NASA announced they had found a new kind of life .
This kind of hype is all too common even in the most prestigious scientific journals. Nature and Science, sitting on top of the prestige heap, both give too much priority to splash and even publish work that less political journals reject. Publication in Nature, The New England Journal, Science, and a few others seems often to be determined by the probability of the journal getting citef in the New York Times!
Sadly, the same illness appears in clinical studies. UW faculty member Dr. Seth Leopold led a study where two top of the line orthopedic journals were given similar, fabricated reports. The reviewers recommended publishing in 97 percent of cases when there was a difference between treatments, but only in 80 percent of cases when there was no difference.
Dr. Seth Leopold said: “Something splashy, something new, is more exciting to everybody.”
Where is Karl Popper when we need him?
You’ll want to add a facebook button to your blog. I just bookmarked this article, although I had to complete it manually. Simply my $.02 🙂
– Robson