Key ideas- Bad Science

Key ideas- Bad Science

1. Why does it matter; Health, Legal, Ethical, Financial, Progress

2. Science vs Pseudoscience; Better visualised as a continuum, with 'good science' at one end and 'bad science' at the other.

   • Pseudoscience is a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as beign based on scientific method

3. The scientific Method

   • Empirical testing is a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Systematic observation involves creating a study in such a way that bias is eliminated.
   • cause and effect which means that although 2 variable are correlate, this does not definitely mean that one causes the other, a third variable may example this correlation.
   • The falsification principle proposes that fro something to be scientific it must be able to be proven false.
   • Reliability refers to whether the aem result is achieved when a study is tested on two separate occasions
   • Validity refers to whether a study actuals tests what it claims to be testing
   • Repeatability refers to whether a study can be tested by other researches and if the same result is achieved
   • peer review which occurs where before articles are published, journals vert each article by having 2/3 experts evaluate is.
   • peer review; before articles are published, journals vert each article by having 2/3 experts evaluate is.
   • Replication, other researchers will often try to reproduce it, difficulting in replication; replication crisis.

4. Pseudoscience is a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as beign based on scientific method. Little or no empirical support for their claims. It is unfalsifiable and not backed up by real science.

5. Replication crisis; many failed attempts to replicate findings from psychologists most prestigious journals. E.G. 2015 science paper which published a large scale attempt to replicate 100 findings from papers published in 3 of psychology’s top journals. Successfully replicated only 23 of the 100 findings.

   • The power pose; assertive & powerful physical pose which has a physiology and psychological effect making you more confident and powerful (Carney, Cuddy and Yap 2010). However positive benefits of power posing have proven difficult to replicate (Ranehill et al 2015). On of the co-authors, Dana Carney stated that she no longer believes that power pose effects are real.
   • The file drawer effect; researchers run the same experiment several times but only report results from the one time the experiment ‘worked’ and yieled results that supported the researchers theory.

6. Bad Science Repression; unconscious but willful ‘blocking out’ of memories of traumatic events

   • Williams 1994 interviwed 129 women who had been sexually asbused 17 years earlier, 38% of women did not mention the index case of abuse. Williams argues that this represents evidence for repression
   • Other explanations; children amnesia, given that women had a history of repeated abused, maybe a single incident wasn’t very distinctive, some women may not have felt comfortable speaking about the abuse to a stranger conducting the interview.

7. Bad science Myes-Briggs type indicator; tests is used to predict the career for which a person is best suited, millions of copies of the test are administrated at work, schools and community groups etc

   • howver issues with this test include reliability and validity. After a delay of 5 weeks, 50% of people are classififed into a different personality type, thus indicating bad science.
   • Personality types; Attitude, Perceiving, Judging, Lifestyle

8. Engaging in poor scientific practises

   • Belief in a theory, Incentives in a scientific career, researchers are rewarded for publications in forms of jobs, promotions, grants etc