From Seed Magazine’s recent post I learned about a 2005 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in which epidemiologist John P. A. Ioannidis showed that among the 45 most highly cited clinical research findings of the past 15 years, 99 percent of molecular research had subsequently been refuted. Epidemiology findings had been contradicted in four-fifths of the cases he looked at, and the usually robust outcomes of clinical trials had a refutation rate of one in four. Seed adds that the revelations struck a chord with the scientific community at large: A subsequent open-access essay by Ioannidis entitled “Why most published research findings are false” has been downloaded more than 100,000 times. The Boston Globe called it “an instant cult classic.”
Two recent essays, one by Benjamin Djulbegovic and Iztok Hozo, the other by Ramal Moonesinghe, Muin J. Khoury, and A. Cecile J. W. Janssens, have delved into the issues raised by Ioannidis. The culprits appear to be the proverbial suspects: lies, damn lies, and statistics.
