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I completely agree with your second sentence, but also with the OPs statement that there is no conspiracy to suppress correct results. There is intense competit

I completely agree with your second sentence, but also with the OPs statement that there is no conspiracy to suppress correct results. There is intense competition to be right. There is intense competition for funds, so being perceived to be promising is hugely important. But at the end of the day I haven't really ever seen any explicit attempts to suppress uncomfortable results.

michaelbarton 7y ago
I agree, that's fair. I don't think it's an explicit conspiracy. However there are some practices that do end up suppressing results. One particular example is that lack of publication of negative results because there is no incentive for doing so. You can imagine a scenario where similar experiments are repeated over and over again in different laboratories because no one writes up the negative result. After all what's the incentive? Not so bad for a few wasted weeks of PhD students time but potentially more damaging for large drug clinical trials? Ben Goldacre's bad science is a great book on this topic. He's an entertaining speaker too. He describes a solution to that particular problem which is registering a clinical trials beforehand. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/oct/07/ben-goldacre-bad-pharma-interview https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/oct/07/ben-goldacr...
- ethbro 7y ago
  It's a good idea: have a fully-open repository where negative results can be documented. With the ability to tag on if a negative result is replicated. Then gradually re-enculture review boards to expect any given author to have a substantial number of results published to said repository, if they're actively performing research.
- Certhas 7y ago
  Absolutely, but that's a form of self suppression, rather than a cabal of others suppressing results. Science is incredibly broken in many ways. I think the big underlying culprit is the prevailing ideology that every human activity is best organized as a competition for scarce resources.
chiefalchemist 7y ago
> "...but also with the OPs statement that there is no conspiracy to suppress correct results. There is intense competition to be right. There is intense competition for funds..." Can you resolve / flesh this out more? If the desire for funding is a key driver of behavior then it would seem most anything is possible, including conspiracy or related nefarious activites. Humans, especially those with big ideas and big egos, in pursuit of fortune and fame have been known to bend and break the rules.

michaelbarton 7y ago

I agree, that's fair. I don't think it's an explicit conspiracy. However there are some practices that do end up suppressing results. One particular example is that lack of publication of negative results because there is no incentive for doing so. You can imagine a scenario where similar experiments are repeated over and over again in different laboratories because no one writes up the negative result. After all what's the incentive? Not so bad for a few wasted weeks of PhD students time but potentially more damaging for large drug clinical trials? Ben Goldacre's bad science is a great book on this topic. He's an entertaining speaker too. He describes a solution to that particular problem which is registering a clinical trials beforehand. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/oct/07/ben-goldacre-bad-pharma-interview https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/oct/07/ben-goldacr...

ethbro 7y ago
It's a good idea: have a fully-open repository where negative results can be documented. With the ability to tag on if a negative result is replicated. Then gradually re-enculture review boards to expect any given author to have a substantial number of results published to said repository, if they're actively performing research.
Certhas 7y ago
Absolutely, but that's a form of self suppression, rather than a cabal of others suppressing results. Science is incredibly broken in many ways. I think the big underlying culprit is the prevailing ideology that every human activity is best organized as a competition for scarce resources.

chiefalchemist 7y ago

> "...but also with the OPs statement that there is no conspiracy to suppress correct results. There is intense competition to be right. There is intense competition for funds..." Can you resolve / flesh this out more? If the desire for funding is a key driver of behavior then it would seem most anything is possible, including conspiracy or related nefarious activites. Humans, especially those with big ideas and big egos, in pursuit of fortune and fame have been known to bend and break the rules.