Stuart Ritchie

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27 December 2022

Stuart RitchieKorrents 27 Dec 2022

From one piece Science isn't storytelling 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there

korrents.com
A scientific paper is a description of results, not a story.

Their words

A scientific paper isn’t supposed to be a story.

Science isn't storytellingsciencefictions.org
korrents.com
Compressing a piece of research into a journal paper's word count is itself a distortion of what was found.

Their words

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 storytellingsciencefictions.org
korrents.com
Deciding your conclusion before you look at the data is one of the most reality-distorting things a scientist can do.

Their words

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 storytellingsciencefictions.org

+ 2 more

korrents.com
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.

Their words

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 storytellingsciencefictions.org
korrents.com
The replication crisis is not an aberration; many of the things we believe are wrong

peer reviewmetascience

Their words

We know how easily these practices can distort the scientific record and give us false-positive, nonsense results.

Science isn't storytellingsciencefictions.org

11 October 2022

Stuart RitchieKorrents 11 Oct 2022

From one piece How growth mindset shrank 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there

korrents.com
A tiny, unreplicated study should not be publicised to millions of people as though it were settled.

Their words

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 shranksciencefictions.org
korrents.com
A hyped effect shrinking to a small but real one as the studies improve is a sign that a field is working, not failing.

Their words

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 shranksciencefictions.org
korrents.com
Published effect sizes shrink as more studies are done, and that decline is what the replication crisis is made of.

peer reviewmetascience

Their words

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 shranksciencefictions.org

29 May 2022

Stuart RitchieKorrents 29 May 2022

From one piece Science is political - and that's a bad thing 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

korrents.com
Scientists treat a political conflict of interest as something to be proud of, which they would never do with any other kind.

Their words

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 thingsciencefictions.org
korrents.com
Conflicts of interest in science may be unavoidable, and they are still a bad thing.

Their words

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 thingsciencefictions.org

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