3 ms·

So, clickbait science? :)

• XorNot 5y ago
  By definition a paper which is wrong is going to be cited a whole bunch as people disprove it though. The real issue is that citation count is a terrible metric and always has been (when I was doing research the magic you wanted was the low but not no citation count paper which went into a huge amount of detail on exactly what they did).
  • kovvy 5y ago
    My most cited paper has the head of an institution down as an author. Most, but far from all, of the citations are from students there. A previous paper introduced the concept and tools to apply it, while the cited paper just adds an example application and a host of authors.
• mattkrause 5y ago
  Oddly, I think this kinda is, especially the 150x difference they're claiming. Replication failures disproportionately hit high-profile journals. The journals' editorial processes favor "surprising", counter-intuitive claims: life based on arsenic, stem cells created by treating skin cells with a mild acid, cold fusion, etc. The prior probability these are true is lower (hence the surprise). At the same time, this also makes it more likely that someone will attempt to replicate the results--and that there will be interest in a negative paper if they can't.