[R] Waaaayy off topic...Statistical methods, pub bias, scientific validity

[Spencer Graves]

       Part of the phenomenon can be explained by the natural censorship 
in what is accepted for publication:  Stronger results tend to have less 
difficulty getting published.  Therefore, given that a result is 
published, it is evident that the estimated magnitude of the effect is 
in average larger than it is in reality, just by the fact that weaker 
results are less likely to be published.  A study of the literature on 
this subject might yield an interesting and valuable estimate of the 
magnitude of this selection bias.


       A more insidious problem, that may not affect the work of Jonah 
Lehrer, is political corruption in the way research is funded, with less 
public and more private funding of research 
(http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=21052&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html).  
For example, I've heard claims (which I cannot substantiate right now) 
that cell phone companies allegedly lobbied successfully to block 
funding for researchers they thought were likely to document health 
problems with their products.  Related claims have been made by 
scientists in the US Food and Drug Administration that certain therapies 
were approved on political grounds in spite of substantive questions 
about the validity of the research backing the request for approval 
(e.g., www.naturalnews.com/025298_the_FDA_scientists.html).  Some of 
these accusations of political corruption may be groundless.  However, 
as private funding replaces tax money for basic science, we must expect 
an increase in research results that match the needs of the funding 
agency while degrading the quality of published research.  This produces 
more research that can not be replicated -- effects that get smaller 
upon replication.  (My wife and I routinely avoid certain therapies 
recommended by physicians, because the physicians get much of their 
information on recent drugs from the pharmaceuticals, who have a vested 
interest in presenting their products in the most positive light.)


       Spencer


On 1/6/2011 2:39 PM, Carl Witthoft wrote:
> The next week's New Yorker has some decent rebuttal letters.  The case 
> is hardly as clear-cut as the author would like to believe.
>
> Carl
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide 
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>