"Research should not only be independent of vested interests but must also be seen to be so"
My @bmj.com piece with @fphuk.bsky.social president Tracy Daszkiewicz argues we need a public health approach to study the impact of digital technology on health.
#CDOH
www.bmj.com/content/392/...
Online Studies Psychological Science requires that authors who use samples from online data collection include a statement in the Method section explicitly addressing their approach to preventing and detecting automated or AI-generated responses. Rationale As large language models and other generative AI tools become more accessible, the risk of data contamination by non-human respondents has increased dramatically in research. Psychological science (and the social sciences generally) is particularly susceptible to this issue given its growing reliance on online data collection. Preventing automated responses during data collection and detecting them afterward often involve methodological trade-offs. For instance, technical barriers that aim to prevent LLM use (e.g., blocking copy-pasting functionalities) may eliminate behavioral indicators needed for detection (e.g., pasting rather than typing). This policy aims to enhance transparency and reproducibility of reported results by requiring authors to articulate their approach across both prevention and detection dimensions, enabling readers and reviewers to assess the likelihood of reported data being influenced by automated responses. Scope This policy applies to any submission with at least one study that includes data collected online without direct human supervision (e.g., via crowdsourcing platforms, student participants who complete the study online, online recruitment ads, or remote survey distribution tools). Required Reporting Authors must include in the Methods section either: A statement confirming that procedures were in place to prevent and/or detect and exclude automated or AI-generated responses, including a description of those procedures (e.g., explicit participant instructions against LLM use, disabled copyโpaste functionality, CAPTCHA use, IP filtering, consistency checks, attention checks, adversarial prompting) as well as the types of automated responses that these procedures are suitable โฆ
Maybe of interest: The submission guidelines of Psychological Science now demand an explicit statement on measures taken to reduce the risk of AI-generated responses for all online studies!
www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...
Ratios are misleading exposure variables that compromise a regression model unless fundamental scaling assumptions are satisfied: a comment on Valente et al - Journal of Clinical Epidemiology www.jclinepi.com/article/S089...
Want to make your research more meaningful? Ornithology? Smear the lenses of your binoculars with vaseline. You may not be able to tell a hawk from an eagle but you wonโt mistake a sparrow for an ostrich.
Clinical research? Why not use responder dichotomies?
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
for critique see here:
pubpeer.com/publications...
๐๐ข๐ฅ๐ง๐ค๐ซ๐๐ ๐พ๐๐ฃ๐ฉ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐จ๐ฉ๐๐ข๐๐ฉ๐๐ค๐ฃ ๐๐ฎ ๐๐ง๐๐ฃ๐จ๐๐ค๐ง๐ข๐๐ฉ๐๐ค๐ฃ ๐ผ๐ฃ๐/๐๐ง ๐ผ๐๐๐ฅ๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐ข๐ค๐ค๐ฉ๐๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ค๐ ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐๐ญ๐ฅ๐ก๐๐ฃ๐๐ฉ๐ค๐ง๐ฎ ๐๐๐ง๐๐๐๐ก๐. Rigby RA, Stasinopoulos DM, Cole TJ. Stat Med. 2026 Feb;45(3-5):e70414. doi: 10.1002/sim.70414.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Fascinating stuff. However, IMO, the value of double blind trials is not just dealing with patient- centred biases but physician-biases and this is often overlooked. www.linkedin.com/pulse/blind-...?
Die, Dichotomy.
www.linkedin.com/pulse/die-di...
A brief post encouraging you to read the original paper with @erik-van-zwet.bsky.social and @f2harrell.bsky.social .
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
Judging by the poor quality of biomarker research I see reported in biomedical journals, my article "How to Do Bad Biomarker Research" must have been hugely influential: www.fharrell.com/post/badb/in... #Statistics #StatsSky #EpiSky
Editor in Chief publishes eight articles in one issue of his (Scopus indexed) journal. Is that ethical?
๐งต
โYou will find that many alternative medicine enthusiasts are into proidiotics.โ Sayings of Confuseus
โAssessing the properties of the prediction interval in random-effects meta-analysisโ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Our letter to editor about Caldwell et al (J Appl Physiol 139: 1220โ1227, 2025) is published: journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10....
There seemed misconceptions about variance comparison stats. We also commented on the author's โSD of treatment effectsโ. Suppl stuff: zenodo.org/records/1777...
#neuroscience #biomedicine #researchintegrity
How long should it take to retract a paper with incontrovertible signs of data fabrication? Sleuths think 2 months is too long, particularly when clinical risks are involved. deevybee.blogspot.com/2026/01/an-o...
#retraction #stemcells #cardiology
@erictopol.bsky.social
โAn AI scientist, for example, could figure out how the human brain works, or deliver any gene to any cell in the body.โ
Yeah and a magic pony could shit bricks of 24k gold and piss a highly concentrated solution of pure heroin.
Most researchers would receive more recognition if assessed by article-level metrics than by journal-level metrics buff.ly/EhQn7JQ
Figure 1: The Rothman-Dahly Evidence Pyramid (original version) An equilateral triangle with a small blue section labelled "Thoughtful, well-conducted studies of any design" at the top, with the remaining space colored red and labelled "The other shit"
โชIt has a name now ๐
Many thanks to Ken for agreeing to put his good name to my...artwork. The image is in the public domain (CC 0), but citations to the linked documents are warmly welcomed.
โ
zenodo.org/records/1808...
โ
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24452418/
The best bit about the show Tipping Point is when the host, Ben Shephard, says "let's find out what would have happened if you'd decided to play". There's always a nagging doubt at the back of my mind: that's not really what *would* have happened, is it?
โRe-examination of the 3/4-law of metabolismโ and โToward a metabolic theory of ecologyโ
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/12/18/r...
Yeah. And before this, half of reviewers were submitting trivial, short reviews that either said "looks good to me" or "this is excrement". This is why reviews should be part of the public record for any paper.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
๐ฆ๐๐๐ฑ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฑ๐๐ป๐ฎ๐บ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐บ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ๐ถ๐ฏ๐๐น๐ฎ๐ฟ ๐ด๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐๐ต ๐๐ฝ๐๐ฟ๐๐ ๐ถ๐ป ๐ถ๐ป๐ฑ๐ถ๐๐ถ๐ฑ๐๐ฎ๐น๐ ๐๐ถ๐๐ต ๐๐น๐ฎ๐๐ ๐ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐น๐ฎ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ธ๐ฒ๐น๐ฒ๐๐ฎ๐น ๐ด๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐๐ต ๐ฝ๐ฎ๐๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ป๐ ๐๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐ฎ๐ป ๐๐๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ถ๐บ๐ฝ๐ผ๐๐ถ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ฏ๐ ๐๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ป๐๐น๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป (๐ฆ๐๐ง๐๐ฅ) ๐บ๐ผ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐น
Weekend reads: โThe fall of a prolific science journalโ; Clinical trials by โsuper-retractorsโ; โHow to Study Things That May Not Existโ
OMG - itโs like the old days of Hindawi AI gobbledegook sandwiches
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
More nonsense from Scientific Reports
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This article may be many things, but scientific it ainโt
this is one of my favourite observations about sample size calculations. (afaik first articulated by Miettinen in 1985)
For some research studies the optimal sample size should be estimated at 0
All very important stuff so actual and relevant to a field as the sports and exercise sciences having the potential to reshape the canons of sleuthing given the consolidated practices and quite solid โ๐ฅ๐๐ฅ๐๐ง ๐ข๐๐ก๐ก๐จ ๐ฃ๐๐ฉ๐ฌ๐ค๐ง๐ ๐จโ plaguing the field in recent years
www.linkedin.com/posts/lorenz...
โThe worrying thing is that most of the published literature is ๐ฃ๐ค๐ฉ ๐จ๐ค ๐ฉ๐ง๐๐ฃ๐จ๐ฅ๐๐ง๐๐ฃ๐ฉ and one wonders ๐ต๐ผ๐ ๐บ๐ฎ๐ป๐ ๐ฝ๐๐ฏ๐น๐ถ๐๐ต๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐๐ถ๐ฐ๐น๐ฒ๐ ๐บ๐ถ๐ด๐ต๐ ๐ต๐ฎ๐๐ฒ ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ป ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ท๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ณ๐๐น๐น ๐ถ๐ป๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ๐บ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ฎ๐๐ฎ๐ถ๐น๐ฎ๐ฏ๐น๐ฒ.โ - spot on @deevybee.bsky.social.
โ..Our capacity to manage potential research misconduct is being overwhelmed. Automated pre-submission checks help but are far from infallible, which leaves responsible journals considering how best to bolster peer review, both before and after publication, and to force greater transparency.โ
