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pmid: 37996042
Sigurdson, Sainani, and Ioannidis (Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 2023) discussed homeopathy as a prototypical example of a “null field” where true effects are nonexistent and positive effect sizes reflect bias only. Based on a sample of published randomized placebo-controlled trials, they observed a remarkable effect in favor of homeopathy (Hedges’ g = 0.36). The authors concluded that this reflects “the average impact of the bias present in the field”. We argue that the estimated amount of bias largely depends on the meta-analytic measure used to quantify treatment effects. By applying a bias-corrected measure instead, we show that the maximum-likelihood estimate of the true effect reduces to virtually zero when selective publishing of significant results is appropriately taken into account. We conclude that inclusion of bias-corrected measures should become routine practice in meta-analyses. In line with Sigurdson, Sainani, and Ioannidis’ reasoning, we recommend “null fields” as domains to validate such measures.
150, Humans, Quantitative Methods, Homeopathy, Meta-science, Social and Behavioral Sciences
150, Humans, Quantitative Methods, Homeopathy, Meta-science, Social and Behavioral Sciences
citations This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 1 | |
popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Average | |
influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Average | |
impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Average |