Hi all
Anyone interested in the progress of science and research should be aware that as our understanding increases astronomically, what we do not understand appears to be increasing at an even greater pace!
Steve Jones, Professor of Genetics at University College, writes:
To nonbiologists, a certain mystique often accompanies the term genetics, as if the concept itself is the path to understanding our individual fate when it comes to differences in sex, age and death, mood, faith, intellect, and more. A Google search for "scientists find the gene for" delivers thousands of hits -- for musicality, health, wealth, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- which is surprising, given that almost no success has been found in tracking down the genetic differences responsible for even that highly inheritable characteristic, human height.
BioScience (2013) 63 (7): 595-596.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2013.63.7.12
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Jonathan Schooler, Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, UCSB, writes:
A defining feature of science is its capacity to evolve in response to new developments.
Historically -- changes in technological capacities, quantitative procedures, and scientific
understanding have all contributed to large-scale revisions in the conduct of scientific
investigations. Pressure is mounting for further improvements. In disciplines such as
medicine, psychology, genetics, and biology researchers have been confronting findings that
are not as robust as they initially appeared. Such shrinking effects raise questions not only
about the specific findings they challenge, but more generally about the confidence that we
can have in published results that have yet to be re-evaluated.
A study published in Science by Brian Nosek and the Open Science Collaboration ...
found that less than half (39 percent) of the studies reached traditional levels of significance when replicated.
https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26751
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