I hope this embeds correctly. This TedMed talk is about the fascinating, and unacceptable, practice of "data choosing." Peer-reviewed journals are always looking for the newest and coolest avenue in science to publish about. There are a few hot topics like stem cells, cancer, and pharmacology that are received with gratitude when submitted for publication by researchers. However, the less exciting topics, in particular the ones that did not come to fruition experimentally, are ignored and refused publication. The problem is that in essence we are seeing some of what we did right and almost none of what we did wrong.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_know_about_the_drugs_they_prescribe.html
This is interesting and really quite alarming! I never really thought about this type of bias being shown in research. I guess it seems like often times we assume that all the results that we need to be aware of are made known to us but that doesn't seem to be the case.
ReplyDeleteFinally got to watch Doc Goldacre's talk. I'm very surprised at how selective publishing can be. I understand that, in general, companies want to have good results for their medications so that they can sell their product, but even if publications don't publish the negative results, they still occur; the product is still flawed. The biggest issue to me is that this kind of practice doesn't not allow for continued preservance in searching for a better performing product (medication, procedure, etc.).
ReplyDelete