any effort to fix this communication problem is greatly appreciated. [1] http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...