Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true.
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The base rate problem
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Ioannidis models science as a signal-detection problem. When true effects are rare, studies are underpowered, and many hypotheses get tested, false positives dominate published literature.
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What drives false claims
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Small sample sizes, flexible analysis, financial incentives, and publication bias each inflate the false discovery rate. The math is general; the sting is specific to biomedicine and anywhere p-values gate careers.
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A paper people cite and ignore
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Fifteen years later, replication crises confirmed the shape of the argument. The paper belongs in any archive about how knowledge is produced, not just how models are trained.