You Ought to Have a Look: The Case Against Modern Science

You Ought to Have a Look is a feature from the Center for the Study of Science posted by Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. (“Chip”) Knappenberger. While this section will feature all of the areas of interest that we are emphasizing, the prominence of the climate issue is driving a tremendous amount of web traffic. Here we post a few of the best in recent days, along with our color commentary. — In this issue of You Ought to Have a Look, we focus on what we think is an extremely important article, written by Richard Horton, long-time editor of The Lancet—a British medical journal considered to be one of the world’s most prestigious. Horton addresses what is increasingly becoming recognized as the biggest problem in modern science: an incentive system that promotes style (i.e., “attention grabbing”) over substance. The headlong pursuit of headlines is leading not only to sloppy science, but selective science. The result is that the course of human knowledge is being perturbed, and not for the better. Horton’s comments are particularly salient as this week witnessed the retraction of another headline-grabbing paper in a prestigious journal. Here, we reproduce the bulk of Horton’s essay in which he addresses “the idea that something has gone fundamentally wrong with one of our greatest human creations”: The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample size...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs