Saving science from the scientists. 1.

After reporting science news for fifteen years journalist Alok Jha highlights the problem of scientific findings being retracted through unreliable research and explores the question: ‘Is Science as scientific as it should be?’ While Jha outlines what practices are damaging to research, leading scientists inform what steps can be taken to fix the problems. The programme looks at accountability and citation, alongside replication and peer review. Dr Brian Nosek, American Social Psychologist, University of Virginia, shares his concerns about the absence of integral reproducibility within scientific research. Working within the Life Sciences, disciplines that can put people’s lives at stake, is discussed as Professor Stephen Curry, Imperial College London, who talks about his work in a structural biology laboratory. Professor John Ioannidis, writer of ‘Why Most Public Research Findings Are False’ discusses the problems of data difficulties, bias and competition within the disciplines to give a basis of understanding why many scientific research findings are exaggerated or untrue. Dr Dorothy Bishop, a neuroscientist who is leading a trial against poor research, shares views of bad data, P.Count (the scientific coding for qualifying probability) and ignorance within the field. The deliberate falsification of data is discussed with Diederik Stapel, a social psychologist who admitted to fraud.