Department of Anesthesiology, University of Virginia Health System, PO Box 800710, ville, VA, 22908-0710, USA.
Can J Anaesth. 2021 Aug;68(8):1185-1196. doi: 10.1007/s12630-021-02005-2. Epub 2021 May 7.
Human beings are predisposed to identifying false patterns in statistical noise, a likely survival advantage during our evolutionary development. Moreover, humans seem to prefer "positive" results over "negative" ones. These two cognitive features lay a framework for premature adoption of falsely positive studies. Added to this predisposition is the tendency of journals to "overbid" for exciting or newsworthy manuscripts, incentives in both the academic and publishing industries that value change over truth and scientific rigour, and a growing dependence on complex statistical techniques that some reviewers do not understand. The purpose of this article is to describe the underlying causes of premature adoption and provide recommendations that may improve the quality of published science.
人类倾向于在统计噪声中识别虚假模式，这在我们的进化发展过程中可能是一种生存优势。此外，人类似乎更喜欢“阳性”结果而不是“阴性”结果。这两个认知特征为过早采用假阳性研究奠定了框架。此外，期刊倾向于“过度追捧”令人兴奋或有新闻价值的手稿，这种倾向存在于学术界和出版业，它们重视变化而不是真理和科学严谨性，并且越来越依赖于一些审稿人不理解的复杂统计技术。本文的目的是描述过早采用的潜在原因，并提出可能提高已发表科学质量的建议。
