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Azazello1313
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this is fascinating, and disconcerting

 

A former researcher at Amgen Inc has found that many basic studies on cancer -- a high proportion of them from university labs -- are unreliable, with grim consequences for producing new medicines in the future.

 

 

During a decade as head of global cancer research at Amgen, C. Glenn Begley identified 53 "landmark" publications -- papers in top journals, from reputable labs -- for his team to reproduce. Begley sought to double-check the findings before trying to build on them for drug development.

 

Result: 47 of the 53 could not be replicated. He described his findings in a commentary piece published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

 

"It was shocking," said Begley, now senior vice president of privately held biotechnology company TetraLogic, which develops cancer drugs. "These are the studies the pharmaceutical industry relies on to identify new targets for drug development. But if you're going to place a $1 million or $2 million or $5 million bet on an observation, you need to be sure it's true. As we tried to reproduce these papers we became convinced you can't take anything at face value."

 

....

 

Begley's experience echoes a report from scientists at Bayer AG last year. Neither group of researchers alleges fraud, nor would they identify the research they had tried to replicate.

 

But they and others fear the phenomenon is the product of a skewed system of incentives that has academics cutting corners to further their careers.

George Robertson of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia previously worked at Merck on neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's. While at Merck, he also found many academic studies that did not hold up.

"It drives people in industry crazy. Why are we seeing a collapse of the spam and biotech industries? One possibility is that academia is not providing accurate findings," he said.

 

....

 

Other scientists worry that something less innocuous explains the lack of reproducibility.

Part way through his project to reproduce promising studies, Begley met for breakfast at a cancer conference with the lead scientist of one of the problematic studies.

 

"We went through the paper line by line, figure by figure," said Begley. "I explained that we re-did their experiment 50 times and never got their result. He said they'd done it six times and got this result once, but put it in the paper because it made the best story. It's very disillusioning."

 

Such selective publication is just one reason the scientific literature is peppered with incorrect results.

 

For one thing, basic science studies are rarely "blinded" the way clinical trials are. That is, researchers know which cell line or mouse got a treatment or had cancer. That can be a problem when data are subject to interpretation, as a researcher who is intellectually invested in a theory is more likely to interpret ambiguous evidence in its favor.

 

The problem goes beyond cancer.

 

On Tuesday, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences heard testimony that the number of scientific papers that had to be retracted increased more than tenfold over the last decade; the number of journal articles published rose only 44 percent.

 

Ferric Fang of the University of Washington, speaking to the panel, said he blamed a hypercompetitive academic environment that fosters poor science and even fraud, as too many researchers compete for diminishing funding.

 

"The surest ticket to getting a grant or job is getting published in a high-profile journal," said Fang. "This is an unhealthy belief that can lead a scientist to engage in sensationalism and sometimes even dishonest behavior."

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Could not agree more. Here, we see an example of something as a "new technology". Since when is early 1900's "new" (see: Tesla, Nikola and Tesla Effect). Wireless power has been around for almost 100 years! They're just applying Tesla' technology in a new way, they didn't invent something new as the story would lead one to believe...

 

Standard has become "publish first, think second" in this rush to "be first to break news", instead of communicating accurate and truthful news.

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I'd like to be able to say that this is surprising and shocking to me. Alas, I can't.

 

 

 

I'd suggest that people should generally be skeptical of a lot of initial research and not put too much credence in it until it has born out by repeated studies.

 

 

(I'd also definitely encourage people to be skeptical of non-peered reviewed research put out by think-tanks.)
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Could not agree more. Here, we see an example of something as a "new technology". Since when is early 1900's "new" (see: Tesla, Nikola and Tesla Effect). Wireless power has been around for almost 100 years! They're just applying Tesla' technology in a new way, they didn't invent something new as the story would lead one to believe...

 

Standard has become "publish first, think second" in this rush to "be first to break news", instead of communicating accurate and truthful news.

 

wurd

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Standard has become "publish first, think second" in this rush to "be first to break news", instead of communicating accurate and truthful news.

 

I think in academia, it is more nuanced than that (though perhaps even more disturbing).

 

Suppose you can run your statistical test 5 different ways (all reasonably legitimate). 4 of the 5 results show no statistically significant effect of whatever it is you were studying. In a perfect world, you would report all 5 test results and probably conclude that there is no effect.

 

The problem is that there is a strong bias against publishing papers that don't show some sort of statistically significant effect. (Why, I do not know--but the bias is certainly there.) So, you are a researcher who needs to get publications in order to get tenure/promotion/raise/continued funding/etc. -- what do you do?

 

There is a strong incentive to just report the 1/5 tests that gave you the statistically significant finding and hope that your paper gets published. NOW, in order for your paper to get published, it should go through a peer-review process in which several referees look at what you have done and decide if your evidence is conclusive. Good referees would tell you to run the other 4 statistical tests as a sort of robustness check for your originial results. If the other 4 tests don't support your original hypothesis, then the paper should not be accepted for publication--or if it is accepted for publication, it should be rewritten in such a way as to tell about all of the results. However, it's not clear that this always happens. As such, there is the incentive for people to submit research with "sketchy" findings just in the hope that the paper slips through the refereeing process and gets published.

 

Generally, the better the journal, the more intense the refereeing process should be--so it is probably not unreasonable to give more weight to papers published in top journals rather than in lower-tiered journals. (But I do know of some BS papers that got published in top-tier econ journals--so even the ranking of the journal isn't a perfect indication of the correctness of the paper's results.)

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Generally, the better the journal, the more intense the refereeing process should be--so it is probably not unreasonable to give more weight to papers published in top journals rather than in lower-tiered journals. (But I do know of some BS papers that got published in top-tier econ journals--so even the ranking of the journal isn't a perfect indication of the correctness of the paper's results.)

 

 

Who is running this process now - Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann?

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I'd suggest that people should generally be skeptical of a lot of initial research and not put too much credence in it until it has born out by repeated studies.

 

+1

 

This latest revelation just points out how much "publish or perish" pressure many researchers are under.

Edited by Chargerz
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  • 2 weeks later...

Sharp Rise in Retractions Prompts Calls for Reform

 

Dr. Fang became curious how far the rot extended. To find out, he teamed up with a fellow editor at the journal, Dr. Arturo Casadevall of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. And before long they reached a troubling conclusion: not only that retractions were rising at an alarming rate, but that retractions were just a manifestation of a much more profound problem — “a symptom of a dysfunctional scientific climate,” as Dr. Fang put it.

 

Dr. Casadevall, now editor in chief of the journal mBio, said he feared that science had turned into a winner-take-all game with perverse incentives that lead scientists to cut corners and, in some cases, commit acts of misconduct.

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  • 4 months later...

Missouri congressman Todd Akin earned his own political infamy by saying that women who experience "a legitimate rape" are unlikely to become pregnant, serves on the House Committee on Science!

 

Akin, like too much of the GOP these days, thinks global warming is “highly suspect.” But he has particularly colorful views on the subject. In 2009, when Congress was considering a cap-and-trade bill, Akin took to the House floor to explain that the climate bill was a threat to our precious four seasons. “In Missouri when we go from winter to spring, that’s a good climate change. I don’t want to stop that climate change you know. Who in the world wants to put politicians in charge of the weather anyways?”

 

And we wonder why our country is slipping behind others? Science! :tup:

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Missouri congressman Todd Akin earned his own political infamy by saying that women who experience "a legitimate rape" are unlikely to become pregnant, serves on the House Committee on Science!

 

 

 

And we wonder why our country is slipping behind others? Science! :tup:

 

 

Oh, I'm sure we can all come up with some good ones from our political class (Guam tipping over, for starters.)

 

Now, Akin is, as best I can tell from recent comments, certifiably dumb. But, you don't need "smarts" to hoodwink a large percentage of the population in to voting for you. Know your constituency, know what issues drive them, pander to their fears and bigotry, offer them free handouts and shiny new things paid for by "others" and you will get elected.

 

But, speaking of education, I was watching a rerun of the Simpsons the other night and Superintendent Chalmers had a great line summing up our educational system, one which I will have to paraphrase: We'll spend tens of millions of dollars on a standardized test, reform our curriculum to teach to the test and a majority of the kids will still fail it...

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I don't know the Akin guy, nor have I read his comment in context (or out of context) as I've been busy working (etc.) today.

 

I have no idea if he has the background to warrant serving on the "committee on science". I also have no idea if he had a better background for some other committee, or he just happened to get assigned there when he was first voted into office and never got reassigned somewhere else.

 

So, basically, I don't see the correlation between saying some sort of a horrible gaffe and being not worth serving on a committee of some sort. Care to elaborate?

 

************

 

PS -- What's the deal with "Guam tipping over"? Never heard of that before...

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Care to elaborate?

 

 

He's been in hot water the last couple days because he partially defended his views on abortion by claiming that a female body would prevent a pregnancy after a "legitimate rape." I posted the stuff on climate change, assuming people would be aware of the aforementioned The point being, it isn't a coincidence he was appointed Science House Committee, given how radical the GOP has become over the last couple years.

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He's been in hot water the last couple days because he partially defended his views on abortion by claiming that a female body would prevent a pregnancy after a "legitimate rape." I posted the stuff on climate change, assuming people would be aware of the aforementioned The point being, it isn't a coincidence he was appointed Science House Committee, given how radical the GOP has become over the last couple years.

 

 

the guam tipping over guy is on the house armed forces committee. I guess by your logic that shows just how little the dems think of the armed forces.

is on the transportation and infrastructure committee. why do the democrats hate roads?

 

:rolleyes:

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My conjecture is that Akin was primarily appointed to the House Science Committee because of his blatant disregard and non-support of Science. I think this conjecture is fairly well supported given the events over the last several years. Your attempt to defend Akin, in trying to claim the Guam guy was primarily appointed to the Armed Force's Committee because of his blatant disregard and non-support of our troops is cute. The desperate rationalization attempt at equivalency, instead of denouncing idiotic statements and a political appointment, is not unexpected from you.

 

 

I admire your loyal support of the Republican party and congratulate you on your cunning counterpoint.

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Oh, I'm sure we can all come up with some good ones from our political class (Guam tipping over, for starters.)

 

Now, Akin is, as best I can tell from recent comments, certifiably dumb. But, you don't need "smarts" to hoodwink a large percentage of the population in to voting for you. Know your constituency, know what issues drive them, pander to their fears and bigotry, offer them free handouts and shiny new things paid for by "others" and you will get elected.

 

But, speaking of education, I was watching a rerun of the Simpsons the other night and Superintendent Chalmers had a great line summing up our educational system, one which I will have to paraphrase: We'll spend tens of millions of dollars on a standardized test, reform our curriculum to teach to the test and a majority of the kids will still fail it...

 

This made me chuckle...

My conjecture is that Akin was primarily appointed to the House Science Committee because of his blatant disregard and non-support of Science. I think this conjecture is fairly well supported given the events over the last several years. Your attempt to defend Akin, in trying to claim the Guam guy was primarily appointed to the Armed Force's Committee because of his blatant disregard and non-support of our troops is cute. The desperate rationalization attempt at equivalency, instead of denouncing idiotic statements and a political appointment, is not unexpected from you.

 

 

I admire your loyal support of the Republican party and congratulate you on your cunning counterpoint.

 

This made me chuckle...

 

:clap:

 

If ever there were examples of where this country is failing, it is shown here by the constituents voting people like this into office... Nevermind their political party. It's only a matter of time now.

Edited by millerx
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My conjecture is that ...

 

 

 

My conjecture is that people get stuck on any of a number of committees that meet once or twice a year they are not really suited to serve on because someone in leadership of that party stuck them on that committee when they were first elected.

 

Now, I'm not sure if that applies to either Akin or the Guam guy or not, but I'd speculate that my conjecture is not less likely than yours ... equally likely? Possibly? Less likely? No.

 

Either way, I don't know though.

 

:shrug:

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