Actual science or fictional science?

Ritchie, Stuart.  Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search 

          for Truth.  New York: Metropolitan Books, 2020.  ISBN: 9781250222695

 

What do you know of the scientific method?  Now that you talked about how science is supposed to be done, what do you know of the publishing process for scientific research?  Well Stuart Ritchie, a social scientist, presents you with plenty of evidence that all is not well in the world of science, whether social or physical science!

 

Ritchie opens with some examples in  the Preface, then has a chapter on how science works or at least is supposed to work.  He then discusses the replication crisis that is still gripping science (people duplicating experiments but getting very different results than the original experiment).  He follows this up with chapters on fraud in science, how bias of various sorts infect science, how negligence leads to worthless and/or bad science, and how hyping results lead to over-blown expectations that do not pan out.  Ritchie follows up these chapters with an examination on the perverse incentives that scientists have when doing and publishing science (need for funding, need for publications, need to positive vs negative results, etc.  But he finishes the book with some steps that may help turn the tide on the scientific fictions being published.  And a s a final gift to the reader, he has an appendix entitled "How to Read a Scientific Paper" - in other words how to evaluate for yourself whether an article is actually science or just pretending!

Science Fictions is not for those who want a story, but will richly reward those who are interested in seeing actual, credible science being produced.