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PubMed — a powerful taxpayer-funded search engine for medical study abstracts that doctors, patients, and the media rely on — just started displaying conflict of interest data up front. New information about funding sources and potential conflicts will now appear right below study abstracts, which means readers don't have even to open a journal article to be made aware of any possible industry influence over studies.
[...] The change comes a year after 62 scientists and physicians from around the world (including the head of the Center for Science in the Public Interest) lobbied for the update, part of a broader transparency movement in science.
http://www.vox.com/2017/4/19/15350048/pubmed-publishing-conflicts-of-interest-funding-information
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PubMed, the Google of Scientific Search, is now Publishing Funding Information in its Abstracts
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It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 20 2017, @11:11PM (12 children)
Can you believe that scientists also get paid to do research?
How about that the scientists often pay the journals that publish the studies?
Another huge conflict of interest is that the people reviewing scientific studies are actually "scientists" themselves. We need more non-scientists that can do, self-fund, and publish (anonymously because you don't want fame to become a COI) their own research so that we can finally have reliable, COI-free science.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday April 21 2017, @12:56AM
Self-funded, self-published research is flourishing. According to a November 2010 story:
In March, YouTube announced that 24 hours of video was uploaded to [the] video service every minute. Now it's 35 hours per minute [...]
-- http://www.cbsnews.com/news/youtube-more-than-50000-hours-of-video-per-day-uploaded/ [cbsnews.com]
A December 2016 story said:
On Google’s YouTube video platform, people upload 400 hours of video every minute, the company said.
-- http://www.voanews.com/a/mht-google-says-will-use-100-percent-renewable-energy/3625221.html [voanews.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 21 2017, @02:24AM (10 children)
Actually, publish anonymously might have other benefits. Like taking a shoot into areas where you need to break new ground and may crash and burn. With anonymity, it doesn't have to take your career with it.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday April 21 2017, @04:03PM (9 children)
But you're guaranteed not to personally benefit from such research, no?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 21 2017, @04:24PM (8 children)
You could always de-anonymize or suggest research on then established results. "Oh look that crazy scientist seems to have found something, we better do some research on that".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:10PM
Shadow Brokers science
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Saturday April 22 2017, @03:25PM (6 children)
I don't buy it. "Publish or perish." No-one is going to publish without getting the credit for the work.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 22 2017, @03:48PM (5 children)
You are right in general. However if you want to test a bold theory there may be a use.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday April 24 2017, @08:43AM (4 children)
A shame that research is so risk-averse.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday April 24 2017, @09:39AM (3 children)
Few people will risk their major income or social standing. It's unconscious game theory and human nature in one.
To get past this there has to be a way to do business without these entanglements interfering. And thus we have professor emeritus and anonymity. I'll guess that's part of the attraction of big cities. People won't do personal judgement on stuff that doesn't matter or else they would not be doing anything else.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday April 24 2017, @09:42AM (2 children)
It's unconscious game theory and human nature in one.
Not really, it's a damaging cultural taboo on getting it wrong. Science doesn't profit by scientists being scared to make a guess that turns out to be wrong.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday April 24 2017, @09:50AM (1 child)
The taboo has a good game theory backing even if no one intended it. But if no one knows who got it wrong. Well then the opinion of people matters less and actual facts matters more. Ad hominem got undermined.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday April 24 2017, @04:43PM
The taboo has a good game theory backing even if no one intended it
Not really. It's not set in stone that academia must always be punitive toward serious conjectures which turn out to be incorrect. Like I said, science suffers from this, and no-one benefits.