[Sigia-l] A matter of reliability

[Listera]

I swear I didn't commission this article :-)

Trial and Error

Many of us consider science the most reliable, accountable way of explaining
how the world works. We trust it. Should we? John Ioannidis, an
epidemiologist, recently concluded that most articles published by
biomedical journals are flat-out wrong. The sources of error, he found, are
numerous: the small size of many studies, for instance, often leads to
mistakes, as does the fact that emerging disciplines, which lately abound,
may employ standards and methods that are still evolving. Finally, there is
bias, which Ioannidis says he believes to be ubiquitous. Bias can take the
form of a broadly held but dubious assumption, a partisan position in a
longstanding debate (e.g., whether depression is mostly biological or
environmental) or (especially slippery) a belief in a hypothesis that can
blind a scientist to evidence contradicting it. These factors, Ioannidis
argues, weigh especially heavily these days and together make it less than
likely that any given published finding is true.


"The evidence against peer review keeps getting stronger," says Richard
Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal, "while the evidence on
the upside is weak." Yet peer review has become a sacred cow, largely
because passing peer review confers great prestige - and often tenure.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/magazine/15wwln_idealab.html>

You can't believe everything you read with a "scientific" label? Sacred
cows? Must be a "best practice" kinda thang. :-)

----
Ziya

Design is doing for a dime what anyone can do for a dollar.