Over at the Social Science Statistics blog, Richard Nielsen riffs (link) on what is probably the biggest threat to valid inference in political science (I can’t speak for other social sciences, but wouldn’t be surprised if it were similar): the need to demonstrate that something, anything in your empirical analysis “significantly” departs from some null hypothesis. The recent article by Gerber et al (2010; linked on Richard’s post) is remarkable in revealing how this insidious norm manifests itself in the discipline’s publications, affecting the “most influential and highly cited outlets” the most.
The fact is, having “stars in your regression table” is still pretty much a sine qua non for publication Continue reading “Risks, incentives, and shady research”