new study suggests there might be too many studies

arxiv.org/pdf/1503.01881v1.pdf
Apparently there are so many studies that researchers are having a hard time keeping track of the research.

or something. Didn't have time to read the whole study as I have other studies I need to read today...

I love it! The most commonly seen phrase at the end of most studies: "further study is needed"!

"Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body."

--Ecclesiastes 12:12

During my days as a university librarian, one of the things that annoyed me most was the unending battle to keep up with and catalog current library acquisitions, which were literally a daily flood of paper-based and digital format materials coming through the door. We hated to backlog things, but often that's what he had to do because there just weren't enough of us to keep up with the inflow.

One of the major areas of study in college Information Science programs these days is what to do about it. This includes the substantial (more than you probably think) amount of duplication that takes place in so many studies done in virtually every discipline. I would hear stories, for example, that academic science departments would do cost analysis studies that would go like this: they would do a budget estimate on how much it would likely cost to do a massive literature search to determine whether or not a certain experiment had already been done. Then they would estimate the cost of doing the actual experiment. If it turned out that the cost of doing the actual experiment was cheaper than doing the literature search, then they would go ahead and do the experiment, even if it was duplicating one that had already done elsewhere. Cost ruled.

This is a major topic of discussion and research today in those Information Science departments, namely, how to move the vast print world of the 20th and pre-20th centuries into the digital world of today, while working out the AI programs to manage it.

(All of which in itself generates a flood of publications, of course!)

I agree Andrew.

perhaps there should be a new study about all the new studies that are studying the old studies and compare them to the newer studies which study the previous studies......

My take is, if you're a medical researcher, or a doctor these days, it's part of your profession to keep up with all the latest flood of reports and insights. I would think such a task would actually be welcomed and found to be intellectually stimulating (even if many of the papers add little or no pieces to the puzzle).

A big part of the problem my family has faced in dealing with PC, is that most doctors that we've come across since 2000, had obviously not kept up with the latest advances in prostate cancer treatment and disease biology. On one hand, it's definitely a good idea to educate oneself about a disease one lives with, but it would also be nice, if more doctors (and researchers) kept abreast of the new. Scientific progress is good, after all!

I'm speaking as someone from academia, and we have the same problem. Lots of exciting (and less exciting) work is being done by the disciplines, but many faculy have stopped reading since their Ph.D. dissertation defense.

I'm with Eclesiasties.

So much to learn. So many stats. So much research. So many opinions. So much knowledge.

Lately...I've been wondering if the question of whether or not treating PCa is beneficial has even been answered or not.

Talk about going in circles lol

I'm sure there's studies that show...

worriedabouthubby said...
Just to add another bit of a light note....
You know how they once said eggs were bad for you... no eggs, causes heart problems, etc.
Then coffee was bad for you,
Then this, and that....

Well they did another study.........

And found that ...
Living causes dying and we ought to ban it.........

LOLOLOL. Funny. Good stuff.