By Pascal Michaillat*, Brown University It is commonly believed that the lack of experimental evidence typical in the social sciences slows but does not prevent the replacement of existing theories by newer, better ones. A simple model of scientific research and promotion challenges that belief, however. In the model, scientists are slightly…
Who Inspired the Leamer-Rosenthal Prizes? Part II – Ed Leamer
Guest post by Edward Leamer, UCLA Professor of Economics & Statistics I became interested in methodological issues as a University of Michigan graduate student from 1967 to 1970, watching the economics faculty build an econometric macro model in the basement of the building (The Michigan Model), and comparing how these same faculty members described…
A Rough Guide to Spotting Bad Science
Twelve points that will help separate the science from the pseudoscience (see here).
What to Do If You Are Accused of P-Hacking
In a recent post on Data Colada, University of Pennsylvania Professor Uri Simonsohn discusses what do in the event you (a researcher) are accused of having altered your data to increase statistical significance. Simonsohn states: It has become more common to publicly speculate, upon noticing a paper with unusual analyses, that a reported finding was…
Reproducible Research: True or False?
Keynote speaker at the upcoming BITSS annual meeting John Ioannidis (Professor of Health Research and Policy at Stanford School of Medicine, and Co-Director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center) speaks at Google about its efforts to improve research designs standards and reproducibility in science. Ioannidis is the author of the 2005 highly influential paper Why Most Published Research Findings Are False,…
Science Establishes New Statistics Review Board
The journal Science is adding an additional step of statistical checks to its peer-review process in an effort to strengthen confidence in published study findings. From the July 4th edition of Science: […] Science has established, effective 1 July 2014, a Statistical Board of Reviewing Editors (SBoRE), consisting of experts in various aspects of statistics and data analysis,…
Peer Review of Social Science Research in Global Health
A new working paper by Victoria Fan, Rachel Silverman, David Roodman, and William Savedoff at the Center for Global Development. Abstract In recent years, the interdisciplinary nature of global health has blurred the lines between medicine and social science. As medical journals publish non-experimental research articles on social policies or macro-level interventions, controversies…
Flawed Research On Your Plate
You might want to reconsider paying extra dollar for these fish oil supplements. A new study said most of the research literature on the cardiovascular benefits of omega-3 fatty acids is flawed. In the early 1970s, two Danish researchers started to investigate the diet of Greenland’s Inuit populations, which were believed to live longer than their Caucasian counterparts. The study…