DTLR has often lamented the pollution of the scientific literature by papers with flawed methodology or reporting, including bad study designs (e.g., lack of randomization in preclinical comparative studies) or bad analyses. The inclusion of such published but flawed research has an amplifying effect when it is included in meta-analyses and systematic reviews.
Now comes a pair of news articles, one in Science by Holly Else, and the latest from Nature by Richard van Noorden, reporting that the inclusion of fake papers has even further polluted the literature and undermined such systematic reviews and meta-analyses. This is an indictment of the existing mechanisms to fund, peer-review, and publish scientific research.
The DTLR blog was founded partly to provide discussion of the eroded quality of the scientific literature, but it seems in the decade since its existence, the problem has only gotten worse. And the public cannot be asked to "trust" science until scientists themselves can trust what their colleagues are doing.
What is the point of trying to do scientific research, when even the most rigorous and careful scientists will see their work published alongside flawed or even completely faked "research"? Why are society's resources being funneled into an enterprise that is increasingly becoming a charade instead of a genuine contribution to human knowledge?
This is a very discouraging way to bring 2024 to an end!
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