Jonah Lehrer wrote about the (surprising?) power of publication bias.
http://m.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all
Cosma Shalizi (I think) said something, or pointed to something, about the null model of science - what science would look like if there were no actual effects, just statistical anomalies that look good at first. I can't find the reference, though.
I love that he called it "The Neutral Model".
(To the OP: I think it's a reference to Motoo Kimura's theory that at the molecular level, most evolutionary change is neutral rather than adaptive.)