Published in:
01-08-2021 | Editorials
Increasing the reproducibility of research will reduce the problem of apophenia (and more)
Authors:
Philip M. Jones, MD, MSc, Janet Martin, PharmD, MSc (HTA&M)
Published in:
Canadian Journal of Anesthesia/Journal canadien d'anesthésie
|
Issue 8/2021
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Excerpt
In their thought-provoking article, Hanson
et al.
1 eloquently and convincingly describe how humans are naturally predisposed to identifying meaningful patterns where none truly exist and tend to prefer positive over negative results—the tendency known as
apophenia. In the research context, when these two elements are combined, this creates the aggregate issue of
false positive research findings (hereafter referred to as simply
false positives). …