{"id":3800,"date":"2025-09-24T19:10:41","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T18:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/?p=3800"},"modified":"2025-09-24T19:11:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T18:11:43","slug":"lets-get-negative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2025\/09\/24\/lets-get-negative\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s get negative about scholarly publishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ironically, in the week when my co-authors and I are publishing a paper<\/a> proposing framework to tackle the reluctance of researchers to publish negative results,\u00a0one of the most important null results of recent times \u2013\u00a0the lack of any credible link between paracetamol and autism \u2013 is making<\/a> headlines<\/a> around the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Strictly it\u2019s the unscientific counterclaim that the painkiller causes autism by President Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his Secretary of Health and Human Services that is making the headlines. But in doing so, they have drawn attention in more responsible outlets to the abundant evidence that paracetamol has no such effect.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The scientific misinformation billowing like black smoke from the Trump White House and from other centres of populist politics \u2013 on issues like autism, vaccines, Covid, and climate change, to name but a few \u2013 is choking discourse on matters that are critical to the lives of so many people. These poisonous emanations serve as a reminder of the importance of the scholarly value of critical enquiry, central to which is a commitment to tell the whole<\/i> story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Though science is our most potent tool for figuring out the whole story about how the world works, the academic research record\u2019s neglect of negative results is long-standing. When I described this \u2018publication bias\u2019 ten years ago<\/a>, the problem was not new:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scientific literature has long been skewed by a preponderance<\/a> of positive<\/a> results<\/a>, largely because journals are keen to nurture their reputations for publishing significant, exciting research \u2013 new discoveries that change the way we think about the world. They have tended to look askance at manuscripts reporting beautiful hypotheses undone by the ugly fact of experimental failure. Scientific reporting inverts the traditional values of news media: good news sells. This tendency is reinforced within academic culture<\/a> because our reward mechanisms are so strongly geared to publication in the most prestigious journals. In the worst cases<\/a> it can foster fraudulent or sloppy practices by scientists and journals<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Though publication bias is well-documented, efforts to address the issue have been fragmentary and have failed to make a dent in bias in the research literature arising from the lack of papers reporting negative results. A report from July of this year<\/a> noted that although almost all scientists acknowledge the value of sharing null results (findings that do not confirm a chosen hypothesis), they struggle to publish them.<\/p>\n

So what is new about our paper, which originated in May 2024 at an international workshop<\/a> at the NIH National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) that brought together scholars, funders, publishers and senior university figures to discuss the problem?<\/p>\n

Recognising that the problem is deeply systemic, our article proposes bold, concrete measures that major stakeholders can take to create and incentivise new pathways for publishing negative findings. Key among these would be new requirements from funders for grant awardees to report on all outcomes from the work packages in their research proposals (and to facilitate streamlined options for doing so) and for research institutions and publishers to place more emphasis on methodological rigour, irrespective of experimental outcomes, when assessing research and researchers.<\/p>\n

For the background and context of these proposals, please consult the paper<\/a>, which is free to read and was deliberately kept short and snappy. We hope will re-invigorate moves to end publication bias. We recognise that solutions will not come easily, that they will likely vary by discipline and geography, and will require hard work to implement effectively. We are looking for some courageous major funders and institutions now to take the lead and show the way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The auspices for progress on publication bias are not great. In the year or more since we gathered in the US for our workshop, the Trump regime has been installed in Washington and set about dismantling much of the country\u2019s research ecosystem and reconfiguring policy not on evidence, but on what the President feels to be true. In all probability, many scientists in the US will feel they have much bigger problems to tackle first.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But as anti-science populists grab power in America and elsewhere, it is more important than ever for scientists and scholars to demonstrate our capacity for self-reflection and our commitment to tell the whole story as truthfully as we can. Only with our own house in order can we hope to blow down houses built from straws of misinformation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ironically, in the week when my co-authors and I are publishing a paper proposing framework to tackle the reluctance of researchers to publish negative results,\u00a0one of the most important null results of recent times \u2013\u00a0the lack of any credible link … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3800"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3808,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800\/revisions\/3808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}