Science Fictions: The Epidemic of Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype in Science by Stuart Ritchie

Scientific Meta-Hype

Here’s a rough summary of Science Fictions:

1. There is no officially established procedure called ‘scientific method,’ by which to judge the quality of research results.
2. The process by which the results of scientific research are validated for consideration by the scientific community cannot ensure the reliability of these results either.
3. Consequently what circulates at any given time as scientific fact is mostly wrong or misleading. It takes time to discover errors.
4. Steps can be taken, mostly by non-scientists and a new kind of science, to reduce if not eliminate the amount of junk science currently being produced.

In other words science works, when it does, not because of how experimentation, theorisation, and analysis are carried out, or how the findings of individual scientists are publicised or criticised by colleagues, or because these findings are proven wrong, but because most of what is publicised will eventually be ignored as irrelevant. This Ritchie finds disturbing.

A key word in the above is ‘eventually.’ For science to be science, everything that is known is tentative. And centuries of scientific experience shows that everything known at any time will be ignored at some future time except as a kind of intellectual fossil. This is as close to an accurate existential definition of Science as one is likely to get.

I don’t think Stuart Ritchie would disagree with this assessment. Science, like politics, is extremely messy. That is to say, Science is inherently inefficient (I use caps to designate the modern institution). It does not progress according to any definable logic since it is constantly reviewing the logic it has previously adopted. Therefore, looking back from any point in time, the resources engaged in scientific efforts - money, talent, time, administration - have largely been spent in a demonstrably fruitless way.

This waste is essentially what Ritchie is writing about. A large part of his book is devoted to the errors, frauds, and bloopers in scientific research ranging from his own field of psychology to cancer research and molecular physics. Eventually these mistakes mostly are not refuted but buried by further research. In the meantime the scientific community has wasted effort. And, he says, this waste has serious impact because of delay in acquiring important knowledge for health, social policy, and the general well-being of society. The waste can be reduced, he says, and he has suggestions about how to do that.

Ritchie calls our current situation a “crisis.” He believes the existing institutions of Science are “corrupt.” He cites compelling evidence that “any given published scientific article is more likely to be false than true.” There have been, he says, “over 18,000 retractions in the scientific literature since the 1970’s,” largely due to forgery, conflict of interest, self-promotion or even criminal intentions. In cancer research Ritchie cites a study in 2017 which:
“… scoured the literature for studies using known misidentified cell lines found an astonishing 32,755 papers that used so-called impostor cells, and over 500,000 papers that cited those contaminated studies”

So serious business. Perhaps the UK government, which was purportedly “following the science assiduously” at the outset of the COVID pandemic in 2020 should have read Ritchie’s book immediately it was published. That might have saved some lives, relieved marital strife during lockdown, and avoided the immensely costly track and trace boondoggle. So what is it that the world should do to lessen the incidence of junk science, avoidably stupid science, not to mention criminal science? Surely this is an issue deserving of further investigation by the proper authorities.

Well a part of Ritchie’s solution is something somewhat more trivial than the problem he describes. Essentially his first recommendation is that SCIENTISTS MUST BECOME MORE VIGILANT. In more detail, this means brushing up a bit on their statistics, taking their job as peer reviewers of professional articles more seriously, mitigating the hype surrounding unusual research findings, being more watchful for professional fads, and being a little more suspicious of whatever they read in print. Hardly revolutionary, and somewhat condescending.

“Become more vigilant” is about all he can say to fellow scientists if he wants to maintain credibility. Anything else, like government supervision or professional regulations about how to conduct proper science, would destroy science itself. So he directs his next directives to non-scientists - universities, research institutes, journal editors and foundations. He would like them to stop providing incentives to scientists and academics that promote a lack of vigilance - number of published articles, citation intensity, implicit funding demands to overstate expected research results, organisational promotion etc.

But it is at this point that Ritchie’s ship of a new science runs aground and founders. He admits that scientists themselves are complicit in the web of incentives he abhors. In fact they want them:

“What’s particularly disconcerting is that the people entangled in this thicket of worthless numbers are scientists: they’re supposed to be the very people who are most au fait with statistics, and most critical of their misuse. And yet somehow, they find themselves working in a system where these hollow and misleading metrics are prized above all else. ”

Of course they are. So Ritchie’s killer app is an extraordinary proposal for the establishment of an essentially new profession of the “meta-scientist,” that is a group of scientists who study the work of other scientists. Part of this proposal are suggestions for new journals devoted to this meta-science, including the reporting of results of research flops, so called null result studies, which didn’t lead anywhere. He also wants public “pre-registration” of research intentions and expectations, as well as “Open Source” free access to registered research and its results. He thereby cleverly keeps scientific regulation in the family, as it were, away from politicians, government bureaucrats, and the un-lettered masses.

Ah yes, Dr. Ritchie, may one ask who controls the controllers? Will the world need meta-meta-science in a few years time. And isn’t your idea of pre-registration just a teensy bit bureaucratic and of unproven scientific worth. It’s an idea that may be suitable for big government-funded drug studies simply because of the fortunes to be gained. But for evaluating the reaction of mice to increased testosterone, for example, such regulation seems highly inappropriate. Then there’s the issue of the scientific police who would enforce the registration and supervision of research. Would their approval be necessary for changing a study’s direction mid-stream? And would the penalties for non-compliance be civil or criminal do you think?

Is it too much to assert that the condition in which science finds itself today is no different than it found itself when the Royal Society was founded in 1660, or for that matter in the ancient groves of Grecian academe. In fact I’m willing to bet that there are proportionately fewer scientific hacks in the world today than there has ever been thanks to modern procedures of accreditation and the spread of information through modern technology.

So what is the point of Ritchie’s proposals? Every example of error or malfeasance that Ritchie cites is an instance of the current community of scientists exposing and discounting flakey results. More will certainly be uncovered. Isn’t that the important fact - they will be uncovered? Not as fast as Ritchie would like apparently. But then can he demonstrate scientifically how much quicker good results will be available? And at what cost? And given that eventually all scientific conclusions will be subject to correction, is it possible that he’s just blowing smoke?

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