‘Scientists became the mice’: Marine Physicist on scientists being analysed for reliability

Statistical consultant Dr William M. Briggs conducted a study where a thousand scientists “became the mice” and were analysed on their reliability, according to Marine Physicist Peter Ridd. “Another scientist did an experiment on a thousand other scientists by giving them a whole bunch of data – it happened to be on whether immigration affects attitudes of government responses,” he told Sky News host Rowan Dean. “It got a thousand scientists to then work out whether the answer was ‘yes there was an effect’ or ‘no there wasn’t an effect’ or whether you just couldn’t tell from the data and the results were amazing. “A quarter of the scientists said ‘no, no effect’, a quarter of the scientists said ‘yes there was definitely an effect’, and half the scientists said ‘yes there was an effect, but it wasn’t statistically significant’ which really means they can’t tell.”