Positive findings are around twice as likely to be published as negative findings. This is a cancer at the core of evidence-based medicine.
Interpretation
Positive results are preferentially published over negative ones, undermining trust in medical evidence.
This quote by Ben Goldacre highlights a significant bias in the publication practices of medical research, where studies that yield positive findings are more likely to be published than those with negative findings. This imbalance can lead to a distorted understanding of medical evidence, inhibiting genuine progress and improvement in healthcare, as important negative outcomes may be overlooked.
In practice
In a research talk, one could quote Goldacre to emphasize the importance of transparency in scientific publishing.
Teaching needs an ecosystem that supports evidence-based practice. It will need better systems to disseminate the results of research more widely, but also a better understanding of research, so that teachers can be critical consumers of evidence.
Yes. I'm a doctor, an epidemiologist, and lots of my professional colleagues flip back and forth between industry and medical roles. I know them; they are not bad people. But it is possible for good people in bad systems to do things that inflict enormous harm.
Even though I knew pretty early that I was going to be a scientist, it wasn't the science that interested me in science fiction; it was the vision of future societies that, for better or worse, would be radically different from our own.
Now that we can read and write the genetic code, put it in digital form and translate it back into synthesized life, it will be possible to speed up biological evolution to the pace of social evolution.
Many people find the universe confusing - it's not.
The constancy of the internal environment is the condition for free and independent life: the mechanism that makes it possible is that which assured the maintenance, with the internal environment, of all the conditions necessary for the life of the elements.
Research can only present data about the past. No one seriously believes that people's answers to hypothetical questions about the future accurately represent their future behaviour; they merely represent a current attitude, which may or may not be translated into future behaviour.
No human investigation can be called real science if it cannot be demonstrated mathematically.
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