Past Events & Presentations at CASBS:
- June 18-19, 2015: CASBS Conference on Best Practices in Science.
- This conference had two primary purposes:
- Share ideas among those actively conducting research on scientific integrity with one another and the wider scholarly community.
- Set the stage for the participants to generate articles on scientific integrity to be published in a special issue of a journal or edited book.
- This conference had two primary purposes:
- April 3, 2015 at CASBS: Dr. Jon Yewdell (M.D./Ph.D): Irreproducibility in Basic Biomedical Research: Attaching The Deck Chairs to the Titanic.
- Abstract: There is a major effort afoot to increase reproducibility in basic biomedical research. In principle this is a fine goal, but there is a great danger of enormous increases in labor costs for what amounts to window dressing. The biomedical research community is already spending too much time on reviewing and regulating as opposed to discovering. If we can’t trust scientists to report the truth, this points to a systematic failure in training young scientists and deep flaws in the research culture that must be addressed at a more basic level. I will discuss features of the present system of biomedical research that are ripe for reforming.
- Dr. Yewdell is the chief of the Cellular Biology Section in the Laboratory of Viral Diseases at National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAD). He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 1975 with an A.B. in biochemistry and received his joint M.D.-Ph.D. in 1981 from the University of Pennsylvania. He then spent 4 years as an assistant professor at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. In 1987, he joined the Laboratory of Viral Diseases at NIAD. He was appointed to lead its Cellular Biology Section in 1993.
- March 7, 2014: Ferric Fang (M.D.): Pathogenesis of Research Misconduct.
- April 9, 2014: John Ioannidis (M.D.): Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
Abstract: There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance. Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias. In this essay, I discuss the implications of these problems for the conduct and interpretation of research.
A profile of Dr. Ioannidis’ research by The Atlantic.
John P.A. Ioannidis (b. New York, NY, 1965) holds the C.F. Rehnborg Chair in Disease Prevention at Stanford University, and he is Professor of Medicine, and of Health Research and Policy, and Director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center at the School of Medicine; Professor of Statistics (by courtesy) at the School of Humanities and Sciences; one of the two Directors of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford; and Director of the PhD program in Epidemiology and Clinical Research.