Related papers: The Natural Selection of Bad Science
Scientists in some fields are concerned that many, or even most, published results are false. A high rate of false positives might arise accidentally, from shoddy research practices. Or it might be the inevitable result of institutional…
An academic scientist's professional success depends on publishing. Publishing norms emphasize novel, positive results. As such, disciplinary incentives encourage design, analysis, and reporting decisions that elicit positive results and…
Many published research results are false, and controversy continues over the roles of replication and publication policy in improving the reliability of research. Addressing these problems is frustrated by the lack of a formal framework…
Several systematic studies have suggested that a large fraction of published research is not reproducible. One probable reason for low reproducibility is insufficient sample size, resulting in low power and low positive predictive value. It…
Social epistemologists have argued that high risk, high reward science has an important role to play in scientific communities. Recently, though, it has also been argued that various scientific fields seem to be trending towards…
Bad statistics make research papers unreproducible and misleading. For the most part, the reasons for such misusage of numerical data have been found and addressed years ago by experts and proper practical solutions have been presented…
Success-driven social learning, in which individuals preferentially adopt the ideas and methods that appear most successful, is a foundational principle of collective behavior across systems ranging from ant colonies to scientific…
Recent research in the field of reflexive metrics have studied the emergence and consequences of evaluation gaps in science. The concept of evaluation gaps captures potential discrepancies between what researchers value about their…
Established frameworks to understand problems with reproducibility in science begin with the relationship between our understanding of the prior probability of a claim and the statistical certainty that should be demanded of it, and explore…
Reproducibility, the ability to recompute results, and replicability, the chances other experimenters will achieve a consistent result, are two foundational characteristics of successful scientific research. Consistent findings from…
One of the virtues of peer review is that it provides a self-regulating selection mechanism for scientific work, papers and projects. Peer review as a selection mechanism is hard to evaluate in terms of its efficiency. Serious efforts to…
Although Darwinian models are rampant in the social sciences, social scientists do not face the problem that motivated Darwin's theory of natural selection: the problem of explaining how lineages evolve despite that any traits they acquire…
Reflexive metrics is a branch of science studies which explores how the demand for accountability and performance measurement in science has shaped the research culture in recent decades. Hypercompetition and publication pressure are part…
The extensive focus on performance indicators in research evaluation has been facing critique in science studies. Stemming from a neoliberalist paradigm, metrics allegedly objectify and create certainty about researchers' performance. This…
It is not easy to rationalize how peer review, as the current grassroots of science, can work based on voluntary contributions of reviewers. There is no rationale to write impartial and thorough evaluations. Consequently, there is no risk…
Why do nations produce scientific research? This is a fundamental problem in the field of social studies of science. The paper confronts this question here by showing vital determinants of science to explain the sources of social power and…
The publication process both determines which research receives the most attention, and influences the supply of research through its impact on researchers' private incentives. We introduce a framework to study optimal publication decisions…
Scientific journals are an important choice of publication venue for most authors. Publishing in prestigious journal plays a decisive role for authors in hiring and promotions. In last decade, citation pressure has become intact for all…
The scientific community discourages authors of research papers from citing papers that did not influence them. Such "rhetorical" citations are assumed to degrade the literature and incentives for good work. While a world where authors cite…
Over the last few decades, the nature of scientific research has changed in response to external influences. Firstly, powerful networked computers have become a standard tool. Secondly, society presses ever harder for research to deliver…