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From: Jim Tung <jimtung**At_Symbol_Here**gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Debunking Bad COVID-19 Research
Date: Jul 1, 2020 18:18 UTC
Reply-To:
ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety
In-Reply-To: Re: [DCHAS-L] Debunking Bad COVID-19 Research
Good science is reproducible. However, it's an open secret that a significant amount of biomedical (and other) research is not. Here are a couple slides from a lecture called Paradigms and Pseudoscience I do in my Nobel Prize course. Keep in mind this is discussing high-impact papers that passed peer review in some of the highest impact journals out thereSlide 1 - Good Science is Reproducible• 2012, Nature - Amgen scientists look at 53 landmark cancer studies. Confirmed only 6 (11%).• 2011 - Bayer Scientists found only 25% of published preclinical studies could be validated.• These papers spawned hundreds of other secondary studies that did not seek to confirm or falsify the original work..• Secondary research included clinical studies. Wow.• Reproducible studies- "authors had paid close attention to controls, reagents, investigator bias and describing the complete data set."• Others - plagued by lack of double blind control studies, presentation of a single result or data point, supplying data that supports their hypothesis but discarding data that does not!(see a summary of this type of stuff here: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/what-proportion-of-cancer-studies-are-reliable/513485/ )Slide 2 - This is Widespread• NIH official comments 75% of published biomedical findings would be hard to reproduce.=E2=80=A2 Smaller studies more prone to false conclusions.• Nobody gets a publication/credit for reproducing work.• "Publish or perish" makes people push out work prematurely.• Reviewers seldom look at supplemental material and (in chemistry) do not reproduce the experiments.See"Unreliable Research: Trouble At The Lab", The Economist, 2013, Oct 19th 2013
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-troubleSlide 3 - The Math (using figures from the above-see graphic titled "Unlikely results")=E2=80=A2 Assume 1,000 hypotheses, of which 100 are true.• Assume false negatives will result in 80% (80) of them being found.• Of 900 false hypotheses, 5% (45) will be false positives for various reasons.• This makes 125 positive results, so (45/125) = 36% of the results are bogus!• Negative results are 97% trustworthy.• But no journals are interested in negative results!Key poins - you don't get tenure, you don't get grants, and your company doesn't make money for replicating someone else=E2=80™s research. And this leads to a dangerous cascade of research and effort based on unconfirmed results.Ask me about peer review next-.Rob Toreki======================================================Safety Emporium - Lab & Safety Supplies featuring brand namesyou know and trust. Visit us at http://www.SafetyEmporium.comesales**At_Symbol_Here**safetyemporium.com or toll-free: (866) 326-5412Fax: (856) 553-6154, PO Box 1003, Blackwood, NJ 08012
On Jun 30, 2020, at 10:46 AM, Ralph Stuart <ralph**At_Symbol_Here**rstuartcih.org> wrote:It will be interesting to see if this approach of peer review after publication becomes a trend in the scientific publishing world as in person meetings become less common and preprints rise in prominence in all fields...- RalphBegin forwarded message:From: Robert C Michaelson <rmichael**At_Symbol_Here**northwestern.edu>Subject: [CHMINF-L] Debunking Bad COVID-19 ResearchDate: June 29, 2020 at 4:15:33 PM GMT-4From today's Inside Higher Ed