What’s the problem with science? Here we are going to tell you our top 5. We are 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 a list of the big problems in scientific research:
1. Convenience Bias
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 betterbalancing of male and female subject numbers in studies.
2. Sex Bias
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.
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3. 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, andbe considered impactful.
It turns out that these journals also have higher retractionrates 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.
4. 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 withpersonal 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 cementtheir 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.
5. Money Bias
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 economicgains is being underfunded as government grants emphasize “practical” research with more immediate and conceivable payoffs.
To make up for shortfalls from public funding, researcherslook 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.
We 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 (likecrowd-funding), and remove human bias from experiments.
Our advice to you: Be patient with the process,continue to be awe-struck by science when it’s deserved, and always be skeptical ofthe extraordinary. Do you think I missed anything? What do youthink of my list?
Source: Seeker
