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The University of Southampton
Biological Sciences

The Corruption of Science by Statistics, Metrics and Quackery Seminar

Time:
13:00 - 14:00
Date:
18 March 2014
Venue:
Building 7 Room 3027

For more information regarding this seminar, please telephone Kim Lipscombe on 02380 597747 or email K.R.Lipscombe@southampton.ac.uk .

Event details

David Colquhoun, FRS (b. 1936) is a British pharmacologist at University College London (UCL). He has contributed to the general theory of receptor and synaptic mechanisms of single ion channel function. He previously held the A.J. Clark chair of Pharmacology at UCL, and was the Hon. Director of the Wellcome Laboratory for Molecular Pharmacology. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1985 and an honorary fellow of UCL in 2004.

David will discuss some of the reasons why there has been a crisis of reproducibility, especially in biomedical sciences. Statistical significance tests, as usually taught, are partly to blame. Another reason is the pressure on scientists to publish too much,as a result of being judged by metrics that are demonstrably silly. One side effect of these loose standards has been to give outright quackery a foothold in otherwise respectable universities.

Speaker information

Professor David Colquhoun, University College London

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