There was a great little discussion on radio 4′s today program about the British Medical Journal’s editorial about the publication of positive results and quiet death of negative or null results. It was a little simplistic in its conclusion, implying that publishing everything on the internet will mean there is no publication bias. I think the vast majority of work doesn’t get read anyway, and this kind of transparency only works if there is an unlimited attention span which is able to sort through the results.
Bad Science is a book about this kind of stuff, and as RCTs become more popular this book should get more attention in the development/economics community. It deals withthe problems within the ‘gold standard’, publication bias, media faults and flaws in scientific research. It is, bizarrely, only £1.99 on the kindle (UK) at the minute. But not for long apparently.
Note: See also this BMJ article about publication bias.
