BBC Radio 4: The Truth Police

Sly Saint

Sly Saint

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Released On: 08 May 2023
For years, science has had a dirty secret; research has been dogged by claims and instances of fraud, malpractice and outright incompetence. Suspicious-looking data sets, breakthrough results that can’t be replicated, eyebrow-raising statistical sleights of hand - science has been undergoing something of an existential crisis. And at the forefront of keeping science honest has been a bunch of outsiders, some of them with no formal academic positions, no salaried posts, double-checking the published claims of researchers and academics. Their work is not without controversy, especially when they go public; nevertheless, they’ve achieved impressive results. Presenter Michael Blastland meets some of these ‘Truth Police’, discovering their methodology and their motives, as well as asking how scientific institutions are reacting to the deep issues they have brought out into the light.

Presenter: Michael Blastland
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The Truth Police - BBC Sounds
 
Good program as far as it went. Some familiar names interviewed including Stuart Ritchie and Nick Brown who do some of the investigating, and Dorothy Bishop commenting on the importance of it.

They say lots of scientists agree there should be funding for this kind of checking, but nothing ever gets done about funding bodies providing funding.

Asked why they go public with their criticisms, one of them explained that when they find problems in published papers and contact the author, they get no response, when the contact the University or the Journal they get a polite response saying they will look into it, followed by no further response. He said the finding the problems is the easy part - finding anyone who cares enough to do something about it is much harder.

That fits with what David Tuller (@dave30th) and others have found when raising problems with ME papers - finding the problem and raising it is just the beginning.
 
I’ve not listened. I assume as Trish didn’t mention him that Ben Goldacre wasn’t on it.

I also assume Nick Brown is the “self-appointed data police cadet” not the editor of Archives of Disease in Childhood BMJ who published the SMILE trial.

Stuart Ritchie, Nick Brown and Dorothy Bishop all know about PACE etc. I don’t suppose it was mentioned?

Trish said:
He said the finding the problems is the easy part - finding anyone who cares enough to do something about it is much harder
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And finding anyone who cares enough do to something about bad ME/CFS research is almost impossible. Even the people who care about bad research in other areas mostly don’t seem to care about bad ME/CFS research.

Dorothy Bishop even said some positive things about the SMILE trial (See: https://virology.ws/2017/12/18/trial-by-error-my-questions-for-the-science-media-centre/)
 
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Robert 1973 said:
I’ve not listened. I assume as Trish didn’t mention him that Ben Goldacre wasn’t on it.

I also assume Nick Brown is the “self-appointed data police cadet” not the editor of Archives of Disease in Childhood BMJ who published the SMILE trial.

Stuart Ritchie, Nick Brown and Dorothy Bishop all know about PACE etc. I don’t suppose it was mentioned?

And finding anyone who cares enough do to something about bad ME/CFS research is almost impossible. Even the people who care about bad research in other areas mostly don’t seem to care about bad ME/CFS research.

Dorothy Bishop even said some positive things about the SMILE trial (See: https://virology.ws/2017/12/18/trial-by-error-my-questions-for-the-science-media-centre/)
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Yes, the Nick Brown on the show is the data police guy, not the editor who published the SMILE trial! He's a member of this forum as @sTeamTraen but hasn't posted in a long while. He has mentioned in the past that there were problems with the PACE trial.

I listened to the show and found it good, especially Brown, James Heathers and Elizabeth Bik. PACE and/or ME/CFS were not mentioned, it was just a good general criticism of bad research practice.
 
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