Why Current Publication Practices May Distort Science
article has not abstract
Published in the journal:
Why Current Publication Practices May Distort Science. PLoS Med 5(10): e201. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050201
Category:
Essay
doi:
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050201
Summary
article has not abstract
This essay makes the underlying assumption that scientific information is an economic commodity, and that scientific journals are a medium for its dissemination and exchange. While this exchange system differs from a conventional market in many senses, including the nature of payments, it shares the goal of transferring the commodity (knowledge) from its producers (scientists) to its consumers (other scientists, administrators, physicians, patients, and funding agencies). The function of this system has major consequences. Idealists may be offended that research be compared to widgets, but realists will acknowledge that journals generate revenue; publications are critical in drug development and marketing and to attract venture capital; and publishing defines successful scientific careers. Economic modelling of science may yield important insights (Table 1).
The Winner's Curse
In auction theory, under certain conditions, the bidder who wins tends to have overpaid. Consider oil firms bidding for drilling rights; companies estimate the size of the reserves, and estimates differ across firms. The average of all the firms' estimates would usually approximate the true reserve size. Since the firm with the highest estimate bids the most, the auction winner systematically overestimates, sometimes so substantially as to lose money in net terms [1]. When bidders are cognizant of the statistical processes of estimates and bids, they correct for the winner's curse by shading their bids down. This is why experienced bidders sometimes avoid the curse, as opposed to inexperienced ones [1–4]. Yet in numerous studies, bidder behaviour appears consistent with the winner's curse [5–8]. Indeed, the winner's curse was first proposed by oil operations researchers after they had recognised aberrant results in their own market.
Summary
The current system of publication in biomedical research provides a distorted view of the reality of scientific data that are generated in the laboratory and clinic. This system can be studied by applying principles from the field of economics. The “winner's curse,” a more general statement of publication bias, suggests that the small proportion of results chosen for publication are unrepresentative of scientists' repeated samplings of the real world. The self-correcting mechanism in science is retarded by the extreme imbalance between the abundance of supply (the output of basic science laboratories and clinical investigations) and the increasingly limited venues for publication (journals with sufficiently high impact). This system would be expected intrinsically to lead to the misallocation of resources. The scarcity of available outlets is artificial, based on the costs of printing in an electronic age and a belief that selectivity is equivalent to quality. Science is subject to great uncertainty: we cannot be confident now which efforts will ultimately yield worthwhile achievements. However, the current system abdicates to a small number of intermediates an authoritative prescience to anticipate a highly unpredictable future. In considering society's expectations and our own goals as scientists, we believe that there is a moral imperative to reconsider how scientific data are judged and disseminated.
An analogy can be applied to scientific publications. As with individual bidders in an auction, the average result from multiple studies yields a reasonable estimate of a “true” relationship. However, the more extreme, spectacular results (the largest treatment effects, the strongest associations, or the most unusually novel and exciting biological stories) may be preferentially published. Journals serve as intermediaries and may suffer minimal immediate consequences for errors of over- or mis-estimation, but it is the consumers of these laboratory and clinical results (other expert scientists; trainees choosing fields of endeavour; physicians and their patients; funding agencies; the media) who are “cursed” if these results are severely exaggerated—overvalued and unrepresentative of the true outcomes of many similar experiments. For example, initial clinical studies are often unrepresentative and misleading. An empirical evaluation of the 49 most-cited papers on the effectiveness of medical interventions, published in highly visible journals in 1990–2004, showed that a quarter of the randomised trials and five of six non-randomised studies had already been contradicted or found to have been exaggerated by 2005 [9]. The delay between the reporting of an initial positive study and subsequent publication of concurrently performed but negative results is measured in years [10,11]. An important role of systematic reviews may be to correct the inflated effects present in the initial studies published in famous journals [12], but this process may be similarly prolonged and even systematic reviews may perpetuate inflated results [13,14].
More alarming is the general paucity in the literature of negative data. In some fields, almost all published studies show formally significant results so that statistical significance no longer appears discriminating [15,16]. Discovering selective reporting is not easy, but the implications are dire, as in the “hidden” results for antidepressant trials [17]: in a recent paper, it was shown that while almost all trials with “positive” results on antidepressants had been published, trials with “negative” results submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration, with few exceptions, remained either unpublished or were published with the results presented so that they would appear “positive” [17]. Negative or contradictory data may be discussed at conferences or among colleagues, but surface more publicly only when dominant paradigms are replaced. Sometimes, negative data do appear in refutation of prominent claims. In the “Proteus phenomenon”, an extreme result reported in the first published study is followed by an extreme opposite result; this sequence may cast doubt on the significance, meaning, or validity of any of the results [18]. Several factors may predict irreproducibility (small effects, small studies, “hot” fields, strong interests, large databases, flexible statistics) [19], but claiming that a specific study is wrong is a difficult, charged decision.
In the basic biological sciences, statistical considerations are secondary or nonexistent, results entirely unpredicted by hypotheses are celebrated, and there are few formal rules for reproducibility [20,21]. A signalling benefit from the market—good scientists being identified by their positive results—may be more powerful in the basic biological sciences than in clinical research, where the consequences of incorrect assessment of positive results are more dire. As with clinical research, prominent claims sometimes disappear over time [21]. If a posteriori considerations are met sceptically in clinical research, in basic biology they dominate. Negative data are not necessarily different than positive results as related to considerations of experimental design, execution, or importance. Much data are never formally refuted in print, but most promising preclinical work eventually fails to translate to clinical benefit [22]. Worse, in the course of ongoing experimentation, apparently negative studies are abandoned prematurely as wasteful.
Oligopoly
Successful publication may be more difficult at present than in the past. The supply and demand of scientific production have changed. Across the health and life sciences, the number of published articles in Scopus-indexed journals rose from 590,807 in 1997 to 883,853 in 2007, a modest 50% increase. In the same decade, data acquisition has accelerated by many orders of magnitude: as an example, the current Cancer Genome Atlas project requires 10,000 times more sequencing effort than the Human Genome Project, but is expected to take a tenth of the time to complete [23]. In the current environment, the distinction between raw data and articles (telling for sure what more an article has compared with raw data) can sometimes become difficult. Only a small proportion of the explosively expanded output of biological laboratories appears in the modestly increased number of journal slots available for its publication, even if more data can be compacted in the average paper now than in the past.
Constriction on the demand side is further exaggerated by the disproportionate prominence of a very few journals. Moreover, these journals strive to attract specific papers, such as influential trials that generate publicity and profitable reprint sales. This “winner-take-all” reward structure [24] leaves very little space for “successful publication” for the vast majority of scientific work and further exaggerates the winner's curse. The acceptance rate decreases by 5.3% with doubling of circulation, and circulation rates differ by over 1,000-fold among 114 journals publishing clinical research [25]. For most published papers, “publication” often just signifies “final registration into oblivion”. Besides print circulation, in theory online journals should be readily visible, especially if open access. However, perhaps unjustifiably, most articles published in online journals remain rarely accessed. Only 73 of the many thousands of articles ever published by the 187 BMC-affiliated journals had over 10,000 accesses through their journal Web sites in the last year [26].
Impact factors are widely adopted as criteria for success, despite whatever qualms have been expressed [27–32]. They powerfully discriminate against submission to most journals, restricting acceptable outlets for publication. “Gaming” of impact factors is explicit. Editors make estimates of likely citations for submitted articles to gauge their interest in publication. The citation game [33,34] has created distinct hierarchical relationships among journals in different fields. In scientific fields with many citations, very few leading journals concentrate the top-cited work [35]: in each of the seven large fields to which the life sciences are divided by ISI Essential Indicators (each including several hundreds of journals), six journals account for 68%–94% of the 100 most-cited articles in the last decade (Clinical Medicine 83%, Immunology 94%, Biochemistry and Biology 68%, Molecular Biology and Genetics 85%, Neurosciences 72%, Microbiology 76%, Pharmacology/Toxicology 72%). The scientific publishing industry is used for career advancement [36]: publication in specific journals provides scientists with a status signal. As with other luxury items intentionally kept in short supply, there is a motivation to restrict access [37,38].
Some unfavourable consequences may be predicted and some are visible. Resource allocation has long been recognised by economists as problematic in science, especially in basic research where the risks are the greatest. Rival teams undertake unduly dubious and overly similar projects; and too many are attracted to one particular contest to the neglect of other areas, reducing the diversity of areas under exploration [39]. Early decisions by a few influential individuals as to the importance of an area of investigation consolidate path dependency: the first decision predetermines the trajectory. A related effect is herding, where the actions of a few prominent individuals rather than the cumulative input of many independent agents drives people's valuations of a commodity [40,41]. Cascades arise when individuals regard others' earlier actions as more informative than their own private information. The actions upon which people herd may not necessarily be correct; and herding may long continue upon a completely wrong path [41]. Information cascades encourage conventional behaviour, suppress information aggregation, and promote “bubble and bust” cycles. Informational analysis of the literature on molecular interactions in Drosophila genetics has suggested the existence of such information cascades, with positive momentum, interdependence among published papers (most reporting positive data), and dominant themes leading to stagnating conformism [42].
Artificial Scarcity
The authority of journals increasingly derives from their selectivity. The venue of publication provides a valuable status signal. A common excuse for rejection is selectivity based on a limitation ironically irrelevant in the modern age—printed page space. This is essentially an example of artificial scarcity. Artificial scarcity refers to any situation where, even though a commodity exists in abundance, restrictions of access, distribution, or availability make it seem rare, and thus overpriced. Low acceptance rates create an illusion of exclusivity based on merit and more frenzied competition among scientists “selling” manuscripts.
Manuscripts are assessed with a fundamentally negative bias: how they may best be rejected to promote the presumed selectivity of the journal. Journals closely track and advertise their low acceptance rates, equating these with rigorous review: “Nature has space to publish only 10% or so of the 170 papers submitted each week, hence its selection criteria are rigorous”—even though it admits that peer review has a secondary role: “the judgement about which papers will interest a broad readership is made by Nature's editors, not its referees” [43]. Science also equates “high standards of peer review and editorial quality” with the fact that “of the more than 12,000 top-notch scientific manuscripts that the journal sees each year, less than 8% are accepted for publication” [44].
The publication system may operate differently in different fields. For example, for drug trials, journal operations may be dominated by the interests of larger markets: the high volume of transactions involved extends well beyond the small circle of scientific valuations and interests. In other fields where no additional markets are involved (the history of science is perhaps one extreme example), the situation of course may be different. The question to be examined is whether published data may be more representative (and more unbiased) depending on factors such as the ratio of journal outlets to amount of data generated, the relative valuation of specialty journals, career consequences of publication, and accessibility of primary data to the reader.
One solution to artificial scarcity—digital publication—is obvious and already employed. Digital platforms can facilitate the publication of greater numbers of appropriately peer-reviewed manuscripts with reasonable hypotheses and sound methods. Digitally formatted publication need not be limited to few journals, or only to open-access journals. Ideally, all journals could publish in digital form manuscripts that they have received and reviewed and that they consider unsuitable for print publication based on subjective assessments of priority. The current privileging of print over digital publication by some authors and review committees may be reversed, if online-only papers can be demonstrated or perceived to represent equal or better scientific reality than conventional printed manuscripts.
Uncertainty
When scientific information itself is the commodity, there is uncertainty as to its value, both immediately and in the long term. Usually we do not know what information will be most useful (valuable) eventually. Economists have struggled with these peculiar attributes of scientific information as a commodity. Production of scientific information is largely paid for by public investment, but the product is offered free to commercial intermediaries, and is culled by them with minimal cost, for sale back to the producers and their underwriters! An explanation for such a strange arrangement is the need for branding—marking the product as valuable. Branding may be more important when a commodity cannot easily be assigned much intrinsic value and when we fear the exchange environment will be flooded with an overabundance of redundant, useless, and misleading product [39,45]. Branding serves a similar and complementary function to the status signal for scientists discussed above. While it is easy to blame journal editors, the industry, or the popular press, there is scant evidence that these actors bear the major culpability [46–49]. Probably authors themselves self-select their work for branding [10,11,50–52].
Conclusions
We may consider several competing or complementary options about the future of scientific publication (Box 1). When economists are asked to analyse a resource-allocation system, a typical assumption is that when information is dispersed, over time, the individual actors will not make systematic errors in their inferences. However, not all economists accept this strong version of rationality. Systematic misperceptions in human behaviour occur with some frequency [53], and misperceptions can perpetuate ineffective systems.
Box 1. Potential Competing or Complementary Options and Solutions for Scientific Publication
-
Accept the current system as having evolved to be the optimal solution to complex and competing problems.
-
Promote rapid, digital publication of all articles that contain no flaws, irrespective of perceived “importance”.
-
Adopt preferred publication of negative over positive results; require very demanding reproducibility criteria before publishing positive results.
-
Select articles for publication in highly visible venues based on the quality of study methods, their rigorous implementation, and astute interpretation, irrespective of results.
-
Adopt formal post-publication downward adjustment of claims of papers published in prestigious journals.
-
Modify current practice to elevate and incorporate more expansive data to accompany print articles or to be accessible in attractive formats associated with high-quality journals: combine the “magazine” and “archive” roles of journals.
-
Promote critical reviews, digests, and summaries of the large amounts of biomedical data now generated.
-
Offer disincentives to herding and incentives for truly independent, novel, or heuristic scientific work.
-
Recognise explicitly and respond to the branding role of journal publication in career development and funding decisions.
-
Modulate publication practices based on empirical research, which might address correlates of long-term successful outcomes (such as reproducibility, applicability, opening new avenues) of published papers.
Some may accept the current publication system as the ideal culmination of an evolutionary process. However, this order is hardly divinely inspired; additionally, the larger environment has changed over time. Can digital publication alleviate wasteful efforts of repetitive submission, review, revision, and resubmission? Preferred publication of negative over positive results has been suggested, with print publication favoured for all negative data (as more likely to be true) and for only a minority of the positive results that have demonstrated consistency and reproducibility [54]. To exorcise the winner's curse, the quality of experiments rather than the seemingly dramatic results in a minority of them would be the focus of review, but is this feasible in the current reality?
There are limitations to our analysis. Compared with the importance of the problem, there is a relative paucity of empirical observations on the process of scientific publication. The winner's curse is fundamental to our thesis, but there is active debate among economists whether it inhibits real environments or is more of a theoretical phenomenon [1,8]. Do senior investigators make the same adjustments on a high-profile paper's value as do experienced traders on prices? Is herding an appropriate model for scientific publication? Can we correlate the site of publication with the long-term value of individual scientific work and of whole areas of investigation? These questions remain open to analysis and experiment.
Even though its goals may sometimes be usurped for other purposes, science is hard work with limited rewards and only occasional successes. Its interest and importance should speak for themselves, without hyperbole. Uncertainty is powerful and yet quite insufficiently acknowledged when we pretend prescience to guess at the ultimate value of today's endeavours. If “the striving for knowledge and the search for truth are still the strongest motives of scientific discovery”, and if “the advance of science depends upon the free competition of thought” [55], we must ask whether we have created a system for the exchange of scientific ideas that will serve this end.
Supporting Information
Zdroje
1. ThalerRH
1988
Anomalies: The winner's curse.
J Econ Perspect
2
191
202
2. CoxJCIsaacRM
1984
In search of the winner's curse.
Econ Inq
22
579
592
3. DyerDKagelJH
1996
Bidding in common value auctions: How the commercial construction industry corrects for the winner's curse.
Manage Sci
42
1463
1475
4. HarrisonGWListJA
2007
Naturally occurring markets and exogenous laboratory experiments: A case study of the winner's curse
NBER Working Paper No. 13072
1
20
Cambridge (MA)
National Bureau of Economic Research
5. CapenECClappRVCampbellWM
1971
Competitive bidding in high-risk situations.
J Petrol Technol
23
641
653
6. CassingJDouglasRW
1980
Implications of the auction mechanism in baseball's free-agent draft.
South Econ J
47
110
121
7. DessauerJP
1981
Book publishing: What it is, what it does
2nd edition
New York
R. R. Bowker
8. HendricksKPorterRHBoudreauB
1987
Information, returns, and bidding behavior in OCS auctions: 1954–1969.
J Ind Econ
35
517
542
9. IoannidisJPA
2005
Contradicted and initially stronger effects in highly cited clinical research.
J Am Med Assoc
294
218
228
10. KrzyzanowskaMKPintilieMTannockIF
2003
Factors associated with failure to publish large randomized trials presented at an oncology meeting.
J Am Med Assoc
290
495
501
11. SternJM
2006
Publication bias: Evidence of delayed publication in a cohort study of clinical research projects.
Br Med J
315
640
645
12. GoodmanSN
2008
Systematic reviews are not biased by results from trials stopped early for benefit.
J Clin Epidemiol
61
95
96
13. BasslerDFerreira-GonzalezIBrielMCookDJDevereauxPJ
2007
Systematic reviewers neglect bias that results from trials stopped early for benefit.
J Clin Epidemiol
60
869
873
14. IoannidisJP
2008
Why most discovered true associations are inflated.
Epidemiology
19
640
648
15. KavvouraFKLiberopoulosGIoannidisJPA
2007
Selection in reported epidemiological risks: An empirical assessment.
PLoS Med
4
e79
doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040079
16. KyzasPADenaxa-KyzaDIoannidisJP
2007
Almost all articles on cancer prognostic markers report statistically significant results.
Eur J Cancer
43
2559
2579
17. TurnerEHMatthewsAMLinardatosETellRARosenthalR
2008
Selective publication of antidepressant trials and its influence on apparent efficacy.
N Eng J Med
358
252
260
18. IoannidisJPATrikalinosTA
2005
Early extreme contradictory estimates may appear in published research: The Proteus phenomenon in molecular genetics research and randomized trials.
J Clin Epidemiol
58
543
549
19. IoannidisJPA
2005
Why most published research findings are false.
PLoS Med
2
e124
doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
20. EasterbrookPBerlinJAGopalanRMatthewsDR
1991
Publication bias in clinical research.
Lancet
337
867
872
21. IoannidisJP
2006
Evolution and translation of research findings: From bench to where.
PLoS Clin Trials
1
e36
doi:10.1371/journal.pctr.0010036
22. Contopoulos-IoannidisDGNtzaniEIoannidisJP
2003
Translation of highly promising basic science research into clinical applications.
Am J Med
114
477
484
23. National Human Genome Research Institute
2008
The Cancer Genome Atlas.
Available: http://www.genome.gov/17516564. Accessed 4 September 2008
24. FrankRHCookPJ
1995
The winner-take-all society
New York
Free Press
25. GoodmanSNAltmanDGGeorgeSL
1998
Statistical reviewing policies of medical journals: Caveat lector.
J Gen Intern Med
13
753
756
26. Biomed Central
2008
Most viewed articles in past year.
Available: http://www.biomedcentral.com/mostviewedbyyear/. Accessed 4 September 2008
27. The PLoS Medicine Editors
2006
The impact factor game.
PLoS Med
3
e291
doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0030291
28. SmithR
2006
Commentary: The power of the unrelenting impact factor—Is it a force for good or harm.
Int J Epidemiol
35
1129
1130
29. AndersenJBelmontJChoCT
2006
Journal impact factor in the era of expanding literature.
J Microbiol Immunol Infect
39
436
443
30. HaTCTanSBSooKC
2006
The journal impact factor: Too much of an impact.
Ann Acad Med Singapore
35
911
916
31. SongFEastwoodABilbodySDuleyL
1999
The role of electronic journals in reducing publication bias.
Med Inform
24
223
229
32. RossnerMVan EppsHHillE
2007
Show me the data.
J Exp Med
204
3052
3053
33. ChewMVillanuevaEVvan der WeydenMB
2007
Life and times of the impact factor: Retrospective analysis of trends for seven medical journals (1994–2005) and their editors' views.
J Royal Soc Med
100
142
150
34. RoncoC
2006
Scientific journals: Who impacts the impact factor.
Int J Artif Organs
29
645
648
35. IoannidisJPA
2006
Concentration of the most-cited papers in the scientific literature: analysis of journal ecosystems.
PLoS ONE
1
e5
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000005
36. PanZTrikalinosTAKavvouraFKLauJIoannidisJP
2005
Local literature bias in genetic epidemiology: An empirical evaluation of the Chinese literature.
PLoS Med
2
e334
doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020334
37. IrelandNJ
1994
On limiting the market for status signals.
J Public Econ
53
91
110
38. BeckerGS
1991
A note on restaurant pricing and other examples of social influences on price.
Polit Econ
99
1109
1116
39. DasguptaPDavidPA
1994
Toward a new economics of science.
Res Pol
23
487
521
40. BikhchandaniSHirshleiferDWelchI
1998
Learning from the behavior of others: Conformity, fads, and informational cascades.
J Econ Perspect
12
151
170
41. HirshleiferDTeohSH
2003
Herd behaviour and cascading in capital markets: A review and synthesis.
Eur Financ Manage
9
25
66
42. RzhetskyALossifovILohJMWhiteKP
2007
Microparadigms: Chains of collective reasoning in publications about molecular interactions.
Proc Nat Acad Sci U S A
103
4940
4945
43. Nature
2008
Getting published in Nature: The editorial process.
Available: http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/get_published/index.html. Accessed 4 September 2008
44. Science
2008
About Science and AAAS.
Available: http://www.sciencemag.org/help/about/about.dtl. Accessed 4 September 2008
45. MertonRK
1957
Priorities in scientific discovery: A chapter in the sociology of science.
Am Sociol Rev
22
635
659
46. OlsonCMRennieDCookDDickersinKFlanaginA
2002
Publication bias in editorial decision making.
J Am Med Assoc
287
2825
2828
47. BrownAKraftDSchmitzSMSharplessVMartinC
2006
Association of industry sponsorship to published outcomes in gastrointestinal clinical research.
Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol
4
1445
1451
48. PatsopoulosNAAnalatosAAIoannidisJPA
2006
Origin and funding of the most equently cited papers in medicine: Database analysis.
Br Med J
332
1061
1064
49. BubelaTMCaulfieldTA
2004
Do the print media “hype” genetic research? A comparison of newspaper stories and peer-reviewed research papers.
Canad Med Assoc J
170
1399
1407
50. PolanyiM
1964
Science, faith and society
2nd edition
Chicago
University of Chicago Press
51. DickersinKChanSChalmersTCSacksHSSmithHJr
1987
Publication bias and clinical trials.
Control Clin Trials
8
343
353
52. CallahamMLWearsRLWeberEJBartonCYoungG
1998
Positive-outcome bias and other limitations in the outcome of research abstracts submitted to a scientific meeting.
J Am Med Assoc
280
254
257
53. KahnemanD
2003
A perspective on judgment and choice: Mapping bounded rationality.
Am Psychol
58
697
720
54. IoannidisJPA
2006
Journals should publish all “null” results and should sparingly publish “positive” results.
Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev
15
185
55. PopperK
1959
The logic of scientific discovery
New York
Basic Books
Štítky
Interné lekárstvoČlánok vyšiel v časopise
PLOS Medicine
2008 Číslo 10
- Parazitičtí červi v terapii Crohnovy choroby a dalších zánětlivých autoimunitních onemocnění
- Pleiotropní účinky statinů na kardiovaskulární systém
- Statiny indukovaná myopatie: Jak na diferenciální diagnostiku?
- Význam hydratace při hojení ran
- DESATORO PRE PRAX: Aktuálne odporúčanie ESPEN pre nutričný manažment u pacientov s COVID-19
Najčítanejšie v tomto čísle
- The Relationship between Proteinuria and Coronary Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
- Health Benefits of Universal Influenza Vaccination Strategy
- Off-Label Promotion, On-Target Sales
- Why Treatment Fails in Type 2 Diabetes