By Elizabeth Barclay
“Publish or perish” that is the idea in science and medicine today. If you’re not publishing, or at least part of a published work, you’re basically a nonentity. Furthermore, if you’re not publishing something new — a new discovery, a breakthrough medication, a novel therapy — then you’re not progressing in your academic career, and you might find yourself out of the career field altogether. This is a huge issue for those who’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on years, if not decades, of college education, so what’s the solution? How can someone stay relevant and show that their work has merit? How can you publish research that promotes your career, your company, or your reputation as a scientist? There’s actually quite an easy solution these days: falsify your research.
In 2005, John P.A. Ioannidis estimated that over 50% of the current scientific literature was false. Jager and Leek (2014) estimated the false discovery rate in biomedical studies to be lower, around 14%, but even then, that’s over 1 in 10 papers being completely false. A 2015 study, “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science”, conducted by the Open Science Collaboration, attempted to replicate 100 studies published in top psychology journals. The study found that only 36% of the original studies replicated successfully (at the p<0.05 level). The rest of the studies they tested showed much weaker evidence than what was original purported, leaving the researchers to conclude what many in the scientific community have been talking about for awhile now: there’s a reproducibility crisis, and it’s not with small papers. Supposedly groundbreaking papers on everything from Alzheimers to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) are being reevaluated, and they are not holding up. You don’t have to simply falsify data, either. More evidence is coming out that large corporations have the power to silence or suppress any papers that show their products in a negative light. Budding researchers have had their futures ruined and their reputations disgraced by having the gall to publish research that went against the narrative of billion dollar industries. Practices like these have left many wondering who they can trust, and the majority of people are turning away from the medical industry entirely.
Distrust in the medical system is on the rise, and many people are seeking to become their own doctor and take their health into their own hands. While the effort to take control of one’s own health journey is laudable and should be encouraged to an extent, many people are seeking out research without understanding how to properly interpret it, and what could make it false. They skip to the conclusion of the paper, or simply read the abstract, and take it as fact. This unfortunately leaves those seeking to understand their health just as lost as the doctors publishing the false papers in the first place.
With so much misinformation spreading through the medical world, it’s more important than ever to be able to be able to read a published research paper and understand how data can be manipulated. It’s quite easy to take accurate data and manipulate it to make it fit whatever conclusion you’d like. However, a careful reader could be able to read between the lines and evaluate the data for themselves. Understanding sample sizes, p-values, confidence intervals, clinical trials, and how studies are actually reviewed and published is the first step to taking charge of your own scientific understanding and practicing awareness around misinformation. Next time you see a research paper with groundbreaking findings, don’t hesitate to ask questions like: who funded this study, what was the sample size, what methods did they use to arrive at these conclusions how statistically significant were the findings, who stands to gain from this research, does other research contradict these findings? By challenging the narrative and thinking critically, you can avoid being manipulated by those seeking to gain notoriety, maintain their career, or project a false public image, and you can more confidently pursue your health goals on a strong foundation of critical thought and scientific curiosity.
Sources:
1. Trust in physicians and hospitals plummeted since the COVID pandemic, Northeastern research says
2. Fake scientific papers are alarmingly common – Jeffrey Brained – 2023
3. When big companies fund academic research, the truth often comes last – Professor Lisa Bero – 2019
4. Biostatistics (2014), 15, 1, pp. 1–12 R doi:10.1093/biostatistics/kxt007 Advance Access publication on September 25, 2013
5. Open Science Collaboration, Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science 349, aac4716 (2015). DOI:10.1126/science.aac4716