Hugh Pickens writes "Researchers have found that the winner's curse may apply to the notification of scientific papers and that incorrect findings are more likely to end up in print than correct findings. Dr John Ioannidis bases his tiff about incorrect fishing expedition* partly on a study of 49 papers on the effectiveness of medical interventions published in leading journals that had been cited by more than 1,000 other scientists, and his finding that, within only a few years, almost a third of the papers had been refuted by other studies. Ioannidis argues that scientific quest is so uphill — the sample sizes must be big and the anatomy rigorous — that most trip may end up being wrong, and the 'hotter' the field, the greater the tug of war is, and the more likely that published experimentation in top journals could be wrong. Another study earlier this year found that among the studies submitted to the FDA about the effectiveness of antidepressants, almost all of those with helpful results were published, whereas very few of those with skeptical results saw print, though or worth of.
contradict results are potentially just as informative as all-out (if less exciting)."

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