Is biomedical research self-correcting? Modelling insights on the persistence of spurious science
David Robert Grimes · 2024 · 18 citationsRead the paper
The reality that volumes of published biomedical research are not reproducible is an increasingly recognized problem. Spurious results reduce trustworthiness of reported science, increasing research waste. While science should be self-correcting from a philosophical perspective, that in insolation yields no information on efforts required to nullify suspect findings or factors shaping how quickly science may be corrected. There is also a paucity of information on how perverse incentives in the publishing ecosystem favouring novel positive findings over null results shape the ability of published science to self-correct. Knowledge of factors shaping self-correction of science remain obscure, limiting our ability to mitigate harms. This modelling study introduces a simple model to capture dynamics of the publication ecosystem, exploring factors influencing research waste, trustworthiness, corrective effort and time to correction. Results from this work indicate that research waste and corrective effort are highly dependent on field-specific false positive rates and time delays to corrective results to spurious findings are propagated. The model also suggests conditions under which biomedical science is self-correcting and those under which publication of correctives alone cannot stem propagation of untrustworthy results. Finally, this work models a variety of potential mitigation strategies, including researcher- and publisher-driven interventions.
What the full text shows
Theory or simulation- Spurious publications become irreversible by correction when the false positive rate reaches a specific threshold. — f p = 0.25 (Based on simulation parameters p r = 3, s r = 0.5, B = 0.95, k = 0.6)
- Eliminating publication bias allows the scientific ecosystem to remain self-correcting even with very high false positive rates. — up to 82% false positive rate (Hypothetical removal of publication bias (s r = k = 1))
- Research waste (total spurious publications) is highly dependent on the time delay before corrective action is taken. (All simulated scenarios)
- Corrective effort required to nullify spurious results is always less than the volume of research waste produced. — r w > c e (All cases, even when k < 1)
- Setup
- Mathematical model with parameters for research rate (p r), false positive rate (f p), publication bias (B), submitted fraction of null results (s r), and relative corrective impact (k).
- How
- The authors developed a 'gold rush' mathematical model using a coupled first-order differential equation system to simulate the growth of spurious results and the emergence of corrective literature. They performed simulations varying false positive rates, publication bias, and the proportion of null results submitted.
- Limitations
- The model is a simplification of a complex system and may be overly optimistic about self-correction. · Does not account for human biases like confirmation bias. · Does not account for the fact that negative findings often receive fewer citations even when published.
Summarized by Gemma 4 from the open-access full text · 13 Oct 2026. Read it