Re:Why Most Published Research Findings Are False (2005)
by genewitch on Thursday October 20, 2022 @08:53AM
(#33273926)
it seems that psychology papers extrapolate too much, and even "correcting for confounding factors" isn't enough, if the researchers don't know enough confounding factors, for one.
And i think that R and python being popular in the academic fields belies the fact that no one wants to talk to statisticians about their data. It's a lot easier to massage inputs to a machine than a human.
I was under the impression we were talking about reproducibility in this thread; therefore my point about policy being influenced by something you suggest is "meant for other academics"
Second, sociology and anthropology are among the least empirical of academic disciplines. What reason would you have to involve them?
Third, many studies are of the type "my theory predicts X and my experiment shows p < 0.05". That's almost wrong by definition. Bayesian theory explains why.
Fourth, many studies have conclusions/claims that cannot be inferred from the actual finding.
> When nearly every policy can be backed by "some papers published in <some journal>", stuff like this becomes important.
It is important, but as long as academia is a "turn out papers for tenure" industry, it won't be fixed. Don't take the conclusions of a paper for true. They're meant for other academics.