Isn’t that the whole point? It does in fact seem that scientists in general are not good at telling good studies from had. Why would this be surprising?
If scientists can't tell good studies from bad and yet use the results of these studies, then in my mind those scientists are simply doing bad science and are adding to the problem, since their studies will also be bad.
The first example given in the article is of a researcher who published faked results. Other researches shouldn't be basing their research on these faked results. They can wait till the results are independently replicated, or replicate them themselves.
The main reason of using a scientific method is to eliminate bad theories and part of this is determining the truthfulness of other scientists.
In summary, using bad studies isn't fundamental unless you're fundementally doing bad science that can't discern good evidence from bad. The "surprise" you are attributing to my comments is essentially amazement at the idea that people trained to seek knowledge would be so careless that they take the results of studies as a base truth with which to continue their work.
> If scientists can't tell good studies from bad and yet use the results of these studies, then in my mind those scientists are simply doing bad science and are adding to the problem, since their studies will also be bad.
Yes, I completely agree with this.
> They can wait till the results are independently replicated,
Yes, this would be ideal. A mechanism to trace replication history would help. Most studies though never get replicated, and don’t replicate.
> or replicate them themselves.
In very rare cases, perhaps, but in general this would be impractical.
> In summary, using bad studies isn't fundamental
How can you be so sure? The reason science is done this way is due to human behavior and incentive systems which have never so far escaped this problem. You are comparing against an ideal which has never existed in reality.
> unless you're fundementally doing bad science
This is how science is done. It is certainly fundamental to the current practice of science.
> that can't discern good evidence from bad.
This is a false dichotomy. Evidence is not binary. Science is much less able to distinguish strong evidence from weak evidence than in your imagined ideal, but then again, your imagined ideal has never existed,
> The "surprise" you are attributing to my comments is essentially amazement at the idea that people trained to seek knowledge would be so careless that they take the results of studies as a base truth with which to continue their work.
Are you feigning the surprise as a rhetorical device or do you really not know how science works?
