“New Year’s resolution for 2022: Incontrovertible evidence in medical research”

Incontrovertible robust evidence is a must in medical research; however, a worrying amount of biomedical research is not reproducible. ¹ This has resulted in calls for increasing scientific certainty not only by replication of studies alone, but also by strengthening the evidence by utilizing different approaches to address the same underlying question. ² Such weaknesses in medical research came to a head at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, when medical researchers responded swiftly with an unprecedented tsunami of publications; alas, the great majority were not evidence-based.^{3, 4} Lamentably, under stricter scrutiny, a large number of these publications had to be withdrawn, resulting in loss of face for many researchers and journals. ⁵ Such a combination of hasty undependable science, apparent lowering of standards of medical research, followed by forced retractions, have caused a significant erosion of trust in medical science. This danger is magnified by the speed with which social media can now disseminate even a flawed paper, giving it an element of authenticity. In the current pandemic, it has opened the age-old frontier of vaccine hesitancy, science scepticism and even anti-science aggression. Now medical scientists have the added obligation of dealing with this ‘crisis of trust’. ⁶ A top-down effort by journals, universities, funders and governments is required to ensure that focus remains not on research claims and metrics but on transparency and robustness of methodology, including individual patient data.^{7, 8}

Having established the supremacy of methodology and the data it generates, it must be accepted that better methods cannot make up for mediocre theory. ⁹ A strong hypothesis having an apposite research question, then supported by solid procedure producing data which substantiates its answer, must have the best chance to make a difference. ¹⁰ The Enlightenment philosopher, David Hume, tells us that ‘a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence’. Only irrefutable evidence can make science more reliable.

Thus, journal articles need to include fewer assertions and more proof to make scientific literature more reliable; the caveat by Nobel Laureate Professor Kaelin: “publish houses of brick, not mansions of straw” is more relevant today than ever. [11] Ours is a call for making “incontrovertible evidence in medical research” our new year’s resolution for 2022.