Why science needs to publish negative results
2015๋ 3์ 2์ผ
์ ์: Emma Granqvist
An Elsevier publisher argues that an experiment shouldn't have to show positive results to earn its place in the published literature
UPDATE SEPTEMBER 2016:ย This journal has now been discontinued. For more informationย view the journal homepageย ์ ํญ/์ฐฝ์์ ์ด๊ธฐ.
Emma Granqvist, a journal Publisher for Elsevierโs plant sciences, is behind the recent launch of the open access journalย New Negatives in Plant Scienceย ์ ํญ/์ฐฝ์์ ์ด๊ธฐ,ย a platform for negative, unexpected or controversial results in the field. The journal is viewed as a pilot and may lead toย New Negatives inโฆ titles for other research disciplines.
In this article, Granqvist explains why she believes scientists should move away from positive bias to ensure all research results are shared through peer review.
Many experimental results never see the light of publication day. For a large number of these, it comes down to the data being โnegativeโ, i.e. the expected and/or wanted effect was not observed. A straightforward example might be the testing of a soil additive that is believed to help a plant grow. If the experiment outcome shows no difference between the standard soil and the soil with the additive, then the result will end up buried in the laboratoryโs archive.
But is this really the best approach to scientific results?
Ignoring the vast information source that is negative results is troublesome in several ways. Firstly, it skews the scientific literature by only including chosen pieces of information. Secondly, it causes a huge waste of time and resources, as other scientists considering the same questions may perform the same experiments.
Furthermore, given that positive results are published, whereas negative data will struggle, it is extremely difficult to correct the scientific record for false positives; controversial studies that conflict with or cannot reproduce previously published studies are seldom given space in peer-reviewed journals.
Sometimes the argument is given that negative data โcannot be trustedโ. But as was pointed out in the 2013 article โTrouble at the Labย ์ ํญ/์ฐฝ์์ ์ด๊ธฐโ inย The Economist, negative data are statistically more trustworthy than positive data.
Given that restrictions in publication space is becoming outdated in todayโs world of digital information, it would be more efficient and un-biased if all results were made available to the interested scientific community. For the funding bodies this holds an additional benefit: a grant funding research that resulted in negative data would then still result in publications and shared information.
New Negatives in Plant Scienceย โ a pilot journal
To raise this important issue, and put the spotlight on negative and controversial data, the journalย New Negatives in Plant Scienceย ์ ํญ/์ฐฝ์์ ์ด๊ธฐย was launched in 2014. It is an open access journal that publishes both research articles and commentaries. While there are other journals that welcome negative results,ย New Negatives in Plant Scienceย aims to encourage and drive scientific debate by giving these studies a place of their own.
The editors, Dr. Thomas W. Okita ofย Washington State Universityย ์ ํญ/์ฐฝ์์ ์ด๊ธฐย and Dr. Josรฉ A. Olivares ofย Los Alamos National Laboratoryย ์ ํญ/์ฐฝ์์ ์ด๊ธฐ, point out that this information can be valuable to the scientific community in a number of ways, for example, by helping others to avoid repeating the same experiments as well as encouraging new hypothesis building.
Currently two Special Issues of the journal are being prepared; one onย Controversial issues in Plant Carbohydrate Metabolismย ์ ํญ/์ฐฝ์์ ์ด๊ธฐย and one onย Negative Data on Nutrient Use Efficiency in Plants.
Positive reactions
There have been a great number of positive reactions from the community around the launch of the journal. In a recent quiz on the journalโs homepage, many scientists explained why they thought negative and controversial results should be published for public consumption. A few of their comments are shown below. The winner of the journalโs quiz was awarded a travel grant to the Elsevierย Current Opinionย conference onย Plant Genome Evolutionย ์ ํญ/์ฐฝ์์ ์ด๊ธฐ. Thanks to all quiz participants for your contributions!
Be bold, and simply let the world know what you โnegativelyโ know. Jickerson P. Lado
It will bring openness to the scientific community and stimulate innovation. Leonard Rusinamhodzi
I would prefer to read negative as well as positive results in a very well-balanced way so that I can receive as much information as possible โฆ Saudan Singh
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EG