Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions

by Richard Harris

Overview

An essential book to understanding whether the new miracle cure is good science or simply too good to be true

American taxpayers spend $30 billion annually funding biomedical research, but over half of these studies can't be replicated due to poor experimental design, improper methods, and sloppy statistics. Bad science doesn't just hold back medical progress, it can sign the equivalent of a death sentence for terminal patients. In Rigor Mortis, Richard Harris explores these urgent issues with vivid anecdotes, personal stories, and interviews with the top biomedical researchers. We need to fix our dysfunctional biomedical system — before it's too late.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541644144
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	05/01/2018
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	402,113
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Richard Harris is one of the nation's most celebrated science journalists, covering science, medicine, and the environment for more than thirty years for NPR, and the three-time winner of the AAAS Science Journalism Award. He lives in Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Chapter 1 Begley's Bombshell 7

Chapter 2 It's Hard Even on the Good Days 29

Chapter 3 A Bucket of Cold Water 53

Chapter 4 Misled by Mice 71

Chapter 5 Trusting the Untrustworthy 93

Chapter 6 Jumping to Conclusions 123

Chapter 7 Show Your Work 145

Chapter 8 A Broken Culture 169

Chapter 9 The Challenge of Precision Medicine 197

Chapter 10 Inventing a Discipline 217

Acknowledgments 237

Notes 239

Index 265

Editorial Reviews

Named by Amazon as one of their "Best Nonfiction Books of the Month"

Named one of PRI/SCIENCE FRIDAY's "Best Science Books of 2017"

"Rigor Mortis provides an excellent summation of the case for fixing science."—SLATE

"Harris makes a strong case that the biomedical research culture is seriously in need of repair."—Nature

"Rigor Mortis effectively illustrates what can happen when a convergence of social, cultural, and scientific forces...conspires to create a real crisis of confidence in the research process."—Science

"A rewarding read for anyone who wants to know the unvarnished truth about how science really gets done."—Financial Times

"Rigor Mortis effectively illustrates what can happen when a convergence of social, cultural, and scientific forces, as well as basic human motivation, conspires to create a real crisis of confidence in the research process."—SCIENCE

"Harris makes a strong case that the biomedical research culture is seriously in need of repair."—Nature

"Rigor Mortis is rife with examples of things that go awry in medical studies, how they happen, and how they can be avoided and fixed. For the most part, academic biomedical scientists are not evil, malicious, or liars at heart."—Ars Technica

"An alarming and highly readable summation of what has been called the 'reproducibility crisis' in science—the growing realization that large swathes of the biomedical literature may be wrong."—Spectrum Magazine

"This engaging book will inform and challenge readers who care about the public image of science, the state of peer review, and US funding for science."—Physics Today

"This behind-the-scenes look at biomedical research will appeal to students and academics. A larger audience of impacted patients and taxpayers will also find this critical review fascinating and alarming. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries."—Library Journal

"[An] easy-reading but hard-hitting exposé..."—Kirkus

"Just as 'post-truth' was selected as the word of the year in 2016 for its political connotations, Richard Harris masterfully shows how this pertains to science, too. Rigor Mortis is a compelling, sobering, and important account of bad biomedical research, and the pressing need to fix a broken culture."
—Eric Topol, Director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute and author of The Patient Will See You Now

"Science remains the best way to build knowledge and improve health, but as Richard Harris reminds us in Rigor Mortis, it is also carried out by humans subject to 'publish or perish' and other perverse incentives. Tapping into these tensions, Harris deftly weaves gripping tales of sleuthing with possible paths out of what some call a crisis. Read this book if you want to see how biomedical research is reviving itself."—Ivan Oransky, Co-Founder of Retraction Watch and Distinguished Writer In Residence at New York University

"Richard Harris's elegant and compelling dissection of scientific research is must-reading for anyone seeking to understand today's troubled research enterprise-and how to save it."
—Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT

"Richard Harris has written an essential guide to how scientific research may arrive at the wrong conclusions. From the 235 ways that scientists can fool themselves to the misuse of statistics and the persistence of unsound research methods, Harris outlines the problems underlying the so-called 'reproducibility crisis' in biomedical research and introduces readers to the people working on solutions."—Christie Aschwanden, lead science writer for FiveThirtyEight and health columnist for the Washington Post

From the Publisher

★ 04/01/2017
Science journalist Harris investigates the research on research as he explores the highly competitive field of medical science. The author interviews scientists, doctors, patients, and administrators, covering the pitfalls that lead to faulty conclusions and retracted papers. Numerous studies have established that mistakes often come from issues with experimental design, comparison groups, randomization, and contamination. Seemingly small differences in methods and specimens can lead to invalid findings that cost millions and delay future studies. This book provides detailed insight into how scientific research is currently conducted, including how new drugs are discovered and tested and how diseases are studied. The author discusses possible improvements such as increasing transparency, data sharing, strengthening peer review, altering tenure requirements, and creating new funding structures. VERDICT This behind-the-scenes look at biomedical research will appeal to students and academics. A larger audience of impacted patients and taxpayers will also find this critical review fascinating and alarming. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.—Catherine Lantz, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib.

Library Journal

2017-02-02
An award-winning science journalist reports that research in the biomedical sciences is too often guilty of wasting time and money and, worse than that, actually slowing scientific progress and misinforming the public.Harris, who has been reporting on science for NPR for 30 years, talked with dozens of scientists in preparing this report on the lack of rigor in biomedical science. Among his sources are C. Glenn Begley, whose study of experiments in cancer research revealed that barely 1 in 10 was reproducible, and John Ioannidis, whose paper, "Why Most Published Scientific Research Findings Are False," exposed problems caused by poor study design and analysis. Harris considers specific problems such as the failure to run proper controls, contamination of cell lines, bad antibodies, untrustworthy biomarkers, and small sample sizes; more importantly, he looks at the entire culture of biomedicine and finds it in serious need of repair. With numerous personality-rich examples and anecdotes, he describes what amounts to a rat race. The changes required are vast: the enormous pressure on researchers to obtain grants and publish, the emphasis that hiring universities place on the quantity rather than the quality of publications, the selection and review practices of science journals—he cites several high-impact ones, such as Cell, Nature, and Science—the reluctance of researchers to share data, their lack of a firm grounding in statistics, and their tendencies to select easy projects, cut corners, get results out fast, and hype results. In the final chapter, Harris examines the progress that is being made in fixing the system. One development is the increasing use of social media, which is enabling scientists to communicate more smoothly and blog about each other's research. The author's easy-reading but hard-hitting exposé of a dysfunctional biomedical research system will inform and alarm general readers, and it is sure to stir controversy and arouse ire among those who feel their ox is being gored.

Kirkus Reviews