Eugine_Nier comments on Why no archive of refuted research? - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 26 August 2011 08:14AM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 27 August 2011 06:57:18AM 4 points [-]

Once such an archive existed, medical journals could adopt a policy of checking all citations in a proposed article against the archive, rejecting submissions that tried to cite refuted research as valid.

The problem with this is that power corrupts. Medical science is already suffering from group think problems this would likely make it worse.

Nancy mentioned Polifact here, I'm pretty sure I've seen controversy over some of their pronouncements. In any case I'm sure they'd be much worse if they had actual gate-keeping power.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 27 August 2011 12:32:56PM 4 points [-]

This is quite true, but it doesn't seem obvious that it'd be worse than incorrect results being cited for decades after being refuted.