Tag: 08.30.05

A new study says that “problems with experimental and statistical methods mean that there is less than a 50% chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper are true.” It found that “small sample sizes, poor study design, researcher bias, and selective reporting and other problems combine to make most research findings false. But even large, well-designed studies are not always right, meaning that scientists and the public have to be wary of reported findings.”

A researcher plugged in 26,000 opinions issued by the Supreme Court between the early 19th century and the present day into his computer. “He treated each of these cases as a node and each citation from one case to another as a link. The result was a complicated web resembling a map of cities linked by dozens of airlines. He found the most important opinions, at least judged by how many times they were cited, by working out which nodes were likeliest to fall on the shortest paths between two other nodes. Intriguingly, the cases mostly come from an advanced and esoteric subject…

The placebo effect has long fascinated researchers. A new study says that the placebo effect might not be all in your head. “The mere belief that they had received a pain killer was enough to release the brain’s natural painkilling endorphins in the patients tested, scientists say.”