The inconsistencies that statcheck flagged tended to be in the authors’ favour – that is, mistaken numbers tended to make the results more, rather than less, likely to fit with the study’s hypothesis. If these were just entirely random typos, we wouldn’t expect them to go in any particular direction on average. But as we might have predicted from what we know about bias, it seems as though the scientists were more likely to take a second look when the results didn’t go their way.
