Experiment about experiments

These are highlights from a speech that William Briggs gave about the fallacy of scientists replicating studies.

Identical data was given to a large group of scientists and got completely different conclusions.

Does X affect Y? which causal language

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLFDjRS_928 @25:47 mask study in Denmark https://fee.org/articles/new-danish-study-finds-masks-don-t-protect-wearers-from-covid-infection/

Replication studies 1000 citations each on 49 papers

16% were replicated

New and improved cancer drugs in Europe 39 drugs only 35% had a positive effect of a

In 2015, Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, wrote:

The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness

Quotes by Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet

Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal:

If peer review was a drug it would never get on the market because we have lots of evidence of its adverse effects and don’t have evidence of its benefit.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreykabat/2015/11/23/the-crisis-of-peer-review/?sh=2f0bd102463e