Why Most Of the Published Research Is Either Incorrect or Interpreted Incorrectly?

Why Most Of the Published Research Is Either Incorrect or Interpreted Incorrectly?

What was the first thought when you read the title, you probably either were astonished and skeptical or simply enjoyed the idea that most research is wrong, however it is far deep than that, there have been many claims over the years that "most published research findings are false", however most of them come out of the mouth of the most deluded kind of tin-foil-hat-wearing-conspiracy-theorist.Indeed, this is a statement often used by fans of pseudoscience who take the claim at face value, without applying the principles behind it to their own evidence. 

It is however, a concept that is actually increasingly well understood by scientists. It is the title of a paper written 15 years ago by the legendary Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis. The paper, which has become the most widely cited paper ever published in the journal PLoS Medicine, examined how issues currently ingrained in the scientific process combined with the way we currently interpret statistical significance, means that at present, most published findings are likely to be incorrect.

Got Confused? No worries, here is an explanation to what's actually going on.

The rise of the Internet has worked wonders for the public's access to science, but this has come with the side effect of a toxic combination of confirmation bias and Google enabling us to easily find a study to support whatever it is that we already believe, without bothering so much as to look at research that might challenge our position — or the research that supports our position for that matter in a precisely detailed manner.

Though this predicament is the cause of the boom of internet age, it is not the only factor that is held liable for the cause, To bring things into perspective, let me ask you a question, Where does most of the research come from?

From the Masters and PHD students, and if you have ever been a post-grad student you know exactly what I am talking about. Most of the research published as a student is done just to submit the thesis, thus lacking careful analysis and conclusions. 

Another factor here is research published on statistical grounds, As what Elon Musk once stated in an interview, most people lack “critical thinking”. 

If I ask you to conduct a survey research on what do most Indians think of in their daily life, This research if conducted currently, it for sure is going to have one of the answers as “CoronaVirus”, “Covid19”, “Lockdown”, “Black Lives Matter”, “Cyclones”, “Financial crisis”. However can we draw the conclusion based on the above results that most Indians think about one of the topics in most of their daily lives.

Exactly, This research would have completely different results if done a few months back, this dependence in scientific terms what's called as environment setting.

We observed a fallacy that can easily be removed by adding its validation to current trends. However this phenomenon is much more subtle and sometimes complex in statistical research, oblivious to common eye, so with multiple variables under consideration, this fallacy is overlooked a myriad times. Leading to vague conclusions. Combine it with media influencer and sometimes intellectuals, with their confidence that the fact is backed by research, and the confidence that people have on their word leads to mass misinformation spreading all around.

So next time when you see a fact like “elephants are more intelligent than us as they have the most number of neurons a scientific study says”, be sure to not be blinded by it and check the whole detail by yourself