Yeah meta studies. Meh. I mean they're cute. "Let's look for
patterns in the existing data". But to me, that's interesting
statistical work, not science... not really. It's the kind of
stuff people do for newspapers and sociology and for designing
public policy and such. Oh well. When it comes to it, not a
whole lot REALLY changes in Science. Most of the stuff we
figured out 100+ years ago is still mostly true enough and the
stuff that we argue about is minutia. "New studies" keep ppl
busy, either confirming common sense (which is what Science
usually does best - telling us what we already know) or finding
some "shocking" thing that, when you prick beneath the surface,
turns out to be a load of crap that gets media coverage because
it's novel or, more likely, has a political taint to it. Sells
newspapers, solves the publish-or-perish issue and helps
increase funding for next year. Rehashing common sense in
different ways seems to pump out papers. Pick any ol' proverb
and do a study. Pick a confusius say or folk wisdom, grab a few
people, ask a few questions, do it in a scientific format, and
you'll get published. That part isn't so bad. It's when people
go LOOK PPL - IT'S SCIENCE! and get excited 'cause it's
science...y. sciency Yeah. Sciency.
