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In academia there is a tendency towards reciting the same paper over and over again, sometimes a paper is cited thousands of times over many decades simply because that is the common way to do things. Sometimes these foundational papers are found to be less than reliable, whereupon literature which builds upon these papers stands on shaky grounds. However, this literature continues receiving citations — resulting in a situation where statements in journal articles are based not on scientific evidence, but based on conjecture.
Examples:
- Stanford prison experiment
- Placebo trials