7 ms·

I find it disturbing that academics do not routinely disclose their conflicts of interest in their works. In the age when the scientific papers quality is falli

I find it disturbing that academics do not routinely disclose their conflicts of interest in their works. In the age when the scientific papers quality is falling, we don't need yet another reason to question scientific papers integrity. Without disclosure some people will think it was done on purpose.

mhh__ 5y ago
> In the age when the scientific papers quality is falling [Citation needed]?
- chestertn 5y ago
  Ha. Try to publish that.
  - mhh__ 5y ago
    I'd bet you a pint you could publish it without any real issue as long as you weren't glib or facetious in your presentation.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pfortuny 5y ago
  Common knowledge does mot need citations. Am an academic.
  - omegalulw 5y ago
    It's not though. And for a topic such as this where people in academia are going to be obviously biased, citation is all the more important.
  - speters 5y ago
    It's also common knowledge that even comparing the academic workings of two sub fields is non-trivial
    - stingraycharles 5y ago
      But reproducibility is essential for science, and it has been discussed on HN articles frequently in the past few years that this is very difficult nowadays. Let alone the maligned incentives for funding academia (you are biased to have “big breakthroughs” that catch headlines so you can get more funding, rather than getting out the truth), etc. Just take a look at this search query for “academia” on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=Academia&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
      - mhh__ 5y ago
        HN is full of armchair polemicists and contrarians (on academia I am not one of those, but am for other matters), so I wouldn't consider that an unbiased sample.
      - kettleballroll 5y ago
        > in the past few years that this is very difficult nowadays. I strongly disagree. It has always been as difficult as today (if not more), it's just that these days were aware of it.
  - kettleballroll 5y ago
    Am an academic too. I don't find this to be common knowledge, but a common misconception. Would like to see a citation
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  Most academic researchers (https://www.nature.com/articles/533452a https://www.nature.com/articles/533452a) believe that we're facing a phenomenon called the "reproducibility crisis" or "replication crisis", where experimental papers regularly get published even though the experiment does not work as described. This leads to more general doubts about the quality of papers in general - if you know you can't trust that experiments will reproduce, should you trust that survey data is accurate or that analyses are correct?
  - mhh__ 5y ago
    That isn't the point I was making. The replication crisis is a real problem, but what I am objecting to is the far more serious allegation that overall the quality of academic research is dropping. Science is very very difficult, a journal will try to only publish things it thinks are true however papers (especially in the more informal channels some journals have/less prestigious journals) which are merely interesting or could-be-right are published all the time. That mostly isn't a bad thing - something has to be published properly to be considered properly and fleshed out, dead ends are still ends.
nabla9 5y ago
>academics do not routinely disclose What do you mean? Academics routinely do disclose their funding. In practically every paper published they list where their fund comes from. If someone publishes papers without disclosing sources, that's a newsworthy exception in my opinion. Not proof that it's routine.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  According to the article the Humboldt gets about €1 million per year, I checked 10+ publications from this year [0] but I couldn't find a single one funded with Google money. Now, this doesn't mean that something fishy is going on but it would be interesting to find the research that Google did fund since it doesn't seem like the funds were used for regular research. [0] https://www.hiig.de/en/publications/ https://www.hiig.de/en/publications/
- HarryHirsch 5y ago
  When a researcher receives direct funding they will disclose the source. It gets interesting when the funding source is indirect, let's say the departmental chair is funded through the Mercatus Institute. Of course any new faculty member will not go against the prevailing departmental winds and they need not disclose where the department gets a good chunk of funding from.
3gg 5y ago
Guys are digressing from the relevant part of your comment. It looks very much obvious to me that academics should state where their funding comes from, just like non-profits have to do.

mhh__ 5y ago

> In the age when the scientific papers quality is falling [Citation needed]?

chestertn 5y ago
Ha. Try to publish that.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  I'd bet you a pint you could publish it without any real issue as long as you weren't glib or facetious in your presentation.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pfortuny 5y ago
Common knowledge does mot need citations. Am an academic.
- omegalulw 5y ago
  It's not though. And for a topic such as this where people in academia are going to be obviously biased, citation is all the more important.
- speters 5y ago
  It's also common knowledge that even comparing the academic workings of two sub fields is non-trivial
  - stingraycharles 5y ago
    But reproducibility is essential for science, and it has been discussed on HN articles frequently in the past few years that this is very difficult nowadays. Let alone the maligned incentives for funding academia (you are biased to have “big breakthroughs” that catch headlines so you can get more funding, rather than getting out the truth), etc. Just take a look at this search query for “academia” on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=Academia&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
    - mhh__ 5y ago
      HN is full of armchair polemicists and contrarians (on academia I am not one of those, but am for other matters), so I wouldn't consider that an unbiased sample.
    - kettleballroll 5y ago
      > in the past few years that this is very difficult nowadays. I strongly disagree. It has always been as difficult as today (if not more), it's just that these days were aware of it.
- kettleballroll 5y ago
  Am an academic too. I don't find this to be common knowledge, but a common misconception. Would like to see a citation
SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
Most academic researchers (https://www.nature.com/articles/533452a https://www.nature.com/articles/533452a) believe that we're facing a phenomenon called the "reproducibility crisis" or "replication crisis", where experimental papers regularly get published even though the experiment does not work as described. This leads to more general doubts about the quality of papers in general - if you know you can't trust that experiments will reproduce, should you trust that survey data is accurate or that analyses are correct?
- mhh__ 5y ago
  That isn't the point I was making. The replication crisis is a real problem, but what I am objecting to is the far more serious allegation that overall the quality of academic research is dropping. Science is very very difficult, a journal will try to only publish things it thinks are true however papers (especially in the more informal channels some journals have/less prestigious journals) which are merely interesting or could-be-right are published all the time. That mostly isn't a bad thing - something has to be published properly to be considered properly and fleshed out, dead ends are still ends.

nabla9 5y ago

>academics do not routinely disclose What do you mean? Academics routinely do disclose their funding. In practically every paper published they list where their fund comes from. If someone publishes papers without disclosing sources, that's a newsworthy exception in my opinion. Not proof that it's routine.

cinntaile 5y ago
According to the article the Humboldt gets about €1 million per year, I checked 10+ publications from this year [0] but I couldn't find a single one funded with Google money. Now, this doesn't mean that something fishy is going on but it would be interesting to find the research that Google did fund since it doesn't seem like the funds were used for regular research. [0] https://www.hiig.de/en/publications/ https://www.hiig.de/en/publications/
HarryHirsch 5y ago
When a researcher receives direct funding they will disclose the source. It gets interesting when the funding source is indirect, let's say the departmental chair is funded through the Mercatus Institute. Of course any new faculty member will not go against the prevailing departmental winds and they need not disclose where the department gets a good chunk of funding from.

3gg 5y ago

Guys are digressing from the relevant part of your comment. It looks very much obvious to me that academics should state where their funding comes from, just like non-profits have to do.