Sloppy Science

A recent Wall Street Journal write-up discussed the findings of one Dr. John Ioannidis, who has posited that most of the thousands of peer-reviewed research papers published every year are full of flawed findings and analysis. The vast majority of mistakes, he says, aren’t purposeful, but stem from miscalculation, poor study design or self-serving data analysis. The summary to his widely-cited essay states, "Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias."

The WSJ article claims that "To root out mistakes, scientists rely on each other to be vigilant. Even so, findings too rarely are checked by others or independently replicated. Retractions, while more common, are still relatively infrequent. Findings that have been refuted can linger in the scientific literature for years to be cited unwittingly by other researchers, compounding the errors."

An ironic question to ask: Is Dr. Ioannidis study subject to the same flaws he ascribes to the rest of the scientific community? If his findings are true, what does this mean for hot-button topics such as Global Warming?