John Myles White brings up an interesting question on Twitter:
Ioannidis thinks most published biological research findings are false. Do you think >50% of tweets are false?
I’m inclined to think tweets may be more accurate than research papers, mostly because people tweet about mundane things that they understand. If someone says that there’s a long line at the Apple store, I believe them. When someone says that a food increases or decreases your risk of some malady, I’m more skeptical. I’ll wait to see such a result replicated before I put much faith in it. A lot of tweets are jokes or opinions, but of those that are factual statements, they’re often true.
Tweets are not subject to publication pressure; few people risk losing their job if they don’t tweet. There’s also not a positive publication bias: people can tweet positive or negative conclusions. There is a bias toward tweeting what makes you look good, but that’s not limited to Twitter.
Errors are corrected quickly on Twitter. When I make factual errors on Twitter, I usually hear about it within minutes. As the saga of Anil Potti illustrates, errors or fraud in scientific papers can take years to retract.
(My experience with Twitter may be atypical. I follow people with a relatively high signal to noise ratio, and among those I have a shorter list that I keep up with.)
