Researchers find oddity in other researcher's data...

"What they've found raises a litany of questions..."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/researchers-find-oddities-in-high-profile-gender-studies/

 

Most satisfactory to see this kind of stuff being examined properly. I used to enjoy reading popular psychology, Malcolm Gladwell and co, but I'm coming to the conclusion that most of it is just fluffy entertainment with no real substance. Which is a shame, because as I said, I used to enjoy reading it. Oh well.

 

great to see it is a wider issue and that more people are looking into the procedures and pitfalls of science paper publishing

 

I think this shows that in all walks of life you get different work ethics. I guess this guy falls into the 'likes the sound of his own voice, has a massive ego, can't be arsed to do any actual work' type.

Much easier to make up the results and have a lovely long list of publications to amaze the gullible. I'm sure he speaks very well and is charming as well to add to the sham.

Perhaps I'm stereotyping and need to publish some bullshit paper on character profiles before I start slagging him off though.

 

The main goal seems to be generating "papers" at an absurdly high rate, with a view to attract headline grabbing attention for the "research". Now where have I come across that approach before ... .

 

Whoa.

 

Choosing physics to try and get away with shit like that wasn't his brightest idea.

 

I know this is OT for the main point of this hot scientific mess, but all I could think of when reading about that idiotic "study"
and the author's pompous assertions about it was the high number of women who routinely give fake phone numbers and fake ages to random a-holes on the street giving them the Spanish Inquisition!

 

The more papers you publish the more money your research organisation gets andthe more likely you are to get more grants. In each field there is a hierarchy of publications, so to publish in a top one your paper should theoretically be of better quality. At the other end I suspect there is less scrutiny and less requirement for a decent level of scientific findings.

 

Nick Brown is a PhD student with Coyne, and has made some comments on PACE.

 

I second that, all of us here are at various stages in our own personal epistemic crisis. Stark reality just isn't as fun, is it?

 

The journal he published in was actually very shit. Although you do get this sort of stuff going on even in the prestigious journals.

 

I think publishing rubbish papers can also be propagated by the lazy researcher who rehashes the lies in literature surveys they can't be bothered to understand. If you see a prolific publisher in a subject they sort of become one of the top experts automatically unles you stop and read everything they publish. Otherwise it's a case of reference them and move on.

You then have another layer of questioning if you decide not to reference certain prolific authors when your paper is reviewed. I've had that situation where I've deliberately not included a prolific in a paper and then been questioned about why I didn't include them (they sat on one of the reviewing panels). I had to articulate to my boss why I thought what they had published was wrong/inappropriate to include and it didn't get included in the end but it got challenged later and was...awkward. I can see how people include papers for reasons other than its a good piece of research sometimes. This is wrong and goes against the scientific method.

This is what's happened with PACE ...everyone has just assumed it's been done properly without actually reading the thing. That isn't science in my book...it's just sloppy/ lazy not to challenge previous work.

 

Oh, I don't know; many people consider string theory next door to alchemy!

Yeowch. But probably the case.