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Metascience

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Meta-science refers to the systematic investigation of the scientific enterprise, in other words, the use of scientific methodology to study science itself. It is also known as "research on research" or "the science of science" as it uses research methods to study how research is done and where improvements can be made. It covers all fields of scientific research (including health and medical research) and has been described as "taking a bird’s eye view of science".[1] Meta-science aims to improve scientific practice as summed up by John Ioannidis, "Science is the best thing that has happened to human beings [...] but we can do it better".

History

Meta-science has grown as a reaction to the replication crisis and concerns about waste in research.[2] The earliest meta-research paper was published in 1966 and examined the statistical methods of 295 papers in ten high-profile medical journals in 1964, and found that, "in almost 73% of the reports read [...] conclusions were drawn when the justification for these conclusions was invalid."[3]

In health and medical research concerns have been raised about waste due to publication bias, inadequate research reporting, and poor study design, such as inadequate blinding. It is estimated that 85% of the worldwide research budget in health and medical research is currently wasted.[4] The 85% figure is supported by multiple empirical studies in a range of fields that have attempted to reproduce published peer reviewed research and failed on 75% to 90% of occasions.[5]

Many high-profile scientific publishers are interested in meta-research and improving the quality of their publications. Many of the concerns about waste in health and medical research were described in the 2014 Lancet special issue on 'Research: increasing value, reducing waste'. There is an ongoing special section in Nature on "Challenges in irreproducible research" with 12 editorials (as at August 2017). Science has had an editorial [6], a policy forum [7] and a special issue [8] on meta-research and the problems with reproducibility. PLOS ONE launched a Reproducibility Initiative in 2012. PLOS Biology included a section for papers on meta-research in 2016.[9] Biomed Central introduced a minimum standards of reporting checklist to four titles in 2015.

File:Science magazine cover Sep 2018.gif
Illustration of scientists studying scientists on the front cover of the Science special issue on meta-research
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The first international conference in the broad area of meta-research was the Research Waste/EQUATOR conference in Edinburgh in 2015; the first international conference on peer review was the Peer Review Congress in 1989.[10] The first journal specifically targeting meta-research was Research Integrity and Peer Review launched in 2016. The journal's opening editorial called for, "research that will increase our understanding and suggest potential solutions to issues related to peer review, study reporting, and research and publication ethics".[11]

Applications

Medicine

Blinding has been a recent focus of metascientific research in medicine. Blinding is poorly reported in medical literature and the terminology used to describe it is ambiguous. This has resulted in widespread misunderstanding about the subject. Furthermore, the success or failure of a blind is rarely measured or reported, leading to significant hidden bias[12]. Research showing the failure of blinding in antidepressant trials has lead some scientists to argue that antidepressants are no better than placebos.[13]

Data science

Metascience encompasses both qualitative and quantitative methods. A sub-discipline of metascience that is unique to the modern era is scientific data science, or the use of data science to analyse research papers themselves. Research in scientific data science ranges from fraud detection,[14] to citation network analysis,[15] to developing novel metrics for assessing research impact.[16]

Meta-research centres

See also

References

  1. ^ Ioannidis, John P. A.; Fanelli, Daniele; Dunne, Debbie Drake; Goodman, Steven N. (2015-10-02). "Meta-research: Evaluation and Improvement of Research Methods and Practices". PLOS Biology. 13 (10): –1002264. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002264. ISSN 1545-7885. Retrieved 2019-04-28.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  2. ^ "Researching the researchers". Nature Genetics. 46 (5): 417. 2014. doi:10.1038/ng.2972. ISSN 1061-4036. PMID 24769715.
  3. ^ Schor, Stanley (1966). "Statistical Evaluation of Medical Journal Manuscripts". JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. 195 (13): 1123. doi:10.1001/jama.1966.03100130097026. ISSN 0098-7484.
  4. ^ Chalmers, Iain; Glasziou, Paul (2009). "Avoidable waste in the production and reporting of research evidence". The Lancet. 374 (9683): 86–89. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60329-9. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 19525005.
  5. ^ Begley, C. G.; Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2014). "Reproducibility in Science: Improving the Standard for Basic and Preclinical Research". Circulation Research. 116 (1): 116–126. doi:10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.114.303819. ISSN 0009-7330. PMID 25552691.
  6. ^ Buck, S. (2015). "Solving reproducibility". Science. 348 (6242): 1403. doi:10.1126/science.aac8041. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 26113692.
  7. ^ Alberts, B.; Cicerone, R. J.; Fienberg, S. E.; Kamb, A.; McNutt, M.; Nerem, R. M.; Schekman, R.; Shiffrin, R.; Stodden, V.; Suresh, S.; Zuber, M. T.; Pope, B. K.; Jamieson, K. H. (2015). "Self-correction in science at work". Science. 348 (6242): 1420–1422. doi:10.1126/science.aab3847. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 26113701.
  8. ^ Enserink, Martin (2018). "Research on research". Science. 361 (6408): 1178–1179. doi:10.1126/science.361.6408.1178. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 30237336.
  9. ^ Kousta, Stavroula; Ferguson, Christine; Ganley, Emma (2016). "Meta-Research: Broadening the Scope of PLOS Biology". PLOS Biology. 14 (1): e1002334. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002334. ISSN 1545-7885. PMC 4699700. PMID 26727031.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  10. ^ Rennie, Drummond (1990). "Editorial Peer Review in Biomedical Publication". JAMA. 263 (10): 1317–1441. doi:10.1001/jama.1990.03440100011001. ISSN 0098-7484. PMID 2304208.
  11. ^ Harriman, Stephanie L.; Kowalczuk, Maria K.; Simera, Iveta; Wager, Elizabeth (2016). "A new forum for research on research integrity and peer review". Research Integrity and Peer Review. 1 (1): 5. doi:10.1186/s41073-016-0010-y. ISSN 2058-8615. PMC 5794038. PMID 29451544.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  12. ^ Tuleu, Catherine; Legay, Helene; Orlu-Gul, Mine; Wan, Mandy (1 September 2013). "Blinding in pharmacological trials: the devil is in the details". Archives of Disease in Childhood. 98 (9): 656–659. doi:10.1136/archdischild-2013-304037. ISSN 0003-9888. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  13. ^ Ioannidis, John PA (27 May 2008). "Effectiveness of antidepressants: an evidence myth constructed from a thousand randomized trials?". Philosophy, ethics, and humanities in medicine : PEHM. 3: 14. doi:10.1186/1747-5341-3-14. ISSN 1747-5341. Retrieved 23 April 2019.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  14. ^ Markowitz, David M.; Hancock, Jeffrey T. (2016). "Linguistic obfuscation in fraudulent science". Journal of Language and Social Psychology. 35 (4): 435–445. doi:10.1177/0261927X15614605.
  15. ^ Ding, Y. (2010). "Applying weighted PageRank to author citation networks". Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 62 (2): 236–245. arXiv:1102.1760. doi:10.1002/asi.21452.
  16. ^ Zhu, X.; Turney, P.; Lemire, D.; Vellino, A. (2015). "Measuring academic influence: Not all citations are equal". Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 66 (2): 408–427. arXiv:1501.06587. doi:10.1002/asi.23179. hdl:2027.42/134425. Retrieved 2017-02-10.

Further reading

  • R. Harris, Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hopes, and Wastes Billions, Basic Books, 2017 [1]

Journals

  1. ^ Harris, Richard (2017-03-09). Rigor Mortis. ISBN 9780465097913. Retrieved 2017-04-09.
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