What’s the problem with science?!?
I’m going to tell you my top 5.
Hey there science fans!
Dr. Kiki from This Week in Science here for DNews.
I’m used to talking about all the things that are awe-worthy about science, but science
isn’t perfect.
And, everyone should understand how.
So, here’s my list of the big problems in scientific research:
Across the board, we lack a complete picture of the world around us because of a convenience
bias in scientific research.
Typically, researchers are only able to study animals in the wild when and where animals
are there, and when the scientists have time to get into the field.
Thanks to an academic research schedule where researchers are teaching and students are
schooling during a majority of the year, most research is being carried out during single
seasons rather than year-round.
A recent analysis of over 2000 animal studies published in major journals over 18 years
found that only 5% of them looked at how multiple seasons interacted to affect an animal’s
biology.
Additionally, there is a vast over-representation of male subjects compared to females in the
animal literature.
Because males don’t have babies.
Or, because researchers haven’t collected enough animals for an analysis to be statistically
significant, studies don’t differentiate between the sexes at all.
Hopefully, this sex problem will change moving into the future since the NIH has called for
better balancing of male and female subject numbers in studies.
While we’re at it, there are still more men in science than women.
Yes, more and more females are studying in the sciences than ever before, but the people
in charge are still mainly men.
The culture of the scientific endeavor continues to favor men, as more men than women are still
hired for academic jobs beyond graduate school, and more men than women are published in prestigious
journals.
And, the craziest point here, both men and women in the sciences are to blame as both
sexes favor men two to one in situations like hiring.
Publication bias Publication bias is the preference that some
journals show for publishing scientific research that will be perceived as exciting, will therefore
get cited as a reference by more people, and be considered impactful.
It turns out that these journals also have higher retraction rates and publish studies
that are less replicable.
They sure might be exciting to learn about, but over time as more data gets collected,
high profile studies turn out to be more like statistical coincidences.
Results bias The “publish or perish” ethic among scientists
has led to heavy competition to get published in the leading journals.
Those who do manage to get published can look forward to many career benefits.
So, it’s not hard to see how with the drive to publish impactful research, researchers
often overlook negative results that could be quite informative, or go so far as to cherry-pick
data for their analyses.
Those are extreme examples, but combined with personal unconscious biases we’re seeing
a large number of retractions in recent years, and a decline in reproducibility of studies.
Also, scientists who are still trying to cement their careers are less likely to do studies
that try to replicate the results of others.
There is no glory in being second, even though it helps the entire scientific community.
All this brings us to how science is funded.
In the US, money can come from either public or private sources.
Changes to political priorities have left less than 8% of researchers who apply for
government funding actually receiving it.
Additionally, basic research that could lead to long-term technological and economic gains
is being underfunded as government grants emphasize “practical” research with more
immediate and conceivable payoffs.
To make up for shortfalls from public funding, researchers look for private funding, which
can lead to conflicts of interest that bias studies.
When the funding just can’t be found, investigators have to downsize their labs and research efforts.
And, this means less good science being done.
I know all of this sounds pretty bad, but it can be fixed.
People within the scientific research community are already working to improve the publication
process, find new solutions to funding scientific research (like crowd-funding), and remove
human bias from experiments.
My advice to you: Be patient with the process, continue to be awe-struck by science when
it’s deserved, and always be skeptical of the extraordinary.
Do you think I missed anything?
What do you think of my list?