Publication Bias
Before we move on, we unfortunately need to red flag one more scientific bias
that will also reemerge throughout this book. This one is more direct: it’s
publication bias.
Publications are important because (1) if you publish more papers you win
more grants and (2) people and policies are influenced by results communicated
through scientific publications. Science papers have a powerful influence.
Here’s the problem: lay people often believe that scientific journals are
“pure”—unbiased and impartial. It’s cool if you do. Many students acquiring
various degrees in science even believe this too. Alternatively, you may be one
of those people who really doesn’t know what to think about the scientific
publication process. It might be a sort-of black box or mystery to you, as it is for
most non-scientists.
Let’s briefly go through it and simplify the scientific publication process. The
potential issues will highlight themselves.
The dominant scientific publication process is called “peer-review”. Peerreview
goes as follows:
You run a lab. You perform some experiments and you write a paper about
those experiments and the results you found. Publishing your paper, as I said,
will help you secure future grant money. So, you submit your paper to a journal.
During the online paper submission application process, you select other
scientific buddies, termed “experts” or “colleagues”—usually people you have
met at conferences and have befriended over the years—and these buds take on
the duty of reviewing your paper. In other words, you tell the science journal
who should peer review your paper. It is a required line on most scientific online
website submission forms. True story.
It sounds like I’m fabricating this, so let me repeat that last part: you literally tell
the scientific journal your top choices—who should review your paper—and
they generally use your choices! Don’t be surprised if you’ve never heard this
before because most medical doctors I know aren’t even aware of this. It’s a
dirty “little” lab research industry secret.
Teleport yourself back into your scientific career. It is competitive. Everybody
wants more money. You realize that every time another grant of yours is funded,
you get a pay raise—yes, a pay raise—so you study specific topics that the
government deems important and you write grants and publish papers on those
same “important” topics.
One gloriously sunny day, you are indoors on your computer. You are
finalizing some edits and you decide you are ready to publish a paper. Naturally,
then, you go online and submit the paper to a top science journal and you
carefully select your buddies to review the paper as you submit it. With your
career on the line, you certainly wouldn’t want to leave your paper publishing to
random chance or genuine criticism.
Next week, the scientific journal emails your buddies—usually 2 or 3, from
the choices you’ve given them—and the journal gives them your research paper.
The journal also bestows on them the professional “honor” of reviewing your
paper (for free, of course).
After reading your paper, your buddies may (1) recommend that your paper is
published or (2) they may recommend that it needs modifications or (3) they
may recommend that it should be outright rejected.
Oh, and—yes—they see that you are the author of this paper as they read and
review it. Sound unbiased and immune to politics?
Now, not only are scientific papers subject to this “peer review” procedure but
scientific grants, too. And the sheer number of how many papers you have
published is a huge consideration in winning grants.

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