Hardback : $150.00
American taxpayers spend $30 billion annually funding biomedical research. By some estimates, half of the results from these studies can't be replicated elsewhere-the science is simply wrong. Often, research institutes and academia emphasise publishing results over getting the right answers, incentivizing poor experimental design, improper methods, and sloppy statistics. Bad science doesn't just hold back medical progress, it can sign the equivalent of a death sentence. How are those with breast cancer helped when the cell on which 900 papers are based turns out not to be a breast cancer cell at all? How effective could a new treatment for ALS be when it failed to cure even the mice it was initially tested on? In RIGOR MORTIS, award-winning science journalist Richard F. Harris reveals these urgent issues with vivid anecdotes, personal stories, and interviews with the nation's top biomedical researchers. We need to fix our dysfunctional biomedical system-now.
American taxpayers spend $30 billion annually funding biomedical research. By some estimates, half of the results from these studies can't be replicated elsewhere-the science is simply wrong. Often, research institutes and academia emphasise publishing results over getting the right answers, incentivizing poor experimental design, improper methods, and sloppy statistics. Bad science doesn't just hold back medical progress, it can sign the equivalent of a death sentence. How are those with breast cancer helped when the cell on which 900 papers are based turns out not to be a breast cancer cell at all? How effective could a new treatment for ALS be when it failed to cure even the mice it was initially tested on? In RIGOR MORTIS, award-winning science journalist Richard F. Harris reveals these urgent issues with vivid anecdotes, personal stories, and interviews with the nation's top biomedical researchers. We need to fix our dysfunctional biomedical system-now.
Richard Harris is one of the nation's most-celebrated science journalists, covering science, medicine, and the environment for twenty-nine years for NPR, and the three-time winner of the AAAS Science Journalism Award. He lives in Washington, DC.
"Rigor Mortis effectively illustrates what can happen when a
convergence of social, cultural, and scientific forces, as well as
basic human motivation, conspires to create a real crisis of
confidence in the research process."--SCIENCE
Named by Amazon as one of their "Best Nonfiction Books of the
Month"
Named one of PRI/SCIENCE FRIDAY's "Best Science Books of 2017"
"Rigor Mortis provides an excellent summation of the case for
fixing science."--SLATE
"Rigor Mortis is rife with examples of things that go awry in
medical studies, how they happen, and how they can be avoided and
fixed. For the most part, academic biomedical scientists are not
evil, malicious, or liars at heart."--Ars Technica
"[An] easy-reading but hard-hitting exposé..."--Kirkus
"A rewarding read for anyone who wants to know the unvarnished
truth about how science really gets done."--Financial Times
"An alarming and highly readable summation of what has been called
the 'reproducibility crisis' in science--the growing realization
that large swathes of the biomedical literature may be
wrong."--Spectrum Magazine
"Harris makes a strong case that the biomedical research culture is
seriously in need of repair."--Nature
"Just as 'post-truth' was selected as the word of the year in 2016
for its political connotations, Richard Harris masterfully shows
how this pertains to science, too. Rigor Mortis is a compelling,
sobering, and important account of bad biomedical research, and the
pressing need to fix a broken culture."
--Eric Topol, Director of the Scripps Translational Science
Institute and author of The Patient Will See You Now
"Richard Harris has written an essential guide to how scientific
research may arrive at the wrong conclusions. From the 235 ways
that scientists can fool themselves to the misuse of statistics and
the persistence of unsound research methods, Harris outlines the
problems underlying the so-called 'reproducibility crisis' in
biomedical research and introduces readers to the people working on
solutions."--Christie Aschwanden, lead science writer for
FiveThirtyEight and health columnist for the Washington Post
"Richard Harris's elegant and compelling dissection of scientific
research is must-reading for anyone seeking to understand today's
troubled research enterprise-and how to save it."
--Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Director of
the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT
"Science remains the best way to build knowledge and improve
health, but as Richard Harris reminds us in Rigor Mortis, it is
also carried out by humans subject to 'publish or perish' and other
perverse incentives. Tapping into these tensions, Harris deftly
weaves gripping tales of sleuthing with possible paths out of what
some call a crisis. Read this book if you want to see how
biomedical research is reviving itself."--Ivan Oransky, Co-Founder
of Retraction Watch and Distinguished Writer In Residence at New
York University
"This behind-the-scenes look at biomedical research will appeal to
students and academics. A larger audience of impacted patients and
taxpayers will also find this critical review fascinating and
alarming. Highly recommended for public and academic
libraries."--Library Journal
"This engaging book will inform and challenge readers who care
about the public image of science, the state of peer review, and US
funding for science."--Physics Today
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