From Annalee Newitz at Ars Technica:
The classic model of scientific progress is that the field advances when new findings contradict or supersede old ones. But a new study reveals that this process isn’t working today—at least, not in scientific journals, where most data is shared with colleagues. Indeed, the researchers found that “rebuttals scarcely alter scientific perceptions about the original papers.” More.
That’s bad news. It’s the Gossip Model of news dissemination. The gossip that flew around town building is recollected far more sharply and frequently than any clarification.
See also: Most science findings wrong or useless? The replication crisis (few studies are done to replicate cool new findings) had been noted for decades but no one did anything about it. Now there’s Retraction Watch but it is difficult to change an institutional culture quickly.
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