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Oh this is nothing. Go look at the social sciences. They get data that compromises their entire profession, tell the university it’s inconclusive and wait until

by thimp 3y ago

Oh this is nothing. Go look at the social sciences. They get data that compromises their entire profession, tell the university it’s inconclusive and wait until the research grant runs out and fail to publish. Then do the same thing again. I have seen this with my own eyes. A bit of excel drama is usually behind their published papers. Also seen that with my own eyes. The field has trouble collecting data too because it’s expensive and very subjective. The worst one I saw was somehow turning 7 data points via imputation and interpolation into a hundred or so. The principal researcher on that I actually had to teach BIDMAS to and her calculations were completely whacked out (excel again)

screenoridesaga 3y ago
A lot of people are upset when their grant doesn’t get funded and it’s easy to suppose there’s some sort of sinister motive behind it. In truth it’s probably that the science is very difficult and only a tiny fraction of people get anywhere in social sciences. Try marine biology, they are always looking for decent papers.
- thimp 3y ago
  [flagged]
concordDance 3y ago
What profession have you seen compromised?
- thimp 3y ago
  [flagged]
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Because there are bad apples, doesn't mean you should throw out the scientific method. Over 50% of social science studies do replicate. Sorry that isn't high enough. We should definitely just give up on understanding ourselves. Or, maybe fix the financial incentives. Any industry across all fields, if the incentives are miss-matched, will produce crap.
- ace2358 3y ago
  > Over 50% of social science studies do replicate There is some tasteful irony here. Could you link to a study on this claim? And ideally a few other studies that support its claim? Thank you.
  - a_bonobo 3y ago
    The poster might have confused social sciences with psychology? >Study replication rates were 23% for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48% for Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, and 38% for Psychological Science. Studies in the field of cognitive psychology had a higher replication rate (50%) than studies in the field of social psychology (25%). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis Definitely better than medicine! >Of 49 medical studies from 1990 to 2003 with more than 1000 citations, 92% found that the studied therapies were effective. Of these studies, 16% were contradicted by subsequent studies, 16% had found stronger effects than did subsequent studies, 44% were replicated, and 24% remained largely unchallenged.[76] A 2011 analysis by researchers with pharmaceutical company Bayer found that, at most, a quarter of Bayer's in-house findings replicated the original results.[77] But the analysis of Bayer's results found that the results that did replicate could often be successfully used for clinical applications.[78] 25% of experiments replicating in-house is crazy low, but explainable due to very different incentives (the researchers need to get the paper out; the Bayer scientists need to have a functioning product)
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      Didn't realize there was so much variation from field to field. Even inside 'social sciences'. I'd like to see this across all, including STEM. Note: I'm using 'social science' colloquially. On HN, seems like Psychology is a 'social science'. Anything dealing with people is deemed a 'social science'. Even though that isn't technically correct, they are separate fields. There is a 'Social Science' field and a 'Psychology' field.
  - thimp 3y ago

by thimp 3y ago

screenoridesaga 3y ago

A lot of people are upset when their grant doesn’t get funded and it’s easy to suppose there’s some sort of sinister motive behind it. In truth it’s probably that the science is very difficult and only a tiny fraction of people get anywhere in social sciences. Try marine biology, they are always looking for decent papers.

thimp 3y ago
[flagged]

concordDance 3y ago

What profession have you seen compromised?

thimp 3y ago
[flagged]

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

Because there are bad apples, doesn't mean you should throw out the scientific method. Over 50% of social science studies do replicate. Sorry that isn't high enough. We should definitely just give up on understanding ourselves. Or, maybe fix the financial incentives. Any industry across all fields, if the incentives are miss-matched, will produce crap.

ace2358 3y ago
> Over 50% of social science studies do replicate There is some tasteful irony here. Could you link to a study on this claim? And ideally a few other studies that support its claim? Thank you.
- a_bonobo 3y ago
  The poster might have confused social sciences with psychology? >Study replication rates were 23% for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48% for Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, and 38% for Psychological Science. Studies in the field of cognitive psychology had a higher replication rate (50%) than studies in the field of social psychology (25%). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis Definitely better than medicine! >Of 49 medical studies from 1990 to 2003 with more than 1000 citations, 92% found that the studied therapies were effective. Of these studies, 16% were contradicted by subsequent studies, 16% had found stronger effects than did subsequent studies, 44% were replicated, and 24% remained largely unchallenged.[76] A 2011 analysis by researchers with pharmaceutical company Bayer found that, at most, a quarter of Bayer's in-house findings replicated the original results.[77] But the analysis of Bayer's results found that the results that did replicate could often be successfully used for clinical applications.[78] 25% of experiments replicating in-house is crazy low, but explainable due to very different incentives (the researchers need to get the paper out; the Bayer scientists need to have a functioning product)
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    Didn't realize there was so much variation from field to field. Even inside 'social sciences'. I'd like to see this across all, including STEM. Note: I'm using 'social science' colloquially. On HN, seems like Psychology is a 'social science'. Anything dealing with people is deemed a 'social science'. Even though that isn't technically correct, they are separate fields. There is a 'Social Science' field and a 'Psychology' field.
- thimp 3y ago