Tag Archives: biases

Evolutionary psychology and science: The full error list

The appendix of Frey includes a list of errors based on evolutionary psychology (EP) – some acquired during development of our species, some acquired during individual ontogenesis. It is certainly the best what I have read since the famous study biases Continue reading Evolutionary psychology and science: The full error list

Bias against negative studies

We probably all agree that a publication bias against negative studies will severely distorts our opinion. To repeat an earlier Nature letter

Why negatives should be viewed as positives … This filtering of results undoubtedly biases the information available to scientists (see, for example “Null and void” Nature 422, 554–555; 2003). And communication is at the heart of science.

Here is an email that I received from the editor Continue reading Bias against negative studies

Quod licet Jovi not licet Bovi

Rolf Zinkernagel in a commentary in Nature Immunology explains that today almost everything can be measured – and a nearly uncontrollable complexity often paired with weak detection methods renders experiments almost unrepeatable. His recommendations are

Most if not all experiments have limitations. Therefore researchers must think and argue and do experiments contrary to published results and against biases.

Nearly all studies need some funding; funding is controlled by peer review; peer review usually prohibits these experiments. Yea, yea.