The decline effect

Two articles by Jonah Lehrer in The New Yorker discuss the decline effect and the selective reporting in science.

The first article argues that finding the truth is harder than we think:

The decline effect is troubling because it reminds us how difficult it is to prove anything. We like to pretend that our experiments define the truth for us. But that’s often not the case. Just because an idea is true doesn’t mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn’t mean it’s true. When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe.

The second one discusses some of the letters that Lehrer received.

Via Dennis L.