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It wasn’t until after my retirement that I had the time to read scientific papers in medical journals with anything like close attention. Until then, I had, like most doctors, read the authors’ conclusions and assumed that they bore some necessary relation to what had gone before. I had also naively assumed that the editors had done their job and checked the intellectual coherence and probity of the contents of their journals.
It was only after I started to write a weekly column about the medical journals, and began to read scientific papers from beginning to end, that I realized just how bad — inaccurate, misleading, sloppy, illogical — much of the medical literature, even in the best journals, frequently was. My discovery pleased and reassured me in a way: for it showed me that, even in advancing age, I was still capable of being surprised.
I came to recognize various signs of a bad paper: the kind of paper that purports to show that people who eat more than one kilo of broccoli a week were 1.17 times more likely than those who eat less to suffer late in life from pernicious anaemia. 46) There is a great deal of this kind of nonsense in the medical journals which, when taken up by broadcasters and the lay press, generates both health scares and short-lived dietary enthusiasms.
Why is so much bad science published?
A recent paper, titled ‘The Natural Selection of Bad Science’, published on the Royal Society’s open science website, attempts to answer this intriguing and important question.
According to the authors, the problem is not merely that people do bad science, as they have always done, but that our current system of career advancement positively encourages it. They quote ananonymous researcher who said pithily: ‘Poor methods get results.’ What is important is not truth, let alone importance, but publication, which has become almost an end in itself. There has been a kind of inflationary process at work: 47) nowadays anyone applying for a research post has to have published twice the number of papers that would have been required for the same post only 10 years ago. Never mind the quality, then, count the number. It is at least an objective measure.
In addition to the pressure to publish, there is a preference in journals for positive rather than negative results. To prove that factor a has no effect whatever on outcome b may be important in the sense that it refutes a hypothesis, but it is not half so captivating as that factor a has some marginally positive statistical association with outcome b. It may be an elementary principle of statistics that association is not causation, but in practice everyone forgets it.
The easiest way to generate positive associations is to do bad science, for example by trawling through a whole lot of data without a prior hypothesis. For example, if you took 100 dietary factors and tried to associate them with flat feet, you would find some of them that were associated with that condition, associations so strong that at first sight they would appear not to have arisen by chance.
Once it has been shown that the consumption of, shall we say, red cabbage is associated with flat feet, one of two things can happen: someone will try to reproduce the result, or no one will, in which case it will enter scientific mythology. The penalties for having published results which are not reproducible, and prove before long to be misleading, usually do not cancel out the prestige of having published them in the first place: and therefore it is better, from the career point of view, to publish junk than to publish nothing at all. A long list of publications, all of them valueless, is always impressive.
48)Attempts have been made to (control this inflation命题人改编为curb this kind tendency),(for example by trying, when it comes to career advancement这部分被出题人删除), to incorporate some measure of quality as well as quantity into the assessment of an applicant’s published papers. This is the famed citation index, that is to say the number of times a paper has been quoted elsewhere in the scientific literature, the assumption being that an important paper will be cited more often than one of small account. 49) This would be reasonable enough if it were not for the fact that scientists can easily arrange to cite themselves in their future publications, or get associates to do so for them in return for similar favors.
Boiling down an individual’s output to simple, objective metrics, such as number of publications or journal impacts, entails considerable savings in time, energy and ambiguity. Unfortunately, the long-term costs of using simple quantitative metrics to assess researcher merit are likely to be quite great.
50) If we are serious about ensuring that our science is both meaningful and reproducible, we must ensure that our institutions incentivize that kind of science.
In other words, what we need is more emphasis on personal contact and even nepotism in the way careers are advanced: but tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice…
46. There is a great deal of this kind of nonsense in the medical journals which, when taken up by broadcasters and the lay press, generates both health scares and short-lived dietary enthusiasms.
【解析】
1. 本句主干为There is a great deal of this kind of nonsense in the medical journals(在医学杂志上有很多这样的无稽之谈)
2. which引导定语从句，修饰this kind of nonsense
(1) which指代this kind of nonsense，在定语从句中做主语
① 则定语从句为“这些无稽之谈引起健康恐慌和短暂的饮食狂热”
② when引导状语从句，可以理解为条件，从句省略this kind of nonsense is，则为“如果广播公司和非专业媒体报道这些无稽之谈”
【参考译文】
在医学杂志上有很多这样的无稽之谈，如果广播公司和非专业媒体报道这些无稽之谈，那么就会引起健康恐慌和短暂的饮食狂热。
47. Nowadays，anyone applying for a research post has to have published twice the number of papers that would have been required for the same post only 10 years ago.
【解析】
1. 本句主干为anyone has to have published twice the number of papers (任何人都必须已经发表了两倍的论文数量)
2. applying for a research post修饰anyone，则意思为“任何申请研究职位的人”
3. that引导定语从句，修饰the number，意思为“这样的数量要求只有十年前申请同一职位时才是如此”
【参考译文】如今，任何想申请研究职位的人都必须已经发表了两倍的论文数量，这样的数量要求只有十年前申请同一职位时才是如此。
48) Attempts have been made to curb this tendency, for example, by trying to incorporate some measure of quality as well as quantity into the assessment of an applicant’s papers.
【解析】
1. 本句主干为Attempts have been made(尝试被做出)，可以调整表达为：有人已经做出多次尝试
2. to curb this tendency为主语补足语，则主干可以调整为“有人已经多次试图遏制这种趋势”
3. by doing为方式状语
(1) incorporate... into... (将...纳入...)
(2) by trying to incorporate some measure into the assessment of an applicant’s papers (通过试图将某种衡量标准纳入对某位申请者论文的评估过程当中)
(3) 可以调整为“在评估申请人的论文时，纳入某种衡量标准”
(4) of quality as well as quantity修饰measure，意思为“除了数量标准以外，还有质量标准”
(5) 调整为“在评估申请人的论文时，除了纳入关于数量的衡量标准以外，还要纳入有关质量的衡量标准”
【参考译文】例如，有人已经在评估申请人的论文时，尝试除了纳入关于数量的衡量标准以外，还纳入有关质量的衡量标准，以此来多次试图遏制这种趋势
49) This would be reasonable if it were not for the fact that scientists can easily arrange to cite themselves in their future publication or get associates to do so for them in return for similar favors.
【解析】
1. 本句主干为This would be reasonable (这将会是合理的)，this指代上一句中的“citation index”即:引用索引。
2. if it were not for，意思为“如果没有...”，本句为虚拟语气
(1) if it were not for the fact，意思为“如果没有这一事实的话”
(2) 则为“如果没有这一事实的话，这种引用索引才是合理的”
3. the fact后that引导同位语从句
(1) 同位语从句的主干为“scientists can easily arrange to cite ... or get...to do so”(科学家可以很容易地引用...或者让...这样去做)
(2) 则为“科学家可以很容易地在他们未来的出版物中引用他们自己的论文，或者让合伙人为他们这样去做，以换取类似的好处”
(3) 该同位语从句在表达时，可以省去fact不翻译
(4) 则为“如果科学家不能很轻易地在他们未来的出版物中引用他们自己的论文，或者让合伙人为他们这样去做，以换取类似的好处”
【参考译文】如果科学家不能很轻易地在他们未来的出版物中引用他们自己的论文，或者让合伙人为他们这样去做，以换取类似的好处，那么这种引用索引将会是合理的。
50) If we are serious about ensuring that our science is both meaningful and reproducible, we must ensure that our institutions encourage that kind of science.
【解析】
1. 本句主干为we must ensure that ... (我们必须要确保...)
2. that引导宾语从句“我们的院校鼓励这种科学”
3. if引导条件状语从句
(1) be serious about(对...当真)
(2) 则意思是“如果我们真的想确保我们的科学是有意义和可再生的”
【参考译文】如果我们真的想确保我们的科学是有意义和可再生的，我们必须确保我们的院校鼓励这种科学。
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