It’s been a while since my last post where I outlined ideas for how science may be done better. In the interim I’ve submitting my PhD thesis and am impatiently awaiting my viva (where one defends their thesis to experts, which you need to pass to be awarded your PhD!). I also started my new role as a Research Associate (the posh formal title for a Post-Doc) at the Dementia Research Institute at Cardiff University which has been a good mix of exciting and terrifying.
A talk about reproducible data analysis, with a focus on why scientists should learn to code.
A gentle introduction to using R Markdown, with a focus on scientific writing.
A follow-up to The Sovereign of Science, exploring how we might improve the way science is done
The earliest lesson I remember learning about science as a child, was that “if it’s not repeatable, it’s not science.” Fast forward many years, I find myself as a PhD student completely baffled as how there appears to be no real incentive for scientists to do their job well Instead, scientists are subject to a “publish or perish” system which compels scientists to purse publications at any cost. Some have talked about a “reproducibly crisis”, which often refers to the softer sciences such as psychology, but it’s just a prevalent in the life sciences, with many scientists, myself included, suspecting that over half of scientific literature is wrong.