That makes sense, thank you.
"studies suggest that the true rate of fraud among published studies lies somewhere between 0.01% and 0.4%". Even 0.4% seems drastically too low - perhaps 10 times too low. I'd be curious to see the source for this claim. An analysis by Elizabeth Bik and others found problematic image duplication in 3.8% of studies. Some of that may have been accidental, but I suspect most were intentional fraud. If ~3.8% percent of papers have this one specific type of fraud, that suggests an even larger percentage contain fraud in genera... (read more)
Why are there so many medical studies using sloppy research methods, and how big a problem do you think this is?
I noticed this when trying to figure out how common Long Covid is - most of the studies being reported in the media, at least early on, did not have a control group. On the basis of these studies, the media was saying that Long Covid affects 30, 50, or even 60% of people who get Covid.
Many of the studies also use methods which suffer from responder bias like surveying online support groups. Studies which track cohorts over time and h... (read more)
I think Leopold Aschenbrenner's argument here is interesting to consider: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/securing-posterity/?ref=forourposterity.com
(full paper https://globalprioritiesinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Philip-Trammell-and-Leopold-Aschenbrenner-Existential-Risk-and-Growth.pdf)
Regarding discount rate, 0% discount is pretty common in EA circles, I think, although I think many recognize it should be at least a bit above 0% to account for epistemic uncertainty about how long humans will continue to exist.