Professor Gary Marcus has an article in the New Yorker, “Cleaning Up Science“, that makes an excellent follow-up to a TED Tuesday posting a while back on “What doctors don’t know about the drugs they prescribe”.
A basic outline:
- Restructure the incentives in science.
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Encourage people to publish studies that fail, as well those that succeed.
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Recognize that no single study ever proves anything.
- Promote meta-analysis.
- Create an ethical code.
- Give science some cops.
Enjoy!