Notes on the Decline Effect
A collection of memes about the tendency of much published research to not be reproducible and what biases cause this phenomenon.
3 memes in this schema
A Classic Example of Selective Reporting
One of the classic examples of selective reporting concerns the testing of acupuncture in different countries. While acupuncture is widely accepted as a medical treatment in various Asian countries, its use is much more contested in the West. These cultural differences have profoundly influenced the results of…
Corollaries on the Probability that a Research Finding is True
Corollary 1: The smaller the studies conducted in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true. Corollary 2: The smaller the effect sizes in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true. Corollary 3: The greater the number and the lesser the selection of tested…
Publication Bias Produces a "Decline Effect"
Jennions, similarly, argues that the decline effect is largely a product of publication bias, or the tendency of scientists and scientific journals to prefer positive data over null results, which is what happens when no effect is found. The bias was first identified by the statistician Theodore Sterling, in 1959…