50% of neuroscience papers suffer from a major statistical error.

Re:50% of neuroscience papers suffer from a major statistica... by scott_s on Monday November 28, 2011 @09:06PM (#3288630)

I know many, many researchers, and very, very few who have published anything "groundbreaking." Meaningful, original, often even important, but rarely groundbreaking. There are different tiers of venues to publish in, just as there are different tiers of institutions to do research in.

I think the economics often are perverse, but I think you're doing a disservice to the overall discussion by simplifying it too much.

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Re:50% of neuroscience papers suffer from a major statistica... by forensic on Tuesday November 29, 2011 @04:38AM (#3289731)

You're splitting hairs. Groundbreaking has a pretty low bar these days.

Just remember that 50 year old profs came of age in a different era.

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Re:50% of neuroscience papers suffer from a major statistica... by scott_s on Tuesday November 29, 2011 @04:14PM (#3292199)

Huh? As a field matures, the bar for groundbreaking increases. Most research is iterative, including everything I've done, and almost everything my peers have done.

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Re:50% of neuroscience papers suffer from a major statistica... by forensic on Tuesday November 29, 2011 @11:33PM (#3293737)

Why are you stating the obvious?

I am trying to make a point that in the world of vicious competition for grant money, every shitty incremental experiment is lauded as groundbreaking. For very understandable reasons.

I'm being facetious about the way that the key quality of a scientist has shifted from doing and teaching science to being a great marketer who can win grants. The "best" scientists these days are generally the ones who are really great at hype.

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Re:50% of neuroscience papers suffer from a major statistica... by scott_s on Thursday December 01, 2011 @03:59PM (#3301365)

It was not clear that you were using "groundbreaking" facetiously. Hence my confusion.

I agree there are problems with how science works right now, and I agree on what the problems are. I disagree on the weights of the incentives, though. You describe "rampant" fraud. I have observed none. Then my conclusion is that the claim that fraud is rampant is incorrect.

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Re:50% of neuroscience papers suffer from a major statistica... by forensic on Saturday December 03, 2011 @11:09PM (#3309841)

>I have observed none.

How hard have you looked and what is your definition of fraud?

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