An insider's view of science reveals why many scientific results
cannot be relied upon - and how the system can be reformed.
Science is how we understand the world. Yet failures in peer review and
mistakes in statistics have rendered a shocking number of scientific
studies useless - or, worse, badly misleading. Such errors have
distorted our knowledge in fields as wide-ranging as medicine, physics,
nutrition, education, genetics, economics, and the search for
extraterrestrial life. As Science Fictions makes clear, the current
system of research funding and publication not only fails to safeguard
us from blunders but actively encourages bad science - with sometimes
deadly consequences.
Stuart Ritchie's own work challenging an infamous psychology experiment
helped spark what is now widely known as the "replication crisis," the
realization that supposed scientific truths are often just plain wrong.
Now, he reveals the very human biases, misunderstandings, and deceptions
that undermine the scientific endeavor: from contamination in science
labs to the secret vaults of failed studies that nobody gets to see;
from outright cheating with fake data to the more common, but still
ruinous, temptation to exaggerate mediocre results for a shot at
scientific fame.
Yet Science Fictions is far from a counsel of despair. Rather, it's a
defense of the scientific method against the pressures and perverse
incentives that lead scientists to bend the rules. By illustrating the
many ways that scientists go wrong, Ritchie gives us the knowledge we
need to spot dubious research and points the way to reforms that could
make science trustworthy once again.
