Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth

by Stuart Ritchie

A study in 2017 found that only around 50 per cent of health studies covered in the media are eventually confirmed by meta-analyses (that is, 50 per cent are found to be broadly replicable). This finding would be scandalous enough on its own, but what makes it even worse is the fact that those meta-analyses are rarely, if ever, covered in the press.29 By that time the damage might already have been done. With apologies to Jonathan Swift: hyped science flies, and the refutations come limping after it. Arguably, the kind of ephemeral hype that’s spread by news articles isn’t the most concerning sort. The hype that makes its way into books, however, is of a different order. When popular books by scientists hit the zeitgeist, they can create ideas that stick. At their best, books can translate complex scientific results for the general reader in ways that neither exaggerate nor distort, providing new means to think about ourselves and the world. At their worst, they become part of a Wild West of hype, far outside the jurisdiction of the peer-review sheriffs.30 Once again, my own field of psychology, which easily lends itself to the hugely successful genres of self-help and life advice, is one of the worst offenders.