Stuart Ritchie
Psychologist and science writer; wrote Science Fictions on how research goes wrong, and writes the newsletter of the same name.
Stuart Ritchie did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
What they believe
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The replication crisis is not an aberration; many of the things we believe are wrong
We know how easily these practices can distort the scientific record and give us false-positive, nonsense results.
sciencefictions.orgSaid 27 Dec 2022This on korrents
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Published effect sizes shrink as more studies are done, and that decline is what the replication crisis is made of.
The decline effect is the idea that scientific findings get smaller over time. That is, initial findings tend to report effect sizes that then crumble away—sometimes to nothing—with subsequent research.
sciencefictions.orgSaid 11 Oct 2022This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 10 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
The replication crisis is not an aberration; many of the things we believe are wrong
We know how easily these practices can distort the scientific record and give us false-positive, nonsense results.
Science isn't storytelling Said 27 Dec 2022
A scientific paper should not be built around a take-home message, because that invites cherry-picking and hiding the results that did not fit.
This, as was noted on Twitter, is a recipe for bad studies: it encourages the cherry-picking of results that went your way and the hiding of those that didn’t.
Science isn't storytelling Said 27 Dec 2022
Deciding your conclusion before you look at the data is one of the most reality-distorting things a scientist can do.
Having a pre-existing conclusion—a “take-home message”—in mind is one of the most reality-distorting influences on our thinking.
Science isn't storytelling Said 27 Dec 2022
Show 7 more
Compressing a piece of research into a journal paper's word count is itself a distortion of what was found.
The mere act of squeezing a complex process into a few thousand words—limited by a journal-imposed word count—is itself a distortion of reality.
Science isn't storytelling Said 27 Dec 2022
A scientific paper is a description of results, not a story.
A scientific paper isn’t supposed to be a story.
Science isn't storytelling Said 27 Dec 2022
Published effect sizes shrink as more studies are done, and that decline is what the replication crisis is made of.
The decline effect is the idea that scientific findings get smaller over time. That is, initial findings tend to report effect sizes that then crumble away—sometimes to nothing—with subsequent research.
How growth mindset shrank Said 11 Oct 2022
A hyped effect shrinking to a small but real one as the studies improve is a sign that a field is working, not failing.
Initial massive exaggeration of the importance of an effect gives way to more realistic, much smaller effects (which might still be useful) after people start doing better studies.
How growth mindset shrank Said 11 Oct 2022
A tiny, unreplicated study should not be publicised to millions of people as though it were settled.
More generally, you’ve got to wonder if Dweck considered whether the results of this very small, to my knowledge unreplicated, study were really ripe for publicising to literally millions of people
How growth mindset shrank Said 11 Oct 2022
Conflicts of interest in science may be unavoidable, and they are still a bad thing.
And that’s because, whereas this scientist is right that conflicts of interest of some kind are probably inevitable, conflicts are a bad thing.
Science is political - and that's a bad thing Said 29 May 2022
Scientists treat a political conflict of interest as something to be proud of, which they would never do with any other kind.
I’ve noticed that, instead of treating them like other kinds of conflicts—where you put your hands up and admit to them but then do your best to make sure they don’t influence your science—scientists sometimes revel in political conflicts.
Science is political - and that's a bad thing Said 29 May 2022
Beliefs others hold too
The replication crisis is not an aberration; many of the things we believe are wrong 2 hold this
We know how easily these practices can distort the scientific record and give us false-positive, nonsense results.
Science isn't storytelling Said 27 Dec 2022
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 1 thing — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Recommends The Studies Show
BTW, you should also take a look at my podcast with Tom Chivers: The Studies Show.
their own
Where they publish
Newsletter Science Fictions His newsletter on bad science and how to spot it. Has a feed.
Link verified 20 Sept 2026.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.