tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1912286501198044525.post7342620805640535462..comments2024-02-25T04:18:42.461-06:00Comments on Sam's Posts: Science in trouble?sam posthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06492835294287504609noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1912286501198044525.post-47334949117450308152011-01-16T13:09:03.381-06:002011-01-16T13:09:03.381-06:00If you liked Sam's post try this on why Scienc...If you liked Sam's post try this on why Science in Trouble is the point of Science with capital S http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jan/15/uncertainty-failure-edge-questionnancy bnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1912286501198044525.post-13126761358082516872011-01-16T12:10:12.853-06:002011-01-16T12:10:12.853-06:00Sam: Nice post. In applied economics there is a n...Sam: Nice post. In applied economics there is a new norm, namely to publish articles with the null result. But I wonder if the new norm actually affects what gets published. Also in the econ dev, the new norm for randomized controlled trials of interventions (does school feeding affect learning; does paying bonuses to health workers who complete more anti-natal exams reduce infant mortality, etc) is to register all the details of the experiment in advance.. . .None of these of course deal with the decline effect: weird and worrisome-to-science in the first place decline effect. <br />The second example in your post, however, just looked like fishing to me. . . .in economics the phenomenon of grad students and published scholars running millions of regressions to get the "right" results was exposed some years ago; now published articles have to have all sorts of robustness tests. <br />So what about all the experiments Paul Bloom talks about (on babies) in Descartes' Baby -- such a good book but should he be reporting those results so merrily? Nancy B aka Momnancy bnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1912286501198044525.post-73872610787062785872011-01-06T19:36:12.367-06:002011-01-06T19:36:12.367-06:00couldn't not post this even though it's li...couldn't not post this even though it's like 24 hrs outdated: http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html?hpt=T1. GOOD GOD.Alissahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01152124657006081155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1912286501198044525.post-32071477391862979142010-12-29T23:21:23.965-06:002010-12-29T23:21:23.965-06:00Re: "(I promise I'm not just too dumb to ...Re: "(I promise I'm not just too dumb to understand it)," this article does a good job explaining how incompetent people are often too incompetent to know that they're incompetent:<br />http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/?hp<br />So I'm unconvinced.<br /><br />Those articles are scary as hell though. Without the time to go through studies individually, I feel, after reading these, that I can't trust any study outside my areas of expertise (math, some physics, being a douche). I'd love if there were some place that aggregates studies, which are then reviewed by statisticians and given quality rankings of some kind. It could go with the NYer article's idea of building a place for researchers to pre-publish their method, expected outcome, and requirements for confirmation.<br /><br />One bone to pick-- I guess the authors were trying to show that all branches of science are susceptible to these flaws, but I feel like the physicists who got gravity off by 2.5% just fracked up. That seems different from the more systematic problems that they're describing with, say, published medical research.Elihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04186309206490709215noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1912286501198044525.post-76623119213773281262010-12-29T23:20:17.194-06:002010-12-29T23:20:17.194-06:00This comment has been removed by the author.Elihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04186309206490709215noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1912286501198044525.post-23861764317696970982010-12-20T09:53:24.771-06:002010-12-20T09:53:24.771-06:00I thought the coolest thing in the NYer article wa...I thought the coolest thing in the NYer article was that business about how new theories are often validated lots of times in the first couple years, then suddenly invalidated more and more, then all over the place... totally attributable to the trend in the theory (or as New York Magazine calls it, the backlash... and then the backlash to the backlash). Yikes.<br /><br />Here is an even more disturbing article from the atlantic on this topic, specifically related to medical research. (There's some overlap). http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/<br /><br />And finally, if you ever get your act together to organize your RSS reader, I highly recommend Jonah Lehrer's blog for Wired. (He's the author of the New Yorker article).Selfish Country Music Loving Ladyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16552762105055123971noreply@blogger.com