Bad Science, Sloppy Analysis

The Wall Street Journal, in its Friday "Science Journal" column on September 14th, reported on medical scholar John Ioannidis' review of 'scientific research, ' both published and, especially troubling, refereed.

The headline on this topic is that much published science is misleading, inaccurate, and/or simply wrong. Ioannidis found flaws in miscalculations, inept study design, and self-serving data analyses. In the Journal piece, he is quoted as saying,

"There is an increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims. A new claim about a research finding is more likely to be false than true."

Dr. Ioannidis goes on to warn that the 'hotter' the field, the more suspect are the research findings claims.

As I was reading this article, one topic kept coming to mind. Of course, it's global warming.

Of all the recent junk science claims, global warming would seem to most fit Dr. Ionannidis' description of poorly done, dubious claims.

Little of the supporting "evidence" comes from refereed papers or Journal articles. Instead, those who would dispute any global warming findings are shouted down as in the pocket of big business, or having the wrong politics.

Environmental change is perhaps, currently, the penultimate 'hot' field. Each new finding supporting global warming is front page news. Conflicting findings are often simply ignored.

For instance, the recent discovery that this century's hottest year was actually early on, in the first two decades, poked a major hole in on Federal government scientist's contentions regarding recent warming trends. When confronted with his mistake, he alleged that recent temperature trends were not the basis on which he had made various claims.

Dr. Ioannidis' own research is both refreshing, and troubling. Refreshing for daring to find that many scientists' work is poorly done, mistake-laden, and suspect. Troubling, in that much government policy and public perception are shaped by such incorrect published scientific work.