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It's also quite jarring to come across a paper on a niche topic (e.g a specific hormone's effects on certain biological processes), that completely botches simp

It's also quite jarring to come across a paper on a niche topic (e.g a specific hormone's effects on certain biological processes), that completely botches simple, fundamental and accepted facts in your field; facts that the main thesis relies on. It's absolutely silly and I find myself finding little of use in the author's conclusions, or their observations. After spending way too much time parsing through endless research papers, the only things I pay attention anymore are methodology and data. This tells me: is the data relevant to my work? And was the data collected "properly" (I swear, half the time the researchers half-ass methodology that the results are fairly worthless)

btrettel 7y ago
> the only things I pay attention anymore are methodology and data. > This tells me: is the data relevant to my work? And was the data collected "properly" (I swear, half the time the researchers half-ass methodology that the results are fairly worthless) I've come to the same conclusion, and I'm a theorist myself. Theory is hit or miss, mostly miss. I still read it just to find the nugget of truth if there is one. If the data is relevant and was collected properly then it can be a goldmine, regardless of the theoretical explanation given by the researchers. But often the researchers measure the wrong thing, or measure the right thing in the wrong conditions or with some other problem. (One major problem I've found is that the uncertainties on many measurements in my field are enormous, but don't need to be, and very few seems to have noticed or cared.)