#phacking

5/ An issue of too vast a scope, @deevybee@mastodon.social notes [1]: "It’s not that [scientists] are unconcerned about doing #science well; it's just that many of them don’t recognise that there are serious problems with current practices" and asks "How can that be?" "Many researchers persist in doing research in a way virtually guaranteed not to deliver meaningful results" incurring insidious biases: "#PublicationBias, low statistical power, #pHacking and #HARKing (hypothesising after results are known)" [1]

6/ She notes [1]: "Back in 1975, psychologist Tony Greenwald noted that science is prejudiced against #NullHypotheses: We even refer to sound work supporting a null hypothesis as “failed experiments.” That prejudice results in #PublicationBias: researchers are less likely to write up studies showing no effect; editors less likely to accept them, and so no one can learn from them" [1] cites the #pHacking bias: "the practice of trying many analyses and only reporting the 'significant' results"