Article: Nature, "Robust research needs many lines of evidence", Marcus R. Munafò and George Davey Smith

Andy

Andy

Senior Member (Voting rights)
Several studies across many fields estimate that only around 40% of published findings can be replicated reliably. Various funders and communities are promoting ways for independent teams to routinely replicate the findings of others.

These efforts are laudable, but insufficient. If a study is skewed and replications recapitulate that approach, findings will be consistently incorrect or biased. Consider a commonly used assay in which the production of a fluorescent protein is used to monitor cell activity. If the compounds used to manipulate cell activity are also fluorescent, as has happened1, reliably repeatable results will not yield robust conclusions.

We have both spent much of our careers advocating ways to increase scientific certainty. One of us (M.R.M.) participated in work by UK funding agencies to develop strategies for reproducible science, and helped to craft a manifesto for reproducibility2.

But replication alone will get us only so far. In some cases, routine replication might actually make matters worse. Consistent findings could take on the status of confirmed truths, when they actually reflect failings in study design, methods or analytical tools.
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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01023-3

Can't remember if it was PACE or some other part of BPS research GDS supported, so I guess he's being ironic when he says "If a study is skewed and replications recapitulate that approach, findings will be consistently incorrect or biased.".
 
Andy said:
Can't remember if it was PACE or some other part of BPS research GDS supported, so I guess he's being ironic when he says "If a study is skewed and replications recapitulate that approach, findings will be consistently incorrect or biased.".
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He resigned from the Journal of Health Psychology in a huff when it published the PACE special edition. I suspect his current drive for good methodology is the usual two-faced bullshit we get from that sort of people ... they pay lip service to good science in the effort to make a name for themselves, but are happy to promote blatant pseudoscience when it's done by the "right" people.

I suspect that their promotion of good science is an attempt to cover up their own poor work, and their ongoing support of the poor work of others. Much like a compulsive liar yelling "fake news!" periodically, in an attempt to make himself look like the arbiter of truth :rolleyes:
 
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Trish said:
Sounds like good sense, which makes it very strange that GDS supports the BPS 'research' - isn't he one of Crawley's big supporters, and didn't he criticise the JHP issue that reexamined PACE?
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Seems to me exactly the same problem as the Chalmers article on the other thread ('Evidence Based Medicine'). It makes one wonder whether this is sort of Lady MacBeth syndrome:
'out damned spot'.
 
Years ago, an official report on CFS (ME/CFS it would be now) that paved the way to the PACE trial etc said that it was a new type of disease in that it was not a psychological disease or a physical disease but occupied a strange position in between.

At the time I felt that such an extraordinary claim should have very robust evidence to back it up.
 
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