arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/the-peer-reviewed-saga-of-mindless-eating-mindless-research-is-bad-too/

(Been called Pizzagate, not to be confused with the Trumpist conspiracy theory also known as Pizzagate)

Brian Wansink and his apprentices did large scale data dredging, aka p-hacking. Most papers now withdrawn. For fun, read the blog post by Wansink that triggered the scrutiny.

Why did peer review not catch this?

“Because peer review doesn’t do this,” Heathers told Ars. The point of peer review has always been for fellow scientists to judge whether a paper is of reasonable quality; reviewers aren't expected to perform an independent analysis of the data.

“Historically, we have not asked peer reviewers to check the statistics,” Brown says. “Perhaps if they were [expected to], they’d be asking for the data set more often.” In fact, without open data—something that’s historically been hit-or-miss—it would be impossible for peer reviewers to validate any numbers.

Peer review is often taken to be a seal of approval on research, but it’s actually more like a small or large quality boost, depending on the reviewers and scientific journal in question. “In general, it still has a good influence on the quality of the literature,” van der Zee said to Ars. But “it’s a wildly human process, and it is extremely capricious,” Heathers points out.

There’s also the question of what’s actually feasible for people. Peer review is unpaid work, Kirschner emphasizes, usually done by researchers on top of their existing heavy workloads, often outside of work hours.

>”Where are the attempts to disprove the conclusion? Science is about the attempting to DISPROVE a result.”

Yep, when I was becoming aware this is one of the first conversations I had in the hallowed academic halls.

me: “Shouldn’t we by trying to disprove our hypothesis, rather than prove it? The null hypothesis should be what we predict will happen.”

prof: blinks and changes subject

Tilburg University suspended him in 2011. As of 2015, 58 retractions. He has sockpuppeted on Retraction Watch.

Falsified:

• Selfishness in carnivores
• …

slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/25/against-rat-park/

Doesn't tell the whole truth

deniseminger.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/

The "himmicanes and hurricanes paper" attempted to show that you can save lives by giving hurricanes male names rather than female names, because a male name is more intimidating so people take more safety measures, while they don't take female hurricanes seriously.

It has been refuted by cite:smithHurricaneNamesBunch2016 ; there were quite a few problems with the original paper.

• My gameboard
• Famous studies
• Science fraud incentives

• All camps take the enemy's irrationality as a sign that their own is sane

• Discredited famous studies

EY had many reasons to write about quantum physics, including (emphases mine):

1. “the many-worlds issue is just about the only case I know of where you can bring the principles of Science and Bayesianism into direct conflict.” It’s important to have different mental buckets for “science” and “rationality”, as they are different concepts. Bringing the two principles into direct conflict is helpful for illustrating what science is and is not, and what rationality is and is not. Otherwise you end up trusting in what you call “science”, which won’t be strict enough. […]
2. “part of what goes into becoming a rationalist, is learning to live into a counterintuitive world — learning to find things underneath the surface that are unlike the world of surface forms.” Quantum mechanics makes a good introduction to that, when done correctly without the horrible confusion and despair. It breaks you of your belief in an intuitive universe, counters naive realism, destroys your trust in the way that your cognitive algorithms look from inside—and then you’re ready to start seeing your mind as a mind, not as a window onto reality. […]
3. "But there were physicists talking complete nonsense about Occam’s Razor without knowing the probability theory of it, so my hand was forced" […]
4. “knowing about many worlds, helps you visualize probabilities as frequencies, which is helpful to many points I want to make.” […]
5. “reducing time to non-time is a powerful example of the principle, in reductionism, that you should reduce something to something other than itself.” […]
6. “transhumanist mailing lists have been arguing about issues of personal identity for years, and a tremendous amount of time has been wasted on it.” Probably most who argue, will not bother to read what I have set forth; but if it stops any intelligent folk from wasting further time, that too is a benefit. […]

In summary,

1. Case study of where science as a social toolkit breaks down, and you need to seriously understand Occam's Razor
2. Learning to live in a counterintuitive world
3. Using many-worlds to help you visualize probabilities as frequencies (although I suppose you don't need to accept MWI to use it as a metaphor)
4. Issues of personal identity / continuity of consciousness

seems to me there is also something it could say with anthropic reasoning involved, about your location in the multiverse?

• Physics
• Evidence behind many-worlds

• Portal: Rationality