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Proteus phenomenon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Proteus phenomenon is the tendency in science for early replications of a work to contradict the original findings, a consequence of publication bias.[1] It is akin to the winner's curse.[2]

The term was coined by John Ioannidis and Thomas A. Trikalinos in 2005 named after the Greek god Proteus who could rapidly change his appearance.[3] A 2013 paper argued that the phenomenon might be "desirable or even optimal" from a scientific standpoint.[4]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Pfeiffer, Thomas; Bertram, Lars; Ioannidis, John (2011). "Quantifying selective reporting and the Proteus phenomenon for multiple datasets with similar bias". PLoS ONE. 6 (3): e18362. Bibcode:2011PLoSO...618362P. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018362. PMC 3066227. PMID 21479240.
  2. ^ Button, Katherine S.; et al. (2013). "Power failure: why small sample size undermines the reliability of neuroscience". Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 14 (5): 365–376. doi:10.1038/nrn3475. PMID 23571845.
  3. ^ Ioannidis, JP; Trikalinos, TA (2005). "Early extreme contradictory estimates may appear in published research: The Proteus phenomenon in molecular genetics research and randomised trials". Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 58 (6): 543–549. doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2004.10.019. PMID 15878467.
  4. ^ de Winter, Joost; Happee, Riender (20 June 2013). "Why Selective Publication of Statistically Significant Results Can Be Effective". PLOS ONE. 8 (6): e66463. Bibcode:2013PLoSO...866463D. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0066463. PMC 3688764. PMID 23840479.