The joke of self-correcting science: The Andero lab and Nature Communications | Introduction to the New Statistics

The trouble with error is that we have a natural tendency to dismiss it. When Kevin Dunbar analyzed the data from his in vivo studies of microbiology labs, one of his most remarkable findings was just how many experiments produced results that were genuinely unexpected. More than half of the data collected by the researchers deviated significantly

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Publication bias. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the scientific literature is full of positive results. Null or negative results have traditionally been hard to publish and are often relegated to abandoned hard drives, despite the fact that they represent valuable knowledge claims. Research users looking for evidence get a distorted view, which — like Joh... See more