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

by Stuart Ritchie

When making hiring and tenure decisions they should consider ‘good scientific citizenship’ in addition to, or even in place of, measures such as a scientist’s h-index.95 They should recognise not just publication but the complexity of building international collaborations, the arduousness of collecting and sharing data, the honesty of publishing every study whether null or otherwise, and the unglamorous but necessary process of running replication studies. They should, in other words, reward researchers for working towards a more open and transparent scientific literature, expanding the range of what’s considered worthwhile.