Revista Science destaca em sua última edição dificuldade de cientistas em divulgar pesquisas cujos dados contrariam as próprias hipóteses. Defende que sistematização de pesquisas ditas de resultados “nulos” poderia contribuir para o avanço da ciência.
Da Science 29 August 2014
Why null results rarely see the light of day
Jeffrey Mervis
A team at Stanford University reports online this week in Science that scientists are unlikely to even write up an experiment that produces so-called null results. A study of 221 survey-based experiments funded by the TESS (Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences) program at the National Science Foundation has found that almost two-thirds of the experiments yielding null findings are stuck in a file drawer rather than being submitted to a journal, and only 21% are published. In contrast, 96% of the experiments that yield strong results are written up, and 62% of them are published. Such practices by researchers can skew the literature and lead to wasteful duplication, the authors argue. To combat the problem, the authors call for a social science registry that would contain all such data, as well as descriptions of the methodology used to analyze the results.
Science 29 August 2014:
Vol. 345 no. 6200 p. 992
DOI: 10.1126/science.345.6200.992
Mundo de Maria 