Are we finally getting serious about fixing science?

Biomedical research has faced criticism for being unreliable, but today's report from the Academy of Medical Sciences might change all that

Some time in 1999, as a 22 year-old fresh into an Australian PhD programme, I had my first academic paper rejected. "The results are only moderately interesting", chided an anonymous reviewer. "The methods are solid but the findings are not very important", said another. "We can only publish the most novel studies", declared the editor as he frogmarched me and my boring paper to the door.

I immediately asked my supervisor where I'd gone wrong. Experiment conducted carefully? Tick. No major flaws? Tick. Filled a gap in the specialist literature? Tick. Surely it should be published even if the results were a bit dull? His answer taught me a lesson that is (sadly) important for all life scientists. "You have to build a narrative out of your results", he said. "You've got to give them a story". It was a bombshell. "But the results are the results!" I shouted over my coffee. "Shouldn't we just let the data tell their own story?" A patient smile. "That's just not how science works, Chris."