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

by Stuart Ritchie

Biases are an unavoidable part of human nature and it’s naïve to think they could ever be eradicated from anything that we do. We do, however, have tools that are supposed to bring a little more objectivity to the table. Statistical analysis itself is aimed at taking decisions out of our biased human hands – yet we’ve seen how easy it is for the numbers to be nudged in our favour. Peer review is supposed to act as a check on our prejudices – yet we’ve seen how the attempt to persuade reviewers and editors to publish our work leads to inconvenient results being hidden away entirely or else forced to fit our preconceptions. Each of these biases – whether caused by scientific dogma, political slant, financial pressures, or just the desire to see statistically significant results – can be utterly unconscious. Indeed, the fact that they’re unconscious might be what gives them their power: if you want to convince reviewers and the world of your case, it helps first to have convinced yourself. This fact is also what makes these biases so unnerving. Impartiality, like honesty, is one of the qualities that science exists to ensure. The lamentable truth is that the way we do science often encourages its direct opposite. In the next chapter we’ll add another entry to our list of scientific ironies: despite science being about getting the facts right, our studies are often replete with the most basic kinds of error.