School of Public Administration, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, USA.
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Indiana University Bloomington, 1025 E 7 St, PH 111, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA.
Sci Eng Ethics. 2024 Oct 16;30(6):48. doi: 10.1007/s11948-024-00517-w.
The tutelage of our mentors as scientists included the analogy that writing a good scientific paper was an exercise in storytelling that omitted unessential details that did not move the story forward or that detracted from the overall message. However, the advice to not get lost in the details had an important flaw. In science, it is the many details of the data themselves and the methods used to generate and analyze them that give conclusions their probative meaning. Facts may sometimes slow or distract from the clarity, tidiness, intrigue, or flow of the narrative, but nevertheless they are important for the assessment of what was done, the trustworthiness of the science, and the meaning of the findings. Nevertheless, many critical elements and facts about research studies may be omitted from the narrative and become hidden from scholarly scrutiny. We describe a "baker's dozen" shortfalls in which such elements that are pertinent to evaluating the validity of scientific studies are sometimes hidden in reports of the work. Such shortfalls may be intentional or unintentional or lie somewhere in between. Additionally, shortfalls may occur at the level of the individual or an institution or of the entire system itself. We conclude by proposing countermeasures to these shortfalls.
我们的导师作为科学家的指导包括一个比喻，即写一篇好的科学论文是一种讲故事的练习，省略了那些不会推动故事发展或削弱整体信息的不必要的细节。然而，不被细节所迷惑的建议有一个重要的缺陷。在科学中，正是数据本身的许多细节以及用于生成和分析数据的方法赋予了结论的证明意义。事实有时可能会减缓或分散对叙述的清晰度、整洁性、趣味性或流畅性的关注，但它们对于评估所做的工作、科学的可信度以及研究结果的意义仍然很重要。然而，研究工作的许多关键要素和事实可能会从叙述中省略，从而避免了学术审查。我们描述了十三个这样的缺陷，即与评估科学研究的有效性有关的要素有时会隐藏在工作的报告中。这些缺陷可能是有意的，也可能是无意的，或者介于两者之间。此外，缺陷可能发生在个人、机构或整个系统本身的层面上。我们最后提出了针对这些缺陷的对策。
