

In cancer science, many "discoveries" don't hold up - gruseom
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/us-science-cancer-idUSBRE82R12P20120328

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Alex3917
Heh, I always get downmodded whenever I comment about stuff like this. The
crazy thing is that at an 88% failure-to-reproduce rate, this is literally
lower than the percentage of studies demonstrating efficacy in psychic
phenomena, prayer, acupuncture, etc. I know it's an apples and oranges
comparison, but still.

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gruseom
There is an increasing number of similar reports coming out; this is probably
the worst I've seen so far. This system is corrupt. People don't want to hear
that for the same reason that no human wants to hear what goes against their
religion.

One of the most shocking facts here is that the researchers had to sign
confidentiality agreements promising not to say when they failed to reproduce
a finding.

There's also this interesting detail:

 _The most common response by the challenged scientists was: "you didn't do it
right."_

That could be true. But it also is precisely the psychology of the witch
doctor.

~~~
Alex3917
"People don't want to hear that for the same reason that no human wants to
hear what goes against their religion."

I think a lot of the time people's worldview literally prevents them from
seeing what's in front of them.

E.g. there seem to be three types of treatments in medicine:

A) Treatments that will never work regardless of how much you believe they
work, like intercessory prayer.

B) Treatments that will always work regardless of how much you believe they
don't work, like antibiotics.

C) Treatments that legitimately work but only if you believe they work, which
seemingly include many psychiatric drugs, meditation, probably lots of
treatments relating to chronic illness, etc..

Despite the fact that (in my humble opinion) this seems to be the most
reasonable interpretation based on the evidence, 99% of people literally can't
even see it as a possibility because it goes against their worldview in one
way or the other.

