Bad science, better career?

[Ollie123]

Just need to vent a recent source of frustration. Does anyone else ever feel like it would be a better career move to stop trying to do things well?

The more research I read, the more "unreported" things I realize might be there, and the more I realize how much sloppy science is still publishable in good journals. "Artifact correction" can mean many different things, is rarely explained in detail, and can make DRAMATIC differences in the data. Much of social psych seems like a joke to me - journals publishing multi-experiment studies that really consisted of 10 experiments with the 3-4 that came out the way the authors wanted being included.

The most well known researcher I worked for as an undergrad did some of the worst work I have ever seen. The datasets were disasters, ripe with entry errors, coding disasters, etc. but tons of work was still being published, grants were gotten, etc. I wouldn't trust a single paper that has been published in the past decade.

Anyways, just venting some frustration, but am curious if others have had similar thoughts. I feel like such attention to detail is needed for research, yet the publication system doesn't seem to account for that.

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[Therapist4Chnge]

If you want to get even more pissed off, most of the people who make the most money are not even the best at what they do....they just find better opportunities to produce/conduct mediocre work.

 

[erg923]

I have felt this way for years now. Being in the trenches and inner workings or large instituition academic research makes you realize how many errors are likely to happen- from coding, to entry, to diagnostic, to puposeful ignornace of questionale data, to the all too common "so what?" article that is, in reality, just intellectual masterbation for academics and probably will not be solved or utilized anytime in the next 500 years. I always take every finding with a grain of salt. I always think its funny that no matter what you lit review in psychology, there is always at least handful of studies showing the exact opposite effect/finding as everyone else. It seems to me that the "more research needs to be conducted" mantra that people blindly put into every discussion section actually hold us back sometimes. My view is that there is more than enough crap out there already on tons of things. Sometimees I think it the enourmous volume of stuff out there is what makes undecovering the real truth so difficult....lol

 

[Xararsis]

I've seen this firsthand at my university, although your complaints suggest data incompetence whereas my frustrations stem from corrupt data interpretation...

This is what happens in academia when the most prestigious universities evaluate their professors almost entirely upon how many "A" level journal publications they can pelt out. I'm right there with you buddy, it's a real eye opener isn't it?

 

[Buzzwordsoldier]

I have felt this way for years now. Being in the trenches and inner workings or large instituition academic research makes you realize how many errors are likely to happen- from coding, to entry, to diagnostic, to puposeful ignornace of questionale data, to the all too common "so what?" article that is, in reality, just intellectual masterbation for academics and probably will not be solved or utilized anytime in the next 500 years. I always take every finding with a grain of salt. I always think its funny that no matter what you lit review in psychology, there is always at least handful of studies showing the exact opposite effect/finding as everyone else. It seems to me that the "more research needs to be conducted" mantra that people blindly put into every discussion section actually hold us back sometimes. My view is that there is more than enough crap out there already on tons of things. Sometimees I think it the enourmous volume of stuff out there is what makes undecovering the real truth so difficult....lol

erg -- you sound depressed. You may want to talk with your doctor about FDA approved medications proven effective in the treatment of depression....Oh wait, that probably wouldn't inspire confidence, would it...

 

[medium rare]

...to the all too common "so what?" article that is, in reality, just intellectual masterbation for academics and probably will not be solved or utilized anytime in the next 500 years...

BTW, as someone who does a good deal of sex therapy, it's masTURbation. Just sayin.

 

[JockNerd]

Oy. Yes, I see some of this. I have some very lazy colleagues who do crappy stuff. It's worse in the social sciences because we can't really do experiments to solidly disprove something that looks fishy like they can do in sciences like physics or chem.

I rationalize it pretty well. I do the best I can and get good feedback about my work. I can only control my own actions and if others behave in irresponsible ways I can't control that. I CAN (and do) Revise and Resubmit the crap out of suspicious articles, which is one of the main reasons I like to review for journals.