The XX Factor: What women really think.

Breasts! Prostates! ... and the Limits of Scientific Research

Hanna, your great post on the science of prostate cancer treatment reminded me of this interesting op-ed that ran in the Post a week back but that—amid the beginning simmerings of the AIG furor—didn't get much attention. The writer, an endocrinologist named David Shaywitz, suggested that we tend to treat scientific research with far too much reverence:

A lot of science, it turns out, can't withstand serious scrutiny. Thoughtful analysis by John Ioannidis suggests that more than half of published scientific research findings can't be replicated by other researchers. Part of the problem is that we've been conditioned to trust university research. It is based, after all, on the presumably lofty motives of its practitioners. What's not to like about science carried out by academics who have nobly dedicated their lives to understanding the unknown, furthering knowledge and serving humanity? ...

[But] the university is not a peaceable kingdom, and life is far more Hobbesian. ... University researchers are in a constant battle for recognition and the rewards associated with success: research space, speaking engagements, funding and autonomy. Consequently, while academic research is often described as "curiosity-driven," the reality is messier, as (curiously) many researchers tend to pursue the trendiest technologies and explore topics that happen to be associated with the most generous levels of research support.

It's a twist on the expert problem—most of us aren't scientists or doctors, and our ignorance weighs heavily on us. We feel we've just got to trust scientific or medical analysis, because we wouldn't have a clue where to begin questioning it. But we also operate from the assumption that scientific or medical researchers are an especially holy kind of expert, the intellectual ascetics sweating their lives away over petri dishes in pursuit of Truth. But maybe we should be just a little more open to treating scientific studies like we treat the bid of the mechanic who wants to fix our car.