IN FAVOR OF PUBLISHING MORE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS. Professor Schekman makes the same point that the Economist made in its cover story entitled “How Science Goes Wrong”, which I posted on here. Some of the wrong papers are being published because, in Professor Schekman’s words, “luxury journals” are accepting “papers that will make waves because they explore sexy subjects or make challenging claims”.
Professor Schekman makes another point. Not enough papers are being published. Professor Schekman says about the luxury journals: “Like fashion designers who create limited-edition handbags or suits, they know scarcity stokes demand, so they artificially restrict the number of papers they accept.” If more papers are published, more dull but important negative results and more dull but important replication papers will be published.