BMC Research Notes 2009, 2:113 doi:10.1186/1756-0500-2-113
The down-side of publishing data
Stanley Lazic
(2009-08-03 15:30) University of Cambridge
Scientists may also be reluctant to publish their data because readers may be less
likely to believe the authors' conclusions if they can see the underlying data that
the conclusions were based on. Data are often messy: outliers, missing values, unexpected
clusters of points, non-normal distributions, unequal variances between groups or
conditions, etc., all of which can be hidden and ignored when presenting the mean
+/- SEM in graphs and only p-values in the text.
In addition, publishing data makes it easy for anyone to reanalyse it (with more modern
or appropriate methods) and perhaps come to a different conclusion. The potential
for embarrassing corrections or retractions is thus greatly increased.
Commentary
The down-side of publishing data
Stanley Lazic (2009-08-03 15:30) University of Cambridge
Scientists may also be reluctant to publish their data because readers may be less likely to believe the authors' conclusions if they can see the underlying data that the conclusions were based on. Data are often messy: outliers, missing values, unexpected clusters of points, non-normal distributions, unequal variances between groups or conditions, etc., all of which can be hidden and ignored when presenting the mean +/- SEM in graphs and only p-values in the text.
In addition, publishing data makes it easy for anyone to reanalyse it (with more modern or appropriate methods) and perhaps come to a different conclusion. The potential for embarrassing corrections or retractions is thus greatly increased.
Competing interests
No competing interests.
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