Don't get me wrong, they are ALSO bad. It takes a truly awful study to get a scientific journal to wrest itself free of apathy and inertia to take some action But there are 1,000s of woeful papers
-
-
Show this thread
-
Thing is, no one is paid to catch bad research. It is a thankless, time-consuming task that at best earns you the mistrust of most of your peers And so, no one does it methodically
Show this thread -
I don't have a ton of free time, and I don't go out searching for every error-filled study. I suspect most other people involved in this area are the same based on various conversations
Show this thread -
For someone to notice a bad paper, it has to be spread around quite a bit. In the news. Causing a social media storm Most bad research isn't popular like that. It never gets read by more than a handful of people
Show this thread -
Moreover, if the study is not getting news, NO ONE CARES Journals aren't quick to act when the study is literally impacting policy in a way that could kill thousands - imagine how slow they move when it's a nothing of a study that's been read twice in 10 years
Show this thread -
And that's why I say only famous research gets retracted. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but generally it holds surprisingly well
Show this thread -
Anyway, when people get mad about how the papers that are retracted tend to be the big flashy studies I just think that they are ignorant about how the whole error-checking in science thing works
Show this thread -
Also, I cannot stress enough how foolish it makes you look if you say "why are you only going after THESE studies and not all the bad ones?" Error detection in science is a job that pays in sleepless nights and ennui. No one pays us to do any of this
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
It is like the longstanding observation that Doctors don't get sued or struck off for killing their patients but, more often, for being rude to them.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.