
Crowdsourced research: Many hands make tight work - bentoner
http://www.nature.com/news/crowdsourced-research-many-hands-make-tight-work-1.18508
======
creamyhorror
An excellent article making good, clear points. If only more science writing
were like this.

In summary, the authors got 29 teams of researchers to work on the same data
set and answer the same research question (are football [soccer] referees more
likely to give red cards to dark-skinned players?). The teams proposed
different analytical/statistical approaches, discussed each others'
approaches, and came up with a range of effect sizes based on the data.

Some key quotes:

"Most researchers would find this broad range of effect sizes disturbing. It
means that taking any single analysis too seriously could be a mistake, yet
this is encouraged by our current system of scientific publishing and media
coverage."

"The transparency resulting from a crowdsourced approach should be
particularly beneficial when important policy issues are at stake. The
uncertainty of scientific conclusions about, for example, the effects of the
minimum wage on unemployment, and the consequences of economic austerity
policies should be investigated by crowds of researchers rather than left to
single teams of analysts."

"Scientists around the world are hungry for more-reliable ways to discover
knowledge and eager to forge new kinds of collaborations to do so. Our first
project had a budget of zero, and we attracted scores of fellow scientists
with two tweets and a Facebook post."

It would be great to see collaborative platforms for the scientific community
grow in popularity and give rise to more valid, vetted research findings.

------
rhema
The research here is interesting, but the title seems odd for the content. A
consensus of researchers found either no results of racism (which are often
unpublished) or results with the similar meaning (that race was a factor). In
a research paper, rather than media echo chambers, methods are generally clear
to their intended audience. To me, the finding indicate that research is
functioning correctly.

