Apophenia and anesthesia: how we sometimes change our practice prematurely

Abstract

Human beings are predisposed to identifying false patterns in statistical noise, a likely survival advantage during our evolutionary development. Moreover, humans seem to prefer “positive” results over “negative” ones. These two cognitive features lay a framework for premature adoption of falsely positive studies. Added to this predisposition is the tendency of journals to “overbid” for exciting or newsworthy manuscripts, incentives in both the academic and publishing industries that value change over truth and scientific rigour, and a growing dependence on complex statistical techniques that some reviewers do not understand. The purpose of this article is to describe the underlying causes of premature adoption and provide recommendations that may improve the quality of published science.