Mar 28, 2019 05:51 AM
(This post was last modified: Mar 28, 2019 05:56 AM by C C.)
Good news for science; Bad news for humanity – The “Bias Blind Spot” just replicated
https://digest.bps.org.uk/2019/03/27/goo...d-than-me/
EXCERPT: . . . Now researchers have reproduced the results of another highly-cited study. Back in 2002, Emily Pronin and colleagues first described the “bias blind spot”, the finding that people believe they are less biased in their judgments and behaviour than the general population – that is, they are “blind” to their own cognitive biases. And while that study kick-started a whole line of related research, no one had attempted to directly replicate the original experiments. But in a preregistered preprint published recently to ResearchGate, Prasad Chandrashekar, Siu Kit Yeung and colleagues report reproducing the original study
[...] Participants with a stronger belief in free will had a greater blind spot when it came to personal shortcomings. That is, the gap between how they rated their own and others’ shortcomings was larger than the gap for people with a weaker belief in free will. ... Belief in free will did not have any effect on the blind spot for cognitive biases, however. The authors write that their results “provide reasonable support” for the findings of the original study, suggesting that the bias blind spot is a robust phenomenon... (MORE - details)
What Peer Review Actually Means
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulmsutter...70b8cb12d9
EXCERPT: . . . the reviewer has to determine if there are any major flaws in the paper. [...] It's impossible for the reviewer to completely duplicate the experimental setup or observing program. ... So the reviewer has to do their best job of following the logic and arguments laid out in the paper and seeing if they agree with the conclusions. But the reviewer isn't getting paid. There's no compensation involved [...]
So in a system where the reviewer is volunteering their time, and can only do their best, what are we to make of peer review in general? Does it mean a paper is correct? No. Does it mean a paper is the final word? No. Does it mean that the scientific community has accepted the results? No.
It means that one or a couple random reviewers thought the paper was interesting, new, and not obviously wrong. That's it. So just because a paper has "passed" peer review, it doesn't transmute into the scientific equivalent of Gospel Truth. Instead, peer review is the first step, not the last.... (MORE - details)
https://digest.bps.org.uk/2019/03/27/goo...d-than-me/
EXCERPT: . . . Now researchers have reproduced the results of another highly-cited study. Back in 2002, Emily Pronin and colleagues first described the “bias blind spot”, the finding that people believe they are less biased in their judgments and behaviour than the general population – that is, they are “blind” to their own cognitive biases. And while that study kick-started a whole line of related research, no one had attempted to directly replicate the original experiments. But in a preregistered preprint published recently to ResearchGate, Prasad Chandrashekar, Siu Kit Yeung and colleagues report reproducing the original study
[...] Participants with a stronger belief in free will had a greater blind spot when it came to personal shortcomings. That is, the gap between how they rated their own and others’ shortcomings was larger than the gap for people with a weaker belief in free will. ... Belief in free will did not have any effect on the blind spot for cognitive biases, however. The authors write that their results “provide reasonable support” for the findings of the original study, suggesting that the bias blind spot is a robust phenomenon... (MORE - details)
What Peer Review Actually Means
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulmsutter...70b8cb12d9
EXCERPT: . . . the reviewer has to determine if there are any major flaws in the paper. [...] It's impossible for the reviewer to completely duplicate the experimental setup or observing program. ... So the reviewer has to do their best job of following the logic and arguments laid out in the paper and seeing if they agree with the conclusions. But the reviewer isn't getting paid. There's no compensation involved [...]
So in a system where the reviewer is volunteering their time, and can only do their best, what are we to make of peer review in general? Does it mean a paper is correct? No. Does it mean a paper is the final word? No. Does it mean that the scientific community has accepted the results? No.
It means that one or a couple random reviewers thought the paper was interesting, new, and not obviously wrong. That's it. So just because a paper has "passed" peer review, it doesn't transmute into the scientific equivalent of Gospel Truth. Instead, peer review is the first step, not the last.... (MORE - details)
