Fetishized social scientific methodologies from dissimilar fields are adapted by grant-hungry researchers and applied to unrepresentative samples of 18-21 year olds in large Midwestern universities before being coded by untrained and apathetic work studies - and you're saying this doesn't produce robust results?

We all make mistakes and, if you believe medical scholar John Ioannidis, scientists make more than their fair share. By his calculations, most published research findings are wrong. Dr. Ioannidis is an epidemiologist who studies research methods at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece and Tufts University in Medford, Mass. In a series of influential analytical reports, he has documented how, in thousands of peer-reviewed research papers published every year, there may be so much less than meets the eye. These flawed findings, for the most part, stem not from fraud or formal misconduct, but from more mundane misbehavior: miscalculation, poor study design or self-serving data analysis. "There is an increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims," Dr. Ioannidis said. "A new claim about a research finding is more likely to be false than true."

Though, in fairness to them, they do have significance tests. Oh well. At least medicine isn't a life or death issue.

References:
* Most Science Studies Appear to Be Tainted By Sloppy Analysis [WSJ]

Previously:
* Cog Sci Blog Roundup
* Psychoanalytic Theory - Come For The Answers, But Stay For The Questions
* Disturbingly, Quantitative Analysis May Have Methodological Shortcomings - Blogosphere Edition