<*>[Attachment(s) from Ian Shrier, Dr. included below] Hi
A while ago, there was a discussion on this listserv about publication bias and peer review. An idea was being bounced around to have protocols accepted, and then the article would be accepted as is, provided it adhered to the protocol. Someone mentioned that Lancet had considered doing this. Personally, I think that solution would require a lot of extra work, and there are often very good reasons for protocol deviation. The solution would sometimes end up causing problems and I'm concerned the cure might be worse than the disease. I had a different idea developed a few years ago, that I thought was novel. One presents the study with just intro, methods, and results, but the results have all the data removed (figures are labelled and tables have rows and columns, etc). This way, one has all the necessary items to evaluate relevance, validity, and presentation of data. The only remaining issue is writing up of results, and the nature of the discussion. But even if the discussion is slanted, reviewers could insist on the authors presenting alternate viewpoints. I also believe I have solutions that would mean minimal extra work for authors, reviewers and editors. I thought this was incredibly novel and was very proud of myself, and have been mentioning this to several key players to generate interest. And then Doug Altman just responded to my email by sending me a reference from 1987 (Newcombe RG. Towards a reduction in publication bias. BMJ 1987; 295: 656-659)! The 1987 reference basically proposes the idea of accepting manuscripts based on protocols (the idea promoted in the listserv emails)....it also illustrates all the problems with p-values, why confidence intervals should replace p-values, etc. And then, there was a reference to someone who previously studied peer-review of "incomplete manuscripts".... my novel idea (I thought) .... which was published in 1977!!!! (Mahoney MJ. Publication Prejudices: An Experimental Study of Confirmatory Bias in the Peer Review System. Cognitive Therapy and Research 1977; 1(2):161-175) Plus ça change, plus ça reste pareil. (the more things change, the more they stay the same) PS: I haven't given up on my idea, but am once again humbled Ian Shrier <*>Attachment(s) from Ian Shrier, Dr.: <*> 2 of 2 File(s) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sportscience/attachments/folder/2053130404/item/list <*> newcombe pubbias BMJ87.pdf <*> mahoney.pdf ------------------------------------ Post messages to [email protected]. To (un)subscribe, send any message to sportscience-(un)[email protected]. View all messages at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sportscience/.Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sportscience/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sportscience/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
