[tralarpa]

> 60% of published papers in life sciences turns out to be rubbish

Research in life science:

- Very difficult to conduct repeatable experiments of sufficient size

- Lot of pressure because of lack of funding (e.g. hard to get money through projects with industry like engineers)

- Done by people with problems with logical thinking

- Done by people who apply methods (data analysis, statistics,...) without understanding them

The perfect combination...

I welcome all downvotes.

[Majestic121]

> - Very difficult to conduct repeatable experiments of sufficient size

Fair point

> - Lot of pressure because of lack of funding (e.g. hard to get money through projects with industry like engineers)

Fair point

> - Done by people with problems with logical thinking

What ?

> - Done by people who apply methods (data analysis, statistics,...) without understanding them

What ?

> I welcome all downvotes.

Asking for downvotes is the best way to make your message looks like it's coming from an edgy teenager. If you actually want to make your message go through, I would recommend refraining from doing so, even if you think/know you're going against the crowd.

[tralarpa]

I don't say those people are stupid. But if you look at the publications it's very obvious that they are not trained in the same way as other scientists. The jumping to conclusions, the application of methods without knowing their constraints, the lack of imagination when exploiting a problem (i.e. asking questions like "Are there other theories that could explain our results").

I have been in several situations where those people were explaining to me one of their research problems (in a friendly chat) and then I ask a question ("What about...?") that appears logical to me and they stare at me and reply "Why didn't you tell us you are working in this field, too?".

> If you actually want to make your message go through

What message? Go through what/where?

[cm2187]

I'd add:

- Done by people who more often than not are politically militant on topics that are politically charged.

[tralarpa]

I don't think it's really their fault. There are not many funding sources and those few that exist are usually coming from big players (companies, governments, etc.), so you are basically forced to pick a side if you want to do research.

It's not like a researcher in engineering or computer science who can start a small collaboration with a local company and solve some optimization problem for them and publish a paper on it.

[cm2187]

Yeah but I think most people are equally cautious than when looking at research funded by tobacco companies. I don't really trust researchers who have an agenda.