How scientist trick themselves (and how they can prevent it)b
A smashing editorial in Nature catalogs the many ways in which scientists end up tricking themselves into seeing evidence that isn’t there, resulting in publishing false positive. Many of these are familiar to people who follow behavioral economics (and readers of Predictably Irrational). But, significantly, the article advocates a series of evidence-supported techniques (some very simple, others a little more mostly/tricky) to counter them.
The problems with reproducibility in scientific results are now understood to be grave, and the scientific establishment is on the lookout for ways to improve the quality of results. Insisting on some or all of these methods as a condition of publication would significantly advance the field.
http://boingboing.net/2015/11/16/how-scientist-trick-themselves.html
Universities have been actively training wannabe scientists into being bad scientists for years. The structure of teaching and a pass/fail mentality encourages conformism of the worst kinds.
I’ve always felt each science needs a freshman lab that forces the freshman into doing an experiment that cannot produce the results they are expecting. Rather like Star Fleet’s Kobayashi-Maru they cannot pass unless they fail.
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