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Machine-learning techniques used by thousands of scientists to analyse data are producing results that are misleading and often completely wrong.
Dr Genevera Allen from Rice University in Houston said that the increased use of such systems was contributing to a "crisis in science".
She warned scientists that if they didn't improve their techniques they would be wasting both time and money. Her research was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.
A growing amount of scientific research involves using machine learning software to analyse data that has already been collected. This happens across many subject areas ranging from biomedical research to astronomy. The data sets are very large and expensive.
[...] "There is general recognition of a reproducibility crisis in science right now. I would venture to argue that a huge part of that does come from the use of machine learning techniques in science."
The "reproducibility crisis" in science refers to the alarming number of research results that are not repeated when another group of scientists tries the same experiment. It means that the initial results were wrong. One analysis suggested that up to 85% of all biomedical research carried out in the world is wasted effort.
It is a crisis that has been growing for two decades and has come about because experiments are not designed well enough to ensure that the scientists don't fool themselves and see what they want to see in the results.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47267081
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday February 21 2019, @08:39AM (2 children)
Seen the same thing in, um, "social sciences". A friend of mine, a statistician, took a few papers in the field some years ago, but dropped it after he started re-casting the lectures as "which basic flaws in methodology were used to produce these results"? In other words he had unconsciously switched from absorbing the material to looking out for all the errors in it instead, sort of like when you watch a so-bad-it's-good unintentional comedy SciFi.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 21 2019, @10:25AM (1 child)
I'm sorry, but what? The first thing you'll know about science is that people that read the papers are actually interested in the procedures and they try to understand how is the procedure written about better than what they thought of. The first thing you try to determine is whether the other side didn't make mistakes. Then you ask them to clarify if something is suspicious.
There is no one that is serious about science that is "absorbing the material". "Absorbing the material" happens in grade school.
Also, nothing to do with social sciences. Just look in Biology or Pharmacology or many medicinal fields. There is a reason many require basic understand of physics for their degree, but I guess they all think error analysis is too hard after that.
(Score: 3, Touché) by driverless on Thursday February 21 2019, @12:10PM
Or in classes at University, specifically the classes that I mentioned the friend of mine was taking.