Peer Review: psycology studies mostly wrong (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, September 23, 2015, 05:28 (3137 days ago) @ David Turell

Another article on the same findings, 60% wrong.:-http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/28188-
"In the New York Times, Benedict Carey describes a University of Virginia-led effort to reproduce the findings of 100 key psychological studies published in top journals. Over 250 researchers chose some of the most often cited findings in their field and tried to replicate the results with their own experiments. The outcomes, published in the journal, “Science,” weren't pretty. Of the 100 studies tested, 60 did not yield the results their authors reported. In other words, the findings couldn't live up to a basic requirement of science—repeatability. It's a revelation Carey says confirms many scientists' worst fears.-“'The vetted studies,” he explained, “were considered part of the core knowledge by which scientists understand the dynamics of personality, relationships, learning and memory.” And the fact that so many studies were called into question makes one question the work of therapists and educators who relied on that research to do their jobs.-"Now what's behind this embarrassing revelation? Why are so many scientists apparently exaggerating and misinterpreting their findings? Carey points to what the scientists themselves describe as “a hypercompetitive culture across science that favors novel, sexy results and provides little incentive for researchers to replicate the findings of others, or for journals to publish studies that fail to find a splashy result.”-"In other words, sensationalist science is its own undoing. But there's more to it. Norbert Schwarz, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, tells the Times that many senior researchers bristle at the thought of a younger, less experienced scientist critiquing their work. “There's no doubt,” he said, “that replication is important, but it's often just [seen as] an attack, a vigilante exercise.”-"In other words, the real flaw in a lot of research isn't technical or methodological. It's just old-fashioned human pride. And it's not restricted to psychology or the social sciences. Dr. John Ioannidis, director of Meta-Research at Stanford, hints that the peer-review climate could be even more toxic in other fields, like cell biology, economics, neuroscience, clinical medicine, and animal research, calling the reliability of science itself into question."