We have heard of many who are experiencing a crisis of faith
as people wrestle with the place of God and faith in their lives; but there is
another crisis of faith that is happening as well. Many are wondering how much
we can trust science and the articles published in our scientific journals. We
have witnessed a number of tragic situations in which articles has been
retracted because the results were not reproducible, often as someone did not
pay enough attention to the statistical significance of their data. We have
seen situations in which the pressure to produce papers (the publish or perish
mentality) have led some to falsify data to get a publication. It is also
difficult to get papers published for work that does not support a reigning theory
and so some information never makes it to the public sphere.
as people wrestle with the place of God and faith in their lives; but there is
another crisis of faith that is happening as well. Many are wondering how much
we can trust science and the articles published in our scientific journals. We
have witnessed a number of tragic situations in which articles has been
retracted because the results were not reproducible, often as someone did not
pay enough attention to the statistical significance of their data. We have
seen situations in which the pressure to produce papers (the publish or perish
mentality) have led some to falsify data to get a publication. It is also
difficult to get papers published for work that does not support a reigning theory
and so some information never makes it to the public sphere.
Tom Siegfried in a recent editorial in Science News says,
. . . publishing papers requires
playing the games refereed by journal editors. “Journal editors attempt to
judge which papers will have the greatest impact and interest and consequently
those with the most surprising, controversial, or novel results,” Reinhart
points out. “This is a recipe for truth inflation.”
playing the games refereed by journal editors. “Journal editors attempt to
judge which papers will have the greatest impact and interest and consequently
those with the most surprising, controversial, or novel results,” Reinhart
points out. “This is a recipe for truth inflation.”
Scientific publishing is therefore
riddled with wrongness. It’s almost a miracle that so much truth actually does,
eventually, leak out of this process.[1]
riddled with wrongness. It’s almost a miracle that so much truth actually does,
eventually, leak out of this process.[1]
Science is a discipline which uses reason,
logic, and the search for truth; but the discipline is only as accurate as the
biases inherent in normal human interactions. Therefore, the reason, logic, and
truth of science can be flawed. Neither Siegfried nor I are suggesting that we
cannot trust science and the majority of our scientific publications; but we
must watch for potential bias and flaws in the logic. Often, we must look to
the parts of papers that are really not that interesting (the footnotes, the
statistical analysis, and methodologies) to make a fair assessment of the
accuracy of a particular finding. We must not turn off our brains and trust
that the researchers and journal editors have done their job of vetting the
data.
[1] Science
is heroic, with a tragic (statistical) flaw – Tom Siegfried, Science News,
July 2, 2015;
is heroic, with a tragic (statistical) flaw – Tom Siegfried, Science News,
July 2, 2015;