Former editor of British Medical Journal says we should “assume that the research is fraudulent until there is some evidence to support it having happened and been honestly reported”

Chetan Chawls points us to this op-ed from Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal, who writes, “the time may have come to stop assuming that research actually happened and is honestly reported, and assume that the research is fraudulent until there is some evidence to support it having happened and been honestly reported.”

There’s also the problem with non-fraudulent articles that are just crap; see here for a discussion of an example from BMJ (long after Smith’s time as editor of the journal). Recall Clarke’s Law.

Anyway, it’s refreshing to see this sort of openness on Smith’s part but it’s also kind of scary. Bad science is annoying but it’s a relatively stationary target: we can point to the published mistakes, and, although this won’t deter the Gladwells of the world, it gives some of us a sort of paper trail that can help us make sense of these disputes. But bad claims in the news media and social media just twist and turn (see for example the discussion here). I guess we’ll continue to have a need for vetted scientific claims. It’ll just be harder on journalists who can’t just assume that “peer reviewed,” “PNAS,” “JAMA,” etc., are enuf.