The case against science

Richard Horton, editor of the medical journal the Lancet, said

"The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. ...

Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.…

The apparent endemicity of bad research behaviour is alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world.

Or they retrofit hypotheses to fit their data. Journal editors deserve their fair share of criticism too. We aid and abet the worst behaviours."

……….

Sydney Brenner - Nobel Prize Winner

"I think peer review is hindering science. In fact, I think it has become a completely corrupt system. It's corrupt in many ways, in that scientists and academics have handed over to the editors of these journals the ability to make judgment on science and scientists.

There are universities in America, and I've heard from many committees, that we won't consider people's publications in low impact factor journals.

Now I mean, people are trying to do something, but I think it's not publish or perish, it's publish in the okay places [or perish].

And this has assembled a most ridiculous group of people. I wrote a column for many years in the nineties, in a journal called Current Biology. In one article, 'Hard Cases', I campaigned against this [culture] because I think it is not only bad, it's corrupt.

In other words it puts the judgment in the hands of people who really have no reason to exercise judgment at all. And that's all been done in the aid of commerce, because they are now giant organisations making money out of it."