MarkI-ZeroPoint <zeropo...@charter.net> wrote: Editors of World’s Most Prestigious Medical Journals: > > “Much of the Scientific Literature, Perhaps HALF, May Simply Be > Untrue"... > > > http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-01/editors-world%E2%80%99s-most-prestigious-medical-journals-%E2%80%9Cmuch-scientific-literature-perhap > > > > Science education should continually reinforce the fact that integrity and > morality are absolutely necessary for the scientific process to work… >
Let us not confuse mistakes with immorality. There have always been many mistakes in the scientific literature. I do not know whether they are more common today than in the past, but they were there. Granted, there has also always been corruption in research. I believe medical research and practice has always been especially prone to this. In Darrell Huff's cynical little masterpiece of a book, he described a medical test without enough control cases. It was a test of the polio vaccine with 450 children vaccinated and 680 unvaccinated. After an epidemic: "Not one of the vaccinated children contracted a recognizable case of polio. . . . Neither did any of the controls. . . . At the usual rate, only two cases would have been expected in a group this size . . ." He concludes: "Many a great, if fleeting, medical discovery has been launched similarly. 'Make haste,' as one physician put it, 'to use a new remedy before it is too late." - "How to Lie with Statistics" (1954) Quite a number of treatments and practices common 20 years ago are no longer recommended, such as an EKG with every annual checkup. My doctor told me it produces more false positives and problems than useful information. - Jed
