False discovery: the breakdown of biomedical research and the replication crisis
There are some very important points in
this article by Richard Harris which relate directly to the
state-of-the-art in EMF research:
Scientists point to what they call the “reproducibility
crisis”—that is, studies whose results can’t be duplicated and are
untrustworthy if not invalid.
and one that may surprise some people, but really shouldn't:
He showed that small sample sizes and bias in study design were
chronic problems in the field and served to grossly overestimate
positive results.
and:
Follow-up studies, they showed, overturned half of those
initial positive results (though such disconfirmation rarely got
follow-up news coverage).
This one may ring some bells:
Another key source of error is bad research design: Too many
scientists conduct poorly conceived experiments or fail to analyze
them properly. They often use too few animals and don’t take all
the steps necessary to reduce the risk of bias.
But none of this should really be news: it has been discussed for
some years with specific reference to EMF by
Ken Foster and Joseph Skufca, amongst others.
so how bad is it? Estimates vary from 10% to "pretty much all of it", but a consservative estimate is probaly 25-30%. There are pretty good data to show that in general, poorer experimental technique and quality control tends to generate more false positives, which perhaps isn't a surprise.