Re: Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Re: Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” [Hake (2012a)]. The abstract reads:

**********************************************
ABSTRACT: In “The Randomistas’ War On Global Poverty - ERRATUM & ADDENDUM” [Hake (2012b] at http://bit.ly/YfMESg I pointed to:

(a) a PLoS Medicine article by John Ioannidis (2005) http://bit.ly/Vb1u70 titled “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” at http://1.usa.gov/YxUxkL, brought to my attention by Guy Brandenberg; and

(b) a good discussion of the important work of Ioannidis in the Atlantic: “Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science” by David Freedman (2010) at http://bit.ly/11aAmt0. Freedman wrote that Ioannidis (2005):

(1) claims that as much as 90 percent of the published medical information that doctors rely on is flawed;

(2) states that randomized controlled trials. . . . ended up being wrong some of the time;

(3) laid out a detailed mathematical proof that, assuming modest levels of researcher bias, typically imperfect research techniques, and the well-known tendency to focus on exciting rather than highly plausible theories, researchers will come up with wrong findings most of the time;

(4) is the most downloaded article in the history of PLoS Medicine.

BTW: Freedman claims that meta-research experts have confirmed that similar issues distort research in all fields of science, from physics to economics (where DeLong & Lang at http://bit.ly/SpNMww showed how a remarkably consistent paucity of strong evidence in published economics studies made it unlikely that any of them were right).
**********************************************

To access the complete 9 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/Ve4Qnk.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Academia: http://bit.ly/a8ixxm
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52

“It is not enough to observe, experiment, theorize, calculate and communicate; we must also argue, criticize, debate, expound, summarize, and otherwise transform the information that we have obtained individually into reliable, well established, public knowledge.”
- John Ziman. 1969. "Information, Communication, Knowledge," Nature 224: 318-324; abstract online at http://bit.ly/cNPB1d.

REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 02 Dec 2012.]
Hake, R.R. 2012a. “Re: Why Most Published Research Findings Are False,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/Ve4Qnk. Post of 02 Dec 2012 11:39:22-0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Hake, R.R. 2012b. “The Randomistas’ War On Global Poverty - ERRATUM & ADDENDUM,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/YfMESg. Post of 30 Nov 2012 12:15:33-0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists and are also on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/11c5w3e with a provision for comments.