"And if the study is about the atmospheric composition of a planet several light-years away, or the chemical constituents of rhubarb, or the number of weevil species in New Caledonia, there is hardly any chance that the results are being faked."
Why do you think so? Finding sensational results bring more government money and pays the researchers, which means the system is biased toward cutting corners.
"That won't happen if anyone who engages in systematic hypothesis-testing or data collection gets demonized as we go down."
In case of biology, these days I start with assuming that the researcher is dishonest and then let him prove me wrong. That is what the "natural origin of sars-cov-2" saga and various other retractions of papers not pushing mainstream thesis taught me. Biology as a field is rotten to the core, and ecologists are no exception.
Re: Randomized clinical trial
Why do you think so? Finding sensational results bring more government money and pays the researchers, which means the system is biased toward cutting corners.
"That won't happen if anyone who engages in systematic hypothesis-testing or data collection gets demonized as we go down."
In case of biology, these days I start with assuming that the researcher is dishonest and then let him prove me wrong. That is what the "natural origin of sars-cov-2" saga and various other retractions of papers not pushing mainstream thesis taught me. Biology as a field is rotten to the core, and ecologists are no exception.