The following is a guest post published at the request of my colleague, Dr Claudio Tennie, University of Tübingen.
I have always been fond of Royal Society Proceedings B. And yet, today I am
resigning in protest as one of their Associate Editors. What happened?
Earlier this year, a group of
people, spearheaded by Dr. Ljerka Ostojic, approached Proceedings B with a well-versed request: that it should adopt
Registered Reports. Yet, to our dismay, they declined to do so.
We are now very aware of the
various replication crises in many fields. A lack of robust findings is not
surprising, and is indeed the logical outcome, of the current system. To be
blunt, this system actively selects for bad science. In order to (once again) explain how and why Registered Reports can drastically
help this situation, a comparison between science and car crash testing might
be helpful.
It is safe to say that none of us
would like to live in a world where all cars are advertised as having five star crash test ratings, but where, in reality, many should really rate as zero stars. This would be the expected case in
a world where car crash outcomes were measured by car makers and selected by car-sellers.
Why? Because capitalistic forces would select both for invalid crash testing and biased crash test reporting. Allowing
Registered Reports is the logical equivalent to checking crash test dummies before they are being used in car crashes
and also then publicising all outcomes
of all crash tests.
Likewise, in science, we want to
know which hypotheses find support and which do not. And we want to use the
best methods to arrive at these conclusions. Currently, we often use sub-ideal
methods, which alongside the inherent biases towards publishing positive
findings, selects for bad science. As a result, it is even not clear what proportion of positive findings within
the suspiciously large mountain of positive findings are valid. The current
situation is an absurd and truly unbearable situation – wasting time, money and
energy galore. We urgently need to change it.
Of course, an especially efficient
policy is to properly check crash test dummies pre-test; and to publish all
crash test results. Registered reports creates exactly this situation for the
scientific field. In Registered Reports, methods are properly checked before they are applied. And the
eventual publication must report all results – and will be published
regardless the specific outcomes. While this does not mean that every study can
be a Registered Report – there are exceptions to the rule (see the FAQ section here) – many should
be. As a result of this simple and compelling logic, the number of journals
adopting Registered Reports is constantly
increasing.
I was therefore very disappointed
to witness Proceedings B refusing to
adopt Registered Reports. Moreover they did so on the very unconvincing grounds
that one of their sister journals (Royal Society Open Science) already allows
them. The general problem persists with every
(suitable) journal that refuses to allow Registered Reports. Proceedings B should adopt Registered
Reports. But because they refuse to do so, I must protest. I am therefore resigning
as an Associate Editor at Proceedings B.
Goodbye.Claudio Tennie