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Statements posted on this blog represent the views of individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Center for Law Science & Innovation (which does not take positions on policy issues) or of the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law or Arizona State University.

Wednesday Web Watch for May 27, 2015

WWWearth

Making claims when writing an article about science & technology (as we often do here) usually requires consideration of sound scientific reports.   Presumably, this means turning to trustworthy sources that publish equally reputable and reliable studies.   There are those of us who are not trained to expertly evaluate and reproduce scientific experiments, much less conduct the original.  So we rely on the gatekeepers of bad science to weed out the good from the bad.  Yet how are we to be certain that what we are asserting as fact, really is verifiably accurate?  In an article titled The Trouble With Scientists, Nautilus contributor Philip Ball discusses the issue of biased science through the lens of concerned stakeholders.  Ball highlights cognitive biases, motivated reasoning, pressures to “publish or perish,” and peer-review pitfalls.  He then reveals how one psychologist, in particular, is attempting to address bad science with the “Open Science Framework” (“OSF”), a research registry scheme administered through the Center for Open Science in Charlottesville, VA.  Aside from promoting transparency, the OSF requires the formulation of a detailed hypotheses, before, not after results are established, so as not to “present unexpected results as expected.”  OSF users report positive experiences, characterizing it as an essential tool for practicing sound science.