The idea that Most Published Research Findings Are False rocked the world of science when it was proposed in 2005. Since then, however, it's become widely accepted - at least with respect to many kinds of studies in biology, genetics, medicine and psychology.
Now, however, a new analysis from Jager and Leek says things are nowhere near as bad after all: only 14% of the medical literature is wrong, not half of it. Phew!
But is this conclusion... falsely positive?
I'm skeptical of this result for two separate reasons. First off, I have problems with the sample of the literature they used: it seems likely to contain only the 'best' results. This is because the authors:
only considered the
of top-ranked medical journals, which may be more reliable than others.
only looked at the Abstracts of the papers, which generally contain the best results in the paper.
only included ...
