Quote:
Originally Posted by Pugchief
For those of you who "trust the media", "trust the experts", "trust the science" or "trust the government", or think data is unbiased or even consistently accurate:
Recent evidence indicates the constant pressure to generate data and publish papers may be affecting the quality of research and fueling retractions of research papers.
In the past decade, there have been more than 39,000 retractions, and the annual number of retractions is growing by around 23% each year......
Read the rest here |
This was always going on for a long time and its existance is not just recent as reported. But the retractions fortunately are. There are groups that have reviewed the scientific research for the past several decades and exposed the problems. One problem not mentioned is the time it takes for organizations to publish a retraction. In the interim and even after, other researchers still list the problematic paper(s) in their sources. Check out:
Retraction Watch – Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process
Check their faq page and link to the first post.
The Retraction Watch FAQ, including comments policy – Retraction Watch
Why write a blog about retractions? – Retraction Watch
Two infamous cases were from Reuben and Wakefield. These cases still have people citing incorrect conclusions to this day.
Also take a look at:
Why Most Published Research Findings Are False - Wikipedia
by John P.A. Ioannidis
Professor of Medicine (Stanford Prevention Research), of Epidemiology and Population Health
It is highly technical but essentially says that research is very complex, needs corresponding reproduced info to confirm, and since we are human, will always have multiple biases. In other words, there are degrees of truth in everything but teasing it out and confirming is the problem (answering the problem that is asked also helps).
TheWatcher