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  3. There is, writes Daniele Fanelli in a recent issue of Nature, something rotten in the state of scientific research—"an epidemic

There is, writes Daniele Fanelli in a recent issue of Nature, something rotten in the state of scientific research—"an epidemic

admin2018-06-06  51
问题     There is, writes Daniele Fanelli in a recent issue of Nature, something rotten in the state of scientific research—"an epidemic of false, biased, and falsified findings" where "only the most egregious cases of misconduct are discovered and punished." Fanelli is a leading thinker in an increasingly alarming field of scientific research: one that seeks to find out why it is that so much scientific research turns out to be wrong.
    For a long time the focus has either been on industry funding as a source of bias, particularly in drug research, or on those who deliberately commit fraud, such as the spectacular case of Diederik Sta-pel, a Dutch social psychologist who was found to have fabricated at least 55 research papers over 20 years. But an increasing number of studies have shown that flawed research is a much wider phenomenon, especially in the biomedical sciences. Indeed, the investigation into Stapel also blamed a "sloppy" research culture that often ignored inconvenient data and misunderstood important statistical methods.
    "There’s little question that the scientific literature is awash(充斥着) in false findings—findings that if you try to replicate you’ll probably never succeed or at least find them to be different from what was initially said," says Fanelli, "But people don’t appreciate that this is not because scientists are manipulating these results, consciously or unconsciously; it’s largely because we have a system that favors statistical flukes instead of replicable findings."
    This is why, he says, we need to extend the idea of academic misconduct (currently limited to fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism) to "distorted reporting"—the failure to communicate all the information someone would need to validate your findings. Right now, he says, we’re missing all the " unconscious biases, the systemic biases... the practices, mistakes, and problems that hardly ever count as cheating , even though they have a very important and probably the largest effect on creating technically false results in the literature."
    One particularly challenging bias is that academic journals tend to publish only positive results. As Isabelle Boutron, a professor of epidemiology at René Descartes University in Paris, points out, studies have shown that peer reviewers are influenced by trial results; one study showed that they not only favored a paper showing a positive effect over a near-identical paper showing no effect, they also gave the positive paper higher scores for its scientific methods. And Boutron has herself found extensive evidence of scientists spinning their findings to claim benefits that their actual results didn’t quite support.
    "We need a major cultural change," says Fanelli. "But when you think that, even 20 years ago, these issues were practically never discussed, I think we’re making considerable progress."
According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?
选项 A、Academic misconduct is limited on industry funding and academic fraud.
B、Conscious manipulation of scientists is to blame for the increasingly false findings.
C、Positive research findings won’t bring about fame for scientists.
D、Fanelli still feels confident about the prospect.
答案D
解析
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