This past Sunday I read an article in the NY Times magazine entitled "Trial and Error". Its thesis is that the scientific publishing system does little to prevent scientific fraud. I happen to agree with that; but another part of the article I strongly disagree with.
The author writes: "John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist, recently concluded that most articles published by biomedical journals are flat out wrong."
Che cazzo dici!
I am sorry, John, but your research is what is wrong. I do not agree that most articles are 'flat out wrong'. I have spent my career reading articles about viruses and I can tell you that most of them are correct. You just do not know how to do an experiment, John. You cannot possibly have sampled all the biomedical disciplines to make this conclusion, because you simply do not know enough about each one to determine whether the article is right or wrong. You probably never even looked at an article about viruses! Look at my publications - I would say most of them are right! I'm not trying to boast, it's just correct!
This is the kind of garbage that makes the public distrust scientists. It doesn't matter if the conclusion is patently ridiculous; the public cannot distinguish. They come away from reading the article thinking we all publish junk. Thanks a lot, NY Times. Nice work.
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