Bergstrom discusses negative results in scientific literature
Samvida Venkatesh"False facts" are being canonized in scientific literature due to the under-publication of negative results, said Carl Bergstrom, professor of biology at the University of Washington.The lecture, titled “Modeling Scientific Activity,” consisted of a two-part discussion on scientific activity, the first being publication bias leading to the canonization of "false facts," and the second a game theoretic model of the questions that scientists choose to pursue.Bergstrom explained that to accurately accept as true 99.9 percent of facts at a p-value of 0.05, over 40 percent of the obtained negative results need to be published.