{"id":5502,"date":"2020-03-01T12:44:57","date_gmt":"2020-03-01T17:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=5502"},"modified":"2020-02-29T09:33:04","modified_gmt":"2020-02-29T14:33:04","slug":"training-in-effective-skepticism-retraction-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/training-in-effective-skepticism-retraction-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"Training in Effective Skepticism: Retraction Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we teachers first get interested in research, we regularly hear this word of caution: “you should base your teaching on research —\u00a0but be skeptical!<\/em>”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, we should<\/em> be skeptical. But, like every skill, skepticism requires practice. And experience.<\/p>\n

How can we best practice our skepticism?<\/p>\n

The Company We Keep<\/h2>\n

Of course, the more time we spend listening<\/em> to effective skeptics, the likelier we are to learn from their methodologies.<\/p>\n

Many well-known sources frequently explore the strengths and weaknesses of research suggestions.<\/p>\n

Dan Willingham<\/a> regularly takes a helpfully skeptical view of research. (He’s also a regular, amusing twitter voice.)<\/p>\n

Ditto The Learning Scientists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Certainly this blog takes on the topic frequently.<\/p>\n

Today, I’d like to add to your skepticism repertoire:\u00a0Retraction Watch<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Unlike the other sources I mentioned, Retraction Watch doesn’t focus on education particularly. Instead, it takes in the full range of scientific research — focusing specifically on published research that has been (or should be?) retracted.<\/p>\n

If you get in the habit of reading their blog, you’ll learn more about the ways that researchers can dissemble — even cheat — on their way to publication. And, the ways that their deceptions are unmasked.<\/p>\n

You’ll also learn how much research relies on trust, and the way that such trust can be violated. That is: sometimes researchers retract their work when they learn a colleague — without their knowledge — fudged the data.<\/p>\n

In brief, if you’d like to tune up your skepticism chops, Retraction Watch will help you do so.<\/p>\n

And: the topic might sound a bit dry. But, when you get into the human stories behind the clinical sounding “retraction,” you’ll be fascinated<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n

Back in December, I wrote about another website that can help you see if a study has been cited, replicated, or contradicted. You can read about that here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You’re looking for a new source for effective skepticism. Look no further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-5502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-skepticism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5502"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5508,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5502\/revisions\/5508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}