Reasoning has become a luxury

Abstract

It is being talked about all over the world; an editorial in the Economist of 19 October 2013 entitled “How Science Goes Wrong” reports a dramatic decline in the quality of scientific publications. Research has changed the world, now it needs to change itself, the subheading reads. The detailed report is based on facts which are difficult to disprove; an example being a Harvard biologist, John Bohannon, who sent an invented article full of nonsense on how to combat cancer using lichens to 304 scientific journals. Of this number, 157 accepted it for publication. While these publications were second tier, the problem affects them all, even those of greater importance