Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1451559
L i s te n to T h e A B M P Po d c a s t a t a b m p.co m /p o d c a s t s o r w h e reve r yo u a cce s s yo u r favo r i te p o d c a s t s 89 is "what you thought would happen, didn't happen." So, to keep getting published and keep getting funding, we try out a variety of analyses of the data until we fi nd one that has a small, pretty p-value that allows us to deny or reject the null hypothesis. It's a half-truth at best, and it leaves out some of the really important information that would help us all have a more complete understanding of what really did (and didn't) happen. HARKing is the result of being backed into a corner by the research community's wrong-headedness about all of this. "Hypothesizing after results are known" is when we rewrite our hypothesis to make it look like we "knew" this (unexpected) result would happen. Researchers massage (yep, I sure did) the data into something that appears to support their hypothesis, even if it's in a roundabout way. The idea of mining the data for new and surprising discoveries is not the issue here. The issue is that, as researchers, we are left having to do it in a backhanded and sketchy way that doesn't allow this unexpected data to stand on its own as a possible new direction for the research we set out to conduct in the fi rst place. So, my friends, you can see we have a lot of work to do, and a really big part of it is about learning how to be "wrong." As a culture, and as people so deeply addicted to knowing what can be known, we have to understand the value of being wrong, of being uncertain, and of collaborating in our curiosity as we make our way along this constantly changing landscape. Note 1. Dorothy Bishop, "Rein in the Four Horsemen of Irreproducibility," Nature 568 (2019): 435, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01307-2. Cal Cates is an educator, writer, and speaker on topics ranging from massage therapy in the hospital setting to end- of-life care and massage therapy policy and regulation. A founding director of the Society for Oncology Massage from 2007–2014 and current executive director and founder of Healwell, Cates works within and beyond the massage therapy community to elevate the level of practice and integration of massage overall and in health care specifi cally. Cates also is the co- creator of the podcasts Massage Therapy Without Borders and Interdisciplinary. TAKEAWAY: The traditional and accepted processes of conducting and publishing research are deeply fl awed. Researchers are dissuaded from being truly curious and they are manipulated into publishing their fi ndings in incomplete and misleading ways that don't serve honest inquiry and discovery.