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Science is said to be suffering a reproducibility crisis caused by many biases. How common are these problems, across the wide diversity of research fields? We probed for multiple bias-related patterns in a large random sample of meta-analyses taken from all disciplines.
The science and engineering workforce has aged rapidly, both absolutely and relative to the workforce, which is a concern if the large number of older scientists crowds out younger scientists.
A time traveler from 1915 arriving in 1965 would have been astonished by the scientific theories and engineering technologies invented during that half century. One can only speculate, but it seems likely that few of the major advances that emerged during those 50 years were even remotely foreseeable in 1915.
Competition leads to more innovation but also to more unfair reviews and to a lower level of agreement between reviewers. Moreover, competition does not improve the average quality of published works.
This study shows that the long-run patterns of international scientific collaboration are generating a convergence between applied and basic fields. This convergence of collaboration patterns across research fields might be one of contributing factors that supports the evolution of scientific disciplines.
Scientists perform a tiny subset of all possible experiments. What characterizes the experiments they choose? And what are the consequences of those choices for the pace of scientific discovery?
Though there are currently no mechanisms in place to quickly identify findings that are unlikely to replicate, this paper shows that prediction markets are well suited to bridge this gap.
A fresh take on scientific workforce diversity approaching it as a scientific opportunity rather than as an intractable problem.
Study reveals gender bias favoring male applicants over female applicants in the prioritization of their “quality of researcher” evaluations and success rates.
Paper showing that increasing research investments, resulting in an increasing knowledge base, have not yielded comparative gains in certain health outcomes over the last five decades. [Closed Access]
The scientific community must not rely exclusively on the impact factors of journals.
Scientific papers typically have a finite lifetime. Previous studies pointed out the existence of a few blatant exceptions: papers whose relevance has not been recognized for decades, but then suddenly become highly influential and cited. This study investigates how common Sleeping Beauties are in science.
Why only 2 of 43 young scientists receiving the prestigious University Research Fellowships in the UK were women.
Reproducibility alone is insufficient to address the replication crisis because even a reproducible analysis can suffer from many problems that threaten the validity and useful interpretation of the results.
On the challenges of crowdfunded science projects.
Evaluative strategies that increase the mean quality of published science may also increase the risk of rejecting unconventional or outstanding work.
On the delay in young scientists obtaining NIH grants.
First comprehensive study of patterns of text reuse within the full texts of an important large scientific corpus, covering a 20-y timeframe.
Scientific debates often blur the lines between the science that is being debated and the political, moral, and legal implications that come with its societal applications. This manuscript traces the origins of this phenomenon to professional norms within the scientific discipline.
Four prominent academics call for an overhaul of the US biomedical research workforce.
Without provision of information about candidates other than their appearance, men are twice more likely to be hired for a mathematical task than women. If ability is self-reported, women still are discriminated against, because employers do not fully account for men’s tendency to boast about performance.
