Large-scale assessment of the effect of popularity on the reliability of research.

Based on theoretical reasoning it has been suggested that the reliability of findings published in the scientific literature decreases with the popularity of a research field. Here we provide empirical support for this prediction. We evaluate published statements on protein interactions with data fr...

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Autores principales:	Thomas Pfeiffer, Robert Hoffmann
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2009
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/ee0f6b6a4fa74cc789d0d8b7903384a2
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:ee0f6b6a4fa74cc789d0d8b7903384a22021-11-25T06:21:56ZLarge-scale assessment of the effect of popularity on the reliability of research.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0005996https://doaj.org/article/ee0f6b6a4fa74cc789d0d8b7903384a22009-06-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/19551148/pdf/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Based on theoretical reasoning it has been suggested that the reliability of findings published in the scientific literature decreases with the popularity of a research field. Here we provide empirical support for this prediction. We evaluate published statements on protein interactions with data from high-throughput experiments. We find evidence for two distinctive effects. First, with increasing popularity of the interaction partners, individual statements in the literature become more erroneous. Second, the overall evidence on an interaction becomes increasingly distorted by multiple independent testing. We therefore argue that for increasing the reliability of research it is essential to assess the negative effects of popularity and develop approaches to diminish these effects.Thomas PfeifferRobert HoffmannPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 4, Iss 6, p e5996 (2009)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Thomas Pfeiffer Robert Hoffmann Large-scale assessment of the effect of popularity on the reliability of research.
description	Based on theoretical reasoning it has been suggested that the reliability of findings published in the scientific literature decreases with the popularity of a research field. Here we provide empirical support for this prediction. We evaluate published statements on protein interactions with data from high-throughput experiments. We find evidence for two distinctive effects. First, with increasing popularity of the interaction partners, individual statements in the literature become more erroneous. Second, the overall evidence on an interaction becomes increasingly distorted by multiple independent testing. We therefore argue that for increasing the reliability of research it is essential to assess the negative effects of popularity and develop approaches to diminish these effects.
format	article
author	Thomas Pfeiffer Robert Hoffmann
author_facet	Thomas Pfeiffer Robert Hoffmann
author_sort	Thomas Pfeiffer
title	Large-scale assessment of the effect of popularity on the reliability of research.
title_short	Large-scale assessment of the effect of popularity on the reliability of research.
title_full	Large-scale assessment of the effect of popularity on the reliability of research.
title_fullStr	Large-scale assessment of the effect of popularity on the reliability of research.
title_full_unstemmed	Large-scale assessment of the effect of popularity on the reliability of research.
title_sort	large-scale assessment of the effect of popularity on the reliability of research.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2009
url	https://doaj.org/article/ee0f6b6a4fa74cc789d0d8b7903384a2
work_keys_str_mv	AT thomaspfeiffer largescaleassessmentoftheeffectofpopularityonthereliabilityofresearch AT roberthoffmann largescaleassessmentoftheeffectofpopularityonthereliabilityofresearch
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Large-scale assessment of the effect of popularity on the reliability of research.

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