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johnlawrenceaspden comments on The Thyroid Madness: Two Apparently Contradictory Studies. Proof? - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: johnlawrenceaspden 10 April 2016 08:21PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 21 April 2016 05:09:53PM 3 points [-]

Hmmm

This piece claims that

...we face a replication crisis in the field of biomedicine, not unlike the one we’ve seen in psychology but with far more dire implications. Sloppy data analysis, contaminated lab materials, and poor experimental design all contribute to the problem.

...Freedman and his co-authors guessed that fully half of all results rest on shaky ground, and might not be replicable in other labs. These cancer studies don’t merely fail to find a cure; they might not offer any useful data whatsoever.

Comment author: johnlawrenceaspden 22 April 2016 03:27:12PM *  2 points [-]

Oh God, where will this end? Is it really only physics and chemistry that aren't sloppy cargo-cults, or are they broken too?

A lot of this, I think is to do with taking tenure away from young academics. Once upon a time once you'd proved basic competence and cleverness, you could spend your whole career being careful about stuff. These days you've just got to turn out crap as fast as possible. And you spend most of your time applying for grants.